[MUD-Dev] Re: Room descriptions

[Travis Casey]

On 27 September 1998, apocalypse at pipeline.com wrote:
>>> On Sat, 26 Sep 1998, Orion Henry wrote:

>>> > 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.

> It dosent? If it dosent affect him? why when describing
> rooms or interiors, or exteriors for that matter do we
> say how it looked, how we FELT in it, how we liked/disliked
> it..It affected us enough, that we consciously, and
> sometimes verbally relate to what it did to us?

That, however, is you describing your own subjective experience; do
you make a habit of telling other people how these things would make
them feel?  That's what you're doing when you put "You feel..." or
something similar in a room description.

I think what Orion was driving at, though, is that room descriptions
aren't something that characters can interact with in most muds.
While those who have some experience with muds soon grow used to it,
this can be a major puzzles to newbies.  When you were new to muds,
did you ever see a room with a description that included something
like:

  There is a large four-poster bed in the northeast corner of the
  room.  An oak desk sits on the south side, and is strewn with pens
  and papers.

And then try:

  > sit on bed
  What?
  > look at bed
  There is no bed here.
  > look at desk
  There is no desk here.
  > get pen
  There is no pen here.

Thus, Orion's point is that you shouldn't try to use room descriptions
for things that they don't work well for -- if you want an object in a
room, you shouldn't just put it in the room description, you should
create the object in some way.  If you want characters to choke on the
air in the room, you should make them choke.  Etc.

I don't necessarily agree with that idea 100% -- some things are
purely descriptive and don't involve any sort of action or object --
but I do agree with it to a good extent.

>> ALL quotes following are From: Hal Black :
>>I think the reason why we feel this way was touched on by both you and
>>Mr. Darklock.  Namely, the Vampire doesn't like to feel sun on his face and
>>the scenario on Legends that transports people to various situations.  It
>>makes sense for a young boy to have great joy in bubble-gum, but probably
>>not so for a stodgy vampire.

> Hmmm...Im going to have to say that is very, very, literal
> in the assumption of how a vampire would feel about
> sunlight. From most game systems where vampires are used,
> all were once human (even CAINE the first.), and im sure
> all at least once, liked sunlight. So, why is it impossible
> for the vampire to not long, yearn, and terribly desire
> the sun? In every writing, every book, every scrap of
> RPG, ive not yet, seen even ONE, that didnt.

I've seen several.  For that matter, not all *humans* like sunlight...
I don't, and I assure you, I am human.  (That may have to do with
growing up in Florida, where, if you're in direct sunlight, chances
are that you're much too hot.  And, if you stay out in the sun for
more than fifteen minutes or so, you're standing a good chance of
getting a sunburn.  Old Florida joke -- You can always tell a Florida
native:  they're the ones without tans.)

--
       |\      _,,,---,,_        Travis S. Casey  <efindel at io.com>
 ZZzz  /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_   No one agrees with me.  Not even me.
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