[MUD-Dev] Self-Sufficient Worlds

[Raph Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu [mailto:mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu]On Behalf Of
> Lee Sheldon
> Sent: Friday, April 28, 2000 9:35 AM
> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> Subject: RE: [MUD-Dev] Self-Sufficient Worlds
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu
> > [mailto:mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu]On Behalf Of
> > Zak Jarvis
> > However, if you try to build an interactive story based
> > around the way we tell
> > ourselves the ongoing story of our lives, things become much easier.
[snip]
> > A good example of this and how it can be done (albeit in a
> > less dramatic, much
> > more domestic sense) is Maxis' The Sims.

> I'm very familiar with "The Sims," and the "stories" that have
> grown out of
> it, and that Maxis encourages people to publish.  Most of them
> are useless.

This may be the time to bring up something that I arrived at after my
attending Chris Crawford's first Phrontisterion last year
(http://www.erasmatazz.com/library/Miscellania/PhrontisterionReport.html --
and Lee, you need to attend these, if you can wangle an invite). It's a
snippet recently posted on my website, with examples that are probably
obscure to most of the list readership but which I can elaborate on if need
arises. The important part is the categorization of forms of interactive
storytelling.

start quote--->
Well, I'll be the first to admit that events in UO have not always lived up
to expectations. But I do see a different sort of living, progressing, and
growing. So maybe we'd benefit in this discussion from breaking down what we
mean by these different things.

Let's use a cube: one axis being who directs the growth/change/activity, one
being what fictional context it uses, and the other being whether it
actually causes the world to progress, grow, or change in any way.

This leads to the following:

Design-directed stuff that springs from the backplot but does not change the
world. The gnoll scenario in EverQuest fits this bill. So does the Sherry
the Mouse book in UO, or any other static backplot that serves to add
detail.

Design-directed material that springs from the backplot but does affect the
world is a knotty problem, and I think what most players refer to when they
say "plot" in an online RPG setting. This would be something large like a
plot to destroy the world--if it had the potential to actually kill everyone
in the game.

Design-directed material that does not spring from the backplot and does not
change the world would be something like a seasonal event or holiday
celebration that does not change the world in any substantial way. So for
example, having Santa Claus stand on corners and say "Ho ho ho", which has
no impact on the gameplay after the event is concluded.

Design-directed material that does not spring from the backplot and does
change the world would be things like the introduction of a new type of
armor, or (a UO-specific example) black dye tubs, as part of a seasonal
holiday event. These introduced ripples into the economy that are still seen
today--in the case of the black dye, still seen pretty strongly. Yes, a
moderately minor sort of effect, but an effect nonetheless.

Player-directed material that springs from the backplot but does not change
the world would be something like the Seekers of the Wisps. Fun for them,
but of no real lasting consequence in the game--it does not change gameplay
for the shard as a whole.

Player-directed material that does spring from the backplot and does affect
the world would be things like the Trinsic Rebellion, or the Temple of
Mondain. These things were and are causing significant effects in the
gameplay of the shards in question--localized, to be sure, but fairly
significant in that they affect the general atmosphere of the game in the
affected regions.

Player-directed material that does not spring from the backplot and does not
change the world is very very common. Countless themed dungeon crawls, small
taverns running roleplay stories, etc.

Player-directed material that does not spring from the backplot and does
change the world is often the most compelling to the players, it seems.
Attacks on Kazola's tavern. SiN demanding protection money. The SBR.
<---end quote

This arose, btw, from a Usenet discussion about whether the "backdrop" of
gnolls in a cave in EverQuest was "better" "storytelling" than various
events that took place in UO.

The reasons why I find this diagrammatic approach useful:

1) It's inclusive. Most times, people who discuss interactive storytelling
are fixated on a particular definition thereof.
2) It's not about the design structure of the storytelling proper, it's
about the types of stories that mud players in particular discover. To wit,
it addresses the fundamental questions about interactive storytelling, which
seem to me to be:

- who is the author? (better phrased as, is it a priori structure created by
the author, or is it a post facto structure imposed on non-linearly
structured events?)
- does consistency matter? (gets to the issue of authorial intent again)
- must it have consequence? (gets to a critical issue for muds in
particular. Does the world change as a result?)

My personal contention is that a well-done mud will have all of these eight
forms of story experience, and to ascribe primacy to one or another is to
express a (perfectly acceptable) design bias.

-Raph




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