[MUD-Dev] Persistent Worlds

[Travis Casey]

Monday, February 19, 2001, 12:55:45 AM, John Buehler <johnbue at msn.com> wrote:
>> Travis Casey

>> I think a better way to put this is that a gameworld should be
>> "self-healing".  Backstory can be relevant to a game without
>> problems, but if there is no way to generate new challenges for
>> characters when old ones are overcome, or to continue the game if a
>> particular NPC or item is lost, then the game has not been
>> well-designed.

> I agree that the story must adapt as circumstances dictate.  I've
> suggested that there be story planners for game worlds who are
> responsible for this very thing.  To suggest that the game must
> adapt implies to me that the story can be affected by the players,
> but only to a certain extent.  If the players can actually control
> the story line (assassinate all the ambassadors), then we get into a
> case of the game company fighting to keep control of its own world.

Sorry -- I didn't mean to imply that.  There's two ways for the game
world to adapt.  The first is, as you say, to construct things so that
there are limits to how much the players can affect the story.  The
second is to think about different ways in which the story could be
derailed, and what *new* storylines might arise from those.

To give a concrete example, let's take the old "orcs in the hills"
setup.  You *could* set things up so that the players can't ever
completely wipe out the orcs -- e.g., using a "hidden population" of
orcs, from which the orcs will rebuild.

Alternatively, however, you could plan ahead by asking yourself --
what's going to happen if the players wipe out the orcs?  Is there
some other menace in the hills which the orcs have been keeping in
check?  Could someone else come along and decide that the orc caverns
look like a nice place to live now?  Without the orcs holding the
hills, will the local population expand into the hills, and if they
do, what changes in the local area will come about because of that?

The first method is relatively easy, but, IMHO, unsatisfying.  The
second method requires story planners (and ones who can fairly quickly
adapt, at that), but, again IMHO, would make for a more satisfying,
more real-feeling world.

> To return to the topic of backstory, however, I was attempting to
> point out that having backstory really isn't all that useful to
> players.  This is a bit like having documentation for software.
> Nobody reads the stuff, and software needs to be easy to use anyway,
> so why bother except with reference information?  I believe
> backstory fits the same mold.  Having a backstory written down is
> handy for those who like fiction, but it's pretty much a non-issue
> for the mainstream player, who just hops into the world and plays.
> In their case, only the bits and pieces of the world's activity that
> they witness or people tell them about will be of any interest at
> all.

Ok -- I see the point of disagreement now.  We're defining "backstory"
in two different ways.  To me, backstory is what happened before to
set up the current situation.  Any real-seeming world *has* to have
this sort of backstory to make any sense.  It need not be written out
in the form of a story -- indeed, I agree that it's generally better
not to do so.

So, for example, if the players come across a letter from Lord X to
Lady Y that indicates that they used to be secret lovers, but Lady Y
broke things off and *that's* why Lord X is out to get Lord Y, to me,
that's backstory.  It's just backstory that's revealed in the course
of the game, rather than as a story on a web page somewhere.

(In the same way, good movies, TV shows, and books tend to reveal
backstory in the course of what's happening rather than in long blocks
of exposition.  The old writer's adage is "show, don't tell".  Now,
the writer may have portions of the backstory written out somewhere,
but it doesn't have to be presented to the reader/viewer that way.)

I've just been re-reading Zelazny's _Chronicles of Amber_, so I'm
going to draw an example from there.  We're told that the protagonist,
Corwin, once ruled a land called Avalon.  We're shown, through the
reactions of others, that his reign there was probably quite harsh.
However, at no point are we actually given a flashback to Corwin's
days in Avalon, or the actual text of any legend or history of that
time to read -- everything we know about Corwin and Avalon comes from
a few comments by Corwin (the story is told in first person, from his
point of view) and what other characters say and do in the present.

Another example is Herbert's _Dune_.  There's a huge amount of
backstory there, but at no point are we simply given a large chunk of
text about, say, the Butlerian Jihad, the Bene Gesserit breeding
program, or even the Atriedes-Harkonnen feud.  Instead, almost
everything comes out through the thoughts, words, and actions of the
characters.  (There are the little chapter-leading quotes, but many of
them are foreshadowing instead of history, and none of them are long
-- most are no more than three or four sentences.)

That's what I'm talking about when I say "backstory" -- what's
happened before -- the story behind the story, if you will.  Nothing
requires that to be given to the players in the form of a story,
however.

--
       |\      _,,,---,,_    Travis S. Casey  <efindel at earthlink.net>
 ZZzz  /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_   No one agrees with me.  Not even me.
      |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-'
     '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)   


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