[MUD-Dev] New laws. (was: Player Manipulation of Environment)

[Andrew Hefford]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt

> However in my opinion, telling an interactive story for each
> player with a different perspective is actually what the current
> technology does now (but from a story perspective, the story is
> often _very_ poorly written).  None the less, you are in fact able
> to pick up your logfile and read through it again.

> Things such as character development, sympathy or antipathy, can
> also be incoorperated in an interactive manner. Some examples have
> already been seen in f.inst. Planescape:Torment, where the same
> action can be done with different pretence;

>   Bluff: "I'm gonna kill ya if you don't tell me" Sincere: "I'm
>   gonna kill ya if you don't tell me"

> Such techniques could also be done to query the player for her
> characters development, thus influencing the storyline. This idea
> is not limited by working in a MUD.

> As for distance between events and audience. It is the job of the
> narrative to provide the distance that is needed. You can easily
> fail in a narrative because you do not provide that distance (say;
> elucidate why a certain event is important for the
> player/audience/character). I do not agree that the players _need_
> to be 'living' the game through their characters. Its an option,
> but not a demand.

> There is also no problem in incoorperating information about
> events that the player/audience/character would 'naturally' not
> have access to, like say explain that;

>   "Since you yesterday convinced the guard not to show up for
>   duty, he has now indeed not shown up and the entrance is left
>   unguarded"

I like it.  It might though be less jarring to the player if we used
the game pieces to inform them of state changes within the rest of
the world.  For example, you could have the guard actually bump
(coincidentally) into our player on the street or in a bar.  If the
player has been out of the game for some time then I see nothing
wrong with the players character passing a note to the player,
noting the fact that the Guard is no longer at his post, perhaps
even optionally starting the player at a location ready to act on
this information - or give the player the option to choose.   
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