[MUD-Dev] RP=MUSH/PG=MUD

[Adam Wiggins]

[Jeff K:]
> At 08:18 PM 6/20/97 PST8PDT,Adam W. wrote:
> >can't figure out how to interact with the game.  Ours is particularly
> >bad since the game world is so open-ended (no easy-to-define goals from
> >the moment you start playing) and so complex (no simple list of special-case
> >rules as with a pen and paper RPG).
> 
> I rather object to this characterization.. if you had said "AD&D" or "an
> OLD pen and paper RPG" I might have agreed.
> I suggest you look at Hero system, and its child the new Fusion system.

Well, let me state it this way - as a player of a pen and paper RPG, I
always know what the rules are, even if they aren't special-case stuff.
In a mud you have no idea - you push button X and Y occurs, you push button
Z and A occurs, except much more complex.  Eventually you may figure out
'how' something works at the top level - the same way that the Celtic
druids figured out 'how' herbalism worked.  They knew nothing about
chemicals or their effect on the body, they just knew that a bit of
solomon's seal mixed with some yew bark in boiling water made a nice
headache remedy.  Sometimes pen and paper RPGs 'forbid' (haha) the
players from knowing the DM's rules...what was that old one where if
any play demonstrated any knowledge of the game rules, the other players
were supposed to turn and blow them away?