[MUD-Dev] A flamewar startingpoint.

[coder at ibm.net]

On 12/11/97 at 12:26 PM, Adam Wiggins <nightfall at user2.inficad.com> said:
>[Ola Fosheim Gr=B0stad:]
>> Adam Wiggins <nightfall at user2.inficad.com> wrote:
>> [Glassner:]

>> >> We are in constant conversation with the game creator, more
>> >> than we are with almost any author or screenwriter. Bad
>> >> things done to the hero in fact happen to us, personally.
>> >
>> >Total disagreement here.  The bad thing is happening to *my character=
*, which
>> >I do have a closer attachment to than a character in a film, but not =
the
>> >the extent that Glassner seems to think.
>>=20
>> Are you talking MUD or what?

>Of course, since that's the topic of this list.  But I'm also speaking o=
f
>other games.  Some examples with recent games:

> When I play Command & Conquer, I am not a Nazi.
> When I play Monkey Island, I am not a wanna-be pirate.
> When I play King's Quest, I am not an estranged priness.
> When I play Space Quest, I am not a futuristic janitor.
> When I play Master of Orion, I am not a silicon-based creature bent
>  on the genocide of all the other races within fifty solar systems of
>me.

>My *character* is.

Ahh, here again we differ.  Were I to play those games I wouldn't be the
Nazi, the pirate, the janitor, or the silicon beast.  I would however be
me, the 20th century chap, with the bolted-on additions of everything I
could grab from the Nazi, pirate etc.  As such my goals remain mine, and
don't necessarily have anything to do with the actual character in the
game or his history.  That character and history only serves to give me a
matrix of abilities and data to add to my own RL set in doing whatever I
want with the game.

>> In a MUD you can easily reach a situation where something happening to
>> your character is perceived as happening to us, or even worse if a
>> roleplayed character really dies.  I would perceive that as loosing
>> some of my personality freedom and investment of time (which is
>> convertible to money)...

>Well, we beat this one nearly to death a while back.  Caliban and some o=
f
>the other hardcore role-playing types felt that any time you loose
>control over your character's fate the game has failed.  Others (myself
>included) feel that if you can control your character's fate 100% all th=
e
>time (ie, there is no external factors affecting them) that the game
>itself looses much of its meaning.

Yup, there's a scale where one end is defined as the challenge of
achieving some goal with a character purely on one's own merits and
abilities, despite a malicous and personally vindictive world, and the
other end is defined by an intensely cooperative world where the challeng=
e
is to mutually craft a cooperative story where the characters develop and
interact in interesting manners in that process.

Or, more simply: GoP vs RP.

>Without a character having their own
>personality you can't have story motivations which personaly involve the
>character - meaning paper-thin stories with no character interaction at
>all. =20

No, you are failing to distinguish between in-game (and seemingly
pre-defined) goals and motivations and those imported and defined by the
players and expressed in the game.  Both can and do provide story
motivations (consider some of the PK clan wars on various heavy PK MUDs)
and can provide much more than your paper-thin interaction-less stories
(cf Avalon -- see their various 3rd party 'zines and chronicles).  The
difference is that one has a seeming pretension towards literature, or at
least dramatic crafting, whereas the other is merely after-the-fact
history.

>I think this is worth not being able to pick up an axe and go on a
>killing spree just because it would be inconsistant with the character's
>nature.

<shrug>

Who defines the character?  You or the game?  If you define the character=
,
what is the arbiter of correctness or acceptability of your character
definition?

>Hmmm.  Like I said, I haven't played Myst, but one of the artists I work
>with worked in the sequel and I watched him play it for a bit. There's n=
o
>role - there's no character stuff at all.  You're a robot flying through
>a series of static pictures and fiddling with misc. devices.  I *like*
>characters, I like human motivations, I like stories. =20

Similarly, except that I like being in those stories, not playing a role
in those stories.  Tho I'll admit that I paint the stories after the fact=
,
and not while the game is in progress.

>Esoteric puzzles
>by themselves don't do a whole lot for me, even with really nice
>graphics. =20

Ahh, I like puzzles.

>Not only are you your own character, but there is no character at
>all.  It's just you and the gameworld.

Precisely.  However are you not a character?  Additionally, can you not
assume an indentity or a personality to colour your play in the game?=20
This does not mean that you are assuming the character of an in-world
character, just that you are changing your own presentation as a human
player so as to appear or seem to be someone else. =20

FWLIW this used to be a favoured trick of mine.  I would simultaneously
play multiple characters, playing each as if I were a ottally different
human with different goals, forms of expression. language use, knowledge
etc.  I would then hatch elaborate plots to use my various characters to
manipulate, lead, and trick other players into traps and situations set u=
p
by my other characters.  The artistry was in playing this well enought
that the other players never realised, even after the fact, that the my
varous characters were actually played by the same human.

--=20
J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw at null.net
----------(*)                              Internet: coder at ibm.net
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...