[MUD-Dev] Re: Affordances and social method (Was: Re: Wired Magazine...)

[Marian Griffith]

On Fri 31 Jul, J C Lawrence wrote:
> On Thu, 9 Jul 1998 19:39:45 +0100 (BST) 

> Marian Griffith<gryphon at iaehv.nl> wrote:

> > The problem as I (and the original author) have is not so much that
> > Buffy's shop can be raided but that it is Buffy herself who has to
> > defend it.  She is a tailor and possibly has no interest at all in
> > becoming a sword swinger or else she would not have chosen that
> > profession in the first place. 

> There's a design choice implicit in there under the inferred "right"
> to do soley what she is intersted in, or to rephrase "To what extent
> are the game or the game designers obligated to support narraw career
> definitions?":

>   Buffy is a tailor and thereby should (pick one):

>     a) Never have to involve actions or skills notably outside her
>        chosen profession.

Never is a strong word, but I strongly believe the game should provide the
protection, not the player herself.

[confusing selection of choices snipped]

> Where the should/may substitution isolates the intended
> cross-pollination and spread between skill sets.

I trust -you- know what you mean. I am afraid you have lost me here,
or somewhere in the list I snipped. Sorry. I will try not to show my
ignorance quite as much.

> Please note that none of this is predicated on combat

> > Somehow in a game there must be ways for players to control
> > harmful actions of other players in such a way that it does not
> > involve more of the same. If a player attacks and kills other
> > players the victims shouldn't be required to become better fighters
> > if they do not care for that role (and the game allows them to
> > play different roles).

> <ponder>

> Some shared or common skill sets are assumable.  Here in the US it is
> usually reasonable to assume that any non-senile adult is able to
> drive.  Other skills follow as a matter of culture and societal
> structure.  There is in any design an assumed or assumable baseline of
> a common set of skills which all characters will have in some
> non-negligable degree.  This fact is of course almost universally
> ignored, which is why that baseline is equally almost never defined,
> despite the fact that any game design implicitly defines one.

> So, what is the baseline in your system?  Yes, you are playing a
> tailor, which is a valid occupation in this game, and are not playing
> a sword wielding armoured warrior, which is another supported role in
> the game.  This does not mean that the tailor should not and does not
> have some skill at self-defense or street fighting, or more simply,
> that he is not savvy in the more physical aspects of his world.  It
> all depends on the game designed-in assumable skill sets.

I think we are constantly missing the point the other is trying to make
which makes me wonder if there is any reason to continue the discussion
I do not mean it is pointless but we do not seem to get anywhere.

> Another view of this is how narrowly the occupation skills are
> defined, or at least how narrowly pursuit of an occupation defines the
> other skill sets.  Is a good or even excellant tailor necessarily an
> abysmall sword swinger?

Is it necessary for a tailor to care at all?
Originally I started the, I expect by now infamous, tailor example as
being about -me-.  I can easily imagine myself  playing the role of a
tailor in a mud.  Most of the things I mentioned are things I believe
can be fun to do and would, for me, make a fun game to play. It would
be a non violent role in a nearly non violent environment. I will not
request the impossible  and demand an entirely safe environment since
there will always be troublemakers. What I do however feel I have the
right to demand is that being non-violent myself the game will defend
me from the occasional trouble maker. Defend, not prevent. If I can't
be a peacefull tailor  because I would be everybody's victim then the
game has in a very real way failed to live up to its promise to me. I
do not at this moment care how things are going to be handled. I even
think that it is irrelevant as long as 'we' do not admit that the is-
sue must be solved at another level than giving players means to kill
each other in more or less creative ways.

Marian
--
Yes - at last - You. I Choose you. Out of all the world,
out of all the seeking, I have found you, young sister of
my heart! You are mine and I am yours - and never again
will there be loneliness ...

Rolan Choosing Talia,
Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey