[MUD-Dev] Alright... IF your gonan do DESIESE...

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

On Sun, 1 Jun 1997 12:28:55 PST8PDT, Jeff Kesselman
<jeffk at tenetwork.com> wrote:

>Just two notes;
>(1) You do ocassionally meet RPers who pwoergame as well as power gamers
>who RP. 

I'm one of the former. I put it this way: you may have a case of
Cockburn's '31 in your wine cellar, but dammit sometimes you just want a
beer. 

>The former is usually in my experience because said players came into OLRPG
>from CRPGs, or played very limiedt and flawed OLRPGS that act liek CRPGS.
>In  CRPG the goal is indeed to "beat the game", one of the biggest reasons
>why they are NOT roleplay games.

I think a lot of us old time gamers came into roleplaying when we were
rather young, and we all started as powergamers because it took us so
long to realise that you don't actually have to win for the game to be
fun. 

Well, in time, you start to miss the days when the adventure was always
'A mighty wizard throws you into his dungeon and pledges that you may
keep your worthless lives if you can escape!', and all the rooms were
even multiples of ten feet on a side, and you'd go into a room and find
a bunch of orcs and elves who for some reason consider your party more
important than eons of racial hatred. It was silly, and logically
inconsistent, and you spent more time looking up rules than playing, but
really, it *was* fun, wasn't it?

>The latter is because they have discovered that such is useful in achieving
>their ultimate goals of power.  WHICH btw identifies the real fundemental
>difference-- the goals of the player.  These ultimately color and control
>everything they do for good or ill.

I'd draw a distinction between the power-gamer and the power-player. The
power-player plays for power in the eyes of the other players, while the
power-gamer plays for power in the eyes of the game. The power-player
tends to make better imm material, as he has at least some concept that
if people *think* you can destroy them when you can't, it's a lot more
fruitful in negotiation than when you really can destroy them and they
don't believe you. Which tends to indicate a good mind for management.

>(2) I wanetd to point out again that i DO think you CAN make a game for
>pwoergamers.  

Well... don't we already have hundreds of games out there that prove the
point? ;)

>I do howwever believe that this kidn of game tends to attract and apeal to 
>less mature personalities, so you better be ready ot deal with them and that 
>they will NOT mic with roleplayers and produce anything positive.

They generally *will* produce good roleplayers if someone just takes the
time to teach them. It takes a long while though.

-+[caliban at darklock.com]+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
 I am here to grind your eyes harder into the miasmic bile of life; to 
 show you the truth and the beauty in the whisper of steel on silk and 
 the crimson scent of blood as it rises to meet the caress of a blade. 
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