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shasarak · 03-31-2008, 06:49 AM

No.

No.

No.

(boggle) Definitely no.

No.

Not only are none of these measures particularly "intensive", there's a wider problem which you are failing to acknowledge: even if some of these features do, on "RPI" MUDs, contribute to an experience which could legitimately be characterised as "Intensive Role-Play", they are not, by any conceivable stretch of the imagination, universally necessary for intensive role-play.

The problem with the term "RPI" is that it does describe what an RPI actually is. Are you really so arrogant as to imagine that it is not possible for a MUD to be "role-play intensive" (lower-case letters!) if it does not include permadeath? Can you not imagine an intensive role-play experience in a game-world where all of the game characters are immortal in an in-character sense? To take an isolated example, perhaps, on dying, one temporarily becomes a disembodied soul which must prey on other souls of the fallen in order to acquire the energy needed to reincarnate itself. Are you so narrow-minded that you cannot imagine having an intensive role-play experience in a game-world with those rules?

I hope not; but if you admit that it is possible to have an intensive role-play experience in a MUD which does not feature permadeath then you must also admit that reserving the term "RPI" for MUDs which have permadeath is inappropriate: you're trying to use a generic term to refer only to a very specific phenomenon, and trying to ban other people from using the term in situations where it manifestly applies. Is a MUD role-play intensive? Then it's an RPI. That says nothing whatever about whether or not it has permadeath.

Frankly I don't care that RPI players were the first to coin the phrase "RPI"; all that means is that the original RPI players were short-sighted idiots when it came to choosing a name. It doesn't give you any sort of exclusive rights to the term.

03-31-2008, 06:49 AM	#106
shasarak Member Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Emily's Shop Posts: 60	Re: Guidelines for an RPI mud. No. No. No. (boggle) Definitely no. No. Not only are none of these measures particularly "intensive", there's a wider problem which you are failing to acknowledge: even if some of these features do, on "RPI" MUDs, contribute to an experience which could legitimately be characterised as "Intensive Role-Play", they are not, by any conceivable stretch of the imagination, universally necessary for intensive role-play. The problem with the term "RPI" is that it does describe what an RPI actually is. Are you really so arrogant as to imagine that it is not possible for a MUD to be "role-play intensive" (lower-case letters!) if it does not include permadeath? Can you not imagine an intensive role-play experience in a game-world where all of the game characters are immortal in an in-character sense? To take an isolated example, perhaps, on dying, one temporarily becomes a disembodied soul which must prey on other souls of the fallen in order to acquire the energy needed to reincarnate itself. Are you so narrow-minded that you cannot imagine having an intensive role-play experience in a game-world with those rules? I hope not; but if you admit that it is possible to have an intensive role-play experience in a MUD which does not feature permadeath then you must also admit that reserving the term "RPI" for MUDs which have permadeath is inappropriate: you're trying to use a generic term to refer only to a very specific phenomenon, and trying to ban other people from using the term in situations where it manifestly applies. Is a MUD role-play intensive? Then it's an RPI. That says nothing whatever about whether or not it has permadeath. Frankly I don't care that RPI players were the first to coin the phrase "RPI"; all that means is that the original RPI players were short-sighted idiots when it came to choosing a name. It doesn't give you any sort of exclusive rights to the term.