Re: Violence in games


7 Nov 1995 22:59:28 GMT

Christopher E. Forman (ceforma@rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu) wrote:
: Julian Arnold (jools@arnod.demon.co.uk) wrote:
: : All this being said, I think the best reason for not allowing arbitrary
: : killing of NPCs is to preserve the plot.
: Personally, I like letting players kill off NPC's, but adding the side
: effect of having the player killed as well. "PTF" takes this approach.
: It's possible to kill any of your fellow townspeople, but their screams
: alert one of the others, who will immediately kill you.

I seem to remember this sort of thing in Star Trek: First Contact. Shooting
Spock was such great fun.

Even better would be able to escape, and become a bandit. But then, you'd
have a totally different plotline, and IF authors are adverse to that
sort of thing. Still, I remember a RPG scenario once (for AD&D) called
"Treasure Hunt" which had one of the best-done plots I had ever seen.
It had a section which listed possible divergences in plot (for example,
the hapless players try to build a raft to escape) and some interesting
things that could be done with them. It's a shame to kill off the best
conclusion, but sometimes it has to be done.

Part of the reason IF still isn't as totally absorbing as it could be
is because of the feeling of being stuck to a rigid structure--even current
techniques of plot branching do not fully address the problem.

In Persistence of Memory I am pondering the possibility of allowing
anyone to be killed--and the player to be able to get away with it. It
would fit in symbolically, as horrid as it may be.

--
Jason Dyer - jdyer@indirect.com