Member Discussions

A guide is needed on how NOT to make MUDs. It is essential, if you wany to make your MUD lousy, to:

- before the player has even made their character, have a superfast timeout that leaves the player gasping "holy cow man, I was trying to READ the screen. Cripes. You don't WANT me to play your MUD? Are you trying to imitate fort knox style security to keep me OUT?"

- Have confusing character creation instructions. Like:
"State the height of your character in feet and inches such as 5' 7"

I type 5' 7
try again
I type 5'7
try again
I type 5.7
try again
I type 5 ifeet 7 inches
try again

I shake my head in bewilderment and hit the off button.

- give no clear instructions at all on character creation.

- put in a weird log in message obout ascii/vt100 . Jesus. Are you trying to imitate the Da Vinci code?

And there are other ways to stuff up a MUD at the first hurdle. But you get the idea.

You are thinking "thses errors only occur on crummy muds that last one month". Wrong. ALL of the above blunders were in the oldest, most highly ranked MUDs on this site. One has been going since 1988. Cripes. They can't get their log in right in over 15 years. Have their mud creators spent that entire time on drugs?

The only cold comfort that all thses mud developers can take is that abject incompetence also occurs in the world of professional pay to play MUds. One such case is runescape; I could not get past the tutorial because there were thses rocks that I was meant to get in a mine. I needed brown rocks. There were none there. I spent 30 minutes searching the whole mine for them and only found white rocks. Jeepers. And those guys get MONEY to get it right.

I don't know if it is a cultural thing that leads to all thses blunders. Perhaps computer geeks who make muds, being anti-socuial internet addicts, have no empathetic ability to ask "what doe sthe player see and need?"

Anyway, that's my rant.

Heh,
You never fail to amuse me. Glad to see you active again :)

Knights of Darkness
http://swreality.net

One has been going since 1988. Cripes.

This is sort of interesting in itself, well maybe only to me. I just noticed you can search here for muds on their listed create date.

I found there were 178 muds that list their create date before January 1990. Of those I could only determine that 4 of them could have possibly been online in the 80's. Narrowing the selection to picking all the codebases that are derived from Diku, I discovered there are 99 Diku derived muds that list their creation date as older than the oldest running Diku mud.

Even Mercthievia's listed create date is within the realm of possibilty.

For the curious,
Here's an early mud listing from December 1990
. It's not that important anyway as the point of most muds is to tell tall tales and stories.

I decided not to name the MUDs; I was in a nice mood.

I am not as lemon-licked as people think I am.

> Even Mercthievia's listed create date is within the
> realm of possibilty.

They claim to have been around a year longer than Merc!

That actually proves them innocent!

Or would if it was true... ^_^

Supposedly they were "Diku" before they were "Merc"

I like how almost all of the servers on university domains.

They claim to have been around a year longer than Merc!

Well sure. I was pretending to hypothetically swallow the 'we were a stock diku first' line without having it come back up all over my shoes.

I recently found myself in a most ironical situation.

I was looking to waste some time and decided to try "Molly's mud".
I found something that was sufficiently different from what I've tried before
and it piqued my interest. However something kept bothering me. A real
nuisance I simply couldn't quite put my finger on.
The simple explanation was that due to being so used to not having to "watch
the screen" too carefully when I play (which is really sad). Reading the descs
in detail actually bothered me. (Ok I admit I had a fever and was shivering in
bed but...) I think I'll stick with the Mud if the quests are as fun as in the
newbie section, a good game for puzzle solving (questing) it seems like.

However the point of my rant is: Once we get so used to a mud that we know
it like the back of our hand, simply being innovative and detailed can make it
"less playable". (Unless unless the player is willing make the effort to change
their mindset)

ps. I hope this post made some sence...

(Comment added by Fishy on Sun Jan 1 13:58:51 2006)

*EDIT: Once we get so used to a mud that we know it like the back of our
hand, any sufficiently different other mud can by simply being different seem
less playable.

My personal favorite is when the game has "clever" error messages. It sure helps my immersion in your intricately crafted game world when I see HAHAHAHA BUY A NEW KEYBOARD U HOMO when I'm trying to figure out how a command works. Less annoying, but still annoying, is when an immortal is alerted when you typo, or try to find a nonexistant helpfile, or misspell the name of the helpfile, and send you a tell that usually makes you feel like a dickhead more than it does help you out any.

Another good one is when you can't find important buildings because there's no overhead map and descriptions are terrible or nonexistant. And the location of these buildings is considered "in character" information so the only place to find out is from other IC players, who may or may not at the moment be playing the role of "huge jerk who hates everyone but his closest friends". Star Wars Reality MUDs are especially guilty of this.

Let's not forget the overzealous greeting of newbies. Now, no one likes to be HATED simply because they're new. But we've all been to those games where a million people greet you over the newbie channel, tell you how to use the newbie channel if you have any questions, and then an immortal BAMFs into the newbie academy and asks if you have any questions, despite the fact that you were just told you could use the newbie channel if you had any. Some people adore the attention, but to me it just gives me the message that there's some huge flaw in the gameplay that means they have to overcompensate for to get new players. And that the game world is small, so that the entire game is a community, rather than communities emerging realistically from within the game.

Finally, adding classes and races and calling it innovation. Classes should be a way to adapt the game to your play style, and races should give you a chance to explore the fun of playing something alien to yourself, as well as giving you natural advantages and disadvantages to game upon. They shouldn't be a series of numbers I look to combine in the most efficient manner until I can kill an equal conning mob in a single round.

My personal favorite is when the game has 'clever' error messages. It sure helps my immersion in your intricately crafted game world when I see HAHAHAHA BUY A NEW KEYBOARD U HOMO when I'm trying to figure out how a command works. Less annoying, but still annoying, is when an immortal is alerted when you typo, or try to find a nonexistant helpfile, or misspell the name of the helpfile, and send you a tell that usually makes you feel like a dickhead more than it does help you out any.

Wow. Part of me wants to demand that you admit you're kidding, and that there aren't really MU*'s like this still running... and another part of me wants to run right out and neuter some parents so they don't make more children that stupid. *boggle*

Damn Linux for making that pesky grep command simple enough that even semi-illiterate meatheads can find the 'Unknown command.' string and change it to offensive and insidiously stupid remarks!

What amuses me are muds that have 10 versions of each skill with a different name and seem quite serious about calling this advancement. Mostly this also means that each skill has a spell that does the same thing, and visa versa. I'm sure that balancing isn't a problem once every class has their own version of each skill and spell.

The same applies to areas on probably every mud out there, but that's a different story.

Quote: Fishy:
“However something kept bothering me. A real nuisance I simply couldn't quite put my finger on.
The simple explanation was that due to being so used to not having to 'watch the screen' too carefully when I play (which is really sad). Reading the descs in detail actually bothered me.”

*LOL*
Thanks for the kind - (I hope?) - words, Fishy. And thanks for opening my eyes. :-)

It never even entered my mind before, that having to read the text could make a Mud ‘less playable’.
After all, text is what a Text Mud is all about, no?

But reading your post made remember once again the big difference between a ‘coder type’ person and a ‘builder type’ person. It’s like a mathematician compared to a writer. To a Coder numbers, percentage, balance and combat are the most important things. To a Builder stories, plots, intrigues and quests – or in short, TEXT - are the things that matter.

All good Builders put a lot of thought and effort into making their descriptions interesting, entertaining, informative, funny. It’s rather disheartening to find out – as we repeatedly do – that the majority of players just regard descs as irritating spam on route to the next mob to kill. Something that you put on brief mode to avoid viewing. It’s almost an insult, you know. We put down all that work, and then people don’t even bother to READ our descs… And yet they call this TEXT muds.

I guess that’s why my evil mind some years ago figured out a scheme that would ensure that the players bloody well HAD to read my descs. That is, if they wanted to be really successful in the game. And that concept spread among our Builder team and became the foundation for the rather unique Quest culture that we’ve got in 4D. So now all our players – at least those that stick it out through newbie status – read descs. Sooner or later, even the most confirmed hack’n’slashers turn into questors and start reading descs…

I guess that’s the reason why we manage to attract so many top class Builders. And, after reading this post, I realise that it’s probably also the reason why we still don’t manage to attract as many new players as we should, considering the content of the mud.

But then again, that doesn’t bother me very much. After all, our goal was never to cater for the masses. Our target has always been the smart mudders, the ones that want to exercise their brain and face some other challenges than just brute force.

If this thread keeps up, I think it should be required reading before anyone who is thinking of starting up a new Mu* actually starts ones.

Not to mention all the existing ones that fall into these categories *chuckle*.

A few points I would like to comment on however ...

- Room Descriptions:

This has been a catch 22 for builders since day 1 in my eyes. How do you make a room desc. that people will read ... yet not make it so overbearing, that people find them tiresome to read.

Let me elaborate ...

Room desc's should be well written to the point that they have all the info a player could want in them.

Ie: If there is something special in the room that an ex.desc. has been added to, is there a hint in the room?, is there a DT (Thankfully most of the mu*'s nowadays have gotten rid of these ... I will elaborate further on this point later on), that players need to be warned about, basic info about what lies in the general directions leading out of the room.

Room Desc's should be roughly 3-5lines on average. There is no point in making novels out of them. You will feel what Molly said in her reply to Fishy if they are any longer.

Certain words and phrases should be left out of room desc's as well, Such as "I", "You", etc. It should be written from the point of view of the person that is actually standing in the room.

Ie: "Travelling down the dark musty corridor, the air grows more stale. The darkness seems almost oppressive as all exits from this room seem to lead into nothing but more shadows."

That is a very very basic room desc. However it doesn't tell the player how they feel, it doesn't tell the player about a mob they see that may or may not be there when the player actually gets to the room. It does provide the player with a general atmosphere, (feel or mood if you like), for the room/area, as well as provide the player with any info on exits ... in this case however, there isn't much exit info due to the general area they are in :)

- Quests:

Quest's are grand things to add into a mu* they allow the player to explore a mu*, to learn how to interact with mob's, and be rewarded in the process.

However...

Quest's should be entertaining, not a process akin to taking your masters in theoretical quantum physics!. Sufficent hints and clues should be left throughout the quest for a player to be able to start and finish without wanting to track down the person who thought this quest up and strangle them.

The end should justify the means. Meaning if someone makes a mind blowingly difficult quest, the reward should be of equal value to the difficulty.

Another key point to writing a good quest ... harder does not equal better. This is a major point that I think 99% of people who think up quests seriously gloss over. Quests should be fun, anything else they might be is secondary.

Examples of things you can do in a quest:

- Find a way to open a locked door. Instead of just leaving the key on a "guard" in front of the locked door, place it on a mob somewhere else in the area. Leave a hint of course so that players know where to look for it.

Another way would be to go and run another quest for a mob before that mob will give you the key to get past. This is a common tool that is used often with great success.

Finally you can leave a hint in the room desc pointing a extra desc. for another item that will trigger the opening of the door. Ie: A set of large statues guard the entrance way. Upon closer examination something from deep within the mouth of the statue on the left seems to glimmer in the darkness. Or something like that :)

- During the quest, a player should NOT have so many options available to them that they actually get carpal tunnel syndrome attempting all the possible combinations of things that could be done in each room. This is a major pet peeve for me and it always chalked upto shotty building. A hint is a hint ... it is there not to be so obscure that takes a person hours to find it. It is there to help the player. Ie: dont make it a quest to find the hint, but let the hint help further the quest.

- Mobs and effects:

This has to be one of my largest and oldest of complaints of any mud. I am not sure where it states in the mythical handbook of builders that every mob in a zone has to have every effect on it humanly possible to add.

There is nothing worse than walking through a zone where every mob has sanc, haste, all detects, shield spells (if available), etc etc that could possibly be added!

It makes the zone tiresome and tiedous on the best of days to say the least.

All players (I don't care what they say) are inherently lazy by nature. They will always look for the best zone to level (ie: the easiest one that offers the greatest reward for thier effort). Equipment is the one cross point here however. Players will go after any mob and fight through just about anything in order to obtain a better piece of equipment.

However...

That piece of equipment has to be worth it at that level. Again it comes down to risk vs reward. A player is not going to struggle through 6hrs of heartache, expelling a multitude of expletives in order to obtain something that is going to be outdated in 1 or 2 levels.

- Starting the Mud:

This has to be the major focus of any good mud. There are many point's to cover here and they are all important!. The following has to do with what a brand new player will see/feel when they start on your mud and will help them determine if they think your mud is worth the trouble of sticking around to actually play for longer than 5minutes.


1. Color scheme ... My lord I have some god awful ones in my day. I would first off, warn against any sort of blinking text, same goes with highlighted text. They just gaudy looking and really affront the sense of sight on so many levels.

Color schemes should be kept simple, yet be informative. Ie: room exits, room titles, can be made different colors. Colors in the prompt to show a decrease/increase in health lost and gained are another good place to use basic color.

Any mud that looks like a circus full of clowns just threw up all over it is really a headache to play as you can barely stand to look at the screen.

Another good thing to remember when setting up colors ... stay away from the "rainbow" effect of alternating every letter in every word with a random color. *Shudder*

However, if you wish to have some sort of crazy color scheme, offer the ability to change the color scheme from say basic color to eye bleeding ... little options like that go a long way with players.

2. Newbie school and starting packages. This is a major key point in every mud that sadly often get overlooked. Starting your new players off with both info and a little equipment perk are both factors in helping that player feel more comfortable in thier new enviroment.

Most importantly the newbie school/areas should be fun!..get rid of your stock stuff and write up some small areas for newbies to wander around in that teach them how to play your mud efficently without actually making them feel like they just enrolled in a advanced english lit class.

Random equipment is great for this. It let's the new player's get a variety of items from different mobs that could be anything ... a great motivator!. Players with what they think is nice equipment are less inclined to want to quit. It's a proven fact :) However, there is one thing that can trump equipment ... and thats leveling.

Newbie leveling shouldn't be so tedious that player is thinking "Oh lord ... it just took me 6hrs to gain that last level to get to level 3 by killing 872 oompa loompa's ... what it's going to be like trying to get to level 50/100/200/300+???" Ease them into the game, don't just drop the hammer so to speak on thier little heads as soon as they walk in :)

3. Information! ... This is a biggie. All new players have questions. The questions can range from intelligent to just down right silly at times, but nevertheless it is your job to make sure that those questions all have answers. Newbie guides that load with new players are always a good idea. Also info in the MOTD, and Login screens for new players pointing them towards specific help files written for new players are also good. No one likes to look like a dumbarse, and so given the choice the new player will always read a help file over asking a question and taking the risk of being ridiculed for it. So make it a little easier on them, point them towards the help files that grant them the info they most desire.

Things to include would be:

Starting areas (With directions on how to get to them) This does not mean the directions have to be totally written out, but an adequate hint to the location of each area will be apperciated.

Any special info on races, classes, special abilities, remorts, tiers, rerolls, dual/multiclassing, evolutions, quests, professions, jobs, etc etc...

Basically think of it like this...You already know what all the good stuff on your mud is. So when are writing all this stuff up, include what you would want to know if you were a new player to help you out.


Whew...This has grown rather long *chuckle* Well I will wrap this up, I know I could most likely prattle on forever about every little thing that popped into my head but I think I covered more than enough for one day :)

I will leave you all with a few things though...

- Random Equipment is good, No one likes to be a "clone" People like to be unique! Let them be.

- Offer automated restrings for equipment. It's a small thing that means so much to players.

- Hunger / Thirst ... if you make these deadly, make sure you don't make them difficult to maintain! I have always liked the option to make them go away forever though personally :)

- Movement and the new player ... Let all new players fly/leviate, or make the movement costs assc'd with the new area's they will be using either low or non-existant. Nothing is worse to a new player than having to sit down and rest every 10 room's because they have no mv points!

Art.

(Comment added by Artimis on Tue Jan 3 10:13:14 2006)

P.s. (EDIT)

Lol .. As I was re-reading my post I noticed I totally forgot to comment on DT's...

I will make this short and sweet...DO NOT EVER USE THEM!. Anything that strips a player character of all they have worked for in the blink of an eye with NO chance to recover anything will only create angry players and a very empty mu*.

However, years ago when I was still plying my trade as a Head/Builder, I created a variety of DT like rooms that gave the player options to escape the deadly room or risk death for failure.

Example: The player is exploring a swamp type area and falls into some quicksand. A timer has been initated, the player now has a certain amount of time to figure out how to escape the room or risk a getting a free trip back to town, abit lighter in exp tnl for thier trouble.

I belive in that particular example I used a vine that could be felt for and used to pull the player out, pushing them out of the room and letting them escape.

There were also examples of rooms with large spikes on the wall's that closed in and could eviscerate the player if they didnt happen to find the key hidden in a skull used on the hidden door in the room before it was too late.

There are many things you can do along these lines and really if they are built well, can make a big impact on an areas fun factor.

Cheers,

Art.

I was messing around on 4D recently myself. At first I was a little frustrated. It does seem like a lot of reading... if you are used to more PK oriented muds with a stock school which does little to help prepare you for the game... that paradigm sort of shortens your patience for mud school and newbie areas. You see mud school as a boring task to avoid so you can get in and really start 'playing'.

If you stick with it at 4D and read everything, try everything, take your time in the school and with the newbie quests it's quite entertaining. Finding something shiny in the old mans wood pile was sort of exciting. :} I did get stuck at one point with the 4 portals, I had trouble guessing the keywords/actions to get the different mobs to respond. I even tried french kissing the martian. You'd think that would get some kind of response. Baby half-martians popping out his butt and calling you mommy or something.

Anyway it's fun just stick with it. Pull a fresh paradigm off the shelf, etc. etc.

> Certain words and phrases should be left out of room
> desc's as well, Such as "I", "You", etc.

'You' is used for second-person, which is the ideal choice when trying to make the viewer feel that they are the character.

> It should be written from the point of view of the person
> that is actually standing in the room.

And that's second person.

You are walking through a settlement, the paved street thick with snow which crunches beneath your boots. The sun is beginning to rise on the eastern horizon, its red glow barely visible above the settlement walls. Heavy snowflakes fall all around you, caking the rooftops and carpeting the streets. Your cloak flaps wildly in the wind, providing little protection against the biting cold.

You are standing in a forest, the brown leaves which scatter the ground crunching beneath your boots. The sounds of nocturnal animals echo through the trees from time to time. Flashes of lightning and the rumble of thunder fill the night air, framed against the backdrop of incessant rain which trickles down the trees and patters on the ground.

I agree with what is considered second person.

However, No book that I have ever read had the word "You" in it to describe anything that was going on at the time :)

Now granted when reading a book it is does in 3rd person ie: an observer to the events taking place, where as in the mu* you are a character and the events are happening to you.

Again however, over the years I have found that I have been able to successfully write room desc's in areas in excess of 2000+ rooms and not ever use those words to describe anything.

I also saw in your examples you state things such as "Your cloak flaps in the wind" Is it always windy that day?, Everyone wears a cloak? Same with any of the weather that is listed in any of your examples.

I will admit they are pleasant to read. But that does not make them good room desc's. No offense :)

Perhaps I am being too much of a stickler, perhaps I was simply taught one way and have been thinking along these lines for far too long. In any case this is my opinion and is mearly only one choice amongst many that someone could choose when writing thier rooms up.

Art.

P.s.

Just for fun I will re-write an example of your's without using the word "You/Your" in it. See how works for you :)

"Walking through the settlement, the paved streets laden with snow from the most recent fall.

(Omitted the sound of crunching snow, what if they are flying or levitating?)

The sun beginning to rise on the eastern horizon, it's red glow barely visible above the settlement walls.

Heavy snowflakes fill the air as they drift down from the surrounding rooftops.

(Partially redunant sentance)

The biting cold of the chilled air seems to permeate everything in it's icy grasp. Offering no escape from its clutches.

(Rewrote the entire sentance, it's a little longer but I think it ended up better sounding)

So the finish work would appear as:

"Walking through the settlement, the paved streets laden with snow from the most recent fall.
The sun beginning to rise on the eastern horizon, it's red glow barely visible above the settlement walls.
Heavy snowflakes fill the air as they drift down from the surrounding rooftops.
The biting cold of the chilled air seems to permeate everything in it's icy grasp. Offering no escape from its clutches."

Now, well that is a nice room description to read, it is overly descriptive. These are the types of desc's that builders get thier hearts broken over. Simply because a player will simply scan it, see that no pertinent info is located anywhere in it and move on without really reading it or apperciating the work that went into writing it :)

Again, this is just my opinion and as such people are bound to draw thier own conclusions :)

Art.

> No book that I have ever read had the word "You" in it to
> describe anything that was going on at the time :)

Books, however, are not interaction fiction.

You might find this article of interest: http://www.theinspiracy.com/ArPOV.htm

In particular: "...it's the nature of interactivity itself to draw the audience in, allow them to interact with an imaginary environment. Furthermore, interactive media transform the audience of passive media into a player, making choices that affect the experience. For this reason, the natural choice of POV in interactive is psychological second person."

> Again however, over the years I have found that I have
> been able to successfully write room desc's in areas in
> excess of 2000+ rooms and not ever use those words to
> describe anything.

I'm sure you could - but why would you want to? Second person is the ideal choice for interactive fiction, allowing you to provide highly immersive descriptions.

> I also saw in your examples you state things such as
> "Your cloak flaps in the wind" Is it always windy that
> day?, Everyone wears a cloak?

No, but it was windy and my character was wearing a cloak when I cut&paste that description. Interactive fiction, remember?

> Same with any of the weather that is listed in any of
> your examples.

The same.

> I will admit they are pleasant to read. But that does
> not make them good room desc's. No offense :)

Well they're not room descriptions, and I'm not much of a builder, but the descriptions are accurate and interactive and that's what I'm more interested in.

> (Omitted the sound of crunching snow, what if they are
> flying or levitating?)

Then they'll be omitted. Interactive fiction, remember?

Your flesh darkens and begins to bubble hideously.

Your body explodes outwards as you transform into a swarm of bats.

> look

You are flying through a settlement. The sun is beginning to rise on the eastern horizon, its red glow barely visible above the settlement walls. Heavy snowflakes fall all around you, caking the rooftops and carpeting the streets.

Well this is my idea of a room description. Imagine an entire mud filled with egorgeous nuggets like this.

Galadriel's Grotto

You find yourself in a beautiful grotto, surrounded by small cute furry forest creatures, pretty flowers, tweeting birds, and other happy forest things. The bees dance playfully about your head and tickle your nose, which is assailed inside and out by the smells of lilacs, honeysuckle and roses. You are content and happy. Period. (Even if you are an orc or troll. I really don't want to hear it. You're happy damn it. Face the facts jack, you are emotionally powerless in my world. Muhahaha!!!)

At the far end of the grotto stands none other than the elfin queen herself, Galadriel. She turns slowly towards you and fixes you with a mesmerizing....

Wait just a minute. Hang on! That isn't queen Galadriel at all. It's the lovely and talented actress Cate Blanchet wearing really cute elfin ears! You have a strange desire to nibble on them.

However just as you do, Cate makes herself really big, scary and ghostly white. She commands, 'Tyche has the ring. I want the you to get me the ring! I want it. It's down in the rabbit hole.'

I'm not builder, but I have operated a bulldozer.

Your description requirements are only valid on muds with static room descriptions. On a mud that generates descriptions dynamically based upon a character's actions/clothing/attributes, "you" and "your" are perfectly valid.

The reason you were trained to not use "you" and "your" is due to the fact that most muds do not generate dynamic descriptions. On those muds the use of "you" and "your" quickly leads to the problems you mention.

A related problem caused by the use of "you" in descriptions is emotion-stamping. Many builders digress into "You see a bat hanging from the wall and it scares you." This problem is solved by only allowing "you" and "your" in dynamic content, and placing the coders in charge of this content, as we have no emotions.

Good point Qidexan.

*Chuckles @ the no emotions part*

*Shakes fist @ coders*

Your summary is what I was driving at in any case. The reason's why someone should not use those words :) Of course different circumstances call for different actions so :)

Art.

Rofl Tyche...

I am almost half tempted to play on your mud simply because I get such a kick out of all your posts here *chuckle*.

*Nibble's on some elfy ears*

Art.

Very amusing Tyche. Thank you for inspiring me to post again on the humor board.

A related problem caused by the use of "you" in descriptions is emotion-stamping. Many builders digress into "You see a bat hanging from the wall and it scares you." This problem is solved by only allowing "you" and "your" in dynamic content, and placing the coders in charge of this content, as we have no emotions.

No, restricting the use of "you" does not solve the problem. A trivial example:

A scary bat hangs from the wall.

Well, what if I think it's a cute fuzzy bat? And it scares you is certainly much more direct, but there's still a subjective judgement in any case. A homeless man might find my house opulent, but I would never describe it as such. Virtually every description imposes the author's perception of the world on the viewer in some way; unless you're never describing anything but purely physical features of the environment--in a totally objective way--please give this "you" nonsense a rest. It's admittedly largely unnecessary in a system without dynamic descriptions, but this is the 21st century. We have the technology.

While we're on the subject of subjectivity and involuntary character reactions, what do you think of various spells and abilities which cause involuntary behavior on the part of the character (say, fear or charm)? It seems like pretty much the same thing to me.