[MUD-Dev] Re: MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #165 - 14 msgs

[Tamzen Cannoy]

At 10:38 AM -0400 7/17/00, Dave Rickey wrote:
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Dr. Cat <cat at realtime.net>
>
>>
>>"Conflict" is interesting, though it's not the only thing that's
>>interesting to humans.  (Sex and food and music spring to mind).
>>However "combat" is a subset of "conflict", and "fatal combat" is a
>>subset of "combat".
>>
>>I think that games that have the forms of conflict so popular in soap
>>operas and romance novels may turn out to be quite popular, even if
>>they have little or no killing.  Already seen some of that kind of
>>interaction on some MUSHes, only it's all vampires and werewolves ending
>>up in soap-opera type situations rather than regular folks.
>>
>>You don't need to have people killing each other to have conflict.
>
>     Interesting....  I feel like we may be skirting the edges of a
>conceptual break here.  I have a hard time imagining "meaningful" conflict
>resolution that does not involve combat at some level.  I can grasp it in an
>intellectual sense, but it doesn't hold any interest for me.  The question
>then becomes, is it just me?

Maybe. :)

I play on Ambermush. Conflict there can be combat (extremely rarely 
fatal since this is pure RP and death is the end of your char) but 
it's just as likely to be political, or emotional or in general 
rather Machiavellian. There is something completely satisfying about 
taking a personal conflict and working for a long time to bring down 
the entire House of the other person, or setting them up to take a 
fall in some other manner.

Often combat is considered rather twinkish in consensually based RP 
since only the warpigs seem to enjoy it and there are usually 
non-combative casualties. (No one ever fights except in crowded 
places for the audience.)
--


Tamzen



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