[MUD-Dev] Something complete different

[Matt Chatterley]

[ Foreword: Sorry for my inactivity! I've simply found nothing I wished to
write about, or got around to writing about until now, but I've filed and
read everything. Couple of replies on their way! ]

On Mon, 20 Oct 1997, Brandon J. Rickman wrote:

[Snip Brandon .J.R & Marian]

> I have a lot of film theory bubbling around in my head right now which
> I could apply here but I'm trying not to.  Just about anything causes
> heated debate on r.g.m.admin, that and the fact that almost every time
> you post to a newsgroup you get put on a spam email list is why I don't
> bother reading them much anymore.

Hah. How true. Mind you, one can filter out spam email - check subject
lines for any string containing !! and you kill a surprisingly pleasing
amount of it. :P
 
> What are the cases where /realism/ isn't so important to storytelling?
> There is the famous Man-Eating Rabbit from Monty Python Quest for the
> Holy Grail (the most common source for high-level rabbit monsters in
> muds).  It takes special means to kill this special rabbit, violating
> the "easily killed everywhere or nowhere" rule of realism.

[Snip the rest of Brandon .J.R's post]

Realism is an extraordinarily poor term to use in the mud context, as The
Keegan pointed out to me some time ago. Those who bandy the term around
invariably refer to consistancy, or more specifically what we might term
"internal atmospheric consistancy". While this sounds like something from
a bad SciFi film, or an obfuscated Physical Chemistry term, it is really
quite a good description of what we mean.

Hence in a world where Dragons are real, and heroes defeat such great
winged monstrosities, it is consistant that if a dragon can burn a large
cow to cinders in seconds, he can do the same to any similar, more or less
unprotected creature. It is by no means realistic that our hero can emerge
unscathed from the beasts portable BBQ-breath, but, if such is thematic,
it IS consistant that heroes can do this.

Thats somewhat unclear, but I feel a tad befuddled. Are there
circumstances where muds do conspire to be realistic, and this is
appropriate?

Regards,
	-Matt Chatterley
	http://user.itl.net/~neddy/index.html
"All extremists should be taken out and shot."