[MUD-Dev] narrative

[Damion Schubert]

Brandon Van Every:

> I guess I'd have to show up on your MUD and see if we're comparing
> apples to apples for writing quality.  I'm not talking about
> Diablo II quests or FedEx quests.

Some random notes that relate to this thread:

  1) You can have staggeringly effective story participation by
  writing your stories and events in such a way that a _character_
  is not a protagonist or antagonist (a 'storytelling unit'), but
  rather a _guild_ is.  "The King has issued a call to arms, and the
  Rockshashas have responded!  The Chaos Factor stands in staunch
  opposition!  And the Knights that Say Nee have saved the day!"
  Just by shifting your mental framework that much, you create
  events that hundreds of people feel like they are part of the
  story, instead of a handful, and that newbies feel like they have
  a part in by association.

  2) Also, note that if you do the previously mentioned, that your
  events coordinator can often work together with the guildmasters
  to ensure that the event goes off in an interesting manner.

  3) The easiest way (and in my opinion, coolest way) to let players
  alter the world is to ensure that those who are victorious in your
  largest events are memorialized.  Whether it's statues in town
  square, inscriptions in trees or whatever, be sure that your Event
  Guy knows it's part of his job to leave a memento for others to
  come across and read.

  4) The average player could care less about random backstory that
  happened 300 billion years ago.  They are very fascinated by the
  victories of players and guilds that they recognize.  Have books
  dropped and NPCs speech reflect these guild victories.

  5) Large-scale stories are most certainly possible, so long as you
  don't expect to have 5000 carefully handwritten quests that are
  different for each player.  Most players won't care about them
  anyway.  Instead, have a long backstory that explains a change in
  the rule system (in game, on the website, whatever), and have that
  backstory explain a new player activity that fits into the old
  rule system (for example, orcs have been sighted near town - go
  kill them!  We need iron for the ore effort - go get it!  Dwarves
  now hate elves on sight - go do your duty!)

  6) Just doing number 5 will only make it seem like players are
  witnessing and tangentially touching history.  This is strikingly
  more significant than what they able to do before.  However, if
  you keep a tally of the progress in number 5 (for example, what
  guild gathered the most ore, what guild killed the most elves,
  etc), you can then have automated 'events' which you can reward
  guilds for with in-game memorials (see 1, 2, 3, 4).

--d

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