[MUD-Dev] Re: Remote client connection (J C Lawrence)

[adam at treyarch.com]

On Fri, 23 Jun 2000, Dmitri Zagidulin wrote:
> J C Lawrence wrote:
> >I argue that one of the prime values in a MUD, and this is the thing
> >which elevats it in various essential fashions, is that the player
> >is continually confronted with the question, "What shall I do now?"
> >and there is nothing and nobody to tell him that answer but him.
> 
> Both sides of the debate agree that we're mostly in the business of
> _entertaining_ people (with some teaching/artistic expression/whatever on
> the side). When and how are players the best entertained?
> 
> The "game" camp argues that:
> 1. Excessively detailed simulations detract from the _game_, the
> entertainment aspect of it.
> 2. Time and effort spent on simulating well detracts from the time and
> effort spent on game design - plots, settings, game mechanics, etc.
> 3. Even when given enough details and freedom, most players don't
> entertain themselves that well - that's why they came to us in the first
> place.
> 
> The "simulation" camp maintains:
> 1. The players can play faster than we can design, and so outgrow games
> very quickly. Territories are exlored, puzzles are solved, foes are
> vanquished, UPS parcels delivered, etc, at lightning speed -- and then
> what?  In a multi-player world, continuously creating & updating a game to
> keep up with all (or most) of the players requires omniscience (since each 
> player plays a slightly different game for different reasons) and
> omnipotence.  Even then, players will explore & conquer what they feel
> like, completely miss the existence of the rest, and even go and decide
> that _they_ can make a better game out of your world doing their own thing
> - socializing, harassing newbies, stamp collecting, whatever.

Actually, I am becoming more and more aware that, at least in the mud world,
there is a position squarely between these two that is just as 'popular',
as it were, as the two themselves.  This "middle ground" is where I have
always found myself.  (I might note that we are ignoring the totally freeform,
RP, MUSH-style type of game here, because mechanics in that case are almost
irrelevant.)

The 'pure' game position that you describe is much like single-player adventure
games, and makes me think most of LP-style muds.  The designers lay down
stories, puzzles, and obstacles for the player to overcome and reach a
certain goal in a certain way.  There can certainly be a lot of freedom in
this style of game - the 'way' to achieve one goal might be to get past
an angry orc, and it's up to you to decide how to do that - but in the end
the goals are all laid down qutie explicitly by the game's creator(s).  I
think of LegendMUD as a prime example here.

Simulation tends to boil down to: lots of complicated formulas and numbers
which we hide from the players in hopes that they will forget about the numbers
and instead just poke and prod at the world and see what happens.  If your
mechanics and setting is good enough, players will "make their own fun".
Very few have successfully achieved the proper balance - I can think only of
DartMUD and Ultima Online right off the top of my head.  I believe the only
tabletop game which sucessfully managed to implement number hiding was
Cyberpunk.  A few PC strategy games (Master of Orion, X-Com) go here, although
they often expose at least some of their numbers.

The middle ground I refer to captures the freedom offered by simulations,
but without the number hiding.  Instead, it relies on simple, exposed
mechanisms which players can analyze in excruciating detail, if so desired.
I will tenatively title this a "rules game".  Esentially, the designer lays
down some VERY strict rules about how the game is played.  These rules are
mostly arbitrary: they are chosen to make a good game, not to make sense within
the setting.  These rules not only detail *how* things are done, but *why*.
In many cases this may lead to goals as rigid as the "guided game", above;
but not necessarily.  Expanding the game is frequently a matter of adding
new rules and especially "rule breakers", which generally cause players
infinite delight.

A prime example of this sort of game is chess.  The rules are very simple
(governing mainly the movement of the pieces), and can be taught to a child in
ten minutes.  There are a few simple goals: take your opponent's pieces, get
pawns to the other side of the board to get queens, and take your opponent's
king.  There are some rulebreakers: knights jumping over other pieces, taking
pawns in passing, castling.  There is no "simulation" of the setting here:
according to chess, knights are useful because they move eraticaly, religious
dignitaries and the king's wife are deadly warriors, and your castle towers can
move.  The setting is only to give the game flavor and make it easier for
humans to tell the pieces (and rules) apart.

Most P&P RP games fall at least partially in this category, with their combat
mechanics.  This also goes for almost all wargames. Mage 2 Mage probably
also qualifies.  Most of my favorite muds go here.

My favorite example is Magic: The Gathering.  Most would agree that the rules
are a terrible simulation of the setting.  The way that the creatures fight,
turns occur, and spells are cast are based on arbitrary rules that do little
to allow the player to imagine that they are a powerful sorcerer.  The
setting is all just window-dressing to make the game less dry.  The game itself
is fun because of the rigid, carefully-chosen rules which make it so.  There
are a *massive* number of rule-breaker cards; in fact, most of the good ones
are rulebreakers, which is, I think, largely what made the game so successful.
I think the lackluster response to many of the CCG's which attempted to
duplicate the sucess of MTG was directly related to the lack of rulebreaker
cards.

For me, the crux of what makes rule-based games so satisfying is the ability
to make relevant decisions with highly predictable outcomes.  In a guided
game, your decisions are largely a matter of "guess what the game designer
was thinking".  You try one thing, and it has no effect, so you try something
else, and so on, until you hit the right one.  It's the lock-and-key game: you
come to a locked door, so you go looking for the key.  When you find a key,
you bring it back to the door and see if it fits.  If it doesn't, you go
looking again.  Repeat ad naseum.

In a pure simulation, everything is more of a big soup of effects - a neural
net of causality.  Your decisions tend to be muddy ones, and the effects are
often delayed and hard to interpret.  In many ways it offers more depth for the
explorer type, because cause and effect is a much more subtle chain.  You
think, "This opponent is too fast for me.  Perhaps if I use a lighter weapon,
wear lighter armor, and get someone to cast a 'slowness' spell on my foe,
I will have a chance of defeating him."  But it is vague: you're not sure
*how* much faster, or what the exact reduction in weapon weight, or exactly
how many slowness spells need be cast in order for you to achieve the
desired effect.

The rule-based game, in contrast to both of these, offers clear-cut mechanics
that allow the players to make decisions which have precise and predictable
effects.  You think, "My ogre has an offensive power of 3 and a defensive power
of 4.  My opponent has a giant with an OP of 4 and a DP of 2.  Therefore they
will kill each other in combat, unless I use a shield spell on my ogre, which
will give him a point of DP, allowing him to survive the encounter while
still killing the giant."

Or, perhaps more familiar to GoP mudders, "I can wear the +1 strength bracelet
to gain a 17 strength, and wield a sword which is 3d8.  Or I can wear a +1 dam
bracelet and stick to my 3d7 weapon.  The first gives me an average damage of
12.5, and the second gives me an average damage of 13, so I'll go with that
option."

Obviously it doesn't need to be so numbers-oriented; my first example (chess)
proves this.  Nor does it need to be so "cheesey" - although systems like
D&D's hitroll/damroll/THAC0 fall squarely into the category of rule-based
games, I certainly don't advocate dragging this tired and boring system back
out of the closet.

But the player choices are discrete and predictable, and the workings of the
system are (mostly) exposed to all players.  Understanding the system and then
making it work for you be chosing combinations of elements that the designers
never intended can be intensely, directly, immediately satisfying.

Adam





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