Player vs Player online games?

[trebor]

Can you point me to any prior discussions on the pros/cons of "Player vs Player" in online games? The ability for a player's character to kill another player's character within a game while not an option I use is one the many others do enjoy. The big problem I have with it is controlling it so only those players who want to fight other players fight, and those who don't want to are not bothered. Another problem is one of "fairness" how do you keep the opponents evenly (but not necessarily perfectly) matched?

WOW gets around the first problem by having separate servers for "Player vs Player" and "Role Playing" only. This solution doesn't allow friends with different viewpoints to play on the same server. So if I'm playing with my nephew either he doesn't have fun or my character gets gacked. Other games have a switch to dis/allow a character to fight another character.

I personally feel players should be treated specially and not like other monsters. If there is no difference between killing another character and killing an NPC then low level characters will be prayed upon by higher level character. WOW awards Honer to a character after it kills another character, however Honer does not prevent a high level character from attacking a low level character.

What other "Player vs Player" regulatory methods have have you heard of?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Unfortunately, this thread topic isn't quite right for this forum or for the site. It's a great question for other venues, like RPG.net or Story Games.

If you want to discuss it in some way at the Forge, then you can either (a) stay with this thread and talk about how this issue concerns a game that you yourself are designing, or (b) hop over to Actual Play and discuss how the issue has been involved in any real play experiences that you've had, with whatever system or at whatever time in your life.

If you'd like to know more about my reasoning in this post, please feel free to zip me a private message.

Best, Ron