Those would be what Bartle categorises as "Achievers".
Those would be what Bartle categorises as "Killers".
If you have a "hardcore" roleplaying mud, then the chances are that the good roleplayers are the ones able to achieve the most in-game power, as rewards for their roleplaying efforts. The "killers" however are more likely to focus their lesser amounts of exp purely on combat-oriented skills, and concentrate on developing their player skills in fighting rather than roleplaying.
A standard permadeath system would allow the potential for "jerks" to permanently remove the characters of the "real roleplayers", effectively ruling the mud - and it's generally only the "jerks" which have the skill and the incentive to do so. Allowing players to respend all/some of their exp would ensure that killed "real roleplayers" could come back as tougher combat characters than any of the "jerks" could attain.
I think you'll find it's the other way around (except for the so-called "roleplaying muds" which uses HnS character advancement). If you want the players to be able to police themselves, then you have to ensure that the most powerful characters are owned by the most responsible players.
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