When does a scene get too crowded? How do you try to manage the numbers of people involved?

Ok, my email is down and since I have a few minutes, I think I will get envolved here.

We talking as in on a street corner, at a mall or on a MUD?

Yes, I broke my month of non-news posting silence just for Brody.

As this is neither the shopping mall topic or the urban congestion topic, I would tend to assume I'm referring to a roleplaying scene.

I guess it would depend on the event in which it was taking place. Could we have an example?

The only issue I've had with having lots of people together is that the conversation sometimes gets disjointed. Since people type, think and react at different speeds, often the more people involved the more confusing things will get. People will respond to statements or emotes/actions, etc. too late, things will have already moved ahead - or too many people will talk at the same time...

Sorta like real life -- get a comfortable dinner party of 5-10 people and things might run smoothly - when you start going over 10, it's time to break into little groups and chat quietly.

Of course, if most people are watching and not talking then it's much easier to have a lot of people witness some grand event for example.

It most certainly depends on the situation, but I would say that 5-10 is quite manageable, although it might be difficult for some (slower typers or slower RPers) to get properly into the groove.

Pleos.

Fine then, watch me mess this up because I am not sure I understand the topic.

I will make up two examples. Keep in mind I have not done any actual roleplaying since my last MUD marriage in 2000, or so. Whenever I am MUD married, my wife and I usually go out and do things with other couples. Let us not get dirty minded here, it was nothing like what you may think.

Example 1: Roleplaying In a Family
I have been in the StormBlade family since late 1996. Perilous Realms (PR) is not a RolePlaying (RP) MUD, to say the least. They do not enforce or discourage RP at all. Often people wish to get envolved on a MUD, going out and just killing things is not enough.

I was on PR for roughly 3 months before the grind of hack and slash was becoming dull. I had never RP'd before and on the previous MUD, Death's Domain, I was just a tag along because I was a great cleric for many years. Before it went down the first time, I was already a subclasser, level 20-17-13-16 (mage-cleric-thief-warrior).

I was first introduced to Sadinea and she was married to Kammor. Her first husband was Kyis of the clan called the Blades of Chaos. BoC was also a known clan on Distant Lands, also ran by Kyis.

Anyways, after a while with Sadiena, Kammor and the members of a clan called Vengeance Masters, including Shen, Jobo and many others, I became well liked and as habit has it, I was a Scholar. I was a half mage/cleric which could cast both defensive and offensive skills.

During one dull afternoon I questioned the name StormBlade attached to the titles of Sadiena and Kammor. Sadiena tells me a well thought out story about the family, its history and how it was started. Kyis started it all with Sadiena and it was a heirarchy in a kingdom called Cornith.

During the whole time the StormBlade family had existed, no offspring were produced by the main bloodline. There was alot of mixed marriages between nobility and commoners as well as many siblings of Sadiena, Kammor and Kyis.

In my effort to add more interest into my MUDding and the well spoken story about the family, I was sold. I wanted to get envolved. Sadiena and Kammor agreed I could join and I became thier only child, Ntanel Rafael Perino StormBlade, Prince of Cornith.

The StormBlade family was real small, as far as I knew. I would soon find out how big it really was. I have included a link of the family I know about thus far.



Obviously, in a marriage, it is probably best to be married to one person on one MUD at a time. I have seen people try to maintain seperate identities on many MUDs and have a hard time keeping track of it all. What I did with all my MUD wives was envolve them in the RP on all the MUDs I partook upon.

We basicly considered each MUD as another country or continent in which we explored. There was different people in each, and sometimes a few familiar faces.

Family aside, there is no limit on how big it can be, unless members end up on opposite sides of a clanwar. MUD families are usually tighter then clans, but clans have been known to tear a family apart.

Example 2: Roleplaying In a Clan
I bring you to the Newbie Knights (NK) clan. Originally on Death's Domain as the Knights, I bring it over to PR. Most of the members were newbies, hense the name change.

Soon enough the clan known as NK had rivals. Clans were popping up just to have clanwars. People got bored and wanted more action then just the normal hack and slash. Many were lost and the line between RP and real life became thin and crossed-over many times.

In the hopes to stay an active clan, the membership needed to grow and soon enough NK has roughly 100 members. This is when PR had a peak of roughly 80 people at a time. The fatal flaw of getting so big is you lose track of member activites.

As the head of the clan, I had people doing different jobs. Intelligence, treasury, armory and infultration. Personally, I find the job assignment and hearing the reports a fun part. It is like a general in an army.

It soon got out of hand. 100 members all about and 1 decided he could do a better job by breaking a high rule of the MUD. The thing was, we did not know the rule existed, it simply did not allow players to make characters simply for storage. A good rule, in my personal opinion.

This oversight was caught by an immortal and at that point the clan was forced to go out of business. The guy who used a character for storage was going to be banned as punishment. I was in charge and took the punishment fully on myself. I was slayed over 200 times and lost over 200 levels.

The rule here when it comes to clans is, no matter how much fun the RP is, the more people you have to keep an eye on, the harder it will be to maintain the level of fun you enjoy. Know when enough is enough.

As far as trying to maintain the size of the clan... It is a guess on my part. If you can not figure out what each member is doing and am trying to run it like a military operation, you will end up with issues, just as I did.

Start small when trying to organize anything RP related. See how well you can control the situation. You can always enlarge the membership or what have you once you have an idea of how well you are doing. Never reach beyond your capabilities.

Frankly, you can not be in a clan and not RP. Clans are a structured command situation and you actually have to RP even the smallest amount to fully participate. There are leaders, head of departments, specialists, foot soldiers and so on...

I "grew up", so to speak, on a MUD that at the time averaged 600-700 players a night. I loved the noise. I miss it.

And these days, I find myself not only reading and typing at lightning speeds, but I'm constantly typing SOMETHING, just because I hate seeing my screen sit idle.


Melly

Yes! Yes! I thought -I- was the only one who did that.

When I started MUDing, it was on a MUD that was averaging near to 2000 players a night at the peak of its life. Now, on smaller MUDs, I find myself looking at me and everone around me, checking my experience, making sure my stats haven't changed at random, and going through my inventory every few seconds just to keep the screen scrolling.

I still like the smaller MUDs. . .2-6 people seems fine for a scene to me.

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Coming from a MUSH envirorment, I'm going to side with Val on this. While it is realistic, the mind usually can focus on a few things at once, effectively filtering out the others... and if one does try to go through everything, perhaps they will just scroll slowly, making emote times extremely slow.

Just my thoughts.

Cerise your madness mimics my own. Thank you.

I picture everything that happens, I actually HEAR people talking to me, and I hear the tone of the voice and the clang of weapons and the sound of the feet moving and feel the dust clouds being kicked up on my skin.

When I pkilled I smelled the fear of my targets, or in the case of them winning the fight, I saw the bloodlust in their eyes. I tasted their sweat and smelled their must.

All in all the immersion was euphoric...

...