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

[Matt Mihaly]

On Thu, 7 Feb 2002, Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:
> From: "Matt Mihaly" <the_logos at achaea.com>
 
>> Characters don't have the capability to know someone else. I can
>> get to know things about Bill's character, but my character
>> can't.
 
> I see you don't actually grok roleplaying.
 
> If I'm playing Romeo in a production of Romeo and Juliet, at the
> end of the play I the actor know that Juliet is not really dead
> and will awaken shortly. I the *character*, however, do not know
> this and will take the poison out of grief.

The character isn't picking up the poison and drinking it. You are,
while pretending to be the character.
 
> That's the difference between what *I* know and what my
> *character* knows.  Sure, I may want Romeo to hesitate just a few
> minutes longer so Juliet can wake up and stop him and the two of
> them can run off and frolic in the meadows of jolly olde England
> and live happily ever after, but what I want doesn't enter into
> it. It's what Romeo knows and what Romeo would do that matter, and
> -- knowing what he thinks he knows -- Romeo would take the poison.

No, you don't want Romeo to hesitate, or at least, the sum of your
wants is not that. What you want is to play Romeo faithfully to your
idea of what the character Romeo should be, so you do. Romeo doesn't
know anything. Only you do.
 
> When roleplaying, you must make the same choices your character
> would make in light of *his* knowledge... not yours. *I* may know
> the chest is trapped and will explode when I open it, but an
> impulsive and greedy character will probably not even stop to
> think about it. If I'm playing that character "correctly", chances
> are he's about to die in a chest explosion.

That you were pretending to be someone else when you opened the
chest doesn't change the fact that you opened the chest.

--matt

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