Top Mud Sites Forum - View Single Post

Spoke · 05-15-2008, 01:31 PM

From what I read, the problem with an exact name for the item is that it may "destroy" the immersion feeling of a player in a RP Mud. This may make sense, true, but on the other hand, if it is done sparsely and thoughtfully you would be giving a player an option to role play around either knowing or not an specific item. I do know that as a player you carry around tons of OOC knowledge. I know this mainly from table-top D&D, where you had all these bestiaries and manuals you had read, you knew details about all the classes and many of the weapons, you knew about critters and their weaknesses etc. But there is no reason to believe that your Lvl 1 Thief should have known what the Lvl 5 Cleric was capable of. So, it was up to the player to role play accordingly and imbue their character with just enough knowledge and consciously decide to act as the character would with what the character would know instead of making decisions based on what the player knew. Hard, but all the more enjoyable when you worked to make it work.

So, in this context, I understand that RP RPI ASRP TSRP (Threshold style RP for those who didn't know), may want to be as immersed on their simulated reality as possible, but without a very elaborated code to work how famous a 'named' or 'unique' item is, and how recognizable an item should be (of course, what if my newly created character happens to be in a party with an older, knowledgeable character, who tells him about this immensely powerful sword with this particular engraving, these colours in the hilt, etc, etc ... well, my dumbinewbie should be able to recognize Excalibur should he not?,) you will be restricting and not enriching the experience a player can have. On the other hand, if you openly identify a famous or unique item, maybe even with a really soft code to determine how recognizable it is (maybe even a toggle flag players can turn off or something if they are playing some impaired character or similar) you are allowing the player to decide how he/she wants to role play the situation. If they decide they do not want to know Excalibur they can just role play accordingly, but if they do want to recognize it, then they have to option to Ohh and Ahh appropriately, which would not be an option if they were not shown the 'uniqueness' up front.

I hope it does make sense, maybe I am giving too much credit to Role Players and they really need to be spoon fed what they characters may or may not know and cannot decide for themselves how much they want to incorporate into their character's story, or maybe I am being too ignorant of the subject and it really is such a big deal to have anything that may be perceived as OOC shown to you when you are playing in a RP Mud. I do not know which is true or if there is a single right answer, I do know though, that if you over-restrict what a player can see, you are restricting the spontaneous awe at something you recognize on the spot ("Isn't that David Beckham??", "Woao, look they have the Mona Lisa on loan in this museum!!", "Hmmmmm must buy coke when the movie ends hmmmm hmmm coke when the movie ends hmmmmm")

05-15-2008, 01:31 PM	#41
Spoke Member Join Date: Oct 2003 Posts: 101	Re: Quick, short descriptions From what I read, the problem with an exact name for the item is that it may "destroy" the immersion feeling of a player in a RP Mud. This may make sense, true, but on the other hand, if it is done sparsely and thoughtfully you would be giving a player an option to role play around either knowing or not an specific item. I do know that as a player you carry around tons of OOC knowledge. I know this mainly from table-top D&D, where you had all these bestiaries and manuals you had read, you knew details about all the classes and many of the weapons, you knew about critters and their weaknesses etc. But there is no reason to believe that your Lvl 1 Thief should have known what the Lvl 5 Cleric was capable of. So, it was up to the player to role play accordingly and imbue their character with just enough knowledge and consciously decide to act as the character would with what the character would know instead of making decisions based on what the player knew. Hard, but all the more enjoyable when you worked to make it work. So, in this context, I understand that RP RPI ASRP TSRP (Threshold style RP for those who didn't know), may want to be as immersed on their simulated reality as possible, but without a very elaborated code to work how famous a 'named' or 'unique' item is, and how recognizable an item should be (of course, what if my newly created character happens to be in a party with an older, knowledgeable character, who tells him about this immensely powerful sword with this particular engraving, these colours in the hilt, etc, etc ... well, my dumbinewbie should be able to recognize Excalibur should he not?,) you will be restricting and not enriching the experience a player can have. On the other hand, if you openly identify a famous or unique item, maybe even with a really soft code to determine how recognizable it is (maybe even a toggle flag players can turn off or something if they are playing some impaired character or similar) you are allowing the player to decide how he/she wants to role play the situation. If they decide they do not want to know Excalibur they can just role play accordingly, but if they do want to recognize it, then they have to option to Ohh and Ahh appropriately, which would not be an option if they were not shown the 'uniqueness' up front. I hope it does make sense, maybe I am giving too much credit to Role Players and they really need to be spoon fed what they characters may or may not know and cannot decide for themselves how much they want to incorporate into their character's story, or maybe I am being too ignorant of the subject and it really is such a big deal to have anything that may be perceived as OOC shown to you when you are playing in a RP Mud. I do not know which is true or if there is a single right answer, I do know though, that if you over-restrict what a player can see, you are restricting the spontaneous awe at something you recognize on the spot ("Isn't that David Beckham??", "Woao, look they have the Mona Lisa on loan in this museum!!", "Hmmmmm must buy coke when the movie ends hmmmm hmmm coke when the movie ends hmmmmm")