[MUD-Dev] Roleplaying in Muds

[rayzam]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Josh Anderson" <joshua18 at home.com>
To: <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Sent: Monday, July 24, 2000 6:38 PM
Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] Roleplaying in Muds


> On Mon, July 24, 2000 Erik Jarvi wrote:
>
> > My point is sometimes I don't want to role play. I want to chit-chat
about
> > something in the real world with other players in the game.
>
> I'm probably the only one left, but I'm still a big proponent of the 'muds
> are for mudding, chat rooms/ICQ/AIM/whatever for chatting' concept that
(as
> a newcomer to the list) I'm sure has been brought up before.  I don't run
a
> mud so that people can talk about football or movies.  IMO nothing hurts
RP
> more than OOC talking about things like game mechanics or levels,
especially
> over a public channel.  Maybe that's just me.
>
> Josh Anderson


    We had this become an issue before. Yes, OOC talking just about anything
does interfere with RP, even in a place that doesn't require RP. In an
almost ironic twist, having channels and newsgroups for OOC use has
increased the level of RP. That is, we have a 'chat' channel, for anything
not game related. And a 'mentor' channel for asking game-related questions
[either IC or OOC]. This freed up the main channels for more IC commentary.

    And for in-game newsgroups, we added an RP [roleplaying] newsgroup. This
is the largest extent of rping in the game currently. Players form their
parties, solve their quests/slay their enemies, or whatnot. Then many spend
quite some time novelizing the encounter. This way everyone can enjoy the
experience. Without a strong bardic/minstrel element in the game to speak of
deeds done and quests accomplished, the rewards for RP [in our lpmud at
least], are lessened. But having these deeds novelized makes a huge
difference. And hence, some players are keying more into an RP frame of mind
in general, because they want a better story to tell later.

    Playing in the game makes a group of friends. The friends often want to
talk more than just IC. And that goes stronger for a sense of community in
the place. So the approach we've taken is to make it easy to separate IC and
OOC, and (hopefully) have the fun of RP spread itself like a virus :)

    Rayzam
    www.retromud.org






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