[MUD-Dev] RP: TIime to define

[Jeff Kesselman]

At 10:31 AM 6/1/97 PST8PDT, you wrote:
>This "true RP" thing is getting more and more off putting each time I read
>a new post referring to it. 

*** sigh ***

Look.  A Rolls Royce is fun, a Ferrari is fun.  They reant fun in teh same
way and they don't attract the same kidns of people.

The problem here is that the term Roleplay has been badly abused in the
past such that peopel who really aren't INTERESTED in Roleplay take offense
when told that they DON'T roleplay.

Alomst ALL Pen and Paper games star twith a definition of Roleplay, and
they are all about the same...  Allow mme to quote from a section of the
AD&D players handbook.  Thsi is the game that defined role-play game. I
erpsonally think its therfor a definitive work.  

If you don't maqtch the below, you may be a terrific gamer, but you are NOT
a role-play gamer.

THE GOAL:
Another major difference between role-playing games and other games is the
ultimate goal.  Everyone assuems that a game has abeginning, and a middle,
and the end comes when someone wins. This does not apply to role-playing
because noone "wins" in a role-playing game.  The point of the game is not
to win but to have fun and socialize.

An adventure usually has a goal of some sort; protect the villagers from
the monsters; rescure the lost princess; explore the ancient ruins.
Typicly this goal can be obtained in a reasonable playign time; four to
eight hours is standard.  This may require the players to get togetherfro
one, two, or even three playing session to reach their goal and complete
their adventure.

But the game does not end when an adventure is finished.  The same
characters go on to new adventures.  Such a series of adventures is called
a campaign.

Remember the point is not to win but to have fun while workign  toward a
common goal.


 It seems to be too fake, especially over a
>medium such as the net where the only symbols to communicate with are
>pre-drawn text and graphics.  That's just my personal opinion though. 
>
>> The exact point of my argument is that there is an implicit value
>> structure and unstated standard which is being used here to evaluate
>> and judge games and game designs/approaches -- in this case centric on
>> immersive RP.  While I don't argue the validity of that structure and
>> standard, I strenuously object to its being assumed as the default in
>> discussion, or that assumption being implicit within a general non-RP
>> specific (as a tag for the assumption) discussion.  Additionally to
>> the extent to which it becomes implicit it acutally violates the list
>> charter which is to be explicitly free of such base assumptions and
>> private hobby horses.  The whole idea of the list is to move the
>> MUDding _field_ forward, not to merely advance RP'ing as one faction
>> over another, or even to change the balance of the field.  
>
>Hurrah.  So I can stop deleting RP posts without reading them?
>
>> What I would like to see is constructive discussion of the game design
>> issues on how to approach free PK in such a manner that the rest of
>> the game remains balanced and slaughter-fests can be constrained.
>
>Having been brought up in a PK environment, I have the same aim.  PK is an
>essential part of a mud I want to play in.  One must 'interact'.
>
>>   I don't have a global naming system.  Thus a PK'er can't do a "who",
>> and then track down the victim.  Instead they must first locate the
>> other player without any implicit way to differentiate them from a
>> mobile (there is no command which will return, "this is a mobile" as
>> vs "this is a player body").  Then, ocne they have found them they
>> must assign a name to them (body specific, not character specific),
>> and then track them down from there.
>
>This relative naming system is extremely appealing.  Sounds like murder on
>the database though.  Does the PKer need to be in the same room to name
>someone else?  So I could just zip around the mud to avoid being pin
>pointed?  Perhaps a history of personas met could be stuffed in the
>player, for the slower typers.
>
>> met
>1. Green bug eyed monster (in same room)
>2. Orange furred catfolk (2 mins ago)
>3. Pink rabbit with drums from the battery adverts (1 hours ago)
>> name 1 as martian
>
>>   Additionally as bodies are a fairly fluid thing, killing a
>> character's body typically has little permanent effect on the
>> character.  He has other bodies, or can easily get other bodies.  It
>> is an incovenience and a disruption of the current action.
>
>Sounds like players are hard to kill.  Will certain bodies be endowed with
>advantages other bodies may not have which will encourage players to
>defend those bodies?  Ever played/remember Paradroid?  (C64 and Amiga)
>Your mud sounds very much like Paradroid except the player can assume more
>than one body.
>
>Recap of Paradroid:  You're an influence droid placed on a freighter, the
>aim is to wipe out the entire crew of droids by taking over other droids.
>You can get more and more powerful by taking over better droids (each with
>varying weaponary/drives/shields).  A game design fault of the game (imho)
>is that upon losing a host, you're reduced to your original droid.  Really
>scary when you're in the middle of a firefight.
>
>>   {Possible new feature}  If I do this, upon a PK the dead character
>> becomes attached to the PK'er as a partial owner.  This places the
>> PK'er at increasing risk as the numbers of PKs increases.  Actually,
>> with the fuid state of bodies this is not necessarily such a problem: 
>> A PK'er could pick up a second, third, fourth, or umpty-fifth body,
>> run about on a killing spree, let the body get killed and actually
>> engender no ill effects upon himself as a character.
>
>I don't actually see how this helps as a feature if the dead body does not
>lumber the PKer with a disadvantage of some sort.  Unless the character
>suffers in some way from owning too many bodies.
>
>> The general side-effect I've concentrated on is to render individual
>> PK's as inconvenient but not catastrophic to a player, and to then
>> ensure that concerted or sustained attacks by a PK'er on an individual
>> other player is technically both not feasible and almost impossible to
>> sustain.  What this leaves is the player who goes on a PK spree,
>> killing eveyrthing he can find.  That is again diminished by
>> effectively ensuring that that body will be short lived, and having
>> none of that game-specific advantages accrued from the PK spree
>> reflect on that character's other bodies.  As such its reduced to
>> annoying flash in the pan.  
>
>Surely this would make PK a thing of the past?  If it is near impossible
>to wipe out another character, why bother?  It seems as if characters are
>near immortal on your mud, which, for me would dampen my enjoyment.  I
>need to die! :)
>
>> >... My
>> >viewpoint in this may be different from that of the average player
>> >but for me being attacked (or otherwise harassed) by another -player-
>> >is emotionally very upsetting.
>> 
>> And here is where the out-of-game values start to apply.  I'm very
>> leery of treading in these areas as I suspect that a game system both
>> has no right to be there (and definitely no obligation or duty), and
>> more simply because they involve factors which are entirely outside of
>> the game system and cannot be either measured or controllably affected
>> by the game system.  Too much chaos.
>
>Actually, I was hoping for this to be my saviour.  There are muds out
>there where PK is possible, no restrictions of any kind.  PKs are rare
>though as the general mud populace thinks it's unsociable (I think it's
>fun, but I'm a parasite).  Most muds I've been to, the prevailing attitude
>is no attitude, be nice and kind.  If someone gets PKed, there is often a
>bounty board which offers a reward and quite powerful NPCs are made
>aggressive to the PKers.
>
>Nothing like a bit of social engineering.  It's too much luck though.  I
>want the majority of players to be the 'good guys' but I still want a few
>'evil' individuals to spice things up a bit.  The alternative is to
>attract lots of goodies and get the creators to play the evil individuals.
>
>  |    Ling				"Agrophobic homeless."
>_O_O_  Freshwater fish since 1976
>
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