[MUD-Dev] RE: Storied Games

[Matt Mihaly]

On Thu, 6 Dec 2001 amanda at alfar.com wrote:
> Matt Mihaly <the_logos at achaea.com> wrote:
 
>> My quote above was in the context of admin-led/written stories,
>> not player-stories. Either way, however, I agree, However, most
>> people cannot tell stories that are engaging to the people
>> listening.
 
> I'm not sure I'd agree.
 
> However, in the context of admin-led/written stories... If the
> stories that are provided aren't engaging enough, people *will*
> write their own.  In many cases, these will be very simple stories
> like "First on server!" (by now a cliche for AC quest
> introductions) or the ubiquitous "u suxx0r!"

Well, I didn't say they wouldn't tell stories. I said they are
cgenerally crap at it. The above two examples only support that
assertation.
 
> But if the only way players can affect the world is killing things
> and earning xp and loot, the game will select for that behavior.
> If, as a designer, someone wants players to do things besides kill
> stuff, the ability to tell those other sorts of story needs to be
> available within the game.  Even AC, which I agree does have
> excellent writing compared to most games, runs the story as a
> performance for players to watch, not a milieu in which they can
> act.  And this (as I noted earlier) is a break from PnP RPGs,
> where the GM can react and modify the game in real time in
> response to player actions.

Well, it's not as if there is anything inherent about the MUD medium
that prevents GMs from doing exactly that. That's how we run
stories, for instance. There has to be room to take into account
what the players are up to, or you may as well go write a linear
book. The big graphical MUDs so far just seem to have ignored this
fact, or found the challenge of implementing the systems to be too
difficult/expensive.

--matt 



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