[MUD-Dev] Consistent Characters (Was Remote client connection)

[Travis Casey]

On Friday, November 17, 2000, Marian Griffith wrote:
>> Travis Casey replied:

>> > How do you know it's out of character?  Are all paladins the same?
>> > Can paladins not be mistaken?  What if I want to play a fallen
>> > paladin, and am in the process of having him fall?  What if I want to
>> > play a flawed paladin -- a good man with a bad temper?  Simply by
>> > leaving off the "attack" option, you're both giving me information
>> > that I might not have had (that this is someone I'm not supposed to
>> > attack) *and* restricting the kinds of characters I can play.

> You would put restrictions  on what a character can do  if it is  either
> physically impossible for them (obviously) or if you, as a world-builder
> want to keep the players  true-to-type.  Paladins are supposed to be the
> champions  of their god,  and will have no desire  to do something wrong
> (ideally, that is). While some players will see the challenge in playing
> the paladin in character,  others will merely see a "cool" set of abili-
> ties.  To prevent dilution of the meaning of the term paladin  you might
> want to restrict the abilities of that class, if that matters to you, as
> a game designer.  There are of course other ways to achieve the same end
> result, but all take away freedom of the players one way or another,

*Sigh*.  Well, when I saw that this five-month-old post had somehow
gotten reposted last week, I decided to ignore it and hope that
everyone else would notice it was old, rather than reply to it again.
Looks like I was too optimistic.  :-)

To repeat what I said then, I never said, nor meant to imply, that
actions should not have consequences.  If a standard D&D-type paladin
is being played as a nasty person, then that character should suffer
the in-game consequences -- potential loss of paladin status, possibly
having to repent and quest to regain that status, etc.

The problems I have with the original idea -- that of simply presenting
a menu to players that gives the actions that are "in alignment" -- is
that it does two things that I see as being very bad for roleplaying:

 - Firstly, it gives the players information their characters may not
   have.  What if, say, a paladin is asked by villagers to stop a band
   of orcs that the villagers believe have been marauding them?  Such
   a case is a good roleplaying test for a paladin -- will the player
   go after the orcs merely on the villagers' say-so, without stopping
   to think that maybe the villagers are evil and want to get rid of
   innocent orcs?  If the paladin isn't given the choice to attack
   "good" aligned people and creatures, this scenario becomes
   impossible, because the player will know something is up the
   instant he/she sees that there's no "attack" option listed for the
   orcs.

 - Secondly, it prevents the playing of certain types of characters.
   Flawed heroes are a staple of the fantasy genre, and so is the
   theme of the fall and redemption.  Personally, I wouldn't apply the
   label "roleplaying game" to any game that doesn't allow you to
   roleplay such things.

What it boils down to, to me, is restricting behavior through
consequences in the game world, or restricting it through arbitrary
means outside the game world.  I don't like to have the latter in a
roleplaying game.  If you're more interested in running an adventure
game or what's essentially a fantasy-themed chat area, such
restrictions might work fine for you; but for me, they don't work.
   
--
       |\      _,,,---,,_    Travis S. Casey  <efindel at earthlink.net>
 ZZzz  /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_   No one agrees with me.  Not even me.
      |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-'
     '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)      


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