[enigma@zebedee]

Well my recent topic on muds with Optional Role Playing seemed to get quite a bit of interest so I thought it might be interesting to see just how many people on here really prefer the different styles.

[Crystal]

Since it's all about preference, Roleplaying Required for me.

[enigma@zebedee]

Yup all about preference.

An interesting thing to find out would be how the population who read/post here differs from Mudders at large.

i.e. Posters here I would expect for the most part to be experienced and/or enthusiastic mudders. Probably most are coders to some degree.

Unfortunately without a poll of everyone who doesn't have an account here (and that would be an interesting one to try and get any votes in! ) there is no way to tell.

Hmm. Isn't statistics fun when you can ponder all the questions and don't actually need to produce answers

[Spazmatic]

I think I'm fairly close to the target when I say that you'll find a lot more roleplayers (percentage-wise) here than in the mudding community at large. It may very well be that, while a hack'n'slash player can get by with limited contact with his/her surroundings (though many become very involved!, roleplayers must live and breathe the community, the administration, and so forth. Thus, they seem more likely to be involved in such a community site as TMS. I have no idea what level of discrepancy exists, but I'm fairly confident it leans in that direction.

Note, I'm all for roleplay required, which takes up 99% of my mudding time (the remainder being PK). Not to say non-roleplay or roleplay-encouraged are bad.

[John]

I wonder if it's because it's harder to build a sense of community when everyone is out to kill each other. Sure in RP muds everyone might be out to get each other, but that's ICly.

I imagine it'd be harder to seperate In-Game and Out-Of-Game in the same way in a PK H&S mud.

[Spazmatic]

On the other hand, look at it this way... RPIs versus hack'n'slash... In an RPI, no global channels. That's going to hurt the ease with which people join the community, and the ease of gossip and so forth. I'm not saying that RPIs are bad, I love RPIs, and I'm not saying that this is going to kill a community, since RPIs have such thriving communities. I'm just saying, if an RPI can do it without a global channel, hack'n'slash can do it, even if there's some friendly competition going on. After all, I can play soccer and not try to murder my opponent in his sleep, I think I can get along with some fellow mudders.

[enigma@zebedee]

Yeeh, it's always amusing at the regular IRL meets we hold to see pker and victim meeting for the first time.

Especially when the 6 foot bodybuilder discovers that his pride and joy fighter got creamed by a mage played by a skiny 4 foot tall nerd with glasses

Ok, stereotypes but you get the idea

We have never really had any problems though, a bit of friendly jibing is about all - although people have been known to get a bit 'excited' on the MUD and sometimes need to be asked to cool it down a bit.

[Sally]

See, I both Mud and Mush/Mux.

Usually I like to keep them separate. My vote was considering a Mud environment. A Mush, it's RP Required for me.

[Earthmother]

I love killing things, so HnS is all me, but I also love to be
a nice lil priestly type person, who wanders about helping
folks and doing what I think my Guild should do. I couldn't
handle RPI's, because I also feel the need to vent RL isses
from time to time over global channels. I enjoy my home
mud's encouragement of character intensely, and many of
the folks there seem to really get "into" their characters in
order to add to the atmosphere, but we're also fairly laid
back about OOC channel yap. In fact, we don't even use
the terms IC and OOC...scary, huh? Still, somehow, there is
a real sense of community and world around the Mud, and
the "encouraged" is pretty strong.

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by See, I both Mud and Mush/Mux. Usually I like to keep them separate

A curious perspective, considering that MUX is derived from MUSH which is a derivative of MUCK, which is a derivative of TinyMUD, which was inspired by MIST, which is derived from MUD.

It's a bit like saying you like to keep "vehicles" separate from Jaguar XJ220's.

MUCK, Merc, MUSH, ROM, LP, Aber...they are all muds.

[Wenlin]

Encouraged.

You're free to be OOC, and when you try and roleplay, you won't get funny looks.

[enigma@zebedee]

So it looks like most people (on here at least) are definately on the role-playing side.

Not surprising really - but interesting to see...

[Songsworn_Draconita]

I prefer (strongly! encouraged role-play, myself.

[Marynne]

The main reason I don't much care for Roleplay required is, quite honestly, I don't like being told how to RP... every MUD I have ever played where RP is required, rather then encouraged, there have been RP-Nazis who go about making fun of other people's roleplay, telling them they can't be a tall faerie, or a short elf, or this or that. Saying their ogre can't be smart, or their human can't act like he was raised by ogres. These kinds of people will always develop in any forum where they think they can force their RP on others, simply because RP is required. It is one thing to have to RP around someone wrapping their hands around your throat, quite another to RP around someone telling you you are the exact opposite of what you are. (If that makes any sense.) In realms where RP is simply encouraged, people can feel a little freer, and the RP-Nazis will be in less abundance, simply because it would be more difficult for them to get away with.


Nickie

[Jazuela]

Originally Posted by (Marynne @ April 07 2003,09:02) The main reason I don't much care for Roleplay required is, quite honestly, I don't like being told how to RP... every MUD I have ever played where RP is required, rather then encouraged, there have been RP-Nazis who go about making fun of other people's roleplay, telling them they can't be a tall faerie, or a short elf, or this or that. Saying their ogre can't be smart, or their human can't act like he was raised by ogres. These kinds of people will always develop in any forum where they think they can force their RP on others, simply because RP is required. It is one thing to have to RP around someone wrapping their hands around your throat, quite another to RP around someone telling you you are the exact opposite of what you are. (If that makes any sense.) In realms where RP is simply encouraged, people can feel a little freer, and the RP-Nazis will be in less abundance, simply because it would be more difficult for them to get away with. Nickie

I take great issue with bandying around the term RP-Nazi when used to describe people who roleplay in roleplay-enforced games. First of all the political implication of the word Nazi, which already presumes you have lost your arguement merely by bringing it up according to "someoneorother's law."

But also because in a roleplay-enforced game, you -are- expected to play a human AS a human, if the documentation of the game world precludes your ability to play him as a half-wolf or half-ogre or whatever.

If the game documentation specifies that humans are ALL born and raised into human communities, then there is no room for interpretation, and this limitation is intentional, and any detraction from it, is a distraction to the roleplaying environment.

If faeries don't exist as a race in a RP-enforced environment, then people who tell you that you're RPing your "faerie human" WRONG, are- right. And not simply "RP-Nazis." You do not have the right to show up in a game and change its rules to suit your own selfish desires.

Just as I would never go to a "No RP allowed" game and try and roleplay, you shouldn't go to a "this is the way the world IS" kind of game and try and do something other than what is available to you given the documentation.

That doesn't make us RP-Nazis. It makes us people who want to preserve the game world in the game we're playing. It also makes you someone who doesn't respect the game world we are trying to preserve.

[Alaire]

Limitations in rp are incredibly valuable when set in order to create certain dynamics in the game world.   While you might want to play a smart ogre, if the documentation provided for the game suggests that such a thing does not exist, that bit of knowledge is there for more reasons than 'trying to keep the ogres down, man!'.

While these rp rules may be considered limiting, in reality they open up a broad spectrum of rp possibilities.  Dynamics within races, between classes, families, or any number of other distinctions create an automatic rp scenario that has already been developed within the context of the game world and that world's history.  It keeps that world's theme consistant, rather than a blubbering mess of random thoughts, making rp more in depth and satisfying for those who prefer high-level rp.

And I'm not a nazi.  Thank you. :b

[Spazmatic]

At times, I get these urges to play something really cool (or so I think at the time), but no, it's not allowed! The thing is, when that urge passes (and it almost always seems to for things truly forbidden), it makes sense that it was not allowed. The concept of a semi-intelligent ogre may not be out of the question, but Niels Bonk the ogre physicist may be genetically impossible. And, no matter what the explanation, Bonk's model of the atom could be completely out of place, shattering any consistency the world may have.

If people are randomly coming up to you and saying, "You can't do this, you can't do that" without any support, any reason, any rules/administrative decisions to back them up, that's not right. But, from how I read your post, you're more at odds with the fact that RP enforced worlds have detailed regulations to the impossibilities within that world. Yet, it is precisely those regulations that make the world so infinitely malleable. Forever in a nutshell, essentially, since the rules give you a world and ideas which you can actually mold, rather than running amuck in a childish make-believe session (not to say RP-encouraged is childish, but RP-encouraged without some semblance of world is certainly, just as RP-enforced without a semblance of world is so as well).

I wouldn't want to roleplay with someone who played a half-ogre, half-wolf, half-superman character (and the math is on purpose). Is it a stretch that, in a world where ogres were bred by sorcerors to be menial laborers and were thus granted eensy weensy brains, I would not want to roleplay with a "smart" ogre that defied all sanity? Consistency.

These worlds have rules for a reason. Without them, the world becomes inconsistent, and there is no backdrop. It becomes chidlren's play time set in a virtually nonexistant world. If I wanted that, I would go to a daycare.

[Jazuela]

Don't insult daycares. In fact, let's USE daycare as a real-world analogy and perhaps the nay-sayers will see the point.

In a daycare, there are very strict rules. No hitting, no biting, no pooping on the rug. There are consequences for violations of these rules, some of which are severe. A continual disruptor, who hits, bites, -and- poops on the rug regularly will eventually be returned to the parent and told not to bother bringing the child back next week.

In daycare, nap time means nap time. It doesn't mean wander off into the hallway, it doesn't mean throw the toys from the bin across the room, it doesn't mean pretend your neighbor is the Roadrunner and your bendy-straw is the Acme Pea-Shooter.

In daycare, there are TONS of things you can do to have fun, most of which are designed to teach you socialization skills (assuming it's a properly-run daycare, anyway). There are also TONS of things you cannot do, most of which are designed to promote a sense of civility and personal responsibility.

Just as in a RP-enforced environment, there are boundaries beyond which you cannot go. If the world is set up coherently and logically, then these boundaries exist for a reason. Violations of these boundaries by the players are akin to hitting, biting, and pooping on the rug.

If you want to hit, bite, and poop on a rug, play a game that doesn't care about boundaries. If you want to "play well with others" and get high marks for "sharing," then delve deep into the RP world. That's what it's for.

[Sanvean]

Unless you want to roleplay pooping on the rug, in which case you might want to try DayCareMUD.

But seriously...

I hit this a lot of times. People submit characters that either show they have no clue what our world is like, or that go against the guidelines. Examples of the first: the indigo-eyed Drow elf (we have no Drow); the beautiful human cyborg (we do not have a tech level capable of supporting cyborgs, who would be immediately killed for the metal in their bodies) or the red-bearded pirate king (our world consists of deserts). Sometimes they've simply missed a point in the docs, such as the hairy-browed dwarf (dwarves on Zalanthas have no hair) and I'm glad to work with those folk - but if someone hasn't taken the time to skim our intro page and realize there's no seas in the world, it's frustrating because they'll produce a concept that takes a lot of work to adjust to our setting - and often will react indignantly to being told that it won't work.

People going against the guidelines is a little greyer - but over the decade we've been around, the discussion's been raised multiple times. Elves don't ride, for example, on Zalanthas - long-legged desert runners that they are, they see it as shameful, an admission of weakness, to resort to a mount. But every once in a while we get someone who insists that his or her elf has a compelling reason to be the only elf in the world that rides a kank. Among the problems this presents is that it perpetuates itself - a new player sees the riding elf and does the same with their next elvish character - and when asked to stop, reacts with "But I saw character Blah doing it!"

I think it's more interesting to play within the guidelines than t try to rewrite them to suit yourself - but then again, as an administrator, I've got a vested interest in saying that. But one of the things that makes the mud rich in texture and story, in my opinion, are those guidelines and the consistency of play they create. Is the character concept that strays outside them so compelling that it justifies breaking the feel of the world? I've yet to see one that (again, in my opinion) does, but I'm also willing to admit one might exist.