FW: [MUD-Dev] Interesting EQ rant (very long quote)

[John Buehler]

Matt Mihaly writes:

> "Hey Paul!" says I. "The key to the Garden of the Holy Lemon Tree is
> buried under the statue of St. Meyer the Beloved. Say 'porkmelon' to
> make the statue move."
>
> Paul trundles off to the Garden and gravely utters the magic word
> 'porkmelon.'
>
> "Hmmmm." says Paul. "Porkmelon."
>
> Paul taps his foot impatiently.

> "PORKMELON!"

> (The statue continues to stand in the background, defiantly unmoved.)

[snip]

> Don't you see how silly that seems from an in-role perspective (which
> is the only reason to care really. If you're not concerned about role,
> then who cares how the character got the knowledge)?
>
> Now counter that with:
>
> I know how to kick you in the face.
>
> You want to know how you can kick people in the face.
>
> I could tell you, "Dude, raise your leg, point your knee at the filthy
> heretic's face, and rapidly finish the kick with your lower leg."
>
> But does that mean you know how to kick me in the face? No. Or rather,
> maybe you think you know, or maybe you do know, but if you can't do
> it, then you can't do it.

It's all about character knowledge versus player knowledge.

As I said in another post, the player doesn't get to know that the
password is "Porkmelon".  This is why I don't damage the suspension of
disbelief.  Paul's inclusion of the topic of character skills is the
perfect illustration of this point.  My character knows how to use
Kung Fu moves, but I, as a player, don't have a clue.  As you seem to
be supporting with your own example, if I the player know Kung Fu, it
doesn't do me any good in the game world because my character has to
learn the moves.  And it learns it from another character via in-game
mechanisms.  I cannot simply go to another player and find out how to
use Kung Fu.

This is the analagous situation with all character knowledge, be it
skills, recipes or passwords.  The information is kept in the game
context and is communicated in the game context.  I don't walk my
character up to another character and start talking about Kung Fu
moves, resulting in that character being able to do Kung Fu.  No more
than I'd walk my character up and talk about passwords and have that
other character know the password.  The use of 'say' is a player to
player communication mechanism.  The characters themselves don't
understand any of what is said.  The difference with 'say' is that it
is governed by game context rules - specificially, how far away a
character is from the speaking character.

JB


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