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Old 08-04-2006, 05:09 PM   #21
Nobody
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When we roleplay in MUDs we don't roleplay souffle-cooks, we roleplay mages, thiefs, warriors, merchants, paladins and forest-loving wood-elves or whatever (I only play high fantasy MUDs :-)

Much (but not all) of the roleplaying concerns the conflicts and loyalties between the different character types, both PC and NPC, not the domestinc situations involved in cooking suffle.

MUDs are not real-life simulators.

Now, when a dark-elf and a high elf meet they will be in natural conflict (as an example, the game's setting dictates this of course), in this is roleplaying - they don't need to kill each other, or even fight; in a city it probably should be criminal, but they probably would not be immediate friends either - and unless they have the possibility to kill each other there can be no real tension, hence roleplay will suffer amost totally ("begone you filty creep", "or what, you pig-coloured heap of garbage", "uh, well, nothing actually").

But if killing has no consequence then the stronger character might jump on the weaker just for the hell of it, and again roleplay is lost. Therefore a legal system/reputation system or something of this nature must exist.

Also, no differentiation should be done between PCs and NPCs - why should killing one dark-elf be IC and killing another be OC? It distracts from the immersion you need for roleplaying - jumping in and out of character all the time is like trying to watch a movie while talking on the phone.

When you enter a MUD you should enter your role and you should play that role until you leave. Ideally.

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Old 08-04-2006, 05:59 PM   #22
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Ideally, for RP-enforced MUDs, I would agree; however, many MUDs focus on the PVP, PVE, HacknSlash, Questing, or other aspects that appeal to gamers who may not appreciate hard-core roleplaying. Some attempt to blend all of these elements(to varied degrees of success).

What I always end up saying is that the most important thing for a MUD Designer to do, is to very specifically define what he wants his/her MUD to accomplish, and who he wants to play the MUD. Once you have a very specific goal, creating an immersive environment(whether it be for roleplay, exploration, hack 'n slash gameplay, or player-versus-player combat) can be far more easily realized. Without that ever-looming mindset, though, you find that your MUD's potential becomes compromised by lack of planning.

MOBs in RP-Enforced MUDs should be treated with the same respect as players, in an IC manner. In most PVP or Hack 'n Slash MUDs, MOBs are breakfast, though - the responsibility of making this distinction clear to the player(I just love it when I play a Hack 'n Slash game and kill a "God" at level 24) is up to the builders... and builders often-times have issue with ego and wanting to "trump" other areas in power/difficulty/epicness.

This is why I often turn to RP-MUD Builders to build anything for me, despite the MUD genre(and I usually deal in PVP MUDs). :-p
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Old 08-04-2006, 06:55 PM   #23
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I believe the distinction is that roleplay should involve interaction with others. (I am one of those who believe you can't RP alone). PvP-- especially any conflict which you know may at any time lead to a fight--is a great form of player interaction. Making a souffle...well I suppose it would be interactive if you are teaching your apprentice to make a souffle, but even then, it sounds boring. Just something to pass the time until I find somebody to bicker with. And interactive defecation...let's just not go there. To me, RP without conflict is just playing house.
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Old 08-05-2006, 08:49 AM   #24
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I disagree. The coded inability to kill another character reduces immersion for everyone. I can come up with a hundred situations. Here's just one:

Some low-life slug spits on a wealthy merchant, ruining her silk panties. The merchant is justifiably offended, and refuses to sell the low-life slug anything anymore. She then tells all her buddies, and they refuse to do business with him too. Except this one guy, who secretly hires the low-life slug to cause mayhem and ruin the merchant chick's business so he can surpass her in sales. The low-life slug starts leaving dead rats on the merchant's doorstep. He gets arrested on a weekly basis, but because there's no risk of death, it just gives him a snicker and he goes out and finds another nasty trick to play on the merchant chick and her buddies.

After a month of this, the entire game's economy is sent completely out of whack. The guy who hired the low-life slug now has a monopoly on all the widgets in the game. New players trying to become widget sellers are sent to Medievia packing with their tails tucked between their legs and a bad feeling about the game they just tried. Old players get tired of the rich bastard being the only rich bastard in the game, but there's nothing they can do about it, because he's the only guy who sells widgets and they need those widgets, and anyone else who tries to sell them ends up with a rat infestation in their workshops.

Change scene to coded support of risk of death:

Low life slug gets arrested, and warned if he doesn't pick on someone else for a change, he's gonna git a whoopin. After a few whoopins, he learns his lesson, since his player doesn't want to lose the character, he smartens up, and moves on to becoming one of the most respected and feared professional assassins in the game. The rat-infested merchant chick pays him off not to kill her, but the widget-hoarding bastard pays the assassin even more. Rat infested merchant gets whacked. Her spouse, a second-rate widget salesman, inherits his mate's riches, and hires a personal bodyguard, who he provides training for, and that bodyguard becomes the most respected and feared assassin-killer in the game. He kills off not only the assassin, but the rat-infesting widge-hoarding bastard who hired the assassin, and after a week of people chasing each other around and hiring spies and hoarding widgets and redistributing them, you have a couple dozen players who had a TON of fun, and the game economy remains relatively unscathed, and you have also shown new players that sure, their character can get killed but look at all the nifty stuff they can do in the process!
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Old 08-05-2006, 08:54 AM   #25
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Oooh I forgot to add the part where the elven lass we haven't heard about yet has learned how to make her own widgets, and smuggles them into the city at a reduced rate, undercutting the newly-elected official best-widget-salesman-widower and his trusty assassin-killer sidekick. Before he finds out about this, the elven lass has already banded together her entire tribe to learn the arts of killing people, and they take out the widower's sidekick. The merry band of elven marauders move on to create havoc back in their hood, and the elven lass has now levelled the playing field once again in the city.
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Old 08-05-2006, 10:20 AM   #26
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Teehee, what are they doing that he spits on her panties?
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Old 08-05-2006, 01:21 PM   #27
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I disagree. If you're in a truly quality roleplaying environment, they can even make souffle-cooks fun. It all comes from immersion and interaction. If my character was the souffle cook for a house of wealthy nobles with a full cache of serfs, you'd have opportunities to interact with the grocer who sold you stuff, the other house staff, sucking up to the nobles, describing the dish, listening in on conversations you shouldn't be privvy to, possibly selling said information for some extra coin, competing in cookoffs, catering large events, and flirting with the Lady of the house's personal servant.
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Old 08-05-2006, 01:22 PM   #28
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Old 08-08-2006, 12:38 PM   #29
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It seems to me without some grind its hard to get true "roleplay" in the idea that roleplay is heartfelt interaction within a realm.

To the degree roleplay is consistently acting like a mystical mage, a silly jetter, or alternatively a noble knight, the grind might not be as important.

But to feel you have something to lose it really helps if it took some time and effort to get it and build it.

Now, to stinulate interaction and conflict you need to have players competing for scarce resourses or having the relative growth of one affect the routes of others etc.

Ideally you have mutiple ways of conflict in a realm so people can chose as many as they want. to actively take place in.

If you've played checkers you can kill by jumping over another piece but the win is for the eliminateing the last piece, if someone can be forced to give ground but not be killed you have something in between. You have violnce but not killing?

And perhaps a person, for a fee (which they can pay for with some "grind" like throughin salt over each shoulder at the beggingin of a day ((salt that they took the time and cost to produce perhaps?)) could summon the protection of the god of the seas or something, so that the Pvp would be curtainled in the sense not by code but by a player trumping atttacks with this sort of devine armor they aquireed.

Ideally though, there is a cost for advoiding conflict else the player avoiding conflict isn't really a "player" in the mind of the other.

But, as the person gving the merits of good sougflet making, different people play for cross purposes, and while the souflet maker might seem to have no roleplaying value in tthe fighters eyes, she might be a fierce competitor for those other cooks who rush out at the crack of each new dawn to find the rare mushrooms!

Competition can be ruthless without killing, but personally I think there needs to be competition. Think of the Avalon hill railroad barron games as an example.

If wealth has half life issues (things wearind out over time, buildingds needing to be insured at a cost or liable to being stolen, taxes/maintenance, you can have competition even without out right conflict. (sim city sort s but I haven't tried that game since it was one player 12 years ago).

If to secure water supplies for a city or to raise mounts, it helps to employ types of players who like pvp player killing which might only be allowed outside of cities or something?

I'm painting with a broad brush. But I think conflict leads to roll playing and roll playing isn't just "character" speach and dress but active pursuit of consistent elective goals.

A single checkers game wouldn't be role playing but if you have checkers players, chess players, ping pong players competin to get the space at the coffee house where only one of the games can be played at a time, and twho got it had something to do with being in line first, some abiltities to push your way to the front, tempered by abilty to bribe a reservation, well there could be a lot going on in that cofee house even though the people who finally get to a table for a period would be playing different games at them.

Mutiple ways of conflict, enough interaction so that people were forced to see each others goals and were at times inconvenienced by the cross purposes, ways to chose head vs head in areas one liked...that lets lots of roll playing without it being just I'm the Noble.. duck season rabbit season unsettablable verbal wars.
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