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Okay, I was reading the meeting log for 2/1/14 and saw the conversation about fleeing. This sparked an idea for me, one that I can see some people agreeing with and some people being totally against.(this includes staff and players)


My idea: Change what guard does, essentially getting rid of what it does now.


Kaerrick is guarding the eastern exit in a room with only an eastern exit and a western exit.

Arynon enters from the west, but he wants east, and will be damned if anyone will stop him.

Instead of what it does now, which is either bumping the person back or letting them pass, how about it enters them in combat. Which actually makes sense to me.

Kaerrick is determined to block Arynon from going east, he will move to block, as I type 'E' a warning pops up, " You are wanting to go east through a guarded exit, doing so means you will enter combat, type Guard combat accept(or something along those lines) to proceed, cnotes are mandatory, etc etc."

I type Guard combat accept, and that is my action for the first round of combat, trying to push past Kaerrick. Kaerrick then gets a free whatever at me, emote, attack, defense, whatever.

Same instance, but it's Knight business, Kaerrick can prepare for the situation with Guard Allow Knights, then Arynon would not get the warning.

Where this also makes sense is multiple people trying to get through.

If Kaerrick is guarding east, then Arynon shows up with three people, arynon may be stopped, but the others can easily get by, just like with regular combat vs. multiples.

While most people may not like this, let's face it, pushing past another player IS essentially combat, you're trying to enter their 'melee range' then exit.

As always, look forward to any criticism/suggestions on this.

I love it, and am all for adding more ways to enter the combat code outside of actually attacking. It's a good way to manage tense scenes, and any scene where you are guarding an exit is probably tense.

Cautiously in favor - anyone see any issues with this suggestion?

I like this a lot - I think flee is better-coded to handle attempts to escape than guard is.

A bit of an edit, to my initial acceptance. I recently came on a scene where somebody on the other side of the road (south) was trying to block me from going east. I was on the northern side of the road. We're talking a big, main road here. I think currently the code lets them block a whole exit, without taking into consideration if they are on the north or south side of the exit (or east or west).

I would instead suggest that if this goes in, have guard auto-fail if the guarding person is not in attack range (based on whatever weapon they are holding, or unarmed if none) of the person.

This seems too stringent; ranges are so narrow. I'd give them a couple more squares' lenience than that. I do agree on some range effect, for sure, though.

If you can't hit somebody with your weapon, why should you be able to stop them from moving? <-- is my general line of thought. Guard means you can physically affect them, and unless you're in weapon range, you can't. I wouldn't give them anymore squares than your weapon range provides you.

Leech wrote:If you can't hit somebody with your weapon, why should you be able to stop them from moving?

Presumably if your mindset is "I'm blocking everyone from moving east" you would move as necessary while people approach. Otherwise you're not guarding the direction, you're guarding a stationary two-foot square of road.

The code is limited to the point where you don't move on the map (currently), but that doesn't mean guard should fail. IMO etc.

With what we've established on other forums, movement more than a step would take a full turn. That is, if we want to go with that (Community Standards discussion, and Range Mods and You discussion).

My point here is to incorporate guard into this, and not allow you to guard 10 vertical squares on the map with a single command and a single turn. Ideally, with a system that went off of your weapon range, it would become a bit like being a goal keeper in soccer. You'd have to move, within tense time turns, to block whoever is fleeing.

Otherwise guard is extremely overpowered in large areas. I, being one character on foot, could block several people from travelling down a 30 yard wide main road, simply by being on the side of the road that I want to block and taking my turn TO block.

In summary, I don't think you should be able to guard, move ten squares, and attack in the same turn - and that's what this change would make possible. Hence my suggested tweak.

Leech wrote:With what we've established on other forums, movement more than a step would take a full turn. ... In summary, I don't think you should be able to guard, move ten squares, and attack in the same turn - and that's what this change would make possible. Hence my suggested tweak.

The situation described above is someone walking across an entire room to get by you, vs you taking a couple of steps to block them. If you think two steps should be a turn, lets play it out:
(Assumption: I think when you "guard (direction)" it moves you to the center of that exit. Even if that's wrong, worst case is it still takes equal time for the chars to reach each other.)

"Walk" happens outside of normal turns. But given your statement here about turns, A would take several implied turns to go east, while B would only need one implied turn to block him. So yes, I think it's completely fair for B to block A.

Otherwise, just code walking through any room would always have to be done in 1- or 2- step turns in order to account for a stricter guard command, and I don't think any of us have enough time on this planet to go that route.