[MUD-Dev] Re: (no subject)

[Travis Casey]

The Eternal City <eternal at eternal.eternal-city.com> wrote:


>At The Eternal City, our staff actively monitors IC role-playing (i.e.,
>anything going on with characters anywhere in the game, except for bedroom
>or other 'private' areas), especially during GM-run role-playing events
>(obviously), but also at other times more or less randomly.
>
>Because we also provide positive feedback and a reward system for what we
>consider to be good (or at least active attempts at) role-playing, I think
>this greatly reinforces the overall quality of the game's role-playing
>'culture', if you will, and the players' attitudes about RP. Rewards
include
>the award of points (whatever character advancement currency you might
use),
>as well as allowing actions or interaction beyond the ordinary scope of the
>game's mechanics (bringing in an NPC, providing special echoes or text for
>the occasion, allowing the player's RPd actions to overcome a mechanical
>limitation of the game, etc.).


Personally, I've never liked the idea of roleplaying-based rewards.  Or,
rather, I like the *idea*, but I've never seen an *implementation* that I
liked.

A quick caveat:  I've never played on a mud that had roleplaying rewards.
However, I have played in many face-to-face RPG campaigns and sessions which
had them, including tournament scenarios.  In all cases, I've found them to
have one major problem:  in order to be rewarded, one's roleplaying must
first be *noticed*.  This leads to a situation where those who choose to
play quiet or shy characters are rarely rewarded, but those who play
outgoing, forceful, or sometimes even rude characters *do* get rewarded.
Thus, unless carefully administered, roleplaying rewards will reward the
roleplaying of certain kinds of personalities more than others.

Now, that's fine if what you want to do is to encourage players to play
characters with those kinds of personalities.  Personally, though, I find
it too intrusive -- perhaps because I often enjoy playing quiet characters.
--
      |\      _,,,---,,_        Travis S. Casey  <efindel at io.com>
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