OT: Books

[s001gmu at nova.wright.edu]

On Fri, 12 Dec 1997, Adam Wiggins wrote:

>  <snip quotings>

> <Off Topic:>
> Folks mention books on here from time to time, and I usually make
> a point to go check them out.  We've asked what muds are most influential
> to people's creative processes (although, it might be time to ask again
> as it's been a while).  I'd like to know what books people consider
> influential to their mud creation or even mudding style.  Personally
> I've labored to try to get the muds I've worked on to be much more
> like the best books I've read; in particular I like to imagine how
> scenes from my favorite fiction would transpire on my mud.  In some
> cases such lines of thought have lead to me redesigning whole sections
> of the game...
> 
> I'll start, although now that I think of it the task of remembering
> all the books that I have drawn on over the years is a bit difficult.
> 
> Tolkien's stuff (of course), especially the Silmarilion.  A lavishly
> detailed, complex, and beautiful world.

It's hard NOT to use Tolkien for Fantasy based Muds.  It's so very 
difficult to break away from the inertia a well defined, well accepted 
genre carries with it.  you have to simultaneously add new symbols and 
objects while maintianing enough familiarity that people have something 
to identify with, and a reason to continue reading.
 
> Frank Herbert's Dune.  See Tolkien.

Loved the books, but it's difficult to extract too many ideas from a 
Sci-Fi book for a Fantasy theme.
 
> Larry Niven

dunno the stories you talked about, but I was rather fond of RingWorld, 
and The Integral Trees.  Again, these suffer from not being Fantasy 
enough for my current project's theme, so they don't influence my current 
project much.
 
> C.S. Freidman's trilogy 'Dark Sun Rising', 'When True Night Falls',
> and 'Crown of Swords'.  This is the only epic fantasy I think I've
> ever read which doesn't draw a single whit upon Tolkien.  I would *love*
> to implement (or, better yet, someone else to implent) a mud based on
> this world, and that's considering the fact that I don't like muds based
> on books.  The fae magic by itself just begs to be put in a game.

a truely inspired author, I believe.  I believe JC's Mana system is 
probably the closest any of the ppl on this list have come to 
implementing a Fae system, but it is obviously different in a lot of 
respects.

Freidman has another good book, 'The Madness Season,' which has a very 
interesting take on the whole issue of Vampires, etc.  The ideas in the 
book don't directly translate to the way things work (tm) in our system, 
but her willingness to break from the mold got me thinking about 
alternatives that lead to our current system.

My other additions ot the list would have to be:

David Eddings, Belgariod and Mallorean (sp?)
No specific influences, but I like the books so much it's hard to imagine 
them not influencing my design in some subtle way.

Margret Weis and Tracy Hickman's Deathgate saga.  Particularly, the Rune 
based magic system is something I've been toying with implementing for 
quite some time.  Again, it doesn't directly translate to the game world, 
but I can't imagine that they haven't had some subtle influence.

Not a book, but the Highlander Movie/tv series has impacted our design.  
We will have immortals of the highlander type running around, trying to 
not get their heads cut off. :)

Robert Jordan, WoT series.  No, we do not have a WoT mud (tho I did work 
a lot on one of the first, Eternity Of Discord, a diku-merc-rom hack 
that I'm more than happy I've long since abandonded), but the books do 
have a few very interesting ideas that have crept in to our system.

Stephen R. Donaldson's 'Thomas Covenant' books and to some extent his 
subsequent duology, 'In The Mirror Of Her Dreams' and 'A Man Rides 
Through,' I believe.  All phenominally good books, frought with only 
mostly tolkienesque ideas.  The duology is much less Tolkienesque than 
the Covenant books.

> </Off Topic>
> 
> > live on the surface of a decayed star which has a number of peculiar
> > characteristics.  One of the oddities is that there are periodic "veil
> > falls".  The general result is that any character can interact with any
> > other character within a dozen or so veil fall layers of them on either
> > side.  Further seperation and they can still _see_ them, but are no longer
> > able to interact (they walk right thru them etc).  The really interesting
> > aspect is that this also applies to the physical universe as well.  A 20
> > veil-fall character may be able to see the freshly landed 0 fall
> > space-ship, but will walk right thru it, the 40 fall character conversely
> > won't even see the ship and visa versa.
> > 
> > This would be paralleled in the game by having characters which are too
> > widely seperated (levels or whatever) not even able to be aware of each
> > other, let alone interact.  Characters on a closer par would be able to
> > detect each other, even communicate with some effort (writing for
> > instance), but not direct physical interaction.  Etc.
> 
> Of course, it also raises a fair share of interaction issues typical
> of such things: what happens when the 0 guy chucks a rock at the 30 guy?

I think that would depend on what level the rock was, neh?

-Greg