[MUD-Dev] OT: Books

[Adam Wiggins]

[s001gmu at nova.wright.edu:]
> On Fri, 12 Dec 1997, Adam Wiggins wrote:
> > 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.

Yup.  I try very hard to avoid any corespondances, but when working with
a high fantasy theme, it's pretty difficult.

> > 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.

I liked the first and third, the rest were a bit too weighed-down in their
own machinations for me.
Second, I find it quite easy to extract ideas from anything to apply
to anything you want.  A Good Idea is a Good Idea, regardless of the
trappings.  Secondly - who says you have to limit yourself to the fantasy
genre?  I know that many folks on this list are doing non-fantasy muds.

Anyhow, an idea from Dune that would work extremely well in a mud, but
I don't think has ever been implemented is the sand worms.  Here you
have a force that is incredibly powerful; indeed, so powerful that it
cannot be combated with brute force at all.  This same force is the one
that keeps the planet arid and inhospitable to humans, yet without it
the planet would be just another hunk of rock, for the worms create the
most valuable substance in the universe, the spice.  A simple, straightforward
homeostatic system - then you throw in some natives, a few oppressing
invaders, some crazy priestess/witch/prophets, and some idealistic young
heros, and bang, you got yourself a gameworld.
All of this is independant of trappings.  It could be heavy sci-fi (lots
of technology), light sci-fi (technology, but key things missing - Dune),
or fantasy (no technology).

> > 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.

The idea of a Ringworld would work pretty well for any mud, I think.

 ] look
 You are standing in the middle of a vast plain.  The horizon stretches
 up to the north, and up to the south.  You see the edge of the world off
 to the east.

> > 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.

In particular I liked the idea of being able to actually see the flows of
the fae (roughly equal to mana/life force, to those that haven't read the
books).  Throw in the Adepts (people who are born with the talent/curse of
being able to see the flows at all time) and devestating natural disasters
directly related to the flows, and you got yourself a great basis for a
mud's magic system that ties in with all things, instead of being a
seperate unit.

> > > 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?

Excellent point.  I imagine this incredibly dynamic world; if all things
are in a certain phase, that means you get stuff like:

 ] l
 You are standing in a room on the fourth floor of an office building.
 The floor seems to be shifting out of phase with you.
 ] twid
 You twiddle your thumbs.
 ]
 Suddenly the floor leaves your phase completely!
 You fall...


Wow.  Cool stuff.  Tricky to implement, but I imagine that you'd have
a mud unlike any other created...