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Old 09-26-2010, 07:57 PM   #124
silvarilon
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Re: Veterans of Roleplay Intensive MUDs

In Narnia, it might make a lot of sense to find a deer carrying coins.
And for characters (or, at least, one specific character) to return from the dead.
As you point out, resurrection makes sense in Dragaera - similarly, for me, in the Ironclaw cannon setting there are church-sponsored white mages that can, and do, bring people back from the dead. (Better make sure you don't get excommunicated from the church...)

But we can play this game all day. For every crazy rule, there's going to be a setting where it makes sense. I believe the thrust of the argument is that setting considerations should be more important than game mechanical considerations. If it doesn't make sense for deer to carry coins in the setting, then they shouldn't have coins just to allow the players to collect money. If it doesn't make sense for there to be resurrection in this culture, then characters shouldn't return from the dead. And that argument makes sense. (I don't 100% subscribe to it. I believe the roleplay should come first. Then the realism. Then the game mechanics. So if there's a change that will enhance roleplaying, even at the expense of realism, I'll make it. Typically, though, a consistent world compliments roleplaying, so there is rarely a conflict.)

But now we're led into the third part, the meaning of "RPI." As has been explained many times, it doesn't mean "intensive roleplay", it's indicative of a feature-set within the games. One of those features, arbitrarily, is no resurrection. Which means a Dragaera game, or an Ironclaw game, if "implemented fully" can never be an RPI. But that's alright. A mud version of "Glee" would never be a H&S. They're just categories.

So, to sum up:
- Deer carrying coins, people returning from the dead, etc. might be perfectly sensible, depending on the setting. In many settings, they make no sense.
- Games are more believable if only things that make sense happen. So if deer carry coins, or people return from the dead, it should be built into the world setting. And significant elements like that should lead to cultural effects on the game world.
- RPIs do not allow resurrection, but that is just a coincidental, arbitrary rule as part of the definition of RPI. Presumably the intention was to have a more realistic setting, but having "no resurrection" as a rule to enforce that is as arbitrary as having rules like "characters should log into the game where they last logged out" as a rule, or "items shouldn't vanish when used. They should become empty, and the player should have to throw them in the trash." - none of those rules are either good or bad. They're just decisions that add to the flavor of the game.
- RPIs do not, inherently, lead to any more "intensive" roleplay than other games. Their feature sets may (or may not) lend themselves well to roleplay - they were, after all, designed for roleplay. But they are not inherently more "roleplay intensive" than other games that do not fall under the RPI feature set.

(I don't intend to sound down on RPIs at all. I understand why they have their defined feature sets, and I see the appeal. I'm just trying to split out the threads of discussion, since the term "RPI", in-game resurrection, and believable worlds, were all being discussed as if they were one thing.)

Oh yes! (And before Prof chimes in... notice how careful I was to explicitly state that I understand that RPI stands for a feature set... yadda yadda...)

Problem is, as much as Prof (and others) say otherwise, as much as RPI can stand for a feature set... it's still a descriptor. It's got emotional connotations. It's got PR value.

It says "We are roleplaying intensive" not "We have the features of A, B, C"
And yes, people might understand that RPI games will have those features, so it does serve a useful purpose, but every time the term is used, it's reinforcing the (mis)conception that those features make a game more "intensive."

Am I upset at that? No, not at all. It was a very cleverly chosen term, and more power to the people who chose it! But it's not a surprise when it creates arguments.
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