"Advanced" use of virtual worlds? (Re: [MUD-Dev] MMORPGs & MUDs)

[Matt Mihaly]

On Sat, 2 Feb 2002, Jeff Cole wrote:
> From: Matt Mihaly
 
>> I maintain that roleplaying, by necessity, involves disconnecting
>> your actions from your emotions to some extent. That's not to say
>> that roleplayers feel no emotion. I have certainly gotten caught
>> up in the emotional rush of roleplaying before.

>> I never use accents when I roleplay, as I find them to be
>> pointlessly forced. They just remind me that the person is faking
>> whatever he or she is talking about, which I don't want to be
>> reminded of. I want to be presented with a persona that is, in
>> all respects, no different than me chatting OOCly with someone,
>> except that the person's viewpoints are skewed by whatever
>> character he is playing, and his knowledge is also limited by it.
 
> With all due respect, Matt, some roleplayer must have done you
> some sort of wrong at some point.

Not at all. I like roleplaying actually, but I treat it a bit
differently. I don't do the accent thing because that just reminds
people that it's fake. It's a big slap in the face, to me, that says
"Hey look, none of what I'm doing is actually me. I'm just
pretending." It cheapens the interaction with me. It's the
difference between having sex with a hooker, who is roleplaying and
pretending to have the emotions, and having sex with someone whose
emotions are genuine. The knowledge of the latter is very powerful
in terms of enjoying my interaction with the person.

> Roleplaying is a vehicle for expression.  Just because someone
> chooses to roleplay does not mean that their emotional investments
> or experiences are faked, filtered or otherwise fictional.

Well, say I'm playing a female character named Edith who is really
into crochet and is mortally offended by any mention of sex. I,
Matt, am not a female (I checked), not into crochet (Quilting
forever! Death to crochet.), and am not mortally offended by
anything.

So when someone mentions sex around me, and I'm roleplaying, I'm
trying as best as possible to act in a manner consistent with the
roleplaying. This requires me to run around acting in ways that have
nothing to do with Matt's emotional state of being, because Matt
isn't feeling any of the outrage that Edith is. It's all faked, and
from the point of view of someone who is playing WITH Edith, I would
generally prefer to know that I'm dealing with a person, not a
character. I want to know that the emotions are real, and that I'm
connecting with a real person, not an invented persona.
 
--matt

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