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Old 09-26-2010, 07:58 PM   #125
silvarilon
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Re: Veterans of Roleplay Intensive MUDs

Bingo.
But, again, that's alright. Many RPI players obviously feel that their roleplay (and game's features) are superior. But many non-RPI players feel that about their games, too. Heck, I certainly feel my game's features are superior, and I cringe at the lack of social options in the parser of most games. But that's neither here nor there, whenever you have a setup like this, where players are so invested in their individual world, and where the worlds can vary so much, you're going to get this balkanization.

I think the RPI discussion is similar, but subtly different. We don't tend to see arguments of "Godwars vs NewWorlds", we tend to see "Everyone vs RPI"

I think that's caused by two things. Firstly, by identifying a feature-set as RPI, it widens the group. Players from a number of games all identify themselves as RPI players. Players from Ironclaw wouldn't have the first clue as to whether they were SMAUG players, TINYMUSH players, or LP players. The shared feature set also means the players can support each other's argument. This is great, it's widened the game community to include other games - if only more games could do that! And a larger game community will be heard more often.

The second thing is the term. As you touched on it, many players believe that their game's roleplaying is more intensive. But I don't entirely agree that they believe that due to their games features alone. I do think that they are being told (and telling each other) that their game is "roleplaying intensive" - and then reminded that it's a feature set. So they're going to believe that their feature set leads to more intensive roleplaying. If the term was neutral, they probably would still think their game has the best roleplaying - but they possibly would be less outspoken in the belief that their feature set is inherently superior.

To use Qzzrbl's recent posts as examples (Sorry, I don't intend to pick on you. You're just a convenient illustration)

Everything Qzzrbl said was entirely reasonable. I don't think he was out of line, or rude. But he does demonstrate this attitude I'm talking about.

Yup. That's the way it should be in my opinion, too.
And that's the way my game is. But my game is very much NOT an RPI, according to the feature set. It doesn't match certain points, such as learning skills from doing it rather than being taught, it has resurrection, and probably doesn't match on a few other points.

Yet when Qzzrbl thinks of RPI he, apparently, thinks of a game like mine.
It seems that what he's really thinking of when he hears the term RPI is "a game with heavily enforced roleplay demands, that has a believable world and character progression."

Easy enough to do. And a reasonable request. But let's look at the language - "not up to RPI standards"
Technically, Qzzrbl is entirely correct, RPI meaning a specific feature set means that there are specific standards that must be met before your MUD qualifies. But I doubt Qzzrbl was speaking as an engineer, the usual emotional content of "not up to X standards" implies that X is a higher quality.
If he'd said "but it doesn't match the RPI features" then it wouldn't have that emotional content.
Do I think Qzzrbl intended to imply that RPIs were higher quality than non-RPIs? I don't know. I won't put words in his mouth. Do I think that Qzzrbl believes that RPIs are higher quality? Certainly. If he didn't, he probably wouldn't play them. That's fine, he can believe what he wants. Do I think that he'd have made that same comment without the phrase RPI encouraging it? Probably not.

So, even unintentionally, the phrase RPI, and the supporters of RPI, will tend to get up the noses of non-RPI players. I don't believe that would have been the case if "RPI" was a more neutral, less PR-friendly, term.

Am I sore about the term? Not at all!
Am I sore that my game can't be called an RPI? Not at all!

What am I trying to say?

Just that roleplay quality, world believability, and feature sets are three very different aspects of the game. They interact with each other, but they shouldn't be discussed lumped together.

I'm also trying to say that I regularly see these three lumped together when discussing RPIs (probably because the acronym uses the phrase "roleplay" while referring to a feature set, which is going to combine those two together in players minds.)

So how does that relate to the original topic? Prof feels that RPIs have lost veteran players due to dumbing down their role-playing standards, but I keep seeing roleplaying confused with the feature set. Prof obviously knows the difference between the two, but I wonder if other staff on those games make this mistake? And don't feel like they're "dumbing down" the quality, and feel like as long as they stick to the "core rules" then their games will be full of "intensive" roleplay?

With that in mind, my question is, "how do you define good roleplay"? How do you define dumbed-down roleplay? Are we talking less enforcement of players that go out of character during the game? Or are we talking about a higher quality in the stories being told (and how do you enforce that?) Or are we talking about more consistent roleplay from the players? Or more hurdles to jump (so that only dedicated players will participate?)
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