[MUD-Dev] Critiquing Muds

[Travis Casey]

On Thursday, July 08, 1999, Marian Griffith wrote:
> On Wed 30 Jun, Travis Casey wrote:

>>  - This brings up the idea of "firewalling" -- something often talked
>>    about among "paper" RPGers, but which I've almost never seen
>>    discussed by mudders.  Put simply, the idea is that characters
>>    should only be able to act on knowledge that the character
>>    possesses, and not on knowledge that the player possesses but the
>>    character shouldn't.

> The reason you rarely see this discussed is because muds at present
> really are strongly game oriented and only tolerate roleplaying, by
> the way the are set up. The concept however is fairly common in the
> games that traditionally are more strongly roleplaying or acting o-
> riented. It is in fact one of the reasons why it is considered such
> a rude act to kill somebody's character against their will in those
> situations.

Hmm?  I don't see the connection -- it seems to me that killing
someone's character *for reasons outside of the game* could be
considered rude, but I don't see how firewalling would lead to the
idea of killing someone's character being rude.

Indeed, it seems to me that requiring consent works against the concept
of firewalling, because it requires you to deal with other characters
on two levels -- the character-to-character level and the
player-to-player level.  If you're required to deal with others on
both those levels, instead of just on the character-to-character
level, it becomes harder to ignore player-player considerations in
choosing your actions.

>>  - Re: the "Acting" form of gaming.  I don't really see where this is
>>    a separate form -- to me, it's just immersive RP.

> There is a real and important distinction between the two.
> Roleplaying, as the term already says, means that a character has a
> -role- to play. There is a purpose to the character that is defined
> in terms of the game world.
> Acting on the other hand requires no particular role.  A player may
> adapt one for her character,  but it is not part of the game. Pern-
> mushes usually are strongly acting oriented where white wolf mushes
> tend to be more roleplaying oriented.

This is the first time I've seen the term "roleplaying" treated this
way.  I've always seen it treated as using the definition of role as
"the part played by an actor" -- i.e., your role is nothing more or
less than your character.  You seem to be treating it as meaning "the
function one performs".  Is this the common definition among MUSH-style
players?

--
       |\      _,,,---,,_        Travis S. Casey  <efindel at io.com>
 ZZzz  /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_   No one agrees with me.  Not even me.
      |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-'
     '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)





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