[MUD-Dev] Re: darkness/visibility

[J C Lawrence]

On Thu, 2 Jul 1998 15:09:00 -0500 (CDT) 
Travis S Casey<efindel at io.com> wrote:

> On Tue, 30 Jun 1998, J C Lawrence wrote:
>> Travis S Casey<efindel at io.com> wrote:

>>> That's one problem.  However, there is another, more subtle
>>> reason to "get more complex" -- it helps to separate player
>>> knowledge from character knowledge.

>> Umm, true.  I usually think of them as synonymous (a side effect of
>> my GoPish play style).  I'm rather uncomfortable with the very
>> concept of the game attempting to retain an IC vs OOC knowledge
>> disctinction (mostly because it would bug the crap out of me as a
>> player).

> Coming from pencil-and-paper games, I'm used to having the
> distinction exist -- indeed, when you allow a single player to run
> multiple characters, or have the same character being used by
> different players at different times, it becomes a *necessary*
> distinction.  

I actively question and even deny its necessity for MUDs if the game
is designed with the point in mind.  

I actively encourage multi-playing as well as mutli-charring.  Given
that a single human may be controlling a single character (or more
than one) eacho of which in turn is controlling any number of seperate
bodies in possibly widely seperated locations, the line between the
visible manifestations of characters and their logical definition is
blurred to the point of non-existence.

eg:

  Body A in Castle Krak and Body B in the surrounding siege force, and
Body C in the sneak sortie lucking in the woods and Body D aboard ship
half a world away are all being played by the same character, "Bubba",
who in turn is being played by a single human.

Think Heinleinian Puppet Masters or demonic possession..

>> Play-style question -- we went over this this way back int he
>> question of the degree of seperation of the game character from the
>> human player.  Does the character have any existance outside of its
>> human player, or is it a pure thoughtless automaton as instructed
>> by the player's commands?  I favour the latter.

> In theory, I favor the latter.  In practice, for muds and other
> semi-real-time computer games, I favor the former.  Why?  Because I
> don't think that players should have to log off from the game every
> time they have to do something else for a few seconds or a minute,
> and that it's better to give the character a few basic protective
> reactions than to allow players to "pause" their characters or the
> game.

> However, I don't believe that characters should be capable of
> complex behaviors without their players; only the most basic, most
> needed protective reactions.

<nod>  This skirts about the issue I failed to define above:

  Does the character in the game have any existance outside of the
human controlling him, or is it a direct robot mapping of the human?

ie to RP or not to RP?  Is the character you, even an interpreted you,
or is it someone you are playing ala an actor?

For me my characters are me, sometimes an interpreted me, sometimes a
very carefully presented me (mind fucks), but always in essence me.
Everything I know and can do anywhere in the game my characters
instantly know and can use, and there is no distinction between them
and me.

>>> Of course, now we can get even more complicated in terms of
>>> situations -- what if the character should know, based on
>>> information that's been given to him/her in-game, but not from
>>> personal experience?  For example, two adventurers talking in a
>>> tavern:

>> Bingo.

> Yep, that's the problem.  In a paper game the problem disappears,
> because a human GM can understand the conversations that characters
> are having and therefore know if a PC has been told something by
> another.  For a mud, however, it becomes a problem.

> When/if we get AI programs that can parse and understand normal
> human "speech" (using quotes here since, in this case, we're talking
> about typed text rather than real speech), a lot of new avenues will
> be opened up for muds.  Until then, we're forced to either ignore
> the problems or seek for kludges to work around them.

<shrug> As initially commented, as a function of my play style I don't
see this as a problem, but as a feature of the way such games operate.

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