[MUD-Dev] Re: Room descriptions

[Raph & Kristen Koster]

On Sat, 26 Sep 1998, Orion Henry wrote:

> "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.

I would be surprised if most here did not. For one thing, we regard mud
rooms as a) something you experience once and then turn BRIEF on for; b)
background without particularly valuable context to offer, usually; and c)
very very rarely written well since most builders do not happen to be
trained writers.

All three of these things are conditioned responses, of course. There's
also the fourth reason to follow that path: by design, because you are
interested in other things. Which is why I brought this up to the list.

See, I wanted to commit a small amount of heresy and suggest that maybe
that approach is all wrong. :)

It's worth noting that Legend's descriptions have never been run of the
mill for a Diku anyway... the rooms the list saw are in some ways the
natual culmination of the Legend way of building, which is to try to
immerse the player in an experience taken from history.

> 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.

Again, the same accepted wisdom. I am more interested in WHY we feel
that's the way it should be.
 
> 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.

And in the case of the stuff in the room descriptions like the ones I
cited, do you have the bank robbers burst out? Do you supply candy that
somehow tastes delicious and brings on nostalgia? How do you convey using
the stock messages your mud is likely to supply?

  > eat jujube
  You eat a jujube.

  > eat jujube
  A rush of flavor fills your mouth, and soon you feel tingling down every
  nerve of your body! The sugar fills your muscles with short, sharp
  energy, and you're ready to take on the world, to run faster than 
  anyone in your class, to climb higher up the Rock Face of Doom than 
  even Billy Stevens, who broke his arm last year! You feel so wonderful
  that maybe Alison, the blonde who lives next door and is old enough to
  Go On Dates (!) might realize you are alive!

> 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".

  Oh, we do that too... but here's my question, what if you want to have
the player experience what it was like to be Beowulf? (an actual quest on
Legend, btw). How do you provide that experience?

> Don't tell a player that they are afraid... make them afraid.

Is it POSSIBLE to do this with mere events, particularly ones presented in
the thoroughly wooden prose of the typical server-generated message sent
from a mud?

  A balron has arrived from the east.
  > kill balron
  > say Ooh, I'm SOO scared. Even though this thing is going to kick my
  ass, it's just not conveying dread.

> 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.

Again, why?

Because we feel that the division between actual objects and mere room
descriptions should be rigidly and thoroughly separate?

Because we should not present a sense of items in the room with which we
cannot interact?

Or is it because we are so focused on making an environment that is fully
spaces, which is to force the participant into a space they would
interactive that we are ignoring the very interesting side of virtual
otherwise not experience? 

[Aside, at one point I designed a system for Legend whereby passive "extra
descriptions" in rooms could be interacted with, and respond to socials,
to commands, and even to "get" in such a manner that you couldn't tell if
they were actual objects or not. I never implemented it because it seemed
to be less interesting than some other stuff I was toying with at the
time. It's pretty obvious and straightforward--just have commands, after
failing to find regular objects, search through extra desc keywords... if 
they try to get them say "You pick up <obj> but seeing that it belongs
here, put it back." or some such... would probably be a HUGE timesaver
and memory saver for many muds out there that wish to have richer
interaction with the environment. Anyone done this?]

> 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

An understatement. :)

Here's the thing: in designing systems like that, we are actually choosing
to ignore the strongest aspect of our medium of prose: metaphor. We are
actually choosing to discard most of the strength of the written word
because... well, because, uh, I don't know. I just know that doing so is
the cutting edge of mud design according to general consensus.

> will just read ok ) but that's not the job of the room desc,
> that's the job of what happens there... 

Can we ever make said events have a narrative cohesion? Can we actually
supply an artistic experience?

If we describe Venice in literal terms of what's there, does anyone feel
like they are in the City of Love?

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

Here's a radical concept:

Make a mud that ISN'T about a space the player defines in terms of
emotional impact. Instead, have a space intended to supply said emotion.

What about a mud where you are forced to play with the handicap of missing
one foot? Where you are in a truly alien landscape where nothing is
comprehensible? Where you are forced to learn what it feels like to be a)
beautiful b) aphasic c) of a different race d) two inches tall e) in a
concentration camp f) in love?

Are we ignoring the fact that virtual spaces can be a powerful empathic
teaching tool, perhaps? Or a fascinating way to learn what life is like on
the other side of whatever fence we choose?

What sort of interesting designs might we get from NOT giving the players
freedom, but channeling them tightly, instead?

-Raph