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

[Travis Casey]

Friday, February 08, 2002, 6:13:50 PM, Matt Mihaly wrote:
> On Fri, 8 Feb 2002, Travis Casey wrote:
>> Thursday, February 07, 2002, 11:41:24 AM, Matt Mihaly wrote:

>>> But I don't think that's possible. 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.
 
>> Well, I think it is possible -- and I maintain that I've
>> experienced it many times over the last twenty years.  So I guess
>> we're at an impasse.  :-)

> Hmm, I don't think we are. I think we can settle this pretty easily
> too. If your character can know something, where is the data stored? 
> I maintain that it's stored in you and is thus part of you.

But it's not.  Data about my character is stored in many places; some
of it is in me, some of it is in my notebook, some of it is in my GM,
some of it is in the GM's notebook, some of it is in other players in
the game, some of it is in the character sheet, and so on.

If the only information about my character were in my head, then it
would be impossible for someone else to play my character -- but it's
not.

> When
> you, playing a character, are talking to me, playing a character,
> and we get to know each other, the information is being stored in
> us.

Yes, it is.  But it also exists as a part of our characters.  When
someone else plays my character for me because I can't make the D&D
game, my character doesn't suddenly stop knowing everyone it knew
before.  Indeed, when this happens, my character can meet and start to
know a character that I'm not even aware of the existence of at the
moment.

My character can also know things that I don't in other ways -- for
example, I've played in games where something like this would happen:

[the party has just met an NPC named Bubba]

GM:  Travis, Efindel [my character] already knows Bubba.  The two
     of you were apprentices together under Magister Boffo.

Me:  What do I [*] know about him?

GM:  Back when you knew him before, he was a quiet, reserved type.
     Kept to himself a lot.  The two of you were assigned to work
     together, though, so you got to know him fairly well.  He was
     a competent apprentice, a generally nice guy, and liked
     animals.  What was odd was that he had a strong interest in
     necromancy.  You remember that he used to stay at the workshop
     late at night, studying it.

Me:  Is that all?

GM:  That's the gist of it.  If you want to know anything specific,
     just ask me.  And if something comes up that reminds you of
     something about him, I'll tell you.

[game proceeds]

* - Here I'm saying "I" when I really should be saying "my character".
    A common thing for gamers to do, but it shouldn't be given any
    real significance beyond the fact that I'm identifying with my
    character.

Or, to give another example, from a different game:

GM:  Ok, you've all arrived in Hardby.  Since none of you know
     anyone here...

Craig:  Wait a second.  Doesn't Tharlak know anyone here?

GM:  I don't think so... Travis?

Me:  Not that I remember.

Craig:  I remember seeing in your character history that you
     served as an acolyte in the temple of Melana in Hardby for
     a couple of years.

[I flip through my notebook quickly.]

Me:  Ah, here it is... Tharlak was an acolyte there for three
     years, about fifteen years ago.

GM:  Ok.  You haven't kept in touch with anyone, but chances are good
     that someone will still be there who you know.  Do you want to
     go check it out?

Me:  Sure.

And, of course, there are also skill rolls and similar things.  I
can't draw a map of Efindel's home town of Tarnath, but Efindel can,
since he has a good "Area Knowledge: Tarnath" skill.  I don't know who
the current ruler of the elven kingdom in my old GM's campaign is, but
Efindel would, since he's still alive in that world.  And so on.

> Characters are ideas, and don't have data storage
> mechanisms. Avatars do, but characters and avatars aren't the same
> thing, and people don't roleplay avatars. They roleplay characters
> by using avatars (witness that many people play the character
> Gandalf, using many different avatars).

Characters do indeed have data storage mechanisms -- the memories of
people and notes on paper.  Further, I'd like to note that the
distinction between "character" and "avatar" that you're making is not
one that I recognize -- from my point of view, a character with a
different "avatar" is not the same character.  It is, at most, a new
character modeled after an existing character.  (Now, loosely, we may
speak of it as being "the same character".  However, that's no more
true than, say, saying that two different versions of an operating
system are "the same operating system".  They may have a lot of things
in common, but they are not *exactly* the same operating system.  We
just call them "the same" as a matter of convenience.)

Thus, from my point of view, there are many different characters named
Gandalf.  They all have points of similarity, but they are different
characters.

> So, I guess what I'm asking is simply, if your character knows
> something, where is that knowledge stored and by what mechanism does
> your character access it?

That knowledge is distributed in several places.  My character
accesses it through the meat-based computers that "run" my character
-- myself, other players, and the GM.


To go over into analogy for a second:  characters are roles in a game,
and are like roles in other situations.  Here at work, for example,
someone in a meeting might ask, "How will we set that up?" and someone
else might answer, "We'll ask Brian.  He's done it before for us."

They don't mean by that statement that Brian himself knows how to do
it.  It might be that one of the three people that work for Brian
knows how to do it.  It might be that someone who works in the same
group with Brian knows how to do it, and Brian can be used as a
contact point to reach that person.  Or it might be that Brian himself
can do it, but he'll have to look in a book that he has to get the
details of how to do it.

They're really not talking about Brian the person, but about a role
Brian plays.  Indeed, if the setting up requires special privileges
that went with a position Brian no longer has, or was done before by
Brian asking someone who worked with him but is no longer there, then
it's quite possible that Brian "used to be able to do it, but can't
any more".

In the same way, my character in a game is not just something I know
and can do -- it's a role I play.  Separate me from my notes about my
character, and I'll lose a lot of my character's knowledge.  Change my
character's stats -- my avatar, to use the terminology Matt used
above -- and what my character knows may change, even though *I*
haven't changed in any way.

--
Travis Casey
efindel at earthlink.net

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