>Another MUD I once played had a cabal specifically for newbies
>and those who want to help them. It believe it did not permit
>evil players, but allowed good and neutrals.

Herald is kinda like this in some ways. It's not specifically for newbies, but you kinda can't fail to get in (within reason) and it's just kind of a kick back and relax thing.

That said, I really don't think being in a cabal helps you die less in CF. What it does give you is a bunch of people to give you advice if they're in the mood. I'd be in favor of an easy in easy out model, except that then you'll *really* be making people mad and driving them away. A newbie who gets kicked out of a cabal for not understanding some cabal rule (what, you mean anti-paladins count as mages?) is going to be more annoyed than if he never got in.

If anything were to be done along these lines, it would be just adding an "explorer" path to the heralds that gives some kind of pve powers. Not sure what those would be. Certainly immunity to bleed or poison death is too strong. Anti-gang code won't help newbies that much because they're dieing to solo killers just as much.

Good explorer/newbie powers are things like:
For exploring:
Confounding - Mobs are slow to attack when chasing
Sensitive - You can see if mobs are aggro on scan
Lifeline - word of recall from cursed area (not in affects) every 24 hours with 8-round pre-lag

For PK:
Dangersense - as exists
Outclassed - If your opponent reduces your health by 80% and you reduce his by less than 20% from first hit until up to 5 ticks, all damage results in lag cleared and wimpy firing.
Tough - Leader con

Outclassed is really too overpowered in some situations and useless in others, but I kind of like it as way of throwing a bone to newbies who just get completely steamrolled. Basically it's an attempt to say that if the fight isn't even close to even, the wimpy guy gets a chance to escape.