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

[Travis Casey]

Friday, February 08, 2002, 5:37:57 PM, Matt Mihaly wrote:
> 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.

No, he's not.  There's no poison there for him to pick up.  There may
not even be any liquid in the cup the actor picks up.  The *character*
is picking up poison and drinking it.  The *actor* is picking up a
cup, and may be drinking something else, or may just be miming
drinking.

For that matter, a scene can easily take place "off-stage" in a play
-- in which case something can be done by the *character*, while the
actor never even pretends to do it.

>> 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.

I've already talked about this point in another post; to summarize,
though, characters can know things that their players, or their
actors, don't.  The character can know these things through game
mechanics (e.g., "roll your 'Area Knowledge' skill to see if you know
where the inn is"), through GM intervention (GM: "You remember having
been an apprentice with that man years ago.  Here's what you know
about him..."), or in other ways.

>> 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.

He didn't open a chest, though.  There's not even a chest in the room
where he is.


There are several things that should make the fact that characters are
different from players obvious:

 - A character doesn't know everything its player does.  I've played
   characters who don't know anything about modern technology -- and
   even played them in a modern setting.

 - A character can know things its player doesn't know.  See
   examples above.

 - A character can do things that its player can't -- for example, I
   can't cast a fireball spell, lift five hundred pounds over my head,
   or run a mile in thirty seconds -- but I've played characters who
   could do those things.

 - A player may be able to do things that his/her character can't --
   for example, a player who can speak can play a character who is
   mute.  (And a good friend of mine did just that in a campaign.)
 
 - A single character can be played by different players at different
   times.

 - A single player can play multiple characters -- either at different
   times, or simultaneously.

Do you believe these things to be false?

--
Travis Casey
efindel at earthlink.net
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