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

[Adam Wiggins]

[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...

> 	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 :)

> 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.

> 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.

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!)