[MUD-Dev] Maintaining fiction.

[John Buehler]

Trump writes:

> Fake death is a fiction breaker.  The most important reason to want
> to have perma death is to keep the all important fiction alive (We
> are talking about RPGs here right?)  I guess you really need to
> decide early on how important RP is to your game.  Most games which
> profess to be RPGs are really just adventure games(AG) in a fantasy
> setting.

Having a character appear with all the knowledge of a different
character is also a fiction breaker.  Ultimately, fiction will be
broken unless any given player gets exactly one character in a given
virtual world.  Having said that, I'll certainly agree that frequent
character 'death' discourages the suspending of disbelief on the part
of the player.

> When I played in college it was a RP game.  The paladin still wanted
> to slay the evil wizard and save the princess, but the thief just
> wanted to collect the loot so he could blow it on wine and women,
> while the cleric tried to convert convince him to give up his wicked
> ways and embrace relegion.  At both times D&D had elements of a RPG
> and an Adventure Game (AG), but the focus was totally different.

Remember that in paper and pencil games, anything can be done.
Further, the entire world revolves around the group's entertainment.
Such is not the case in a massively multiplayer game.  They are
competing for entertainment with all other players.  Further, the
world's operation continues while the group is away from the game,
which is not true in paper and pencil games.

> Bah, that example didnt come out as well as I had hoped, but I'm
> sure you all know how the fiction is broken.  Any attempt to
> actually roleplay is stifled and one is quickly forced into playing
> EQ as a flat AG or quitting altogether.

The example was just fine and it illustrates how poorly an arbitrary
scenario can be played out.  The game mechanics have to accomodate a
large number of players interacting, while still permitting them to
find entertainment in the game world.

When we talk about games with a large playerbase, we have to
acknowledge that not all of them will want to play the exact same game
in the exact same way.  The only way that I see massive games working
at all is when the inherent structure of the game environment ensures
that players *want* to play the same game, or to put in mechanisms in
the game to partition gameplay.  Those who want to play 'this' way can
do it, and those who want to play 'that' way can do it.  Many
partitioning schemes have been suggested, including geographic
divisions for the touchy topic of PvP.

When you want to have roleplaying in your world, you will have to make
the inherent structure of the game such that the players *want* to
roleplay.  You mention several things that should head in that
direction with statements such as 'hide the numbers'.  I vehemently
agree with that idea.

Now for a point that I don't agree with.

> In order to create a game that actually fosters RP you must start
> with the Devs.  Call them something else.  Many MUDs use Immortals -
> this works.  Now they cant talk about things like NPCs or the 'net.
> You must develop an in character to out of character dictionary.

I don't believe that this is the right way to go.  Consider the paper
and pencil setting: players physically colocated and talking freely,
but also playing a game where they have a character.  In that setting,
players freely talk about the real world whenever they feel like it,
but it's understood to be a player interaction.  Eventually, somebody
draws a line and says "Hey, let's play the game".  The purpose of
playing the game is to socialize, which is why players tend to
socialize in a number of ways during gameplay.  The game is the focus,
but side activity is common.

Where I'm going with this is that players need to be able to interact
with each other independently of their characters.  If I need to talk
to a gamemaster about my connection speed, I should be able to do so
without my character's lips moving.  This has been attempted in games
by using an 'out of character' chat channel, which is never used.

We don't have this kind of technology obviously, but the eventual goal
would be to have a player-controlled presentation of the players being
colocated.  This could range from having a multiplayer conference call
so that the player voices are colocated, all the way up to holographic
projections of the player's faces or even entire bodies presented in
the room with each player.  Ignoring the holographic stuff, the idea
would be that a player would be able to speak freely with the other
players, and by holding down a key as they speak it would mean that
they are speaking as their character.  Their character's lips would
move, words would float over the character's head, whatever.  The set
of characters that hear what my character says and the set of players
that hear what I say are completely disjoint.  I might be talking to
my buddies who are off wandering in another part of the world, while I
am using my character to interact with other characters in the game.

The point of all this is to acknowledge that players exist and that
they want to interact with each other.  The character to character
interaction is not the most important element of gameplay.

At this point, the important thing to retain is that the characters in
the game world should be maintaining the fiction of the game world at
all times.  If you need to talk to a support rep, YOU talk to the
support rep, not your character.  Support reps should not appear as
characters, such as is done with EverQuest.  No in-game manifestation
should be created.  If we want to have a real world person as a
manifestation, that's fine.

Don't blur the boundary between game and reality.  That boundary
exists and trying to blur it will only end in a result that a few
players will be content with.

> Obviously the first thing you need to do is make it relatively hard
> to die.  But this cuts both ways.  If you make it hard for players
> to die you must make it hard for NPCs to die or risk losing
> immersion.  So you need alternatives to death. Win/Lose scenarios
> that do not inculde someone dying.

Again, I agree with you, although I don't have as big a problem with
the NPCs dying a bit more easily than the player characters.

> Separating the player from the character by making it a
> possessed-host model you lighten the impact of that permenant death.
> You need only possess a new host.  The new host can come with an
> apporpriate selection of equipment and skills already developed so
> it's no big deal, but you still want there to be some fear of death.

This is a strange statement coming from someone who is advocating
roleplaying.  There shouldn't be an actual fear of death for a
roleplayer.  A roleplayer doesn't want his character to die because
his character doesn't want to die.  There's no need to have mechanisms
in the game to make the player fear his character's death.  Doing so
will skew the player behavior away from dangerous tasks, which are the
very adventurous activities that players are looking for from these
games.

My personal take on making death rare is to simply have the NPCs be
uninterested in killing those who are already incapacitated.  They
don't feel the need to jump up and down on those who are out of
action.  As you suggest, gain in the world shouldn't come by
extinguishing life.  The NPCs can have the same attitude.  But I agree
with your goal of making escape a viable avenue wherever possible.
Even when escape isn't possible, it isn't necessary that the player be
dead-dead.  Just incapacitated and forced to crawl away.  Constantly
running away from fights to avoid dying seems a bit undesireable.

> If you want to build a real Online Roleplaying game you need to
> build the tools and the backdrop that will allow the players to take
> on the roles they want.  If they are uncertain of what role they
> want you need to present them with suggestions... like participating
> in the backstory.  If they dont want to participate, the tools to
> allow them to do what they want should be there as well.

I agree.  The caveat is that the roles that you permit in your game
world must be able to coexist.  Having half your players playing sheep
and the other half playing wolves is going to end up being fun only
for the wolves.  Okay, some of the roleplaying sheep will enjoy it
too...

JB

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