[MUD-Dev] You, the game of philosophy.

[coder at ibm.net]

On 10/12/97 at 01:26 PM, Caliban Tiresias Darklock <caliban at darklock.com>
said: >On Tuesday, December 09, 1997 5:40 PM, coder at ibm.net
[SMTP:coder at ibm.net] > wrote:

>> Are we really recreating the whole method acting debate in RP guise?
>> Whether method acting is really acting has been debated futily for years.

>Perhaps we should clarify the words 'your own' as they relate to RP... as
>I  see it, 'my own personality' can be several things, much as 'my own
>book'  can be several things. I can write a book, and that book is my own
>-- just  as the personality reflected in my day to day life is my own
>personality. I  can buy a book, and that book is my own -- just as a
>personality I create  out of whole cloth but do not effect in my day to
>day life is my own. And I  can simply provide the name of a book in
>response to a question, making it  my own book as opposed to someone
>else's book (assuming multiple people are  asked the same question, such
>as 'what book would you most like to see  burned?') even though I may not
>own it and may not even have read it -- 
>just as a personality I have seen effected by others might be something I 
>choose to play in a game, even though I have neither created it nor 
>effected it myself.

...perceptive analysis of RP vs GoP ellided...

Thanks.  Very well written and said.  <bow>

I don't have much to add other than that I agree.  I also find myself in a halfway house.  I have almost no interest in RP, and don't enjoy RP, yet I'm not a straight power-gamer.  I just find RP irrelevant and mildly distracting.  I'm a systems player.  

My interest is the system and the functioning of that system.  I want the sense of disecting and redefining an actual organic living thing when I play...  The social aspect of MUDs is entertaining, even fascinating, but the attempts to make that society into a reflection of RL societal forms, or to model it after RL forms is distasteful.

I've been following the current threads on jerk players with much interest and deliberately little comment.  I strongly suspect that many here would consider me a jerk player.  A couple examples, referenced before, probably illustrate:

  On MUD1 there existed a paper bag.  The bag internally was comprised of two rooms.  Players of sufficient level could "pick up" other players and put them in the bag.  They could then cart them about in the bag, and later take them back out again.  This was a very popular trick, initially used to show things (such as how to get somewhere or do something) to other players without revealing any secrets.  

  The bag also has a command which allowed the carrier to peer in thru the top of the bag to see what was going on in the two rooms of the bag.  Thus he could observe what his wards were doing... 

  It didn't take long before the use of the bag as a trap was discovered.   Players were dropped in the bag and left there to get them out of the way, or well armed friends were dropped in after them to kill them in a more controlled environment etc.

  Shortly after that someone discovered that the White Dragon (the most feared, aggro, and unkillable mobile in the game) could also be picked up and dropped in the bag.  Very quickly the bag game changed to:  Find as many players as you can and put them in the bag, then get the dragon and drop him in too, peer in the top to watch the slaughter/fun.

  It was also possible to get the mace and various other objects, perform various perverse rituals etc, insert the mace into a hole before the King's throne in the throne room and have the throne room turn into a B52 Bomber (yes, the Enola Gay), with a large red button appearing on the arm of the throne.  Pushing the button reset the game __without__ logging the button pusher off.  This was a significant
advantage as logging into SX MUD was a somewhat lengthy process -- during which the game-nuker could have free-reign of the game, gaining all/many of the key objects.  

To me these are absolutely fascinating and rather clever features.  Quite wonderous just in the fact that they existed, whether or not they were ever used.  In previous discussions of these two, many have disagreed, sometimes violently.

I am a GoP player in JeffK's terms.

Sellers championing of societal forms for MUDs has also gotten me thinking.  Raph has commented before, and I agree, that a MUD society is the one thing that comes along for free with a MUD, and is also the one thing you can't remove.  However, Seller's approach to trying to simulate an MUD-internally consistant society, essentially an RP society based on treating the MUD world as a morph of RL and transplanting mutated RL societal forms to it bugs me.  I'm not clear on the extent to which it bugs me, but 
it does really bug me at a very fundamental level.  There is an aspect of this approach which seems expressly counter to what I'm trying to do with the game and its societies.

Then again, perhaps it is my conservative/libertarian roots showing thru.  Perhaps it is the inherent narcissism of such internally self-referential societies which bugs me.  I'm not going to delve there now.

For me the interest in a MUD society is functional.  I'm interested in it as a functional reaction to and attempt to gain survival advantage over and within the game.  To this extent the societies are abstracted from the game, but are equally products of the game.  In another light the societies and the game are mutually predators, mutually prey, symbiotic parasites, with the key difference that each exists selfishly and with some attempt to be an internally closed system.  They are the worm of Ororubus, c
onstantly eating its own tail, a pair of lampreys eating each other's flesh.

This relates to my general view of the game.  I see the game as always different from me, very much a game, very much something which can be manipulated, examined, and used, externally to myself.  Its not something I immerse myself in as a replacement reality.  It is however something I admire and experiment with _as_ a replacement reality without assuming that reality.  It is for this reason that the paper bag and B52 above are so neat.  They are expressly *interesting* features of a replacement reality. 
 They are spoofs of RL, they are humorous, and they are unexpected.  They are like the fact that prior to screw propellers on ships, whale's songs would echo clear around the planet, both pole to pole and round the equator, and back again to the originator, allowing whales (assumedly) to conduct conversations with the entire planetary populalation of whales.  Fascinating, thought provoking, intrigueing, and really really amazingly neat as a property of a possible reality, esp!
!
ecially considering the time delays on the song replays as they come back from the other side of the planet (insta quoting?).

Ahh well, time to go to bed.  The Mater is over from the Netherlands as of today...

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