Top Mud Sites Forum - View Single Post

Wik · 07-01-2004, 01:52 PM

Molly, the system Danish is describing is, in fact, very similar to tabletop (I'm a director on a different JTS MUSH than Danish). Most often, the player rolls their own dice. The rolls are limited to when the player is attempting a contested action, such as picking a lock, or trying to hit someone with his sword. To sneeze or talk requires no dice rolling. It's only in cases of direct conflict that we have admins there to referee in the first place. The reason why we integrate the rolls is in order to better tell an all-encompassing story.

Rather than integrating code that takes into account all the possible factors that could affect someone's success in an action (amount of light, higher ground, weather, temperature, amount of cover the defender is hiding behind, whether the arrows sticking out of Jack's chest would hinder his ability to swing his sword effectively, etc), we use referees to judge these factors, and give appropriate modifiers to the dice roll to reflect these myriad factors. This has worked surprisingly well for our genre (in general, people in our games have a good concept of the division between IC and OOC, and accept the referee's judgements with a minimum of complaint, and the referees are, on average, fairly unbiased).

However, while this allows for a lot of variability (which in itself inspires creativity in action), it tends to distract from the story itself, like an actor constantly getting out of character to take a potty break or get something to eat in the middle of an intense movie. And this can get annoying, thus kind of putting the code and the story at odds.

I find distractions like this in other formats; I personally feel that pre-coded emotes and the inability to pose ambiance(as in the muds that require that everything you express has your name in front of it) are major coded breaks in the flow of roleplaying.

I think there's always going to be some sort of break in the flow, though. Not everyone is trustworthy enough to be given all the tools they need to be successful, uninterrupted rp'ers, and that will always tempt administrators to make standardizations for the sake of fairness and sanity, whether in the form of automated combat, or in the form of needing a referee to oversee things. There's always someone who wants their character to be the best and won't listen to reason. I congratulate Danish on the ability to run a scene without a bit of code, but I have to say that I remain jaded about it becoming a mainstay, especially in games that purport to uphold ICA=ICC. Someone will always eventually emerge to ruin everyone else's fun.

07-01-2004, 01:52 PM	#4
Wik Member Join Date: Apr 2002 Home MUD: OtherSpace Posts: 140	Molly, the system Danish is describing is, in fact, very similar to tabletop (I'm a director on a different JTS MUSH than Danish). Most often, the player rolls their own dice. The rolls are limited to when the player is attempting a contested action, such as picking a lock, or trying to hit someone with his sword. To sneeze or talk requires no dice rolling. It's only in cases of direct conflict that we have admins there to referee in the first place. The reason why we integrate the rolls is in order to better tell an all-encompassing story. Rather than integrating code that takes into account all the possible factors that could affect someone's success in an action (amount of light, higher ground, weather, temperature, amount of cover the defender is hiding behind, whether the arrows sticking out of Jack's chest would hinder his ability to swing his sword effectively, etc), we use referees to judge these factors, and give appropriate modifiers to the dice roll to reflect these myriad factors. This has worked surprisingly well for our genre (in general, people in our games have a good concept of the division between IC and OOC, and accept the referee's judgements with a minimum of complaint, and the referees are, on average, fairly unbiased). However, while this allows for a lot of variability (which in itself inspires creativity in action), it tends to distract from the story itself, like an actor constantly getting out of character to take a potty break or get something to eat in the middle of an intense movie. And this can get annoying, thus kind of putting the code and the story at odds. I find distractions like this in other formats; I personally feel that pre-coded emotes and the inability to pose ambiance(as in the muds that require that everything you express has your name in front of it) are major coded breaks in the flow of roleplaying. I think there's always going to be some sort of break in the flow, though. Not everyone is trustworthy enough to be given all the tools they need to be successful, uninterrupted rp'ers, and that will always tempt administrators to make standardizations for the sake of fairness and sanity, whether in the form of automated combat, or in the form of needing a referee to oversee things. There's always someone who wants their character to be the best and won't listen to reason. I congratulate Danish on the ability to run a scene without a bit of code, but I have to say that I remain jaded about it becoming a mainstay, especially in games that purport to uphold ICA=ICC. Someone will always eventually emerge to ruin everyone else's fun.