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

[Adam Wiggins]

[Caliban:]
> On Thu, 29 May 1997 19:48:23 PST8PDT, Jeff Kesselman
> >>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.

Yeah.  The thing is, how can you really do a "real" role-playing game
with a single-player, limited-memory computer game?  I don't really think
you can, so they just focused on the parts of RPGs that you *can* do
(like the settings, character development, combat, object gathering,
puzzles solving, and so on).  I tend to think as 'RPG' as being a new
word completely independant of what it stands for, in the same way I do
the acronym MUD.  Thus, you can easily call eye of the beholder a
computer RPG without necessarily stating that it is a role-playing game.

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

Someone made an interesting comment about powergamers not having any
slanderous remarks for role-players in response to this comment, so
I won't repeat it. :)  Not entirely true, however - a common thing to see
on the OOC line is someone saying 'This game is too hard!' or whatever,
and someone will respond 'so go play a mush, you wimp'.  Still, I'd say
that the overall feeling of powergamers towards role-players is sort of
like, 'Hmmm, okay.  If that's what floats your boat...'  From the time
I've spent on Tinys (my first mud was a MUX, in fact) I noticed a
pretty strong disdain for diku/lp-ites, and the violent oposition I've
seen in recent weeks on this list makes me think that the RP-folks here
were mugged by someone claiming to be a diku player long ago and have
harbored a deep grudge ever since.

> 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.

Sure - it's easy for us that are used to it.  I first started foolking
around with D&D, Runequest and the like at an early age, plus I read a
whole hell of a lot of fiction, so the idea of taking on another role
didn't seem too odd or difficult to me.  But it is somewhat of a stretch
for people not used to this sort of thing.

My (ex-)GF refered to role-playing as "bullshit sessions".  In her words,
"I don't need a bunch of people sitting around rolling dice to be able
to think up a story.  I could think up one fine in my own head."
Of course, I don't know if she entirely believed that - she did get into
a few of our D&D games pretty heavily.

> >>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.

All negativity aside - absolutely!  You design a game a certain way, and
it attracts certain kinds of players - the ones that want to play that
kind of game.  And there you go, that's all there is to it.

> 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.

Not sure about this, exactly...I still say the main reason that the
mud community is so divided is just related to people getting used to
one codebase and never bothering to play any other.  This is, of course,
very bad for the popularity of new codebases, since *no one* likes them.
(new as in from scratch)
There are a lot of elements to powergames that I like.  There are a lot
of elements to role-playing games that I like.  I've attempted to
combine them in my game; this may seriously stunt its popularity,
since neither camp will wholy buy into it.  I don't care, to be honest,
as long as *I* think the game is fun.

I think it's also pretty silly to think that you can categorize people
so easily.  I think I've already described my ex-roommates who play
almost exclusively powermuds, although they've also played plenty of MUSHes
in their day.  They also spend 12 - 14 hours every Thrusday playing
pen-and-paper RPGs with a few other friends.  One of them checked out
several books on Celtic mythology in order to further flesh out one of
his characters.  As he puts it - "Why role-play via scrolling text when
it's so much more fun to do it with my friends?"

> >(A) Who abuses bugs?
> 
> Assholes.

Actually, you should modify this to be 'assholes and clueless people.'
The *vast* majority of bug-abuse I've seen in my admin and player days
both are from people who don't know any better.  They just assume that's
how it works, and make use of it.  Of course, part of the problem here
is that mud-logic is so screwy that it's hard to tell what is *supposed*
to be one way and what's not.  I remembered bugging things like my
character being able to wield a two-handed sword in one hand (he was
a half-giant and the sword was human-sized, but I assumed since it didn't
specify size in the name that it was a two-handed sword by my reconing).

> >(B) Who hacks?
> 
> Assholes.

Of course, but I must ask, is this *really* a problem?  It's certainly
not a design problem - it's just bugs in the system.  Secondly, I've
seen very, very few cases of successful hacking on muds.  In most cases
it is something like tricking some admin's client into granting the
hacker's character high-level access, or hacking into the mud's machine
completely aside from the game.  What does this, pray tell, have to do
with anything?

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

Again, something I've never seen.  I've seen people powertrip or
otherwise make general nuissances of themselves plenty of times, but I've
never seen this.

> 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

Hmmm.  Had to think about this one for a bit, and I think I agree, but
it's more like a 'by default' thing.  A role-player is someone who
makes a conscious effort to contribute to the overall story, thereby
'helping' everyone.  A non-roleplayer, then, is (by default) a
powergamer.  Since assholes obviously aren't interested in helping anyone,
they cannot be the first kind of player, and therefore are the second.
On the other hand, someone like this hardly even qualifies as a player.
They are there for reasons beyond actually *playing* the game, thus
this kind of classification is pretty useless.

> 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.

Heh...while I agree wholeheartedly with everything you're saying, I don't
think you know anything about the group of people that you're referring
to.  In fact, I'd say powergamers want *more* combinations of skills
(or whatever) to allow them to find more creative ways to be king of the
hill.  Ususally this translates to more (bleh) classes, which is why
powermud ads like to brag about how many classes or races or whatever
they have.  Role-players are less interested in skills and their character's
physical manifestation in general.  They are interested in personality
and attitude.  In addition, a lot of skills are just plain useless
for a role-playing game.  I think I've already mentioned the ranger example;
another good one is the thief.  I've tried, and failed, to play a thief
on a role-playing mud before.  Any character who has little to no social
interaction isn't really worth playing; this cuts out a whole hell of a lot
of skills.
Of course, it *is* still a matter of king of the hill.  I have no problem
with that, in fact I enjoy competition quite a bit.  It's just a matter of:

Player A: "Hey, I can kill Foozle and get the magical tome!"
Player B: "Hah, I don't even have to kill him.  I just sneak by, pocket the
tome, and sneak on out."
Player C: "Yeah but then you don't get the exp for killing him.  I just have
my stone golems smack the hell out of him, while I stand back and watch."
Player D: "Then you ruin his robes!  I prefer to pick him off from long
range with a well-placed arrow.  Minimal blood less and the robes just have
one little hole in them."
Player E: "Ha!  Forget all that, I just go to the kitchen and poison his
soup right before breakfast.  That night I return and collect the tome."
Player F: "Yeah, but then someone else might come in and nab it during
the day.  I just cast paralyze on him, walk by and grab the tome."
Player G: "Hmmm, you guys DO know that he'll sell you as many tomes as
you want for 18 silver a pop, right?"

etc etc etc.
It's not role-playing, but please don't try to tell me there's no variation
in how powergames are played.  If that were the case, no one would
ever play them.

Case in point: Chris L is designing what could be classified as
the most powergame-y mud ever, but I don't see a lack of flexibilty and
creative ways to do things *there*.  In fact, I see more than any mud
I've ever played, role-play or not.

> 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.

Now you're just talking about writing a good skill-system, which is
independant of the style of gameplay, for the most part.  The focus of
our game is character development, so we have an extremely complex
skill system and a ton of skills.  This doesn't have anything to do with
whether we are a strategic mud or a role-playing mud - it benefits both.

> 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.

Well, I thoroughly hate systems where having a skill at 30% means that
you 'fail' 70% of the time.  But I've already expounded upon my thoughts
and desires related to skills in other posts, so I'll leave this be for now.