[scandum]

I dislike soft fiction settings, so that definitely turns me off from most RP MUDs, which was the generic question in the OP.

The dismissive attitude toward the concept of hard and soft fiction by you and prof is interesting. I can only assume that Armageddon's game world and game physics are soft as the game is inspired by Dark Sun. The softer the fiction the more lore is required to be learned by heart as, with increasing softness, logic becomes increasingly useless.

An illusion of hardness can be perceived if enough people belief in the same nonsense (the belief in God is a good rl example where soft illogical fiction can be perceived as reality), which would explain why the loss of veterans is a big problem; as veterans can be compared to priest who teach people the right way to interpret the vague or incomplete scriptures, help files in this case.

Then again, I guess there's nothing that stops RP from getting intense in an unrealistic and inconsistent roleplaying environment, but that kind of obsoletes the RPI concept. Perhaps all you really need is a bunch of nazis in charge who keep the players in check.