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

[Travis Casey]

Wednesday, March 07, 2001, 2:23:38 AM, Kevin Littlejohn <darius at bofh.net.au> wrote:
>>>> "John Buehler" wrote

>> Obviously a major point in why we disagree.  You're either not
>> concerned with moving the checks and balances of implications for
>> character actions far from reality, or you figure that the players
>> will be able to deal with that new balance point.  "They can deal
>> with dragons and magic, so why not characters that magically
>> discover secrets?"

> How do you deal with characters _not_ knowing things they could
> realistically be expected to - like the location of all the places
> nearby their home town, the toughness of most creatures, the names
> of all the people they've grown up with, the history and fabric of
> the world?

I try to give them access to as much information as possible, and
expect/hope that they will be mature enough roleplayers to try not to
use information their characters shouldn't have.  In a paper RPG, I'll
give them hints as GM -- e.g., "your home town is south, not north
from the goblin camp" or "Tucker's stream is a day's walk away -- you
probably ought to bring some camping gear along."

> This may be a hard point to make - but one of the most jarring
> points in starting a new game is stumbling into a stupid situation,
> getting completely worked over (either by being killed, or by
> flubbing a conversation with an NPC, or stumbling too far from town
> and getting lost, or whatever), and thinking "but my character would
> really have known that if they grew up here".

Yep.  There are a few ways around the problem... e.g., Skotos' Castle
Marrach has all the characters being awoken from a form of
hibernation, after which they've forgotten much of what they used to
know.  Unfortunately, there's no good way that's universally
applicable.

[snip a bit]

> Basically, until you can instill a player with all the knowledge
> they should have within the game as they start, the outside areas of
> knowledge gain (even down to strategy guides and similar) are a
> valuable offset.  I don't believe you'll find a way to solve that
> one for casual gamers - there's no way they're going to want to
> learn up your religion system, your politics, your world, before
> they play - and if they don't, they could easily gaff on these
> details, unless you make all those details devoid of
> application/meaning in your world.

That's only a problem, though, if you're aiming at casual gamers.  For
those of us here who are just hobbyists, requiring that all players
learn such things can actually be a way of filtering out players who
aren't willing to put forth the effort to roleplay in such a fashion.

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


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