[MUD-Dev] You, the game of philosophy.

Richard Woolcock KaVir at dial.pipex.com
Tue Nov 18 22:24:09 CET 1997


Derrick Jones wrote:

[snip]
> > Correction, the characters YOU play are puppets. Or at least you
> > believe so.  How can you be so certain that my puppet isn't me?
> Pretty much so.  You'll still wake up tomorrow if my game-world proves too
> dangerous a place for your puppet to survive.  My design is even friendly
> enough to allow your puppet to exist if the real world proves too much for
> you to handle.  (Do you know the difference between the two? If so, then[snip]

This may be going a little off-topic, but if your 'puppet' can exist without
you, is it really a puppet?  In your mud, is your character:
(a) A 'mud' person, who's personality you temporarily replace with your own, or
(b) An empty shell, a 'puppet' which just sort of sits there without you.

This is a serious question - I know at least one person on this list is
doing something with players being 'spirits' who take over bodies when they
want to interact with the real world (or something like that).  Another
way of thinking about it...when you log off, if your character didn't 'vanish'
or 'go to sleep' would they (a) flop on the ground, maybe twitching a bit, or
(b) go down the pub (or whereever else they usually hang out)?

I suppose you could even expand on (b) - perhaps the body will do things if
left alone for a while?  or maybe it'll answer back to some of your 'commands'
with things like "Attack the dragon?  What sort of idiot do you think I am?".
However I don't personally like taking control away from players, unless
they are drunk or something.

KaVir.



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