[MUD-Dev] RE: Storied Games

[Lee Sheldon]

-----Original Message-----
From: John W. Pierce

>> We really need to get away from novels and short stories as our
>> models for how stories develop, and focus more on drama
>> (including here TV and film).  These are visual media.  Games are
>> visual media.

> This is true of purely text-based MUDs, also. When I started the
> Marches of Antan ten or eleven years ago, one of the things I
> tried to impress on builders was that their writing needed to
> emulate radio drama rather than books. It wasn't until one of them
> told me they'd gotten a tape of some show from the library that I
> realized most of them weren't old enough to have heard radio
> drama.

Heh, I have a shelf full of the tapes of old radio dramas, mostly
mysteries.  Radio Spirits has tons of them for sale these days.  I
love 'em.  And for text MUDs they're a great example of how to keep
the exposition to a minimum, yet still tell the story; and keep the
description to a minimum, and still set the scene.  For any MUD
writer/designer who needs some insight into keeping things concise
I'd heartily recommend radio dramas, as well as Charles Dickens.
Dickens of course can be an inspiration for a number of storytelling
areas we're curently discussing.  Last year at my GDC tutorial I
focused on Cervantes.  This year it will be Dickens.

Lee

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