[MUD-Dev] Re: MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #163 - 25 msgs

[Jeff Freeman]

>At 6:54 PM -0500 7/20/00, Raph Koster wrote:
>The logic was that in an RPG, the point is what skills reside on
>>your character, not your "self."

At 05:18 PM 7/20/00 -0700, Tamzen Cannoy wrote:
>I'm sorry, but a stupid person cannot convincingly play a genius. If 
>you don't got things like diplomacy and tact in RL, you aren't gonna 
>be a very convincing ambassador. Etc. You gotta work with what you 
>got.

'Difference between a MUD and an RPG, I think.  I've seen games that went
along the lines of:

Player:  I try to bribe the cop.
GM:  [ Rolls some dice, looks at the player's charisma score, or bribery
skill, or whatever ]  You succeed, and the cop lets you go.
Player:  Yay!

But I don't think MUDs typically have as much seperation of character and
self.  From what I've seen, its more common that a given player's character
is a "subset" of that player's "self", so to speak.  At most.

Particularly when the "cop" is another player, not controlled by the GM,
and doesn't know or care what your bribery skill is.

Likewise with the idea of having a tavernkeeping skill that's supposed to
lure people into your tavern.  If you're just talking about NPCs, okay.
It's doable.  Probably even preferable.

I guess in a pnp RPG with 8 players, you *would* just be talking about
NPCs.  But a MUD?

Eh.  I think it's just one of those situations where ya hear "A mud is an
RPG and therefore..." and you can stop listening before the sentence is
even finished.

I don't think MUDs are RPGs, and so shouldn't be treated as such, sort of
thing.

--
  http://home.swbell.net/skeptack/




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