[MUD-Dev] DESIGN: Role playing and Voice Chat

[Lydia Leong]

On Oct 16, 12:49am, Lachek Butalek wrote:

> This seems to imply that in a RP-heavy virtual world, one would be
> better off implementing a turn-based combat system that would give
> the players ample time to express themselves via a text-based
> interface, rather than spending time and energy implementing a
> voice chat system. After all, this is the reason combat can still
> retain RP in PnP games; the DM is unlikely to interrupt a player's
> description of how "the slice of his rapier makes a swooshing
> sound in the air " to announce "the bugbear just cut your head off
> as you stood there babbling". Most PnP rules I have read have a
> section for how to deal with different flows of time, but this
> useful tool has yet to be implemented well in any virtual world or
> computer-moderated game system I have seen.

Roleplay MUSHes that have coded combat systems (as opposed to just
basic resolution systems) do, in fact, implement a
non-time-sensitive, turn-based combat system. You describe your
action ("Joe leaps at Jim, aiming an uppercut squarely at his
jaw!"), enter the appropriate command into the system, the system
tells everyone what the result should be ("[system] Joe hits Jim for
8 points of damage.") and, usually by convention, the victim
describes the result ("Jim takes smack it on the chin and he
staggers, spitting teeth and blood.").

Combat can take nigh forever in such a scheme, but the objective is
very different -- to construct a satisfying narrative, in which a
fight happens to play a part, not to kill someone as quickly as
possible so you can run off to rack off more points elsewhere.


	-- Lydia
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev