[MUD-Dev] Guilds & Politics [was Affecting the World]

[Matt Chatterley]

On Wed, 10 Dec 1997, Ola Fosheim Gr=F8stad wrote:

> Marian Griffith <gryphon at iaehv.nl> wrote:
> >On Sun 07 Dec, Mike Sellers wrote:
>=20
> >> come because of this inherent disconnect -- in Quake, everyone *knows*=
 that
> >> others are out to get them, while in online RPGs most players do not m=
ake
> >> such an assumption).
> >
> >Rightly so. Roleplaying is a cooperative environment. If somebody deci-
> >des to ruin my fun in the game  because he thinks it is 'in character'
> >then he is definitely not playing the same game as I am.
>=20
> Yeah, that's true.  The main question is then, who should yield?  If
> the game you enter is a RPG, provides you with a sword, asks you to
> kill objects, allows you to kill other players, and even give you
> benefits for doing so...

Perhaps we can begin to tackle this by changing our perception of the
environment somewhat, and explicitly making it known that the virtual
world is not a virtually safe place, and that bad things do happen (tm).

Of course, Marian's point is still valid, and raises the question of
perspectives. The 'innocent victim' who is murdered certainly does not
consider that being murdered is part of 'their game', and the murderer
does not consider this (because in their game, murdering the victim is
very much valid). What we have here is very well summed up by a quote from
B5; "Understanding is a three edged sword.". This refers to there being
'their side', 'your side', and 'our side' or rather, three perspectives to
a situation - two specific and one general.

Here we have the Victim, who is offended by being murdered, because they
had no control in the situation, and did not consider it part of the
game, and the murderer who considers it precisely part of their game, and
even very much fun. The third point of view is that of the game itself -
does it perceive the murder to be 'fair game' or 'illegal' in some
respect?
=20
> Maybe the game is a "jerk game" (if it insists on a neutral policy,
> then it is at least sending out some strong signals in that
> direction), but perhaps a significant portion of the players don't
> want to participate in that game, only the environment, and therefore
> define the more chaotic players as jerks.

Heh. :)

[Snip]

Regards,
=09-Matt Chatterley
=09ICQ: 5580107
"I shall never believe that God plays dice with the world." -Einstein