[John]

I was wondering what everyone thought was necessary to have a Roleplaying Intensive MU*

I can only think of 2 criteria. Having a consistent world, having players that roleplay.

From what I've seen, everything else seems to be optional.

So what does everyone else think is required?

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by I was wondering what everyone thought was necessary to have a Roleplaying Intensive MU*

It depends on whether you specifically mean an RPI, or just a roleplaying-intensive MUD. An RPI is a roleplaying-intensive MUD (as of course that's what it stands for), but not all roleplaying-intensive MUDs are RPIs - "RPI" has a more specific meaning than that of its acronym, much like many other acronyms (for example not every Object-Oriented MUD is a MOO, even though that's what "MOO" stands for).

An RPI has various criteria, include no OOC channels or who list, enforced roleplaying, short descriptions instead of character names, no levels, etc.

A roleplaying-intensive mud has only the criteria defined by its name - that it should involve intensive roleplaying.

[John]

Originally Posted by (KaVir @ Mar. 15 2004,03:07) An RPI has various criteria, include no OOC channels or who list, enforced roleplaying, short descriptions instead of character names, no levels, etc.

Ive never heard of that before. Well I meant the second criteria then. A mu* (MUSH, Mud, MOO, whatever) that is roleplaying intensive.

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by (John @ Mar. 15 2004,10:05) Ive never heard of that before. Well I meant the second criteria then. A mu* (MUSH, Mud, MOO, whatever) that is roleplaying intensive.

Well MUSH/MOO/etc are all types of MUD...

And as I mentioned before, there is no real criteria, other than that it have "intensive roleplaying", which is really very subjective - even a basic talker could be classified as having "intensive roleplaying".

[Linnia]

You say that a role-playing intensive world requires a consistant world and players that RP, but that's saying next to nothing. The purpose of the moral life is to do good and avoid evil, but that kinda goes without saying, too...the question is more of how to make an immersive world and how to encourage RP.

Being overly general here, the MUD community has two groups: the powergamers and the RPers. The best way to encourage the powergamers to RP is IC competition. Make resources limited and fought over by two factions that hate each other for some reason in the world's background. They won't cooperate, since they want their power. Instant RP-enforced tension.

The best way to keep the RPers happy with the RP possibilities is 1) the intricacies of the struggle (people don't wake up one day and say, "What damage can I cause? I must do eeevilll! [insert evil laugh here].") There should be legitimate ideological differences...maybe the "evil" caste spent most of its life oppressed and has to work harder to make it on evil footing...their evil is really just ensuring that they don't get trampled by the overly-theoretical "good" people. Maybe some powerful force almost destroyed the world once...one faction harnesses it in an attempt to understand and focus it for the benefit of their community, while another thinks it's dangerous and sacreligious to dabble in it (or shelter those who do). If the RPers start debating in some public fashion, that's a good sign.

Also, a consistant world allows for real, concrete changes. It should be theoretically possible to win the ancient struggle (even if practically impossible). The characters should have the option to RP a change of heart and switch factions. If you use a class-based system, they should be able to change classes. It might be good for balance reasons to make this a costly choice in terms of the powergaming aspect, though.

[Robbert]

None of the above qualify the product as an RPI, however. RPI's match a specific set of criterion, as generalized by KaVir in his previous post. To be an RPI, one must make the deliberate choice to follow their requirements - which (in my opinion) does not necessarily justify a better roleplaying experience.

It is entirely possible to have an intensive roleplaying MUD without it having the moniker of "RPI". Intensive roleplay is intrinsic to an RPI, but may also exist independent of such.

[Raeven]

Originally Posted by (Linnia @ Mar. 16 2004,16:15) The best way to encourage the powergamers to RP is IC competition.  Make resources limited and fought over by two factions that hate each other for some reason in the world's background.  They won't cooperate, since they want their power.  Instant RP-enforced tension.

I would like to explain a perfect example of what you are talking about when you said that, by relaying it through something that happened in my mud.

A player of my mud decided she wanted PK, so she left the clan she was in and joined another clan and in doing so started a war between the two clans. She is a powergamer and merely wanted a little more PK in her game. But for alot of the rest of us it created a brand new way to RP with each other (as enemies), and also brought on more PK for the people that wanted it.
It is great fun and I am enjoying myself RPing and PKing in these two clans.

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by (Linnia @ Mar. 16 2004,20:15) Being overly general here, the MUD community has two groups: the powergamers and the RPers.

Unfortunately that generalisation is just too over generalised - I prefer the bartle categorisation of killers, achievers, explorers and socialisers. RPers tend to be a subcategory of socialiser, while powergamers would be a subcategory of achiever. There are still plenty (a majority in fact) of players who fall outside of either classification.

[Geras]

Don't forget griefers/carebears is a category.

Personally I think an RPI MUD is one where a character is never OOC, be it for mobkilling, exploring, whatever, and where you can be successful in the MUD by only roleplaying.

[UnderSeven]

Charector approval is nessicary, I'm surprised no one metioned it before.. Why? I'll get to that.  

True perm death is nessicary too, why?

Here we go.  .

One of the things that will make people rp their chars more is if their chars hold some value to them.  The char approval ensures only serious chars, or damned good fakers get through, but also makes getting a new char take time and effort.

This will mean with perm death, you are less likely to play your char in a careless, I just wanna screw with people manner because you then end up having to wait for a new char every one person you screw with or so, bad ratio for people who arn't serious about rpi.

When I go into a supposed 'rpi' mud, the first thing I type is help death.

I also think the post by Linia held a lot of water.  You MUST have pc to pc conflict.  Rpi muds that try to base everything on quests or imms holding pcs hands are only going to be as cool as they have enough imms to support every single pc.  It's best to try to make the games more self reliant with more pc power and clans that compete.  

Unfortunately, there really is no sure way to make people play icly and not act with ooc info or ooc intentions (like ooh fun, pk!   The best way to do this is limit options.  no one metioned leveless systems, but those go without saying.  A heavy focus on non combat related skills helps, with this there needs to be caps and checks and balances on heavily advanced combat pcs so somenoe can't just get their fighting skills up and walk through cities slaying everything in sight.  Also skills need to take time and effort to build, so those long time pcs arn't doing it just to screw with things.

All of this makes a game very bloated in restrictions, but it's nessicary, in that it will discorage people who arn't serious about rpi from wasting their time and others.  Rpi is a much more involved and invested form of mudding than hack and slash or even mu*'s.

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by Geras wrote: Don't forget griefers/carebears is a category.

Well you could divide players up into as many different categories as you wanted - you could even divide them into "players who eat live penguins" and "players who don't", if you wanted to.

But as I mentioned before, I find the bartle categorisation to be the most well thought out. It's still quite general, but does divide players into four distinct categories - killers, explorers, socialisers and achievers. A "griefer" could fall into any of those categories, depending on what sort of griefer they were (eg someone who searched for bugs to exploit would be a type of explorer, while someone who went around sexually harrassing other players would be a type of socialiser).

Originally Posted by Personally I think an RPI MUD is one where a character is never OOC, be it for mobkilling, exploring, whatever, and where you can be successful in the MUD by only roleplaying.

That is part of it, sure, but as I said before an RPI mud doesn't really have that much to do with opinion - it's a very specific type of mud.

Originally Posted by UnderSeven wrote: Charector approval is nessicary, I'm surprised no one metioned it before.. Why? I'll get to that. True perm death is nessicary too

Yes, for an RPI mud, although they are not at all necessary for a roleplaying-intensive mud.

Originally Posted by Rpi is a much more involved and invested form of mudding than hack and slash or even mu*'s.

RPI and HnS are styles of mud ("mu*" is a redundant term). Neither are inherently more or less involved or invested, that fact depends entirely on the players and the mud in question.

[Realedazed]

Originally Posted by (KaVir @ April 06 2004,02:53) Originally Posted by UnderSeven wrote: Charector approval is nessicary, I'm surprised no one metioned it before.. Why? I'll get to that.   True perm death is nessicary too Yes, for an RPI mud, although they are not at all necessary for a roleplaying-intensive mud.

Now, I'm confused. Doesn't RPI mean Role-play Intensive? Or am I just reading KaVir's sentence wrong?

Sorry, I just woke up.

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by (Realedazed @ April 06 2004,16:21) Now, I'm confused. Doesn't RPI mean Role-play Intensive? Or am I just reading KaVir's sentence wrong?

Please read the thread - I already explained this in my first post.

[UnderSeven]

When I said Mu* I was refering to mushes.

I stand by RPI muds being a more involved form then Mushes or regular muds. In Rpi you're playng someone who other people may very well depend on. Since everything done in game is ic and players depend on each other a lot, I feel like you have to invest more.

For a hack slash it's whenever you feel like logging in, it's no more invested then getting on an xbox live game or logging into Eq for a bit.

For mushes, since everything is up to the player, you can say whatever you want has happened, is happeneing, will happen, therefore the individual investment of players is less important, you get out of it whatever yuo put in.

For RPi, while the return is definatly based on what you put in, it's also largely based on the other players, because RPI's ultimately IMO are built on player involvement. The staff can't be large enough or invested enough to substitute a playerbase that does things on their own.

[Vhaemiel]

Another excellent way to promote role-playing is to take away numbers and replace them with descriptions instead. For example, instead of telling the players that a weapon can do 20 pts of damage describe it as being capable of devastating damage. Instead of saying that armor will reduce damage by 15 points, you can say that it will provide moderate protection.

Dragonrealms is an excellent example of how translating everything into words will steer people away from reducing their characters to a sheet of numbers. If everything is described in character then the average conversation will undoubtedly be in character as well.

[Realedazed]

Originally Posted by (KaVir @ April 06 2004,11:25) Please read the thread - I already explained this in my first post.

Darn. I've been keeping up with this thread when it started almost month ago. Your definitions RPI and roleplaying intensive really just slipped my mind. A RPI is a RPI is a role-playing intensive game to me, I guess.

As for the question asked it the frist post. I'm fully awake so I guess I can add something good to this thread. I agree with most of the other posters.
One of the things that I think make a RPI different are the absence of global channels of any kind. The only exception maybe a newbie help channel available for the frist couple of hours (or levels, if the game has them).

A few other things is a on going theme or story that included the players in almost everyway: player-run econony, goverment, etc. Perma-death, because most likely players can be braver than normal when they know that the only thing their character will lose is a chunk of experience. Lastly, a RPI might need to leave out numbers when talking about skills.

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by When I said Mu* I was refering to mushes.

Which are also muds (MUSH is a derivative of TinyMUD).

Originally Posted by I stand by RPI muds being a more involved form then Mushes or regular muds. In Rpi you're playng someone who other people may very well depend on. Since everything done in game is ic and players depend on each other a lot, I feel like you have to invest more. For a hack slash it's whenever you feel like logging in, it's no more invested then getting on an xbox live game or logging into Eq for a bit.

Or how about the perspective of an HnS player:

In a high-quality hack and slash mud, you have to thoroughly learn the ins and outs of the game, and constantly keep up-to-date with the latest changes to the mud in order to successfully compete with other players who are doing the same. Furthermore, in an HnS mud which uses clan systems you're playing someone who other people may very well depend on. Therefore you have to invest more.

For an RPI it's whenever you feel like logging in. It requires no more investment than a talker or going down the pub for a chat.

But you need to see the bigger picture. As I said before, neither are inherently more or less involved or invested, that fact depends entirely on the players and the mud in question.

[Threshold]

Originally Posted by KaVir wrote: An RPI has v