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

[Nathan Yospe]

On Sat, 31 May 1997, Adam Wiggins wrote:

:[Caliban:]
:> > I still think it's possible to get the social interaction of a role-player
:> > combined with the detailed game world of a roll-player.  Call me a dreamer..
:> > but I really don't think it's that difficult.
:> 
:> I think it might be important to realise that social interaction *also*
:> needs a detailed game world... probably MORE detailed than a roll-player
:> would need. While the roll-player might be satisfied with 

:I've played many, many, many muds.  I know what I'm talking about when I
:say that role-players, as a generalization, generally don't have a lot
:of working details, because that's not the focus of the game.  I think,
:though, that we're talking about two different things...

Miro and I had a great talk on this the other day... this is the
conclusion we reached as well, over the discussion of a court dinner
(under his system, and under mine) in which, in my system, the food was
actual existing material, as were a lot of other details, and spam was
kept low by a player specific filter (the centerpoint of my output
language parser) and in his, everything was emoted. With mine, I proposed
a young woman secretly dosing the knight she has been pining over with a
love philter in his wine glass. Under his system, she makes no real secret
of this, and simply privately informs him. (or any accidental victims if,
as I suggested, the wine was undrunk and made it back to the kitchen and
the help, the greatest dullard of which gulps it... free wine!... and
finds himself less in control of his body than he is used to) Under my
system, she tells noone, and broadcasts nothing unless the others, by the
very action of her adding the poison, or failing to keep a passive face -
remember my involuntary mood actions - are alerted... being unusually
perceptive or suspicious or aided by sheer dumb luck. (yes, Chris, I AM
putting dice back in. Reluctantly, and not at the point of calculation of
a specific event, but over the time cast event region.) Under my system,
the poor galant may not figure out what has happened for... well, he may
never figure it out.

:> 	Cave
:> 	You are in a deep dark cave.
:> 	There is a goblin here.
 
:> The role-player would prefer something like
 
:> 	Deep beneath Caer Crannag
:> 	You have penetrated nearly a mile below the surface. The sound
:> 	of dripping water comes from indeterminate direction, and the
:> 	walls are slick with a thin wetness. The walls stretch over you
:> 	like orange and yellow curtains, the rock hanging in thick folds 
:> 	from the ceiling. 
:> 	A small greenish creature clad in mail peers at you with suspicion.

:There's nothing I hate as much as descriptions which talk about 'you'
:in them.  Just a pet peave of mine :)

Even if they are crafted specificly for 'you'? My filters were designed
for exactly this reason... to justify the occasional 'you'... not in the
text that the designer of the area writes, but in bits like the last, with
the small greenish creature. If your memnet remembers goblin, you get it
as "A small goblin peers at you." - or even "A large goblin - almost waist
high - peers at you." if you are used to four inch goblins. As for the
clad in mail... well, you get that if goblins never wear mail. Meaning if
your memnet thinks goblins are these creatures that wear no clothes, the
mail might be exceptional. But it should NOT have been part of the default
description. Even more amusing is the confusion that ensues if you have
been, in a previous case, informed that "goblin" refers the the creatures
more accurately described as kobolds. Now, someone tells you that that
creature is  goblin. Your filter parses this:

"That green fella there is a goblin." The miner points at the small
toadlike creature. As far as you can remember, goblins are those tall
gangly reddish things with huge sharp teeth that you encountered back at
boggledy woods.
"THAT's a goblin???

:> The interesting thing is that the roll-player generally gets good
:> descriptions like this on a MUD, but doesn't usually care. The

:I can agree with this.  It's more about general layout of the area and
:the *stuff* you can do inside it.

Right. Of course, if the *stuff* requires you to _pay_attention_.. (I hate
those "<obvious exits - north, east, up>" lines.) 

:> roll-player will walk into either of the rooms above and type 'kill
:> goblin'. The role-player will react to the first room either not at all,
:> or with some stupid comment like 'Gee, it's dark'. The second room,
:> however, will usually spur a role-player to do something like lean
:> against the wall and recoil at the wetness, glancing to the ceiling with
:> annoyance as he tries to figure out where the water is coming from. If a
:> world is logically inconsistent, the pure roll-player doesn't really
:> care. He just wants to find where things are and kill them.

:Hmmm.  Maybe, although I think you're (once again) confusing 'roll-player'
:with 'kill-happy psycopath'.  An easy mistake, I know. :)

:A roll-player is interested in the systems, how they work together, what
:you can do.  This was my main turn off to the Tiny family of muds, which
:was my first experience with muds.  I'd log on at 2am, there'd be no
:one else online, and the 'world' was so simple that there wasn't much I
:could do.  You might mention LP and all it's speciality-coded little
:puzzles and such in rooms.  These are interesting, but still not what
:a roll-player is interested in, at least as I am conceptualizing it.
:A roll-player is interested in *systems*.  Combat is a system.  Thievery
:(picking locks, picking pockets, poisons, etc) is involved in systems.
:Spells are systems - fitting together the runes to create new spells, or
:reagents to create potions.  The roll-player thinks like this:
:"Hum, if I make a dwarven thief and give him a big dex bonus, he'll be
:able to practise disarming traps and creating poisons more easily, because
:dwarves are incredibly resistant to poison.  Oh and I'll be able to get
:those gaunts of +2 dex, which should put my dex up into a reasonable range
:to do thiefy things.  Ah, dammit, if I'm wearing those I won't be able to
:wear the spiked combat gauntlets, so I'll do less damage.  Hmmm, oh, I
:can make it up with the combat boots...er, damn - those things are metal,
:I won't be able to sneak in them.  Hmmm.  Oh!  I can get that autoinvis
:ring to make practising steal about ten times easier.  My other character
:couldn't wear it because his fingers were too big.  Ah, wait a minute -
:dwarves are hated in the town of Thistledown, which is where the best
:thief trainer is.  Hmmm, I wonder if the guards there see invis?"
:Etc etc etc.  Really the best name for it is resource management.  In
:this respect it has more in common with a wargame than it does with a
:role-playing game.  The difference is that a character is really a lot
:more personal than tanks rolling around on a battlefield - besides just
:working better in the text based environment, there is a certain amount of
:role-aquirement (for lack of a better term).  That is, I make a big
:brawny barbarian, so I'm constantly on the lookout for badass looking
:axes.  Someone says they've got a magical ring they can sell me and I just
:grunt and beat my chest and say, 'Me no use for magic!  Gimmie big axe!'
:Gives it some mood, I guess - depends on the mud.

As for that... a sucess oriented player will fare about the same as a role
player on my system. You see, the whole point of having a totally
consistant world... especially one that, while it might have that second
description above, would only have the dampness on the wall after having
actually made a damp wall... and floor, such that you can actually slip on
it and break your neck... is making those types of reactions (ew, damp!) a
critical part of success, as much as it is of role play. Sure, they might
end up in the role of a very low on personality warrior who barely flicks
his eyes across the muck, only enough to register its presence and take it
into account before proceeding... but I'd much rather see the guy suddenly
start moving cautiously instead of running than worry about whether he
actually cares that its mucky. I HAVE provided a framework for the guy who
just wants to complete the game, so he (or she - yes, there are genuine
females, not just males in drag, on those success oriented muds, I
promise...) will play it. I suppose making imagination optional will bring
in some of this "wrong element" of yours... but hey! Imagination is
optional in books too. They are just as passive. As long as I can provide
as much of a consistant and absorbing a background as a good book, I'm
happy. On the other hand, I've also endeavored to make true role play
possible. By this I mean that the roles are all open and _playable_. If
you want to play a role, all that is required is the hard work to
establish yourself. Rich playboy type? Gotta earn that money first, I hate
to break it to you. But yes, feel free to play the demented beggar who
thinks he is a rich playboy. (And you RP types were wondering what success
oriented players thought of role players... there you have one main part
of it. No desire to earn the role they would claim.)

:All I ask is that you know how a numbers-mud is played, what makes it fun,
:and what motivates the people that play them before you start making
:comments about them, which as near as I can tell are based on no research
:or knowledge whatsoever.  Or if they are, I'd say that the muds that you
:chose to try to play as your foray into the realm of roll-playing were the
:worst muds I've ever heard of.  Go play Legend for a while and maybe it
:will become a tad clearer.  (Based on MERC, no less.  Blah!)

I've played some pretty damned decent combat muds. Even a few where, in
spite of the mechanics, role playing arose. In a sense, I tend to find
most Tinys as deficient as dikus and LPs, for the same reason... lack of
unified _sense_.

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Nathan F. Yospe - University of Hawaii Dept of Physics - yospe at hawaii.edu