[MUD-Dev] Re: Room descriptions

[Orion Henry]

"Koster, Raph" wrote:
> 
> I've often seen it cited as a rule that room descriptions in muds should
> not impose feelings on the player or character.
> 
> How do you feel about room descriptions like these? These are from an
> area I did for Legend which was never completed, themed around an
> idealized 1950s:

I must say that they are very well written but I come from a very 
minimalist school of throughout on room descriptions.

A room description does not affect a character and therefore
should not pretend to.  In an ideal situation a room should not
even make mention of objects or people.  It should be concise
and at most two sentences long.

If you want some boxes stacked in a room, make the boxes and
stack them on each other.  If you want some catty teenagers
hanging around, load them up and give then scripts to do and
say what is desired.

Things like "You choke on the greasy air" do not belong in a 
room description...  If you desire the player to see this
add it as an effect that happens to the character and has 
nothing to do with a "room description".

Don't tell a player that they are afraid... make them afraid.
You could perhaps even have events in the room trigger things 
like "a shiver runs down your spine" but again these things 
should never in the room description.

I was working for some time on a system that had no room descriptions
at all.  The descriptions were generated entirely from objects,
creatures, wall and door info, etc... I realize that this 
sort of thing wont have tons of atmosphere ( at very best it
will just read ok ) but that's not the job of the room desc,
that's the job of what happens there... 

If you want cobwebs, make some spiders and get them spinning :)

	Orion