TriadCity Message of the Day
2001-08-05

"What'r yew lookin' at, punk?"

The first cut, to to speak, at our extremely rich Violence system is online.

TC is unique among role-playing games with roots in the D&D / Adventure tradition, so far as we know, in that it offers forms of violence which aren't necessarily lethal. In TC, most violence is going to tend toward lethality, but if you're wielding a nonlethal weapon such as a staff, and you're skilled enough in the IncapacitateSkill to control your brutality, there's a chance you might knock an opponent out, rather than shuffling them off the mortal coil. You have to want to do that, though: it's up to you to choose your weapon, and learn your skills mix as you see fit.

Other things to note:

• Violence in TC is semi-automated. A new fight can be initiated via violence commands such as Hit, Stab, Thrash, and so on; but after that, the game system chooses your future commands for you, based on your weapon, skill mix, condition, and opponent. In a future revision you'll be able to insist on adding certain commands to a queue of pending attacks: but you'll have to be careful, because you could well end up killing an opponent which the system would incapacitate for you.
• TC's editorial bias is against violence as a solution to problems, or a lifestyle choice. The Warrior Role does exist, but it's not the privileged road to experience it is in most other adventure MUDs we know of. One consequence is that nearly all violence, whether lethal or not, will tend to cause the attacker to become evil. Make lots of attacks, you'll become very evil very fast.
• There are exceptions. Certain categories of automated characters will cause your alignment to drift toward good, if you attack them. These include DeathSuckers and indeed anyone caught holding cigarettes; GymLemmings and anyone whose stomach (or head) are unnaturally flat; and automata classified as "monsters", which should be easy to identify. (You can pretty much figure that the 9-foot spider that just ate your pal is probably a monster.)
• Player-killing is not allowed in TC. The game engine will disallow attacks on other Players. In the future there will be one and only one exception: an Arena, where Players can voluntarily fight each other, if both parties so choose.
• Death is real. Earlier MUD traditions allow characters to "die" without real consequence. In TC, you die you're dead. The existence of your character might continue, but you may or may not like the changes that occur. Down the road we'll implement complex afterlife experiences and reincarnation; but that's a ways down the road, realistically.

There are now automata that will attack you. So far, you should be able to have a pretty good set of clues that you're in a dangerous place. That is, Poobah's not trying to surprise you with muggers or monsters. Read all the signs and follow their advice.

We strongly urge you to learn the defensive violence skills first: Flee, Parry, and Consider; and we urge you to use the Consider command before initiating any attack.

Realistically, we suggest reaching level 5 before attacking things. Reasonable exceptions might be if a higher-level Player offers to group with you, to help you gain experience more quickly. Make sure that higher-level type knows the RescueSkill and promises to help you if you're in trouble. And learn learn learn that FleeSkill.

The violence system is perhaps the most complex thing in TC; it'll evolve a good deal over time. We'll keep you posted.

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