[MUD-Dev2] [DESIGN] What is a game? (again) was:[Excellent commentary on Vanguard's diplomacy system]

[Caliban Darklock]

On 4/9/07, Hideto Koudanshi <teleute at vex.net> wrote:
>
> My question in this whole debate, especially involving Caliban, is do
> you see players as commodities? Are players units of measurement?

I think you've very badly missed the point of my definitions.

Without the players, there is no game. There are no toys. Regardless
of how great the systems you've built happen to be, they cannot be a
game if there are no players. And what makes them a game is not what
you've built, but what the players agree to do with them.

Fundamentally, you're not in charge of the game you build. The players
are in charge of it. Your job, in constructing the systems they use to
play, is to make a system where it is easy to have fun with others -
but hard to ruin other people's fun. And that's a difficult challenge.

> I was not to run around trying to make the PLAYERS unhappy, though
> I could poke a stick in CHARACTERS' eyes as often as I wanted, if it
> served a game purpose.

That's where consensus comes in. On an RP MUD, there is a consensus
that you will play under certain rules. You can go up and pose:

   "Hideto pokes Caliban in the eye with a stick."

That's fine. However, in most RP games, you CANNOT pose:

   "Hideto jams a stick into Caliban's eye, popping it like an
overripe kumquat."

You can't have any actual permanent effect. You can bounce ideas off
each other and play little let's-pretend scenarios, but nothing really
happens unless you agree to it. It's like an extended soap opera or
sitcom - there can't really be any serious character development.

> why do you care that we're not
> killing, farming, making potions, or otherwise using game mechanics in a
> thematic way?

I don't. Indeed, I can't. As a game developer, I don't get to tell you
how to play. I just build a framework. What actually makes it into a
game is the people, and the consensus they build. It's like HTML and
CSS; people are constantly frustrated and confused about this whole
"user agent" idea. What do you MEAN the user agent doesn't have to do
what I tell it? How can it be compliant with the standard if it
doesn't do what the standard says? Well, because it's required to
*understand* what you tell it. But you can't force it to do what you
want.