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Old 09-19-2009, 01:05 AM   #17
prof1515
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Re: RPI, RPE, and Roleplay

They're not my standards, they're shared traits of the games to which the term was first applied. Amongst all of the various combinations of features and policies a small group was branded RPI. In trying to figure out what traits they had in common in order to identify the meaning of the term, a comparison of these games revealed 19 similiarities. It's not my list, my standards or anything of the kind. It is a list of the similiarities shared by the different games first called RPI.

Whether it happens or not is a matter of the ignorance of some and the idiocy of others. The ignorant can be tolerated and educated. The idiots who simply refuse because they're jealous, insecure or just plain stupid will always be a problem. But that doesn't mean the community has to accept them.

That site was started in late 2004. The term RPI predates it by half a decade. When Wade chose that name for his site he wasn't fully aware of the abuse the term had undergone. I'm not even sure he knew just how diverse the role-play MUD community had become and how varied the use of the term "role-play" was. By the definition of some people, Pac-Man or Pong is a role-playing game.

The term was coined with a specific meaning. It's akin to someone calling base-Diku a first-person-shooter or FPS. It's not because the term was invented for a specific type of game which base-Diku is not no matter how much someone wants to claim it is.

Role-Playing Intensive is an adjective used before the word game or MUD. Just as a rose-red flower is different from a red, rose flower. The latter refers to a rose but the former does not. It might be a carnation. Likewise, Role-Play Intensive has nothing to do with "intense role-play" (a subjective term in itself since one man's intense experience may be another man's mundane). There's a distinct difference between sloppy writing on-the-fly and a repeated demonstration of an inability to discern how the English language functions. I should proofread more. You should take remedial English.

The first games to which the term was applied were Armageddon and Harshlands. Over time more and more games began to use the term.

It is a term that the RPI community created and use to identify similar games. When every game type from RPE to H&S use the term, it makes it impossible to use. Coming up with a new term doesn't solve the problem since it's not like we have some congress every year where every RPI player attends to learn terminology. Some would still search for the term RPI because they know that the games they prefer to play were called RPI. Additionally, if a new term is invented, what's to keep every other type of game from co-opting that as well?

The screen name is prof1515. Why do you have such a difficult time with that? Your repeated issues with it suggests a disdain for education and feelings of anti-intellectualism. Get over it. My screen name is prof1515, not proph1515 or professor.

My view on role-play has nothing to do with the term. As for "what defines good role-play", quality is a subjective distinction and has nothing to do with whether a game is RPI or RPE.

A guild is an association of people with similar interests or experience, specifically a Medieval association of craftsmen or merchants. In the context of MUDs, guilds are often used to denote associations of characters. I have yet to find any RPI which does not have groups akin to the latter definition and many have groups similar to the historic definition.

So either you don't know what a guild is or you don't know anything about RPIs. Most likely the answer is yes to both.

There was no use of the term "role-playing intensive games" prior to its use to distinguish RPIs from other role-play MUDs. Back in the 90s the term "role-playing intensive" wasn't used. Most MUDs didn't make a big thing out of role-play on their games like they do today. It was just a given that there was role-play alongside H&S and/or PvP. The RPIs did not feature H&S, removed H&S systems like leveling and experience points, and concentrated only on role-play. Their take on role-play features and policies was different than other MUDs and their players tended to prefer that style. To distinguish similar games from dissimilar ones, they used the term Role-Play(ing) Intensive or RPI. With the plethora of other terms to denote games where role-playing is emphasized (be it role-play enforced, role-play mandatory, role-play focused, etc.) that term allowed players of the RPIs to identify the games that they wanted to play.

Role-playing MUD and RPMUD are terms which have been in PRIOR use. Role-Play Intensive and RPI were not in general use over a decade ago when the term was created. Now, if someone complained that Iron Realms used IRMUD, that would be similar to the problem faced with the term RPI. It's a term that wasn't in general use and therefore is open for adoption to identify a particular type of game.

Last edited by prof1515 : 09-19-2009 at 02:22 AM.
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