[MUD-Dev] The Difference between..

[Jeff Kesselman]

At 09:36 PM 6/22/97 PST8PDT, Adam wrote:
>[Jeff K:]
>> Roll playing and Rule playing...
>> 
>> GM: Awfulness the Evilone waves his arms, a glow emanates from his
>> fingertips and around him the trees and shrubs wither and die, as you watch
>> the entire graveyard picks up the glow and comes alive as the dead crawl
>> out of their crypts. One spots you and croaks "BRAAAAIIINSS"!
>> 
>> Joe Roleplayer: COOL! I scream and hide behind the cleric shouting "cast
>> protection from evil!!"
>> 
>> John Ruleplayer: (Furiously thumbing through the rulebook) "What spell is
>> that? I don't see that anywhere..."
>> 
>> 'nuff said
>
>Just looking for more chances to stir up controversey, Jeff?
>Anyhow, I'd say it would be more accurate to state it like this:
>
>GM: <see above>
>
>Joe Roleplay: Acht!  T'is the most gruesome thing I've seen since my
>encounter with the undead beholder oh so long ago!  Friend Cleric - call
>upon your god to help us in this time of need!
>
>John Ruleplay: I don't have any more protection from evils mem'ed, dude.
>I told you we should have spent another night camped outside before we
>came in.
>
>Since ruleplayers delight in intense knowledge of the 'system', I hardly
>think they would get caught thumbing through a rulebook in the midst of
>gameplay.  

Its an equally nice example but it doesnt get at what I was getting at in
re your comments on "knowing the system."

To wit: a ruleplayer expects everything to happen exactly as its in the
book and, if its not in the book, it can't happen.

A roleplayer delights in the new and inventive and doesn't worry about such
things.

And yes, my roleplayer example was a minimum roleplayer, with touches of
rollplayer perhapse, but the second was DEFINATELY the "ruleplayer", also
knwon as the "rules-lawyer".

JK