[MUD-Dev] Character evolution

[Jeff Kesselman]

At 10:25 PM 8/25/97 PST8PDT, Jon Lambert wrote:
>Isn't it odd that murder, stealing, racial hatred/genocide and 

Most of us have not been the direct victims of murder (ie have nti had
friends or family murdered). I personally DONt think Pc v. PC stealign is a
good idea as I've arleady said.  I personalyl use racial hatred/genocide
themes only VERY carefully in face to face games. As i mentioedn ebfore i
HAVE played through a character who was raped and the aftermath.  If used
carefully any and all of tehse CAN bel learnign experiences through
roleplay and icnrease our sensativity, the problem is that players have
proven they are NOT sensative to each other the way even a mediocre judge
is to his players.

In the hands of the insensative these are horrendous thinsg to do to one
anothers psyche.

>demonology are quite frequent and acceptable in muds.  Does vampiric 

Heh. Demons dont exist-- at least i believe they dont-- so its totally
different.  At a bear minimum the same applies that few of us are likely to
have rpevious traumatic demonological experiences.

>feeding with all it's WoD thematic connotations constitute rape? 
>Just a thought...
>

Ah. I cna answer this having playesd a WoDish vampire game and character.
the answer is that Vampiric feeding can be simply physical or can be sexual
dpeendant on the "author."  Traditionally its sexual, and most players of
these kidsn of games thus get implicit consent of the other party before
playignotu such a scene.

Also in moast cases teh sexual element is NOTE coded itn othe game itselkf
but left to individual roleplay.

>It has been many moons since the college days of FRP.  I can't say
>that I've ever participated in a session in which rape occurred.  
>However there have been many games where torture of NPCs and, on
>occasion, torture of PCs had occurred and were all done IC with no
>OOC baggage.  I once game-mastered a session where a group of good 

Right, because there WAS no OOC baggage.  Thsi is the point.  3 out of 5
women sitting down to your game WILL brign SERIOUS OOC baggage to rape and
its hardly their fault.

If ours was a society where people were dragged off by teh government and
totrued every day i DOUBT you'ld include thsi in your RP.

>I have strong views that this sort of activity can be resolved within 
>the context of the game through increasing player freedom to respond 
>and not through limiting player freedom of response because of the 
>few who transgress.  This is the core of my design philosophy 
>(and life philosophy).  I strongly suspect that that my views on this 
>matter are diametrically opposed to Jeff Kesselman's views on this
>aspect of player/human nature.  

Yes, but this does not have to do with that.

This has to due with the very real nature of rape as a very real trauma to
too many people.  Our issues abotu human anture are really ancillary to
thsi topic.

>I also do not buy into the argument that you have to "be a woman" to 
>completely understand the issues here.  It would follow that that 

You don't.  But you DO have to know a hel of a lot abotu the unspoken parts
of being a women in america.  Rape does not threaten most young men because
they don't have a terribly high likelyhood of beign raped either in their
past or near future.  Women have both.

JK
Jeff Kesselman
Snr. Game Integration Engineer
TEN -- The Total Entertainment Network -- www.ten.net

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