[MUD-Dev] A flamewar startingpoint.

[coder at ibm.net]

On 17/01/98 at 11:28 AM, Marian Griffith <gryphon at iaehv.nl> said: >On Mon
05 Jan, JC Lawrence wrote:
>> 
>> On Mon, 29 Dec 1997 11:55:29 PST8PDT 
>> Marian Griffith<gryphon at iaehv.nl> wrote:

>> > [scenario snipped, sorry]

>> <sob>.

>*blush* looks like I was too rash in snipping the scenario as I want to
>respond to it now.  Maybe somebody can dig it up again?  It was about a
>caravan travelling through the desert I belief  with their rations run-
>ning short...

Lambert proposed the scenario of a caravan crossing a very large arid
waste.  The desert was pre-known to be large, treacherous, and usually
fatal to attempt to coss.  The discussion centered on the peculiarities
from both a game-centric and a player-centric vantage on the that
crossing.  How to keep the players playing when they know aforehand that
most of them are going to die, how to make the crossing itself attractive
at the minute-to-minute level, how to handle the fact of not all members
of the caravan all being logged in at the same time (the crossing taking
an extended RL time to transpire), etc.

>> >> The difficult as always would be to retain the players for the
>> >> gradually expiring party.  Many/some may (I have no experience in
>> >> the RP values used here) bow out early rather than continue with an
>> >> apparently doomed campaign.

>> > In a game where the example could take place it should be clear that
>> > there is no easy way to escape an adventure.  When you join a party
>> > you are in it until you die or you achieve your goal and escape. The
>> > game would not make sense otherwise.

>> Agreed.  The problem is not that this in't made clear, but that many
>> would rather suicide and start again than continue playing out a
>> likely no-win scenario.  _Something_ has to convince them than playing
>> out the hand was an enjoyable value greater than the unpleasantness of
>> knowing you are doomed.

>I guess that is a reasonable measure to find out if somebody is a role-
>player or not.  Somebody who plays to win is likely to start anew if it
>becomes clear that there is no hope left for the current character  and a
>roleplayer might enjoy the challenge of continuing the doomed mission and
>rp-ing the way the characters deal with their hopeless state.

<nod>

I would note that this empirical definition would seem to apply to a
particular sub-set of the RP world, much as with the story-telling,
concensus, cooperative, and other divisions we have discussed previously.

>> > That is where the variety of minor goals come into the
>> > game. Travelling across the plains could in itself be an adventure
>> > even if it is only a minor part in overthrowing the evil sorceror of
>> > the mountains of doom.  And of course some other players could be
>> > minions of said sorceror and try to prevent the party from achieving
>> > their goal.

>> The more critical point of what the dead players do now that is
>> enjoyable comes to light.

>You are right, this is a problem that I have not given thought to. They
>have to create a new character I suppose?

Uhh, of course:  "Oooo!  I tried to cross the Dread Plains Of Death and
Really Bad Acne, but I died of thirst and was eaten with dessicated
shallots and filtered urine by my travelling companions.  Lets see what I
can do over here as a assassin fisherman now..."

This is not quite facetious.  While I'm not an immersive/etc/yaday_yada
RP'er, I have difficulty envisioning such a player attempting such a trek
across the DPDRBA, dieing the dreadful gasping death, being lunched on by
his dieing comrades, and immediately turning around to play some other
dissassociated (of necessity as the caravan is incommunicado in the
desert) pre-corpse elsewhere in the game.

>> Some of you may be familiar with the board game "Risk".  For those
>> unfamiliar, Risk is a board game where the board is a crude map of the
>> world, divided into continents and territories, and players control
>> armies and attempt to take over the world by battling for ownership of
>> all the territories.

>> However, we don't play world domination Risk for a specific reason.
>> World Domination takes hours to play, and for tha majority of that
>> time most of the player aren't playing any more as they've been
>> "killed" and are thus out of the game.  The result is that two or
>> three players fight to the bitter end while the other four sit on the
>> side lines doing nothing.  Not good.  Not fun.

>> I don't see that the game you describe is "fun" for a player whose
>> character dies early on in the campaign.

>No, you are right and this is something I have to think about first
>before I can answer the question.

Yes???

--
J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw at null.net
----------(*)                              Internet: coder at ibm.net
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...