[MUD-Dev] SOC Roll play vs. Role play

[Christopher Allen]

Matthew Rick wrote:

>  2. What, precisely, is the draw of a game with no rules (as I
>  perceive mush/moo style games to be, if this is not the case,
>  feel free to jump all over this and make me look like a fool, I
>  don't mind, I'm used to it)?

I'm not an expert on mushes, but in my research for Castle Marrach,
I found most MUSHes/MOOs. do have have quite extenstive an elaborate
rules. They just tend to be more socially administrated.

If you choose not to understand and play to these social rules,
including learning how to loose, people will ignore your roleplaying
and drive you from the game. If you fight Corwin on an Amber-themed
MUSH, and don't gracefully loose, you will not be popular.

In some MUSHes/MOOs you have to be 'combat registered', i.e. prove
that you know how to roleplay combat, before you are allowed to play
out a combat: http://moria.elendor.net/newbie/info.htm

Many games have very very simplified combat rules to help simplify
this. See http://junior.apk.net/~blob/sc/Combat.html for use of a
combat judge.

On many MUSHes/MOOs you are given a number of very simple stats, and
when you compete, you compare stats using whispers, and if you don't
overcome your opponent (i.e. he has swordsmanship 5 and you have
swordmanship 4), you have to roleplay to loose. Some games even have
some simple verbs to assist in this comparison process, for instance
+skillcheck http://www.swwfm.net/combat.htm

What this means is that thse stats are controlled by the senior
people in the game -- either through some type of character
generation process, or a process of applying for "cast roles" such
as "cameo", "feature", "supporting", "feature", "lead" or "victim"
in the case of many themed mushes
http://rfc.mushpark.com/chargen_files.html#roles , or through some
type of social approval process
http://www.cryptmush.com/oldcrypt/character.html .

Castle Marrach is a weird combination of MUSH/MOO and MUD -- the
style is consensual, but once agreed upon, the conflict is often
handled by an elaborate rules system. For instance, see the thread
on how dueling works
http://www.kanga.nu/archives/MUD-Dev-L/2002Q3/msg00257.php or take a
look at the game manual
http://www.skotos.net/games/marrach/CMPBv21web.pdf .

In Marrach advancement is social, but performed mechanically by an
in-game system. Skills are ranked from 1-10 -- advancement is
entirely social -- you must find a tutor, better then yourself, and
persuade them to teach you. To gain one rank requires from 1-20
lessons (random), each a minimum of a 24 minutes and at least 23
hours between unsuccessful attempts. If you are successfull, you
must wait at least a week to "absorb" your learning before you can
start learning another rank again (presuming your teacher will teach
you). This means that you have to be fun to play with because for a
teacher to take you under his week to bring you from novice 2 to
master 8 might take up to a year of regular role playing.

One of the failings of many a game designer is to think that the
bartle "socializer" doesn't want advancement. They do, they just
want to gain it through their social skills.

-- Christopher Allen

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