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Old 08-20-2008, 12:25 AM   #33
Valg
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Join Date: Apr 2002
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Re: MUD Players' Bill of Rights

This comes up a lot, but it will be impossible to enforce or adjudge in an environment with subjective reward systems. Consider a MUSH type of environment, where nearly all game decisions (even down to the winners of battles, etc.) are made by subjective evaluations, and "benefits" are equally intangible.

We're roleplaying-required, for example. We have a fairly ridiculous variety of rewards that can be given out to well-roleplayed characters. If you were to monitor particular players, you'd probably find that some people consistently reap subjective rewards, and others do not. One player might find that to be evidence of "favoritism", but another would take comfort in the fact that we seem to be consistent in evaluation.

And that's assuming there's a concrete reward given in the game. (For a simple example, the character gains experience or gets a bump in a specific skill appropriate to the interaction. You rescue Sword Teaching Guy, he teaches you a little extra about swords.) Consider cases where the result of the character's roleplay is just that the staff chooses to spend more time interacting with this character, because it's fun. NPCs chat with him often. Is that a 'benefit'? 'Favoritism'?

I think you can probably find something along these lines that's "Bill of Rights" material, but as written it's hopelessly vague. You're better off sticking to more concrete things like privacy of RL information collected.
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