[MUD-Dev] Maintaining fiction.

[Matt Mihaly]

On Fri, 8 Jun 2001, Madman Across the Water wrote:
> Matt Mihaly wrote:
  
> I tend to agree with Jeff's. Permadeath is permanent loss of the
> character. The character is what you always have when you are
> logged in.  You can take off your equipment and it doesn't change
> your character. So that isn't part of your character. Your
> character is your avatar and its skills, flags, total skill
> points/XP earned, etc.

But all those things change, just like my equipment.

You know what's interesting about this is that it boils down to a
very basic question in philosophy: What am I? Think of trying to
define what a river is, precisely. Is a river the course through
which the water flows? Is it the process of water flowing? You can't
point to water and say "that's a river" because that bit of water
will soon be replaced by another bit of water. Yet we still think of
the river as a whole.

People and characters work similarly. I don't think it's really
completely honest to say that I am the same person I was 10 years
ago, or even when I started this e-mail. Makes the permadeath
question a lot more difficult to answer when you are forced to
consider this.


--matt

_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev