I know Armageddon mud has the boards posted around several cities and I know of a couple of other RP enforced games that do as well.

1)What I want to know is if the Imms of these games find the boards useful and if so for what things do they find them useful for?

2)Also I would like to know if boards are ever abused and how one would deal with that issue as well?

3)Oh and in your opinion do message/rumour boards replace Bards?

4) Can they be useful in enhancing roleplaying?

Thanks! I am having an argument with another player about them so I want to get some Imm input before I have to either apologize for being wrong *sighs sadly* or get to *grins evily* ask for an apology.

Cheers,
Psektos aka Cawaell aka "The Loon"

Boards can be great for RP, and an OOC board is also important to have.

The OOC board is, of course, for announcements and game-related issues.

But ICly, lets say there's a bounty on someone's head and the king wants to advertise this. He sends his knights to post his name on all the boards.

Or if someone's lost something ICly, and wants people's help.

Or if a show is coming to town and wants to advertise...

Or any other IC matter that people want everyone to know! What, they didn't have boards in medieval times?

1)What I want to know is if the Imms of these games find the boards useful and if so for what things do they find them useful for?

I'm not an IMM. From a player's perspective though they're very useful. The general populace of Arm is illiterate. All part of the oppression thing. These boards are meant to be things your character would have overheard in passing (or announced loudly by a town crier or agent of the Templarate etc. etc. etc.)..it's to let people know the kinds of things they -would- have overheard in passing. Things like - a vile magicker casting some evil spell on a noble's aide in the middle of the upscale bar. Or the city's primary rental agent announcing that the new apartment building is now available for occupancy. Or a new law passed by the Templarate that all mounts in the city must be branded with Tektolnes' symbol on their butts. Or even...a few hushed whispers mingled with snickers and giggles about how the Chosen Lord of the noble house was seen in a compromising position with a desert elf in the middle of Main Street.


2)Also I would like to know if boards are ever abused and how one would deal with that issue as well?

Yes it can be abused, though usually the abuse is unintentional. New players might overlook the fact that it's meant to be a "gossip" thing - verbal, not written. And they might post the post as though it was meant to be read, not overheard. Sometimes the difference is subtle, sometimes blaringly obvious. There are other instances of "abuse" as well, but the staff is pretty good at deleting posts as needed. A simple "wish" to the staff is usually enough.

3)Oh and in your opinion do message/rumour boards replace Bards?

Not in Arm. Bards aren't town criers. They're storytellers. A post on the rumor board will only be 1-3 paragraphs long in most cases. A bard can take a single sentence and turn it into 30 real-life minutes of entertainment.

4) Can they be useful in enhancing roleplaying?

Absolutely, no doubt about it. If my character the southern spy for Tek's Templars heads north and sits quietly in the local dive, she -would- get to overhear the local dirt. Even if there aren't any PCs around at that time of day to talk about it, there are NPCs and virtual people coming in and out at all hours of the day. Eventually she'd hear -something- interesting to report back to her boss in Allanak. This gives the spy the opportunity.

The rumor boards are meant to carry the messages (in most cases) of the virtual population of the world, since only PCs and IMM-animated NPCs are capable of it otherwise. We get to "feel" just that little bit more, like there are other people populating the world our characters live in - even if what they're gossiping about isn't anything we care about. And when it is something we care about. so much the better!

Another solution would be to actually have NPCs spread rumours, to keep it a bit more immersive. I'd be surprised if it hasn't been done before actually. You could 'seed' a couple NPCs with rumours and then let the rumours as NPCs come into contact with each other or whatnot.

The real difficulty there, though, is dialect. If a rumour is spreading that the Occultists are plotting a new ritual and that rumour is something like, "Hey, I heard the Occultists are plotting a new ritual," what do you do about NPCs that typically speak in dialects or 'accents', whether it be piratey (Arrr, matey, them landlubber Occultists be plottin' another dastardly ritual) or whatever.

--matt

The simple solution is indirect dialogue.

A filthy pirate strikes up a conversation, and tells you about a new Ritual the Occultists are plotting.

Yeah, that's probably better than the boards in terms of immersiveness, but it's still a bit immersion-breaking because you're breaking the wall between character and player (ie you're speaking to the player, not the character).

--matt

They have talking NPCs also. One of them's kinda hillarious - a prostitute who'll tell you what kinds of services she offers if you "talk" to her.

Each of the tavern bartenders will "talk" about various rumors too, as will several other NPCs that live in different cities and villages and whatever elses. The problem with those is that they have to be updated on occasion and it's a low priority for the staff, because the rumor boards usually do a fine job and there are sekrit ubur skillz that need to be updated first.

Some of the rumors are outdated, some of them are more informational than gossip and timeless in nature, but yeah they do have them.

Why would that be hard? Just make mobs that travel between areas. Trading missions, diplomatic talks, whatever. Lots of reasons for mobs to travel around. Whether it's worth it for the sake of spreading rumours more 'believably' is another question.