[MUD-Dev] Role-Playing Games Are Not Dead

[Lars Duening]

Koster, Raph wrote on Wednesday, November 21 2001, 21:19:00:

> But they [P&P RP games] are, and I will say it bluntly, CRAPPY
> MODELS FOR MUDS. I simply fail to understand why everyone regards
> the pen and paper model as the savior of mudding. And I have to
> conclude that it's people who want to do more tabletop RPGing than
> they get to.

The whole thread and this paragraph in particular brought to my mind
the development of movies as an art form.

In the beginning, movie makers just put their camera somewhere and
filmed whatever happened there. Movies were real life conserved,
nothing more.

It wasn't until one moviemaker started to play with the
possibilities of the technology, namely the ability to cut and paste
the film, that the real possibilities of movies could be
explored. By developing their own language, movies became less
realistic, but much more compelling in the result.

I think the same applies to the relation of P&P RPGs to Muds (and
also to the relation of real-life to realism in Muds): they are a
good for inspiration, but in the end Muds have to do things in their
own unique way in order to succeed. And like movies split up in
genres with their own conventions, there won't be just One Right Way
for Muds to handle things - big online worlds will work in a
slightly different way than smaller Muds.

--
Lars Duening; lars at bearnip.com
PGP Key: http://www.bearnip.com/lars/pgp-lars.asc

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