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

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

On Thu, 29 May 1997 19:48:23 PST8PDT, Jeff Kesselman
<jeffk at tenetwork.com> wrote:

>>I don't think anyone will argue about that... I may be wrong. They
>>called 'Eye of the Beholder' a role playing game, and no one seemed to
>>disagree very strongly.
>
>Yer worng :)

Well, there wasn't exactly a movement against it that protested the
label.

>Lastly remember most combat-twinks are AFRAID to roleplay.  So much so that
>they felel the need to denegrate those who do...

My GF is scared shitless of roleplay because she's so afraid of screwing
up. The ironic part is, she's one of the best roleplayers I know once
you manage to push her into sitting down and getting in character.
Roleplay is frightening. There's a lot more at risk.

>>I don't like powergamers. I don't want powergamers. And the more
>>unattractive I can make my game world to the powergamer, the better I
>>like it. ;)
>
>Amen :)  Its not accident that the most destructive personalities show up
>in the powergramer groups...  let em play Quake.

I'm not saying there isn't a place for the powergamer, but the
powergamer belongs in a different setting. Nicely enough, though, most
of the things that attract real roleplayers tend to piss off and drive
away powergamers. And vice-versa.

>>This is not to say that powergamers are evil and should be slaughtered
>>wholesale in nazi-style concentration camps.
>
>Well, after a year of runnign a comemrical MUD Im beginnign to wonder...
>A few questions:
>(A) Who abuses bugs?

Assholes.

>(B) Who hacks?

Assholes.

>(C) Who actively drives other users from your game?

Assholes.

Not powergamers... assholes. The powergamer, it's worth noting, often
has a deep interest in and knowledge of the background process; they
make excellent builders, coders, and staff a lot of the time. The
problem is not that powergamers are always assholes; the problem is that
assholes are always powergamers. It's unfair to lump them all together
like that. The game world I'm trying to build, however, will only
operate successfully if no one is looking at it as some brand of 'king
of the hill', where there is a winner and a loser. I don't want anyone
at any time to have any claim to be the 'best' character on the game;
there should always, always, always be someone who can use a single
skill at greater efficiency *or* a combination of lesser skills with
greater effect. This tends to make powergamers turn green and run away.
On the one hand, they can get a lot of skills at low levels of
efficiency and be versatile, but on the other, somebody out there has
higher skill levels than they do. So they can raise all their skills to
high levels, and be really really good at a couple things. You hit the
point of diminishing returns at 50% efficiency; it is more expensive at
that point to raise the skill than it is to acquire a new one. As it
should be. Once you get into the real professional realm, it becomes
much more difficult to learn.

Some people would argue 50% being professional, but it is at that point
that you begin to succeed more often than you fail... and can thus
theoretically do this sort of thing for a living.

-+[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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