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Old 05-17-2002, 06:35 AM   #1
Jazuela
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Having checked out many of the MU*s on TMS, just the info itself, I've noticed that a lot of them are either "rp-encouraged" or "PK" games with rp "acceptable" but not necessarily a focus of the game.

Okay, I certainly understand that some folks prefer the hack-n-slash and levelling up to roleplaying. But I wonder....

If these games in particular don't require roleplaying, why do they bother requiring you to create a character? Why not just let you come in as you, with specific skills and classes, and let you have fun as yourself? Why have races? Why not just have you come in as you, set a "type" in the chargen - such as the ability to fly (instead of rolling up a winged creature), or the ability to use crushing weapons better than edged (instead of an ogre for example), etc. etc.?

I always thought, in my ignorance I guess, that the whole point of having a character creation system was to create a character. Meaning, someone other than yourself. And that the point of -that- was for you to be someone other than yourself. To roleplay. That's what roleplaying is, afterall.

So I ask the forum members from IMMs and IMPs to players alike: why have races and names required in your chargen if you have no intention of roleplaying, and why require it if your game isn't meant to be RP enforced?

R
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Old 05-17-2002, 06:55 AM   #2
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Moved. Just seems more like it belongs in the RP forum.
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Old 05-17-2002, 08:03 AM   #3
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well,even in most weirdest hack'n'slash we are not what we are irl.i bet most people arent the same in say,quake or counter-strike too.
Even when im just talking to my friends in mud,not rp friends, not while rp'ing,or stuff,im still Shaolong,not Artem Kolesnev.
Thats the reason,at least for me.
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Old 05-17-2002, 08:07 AM   #4
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The point of physically coded races is to provide diversity, and this diversity is more important in a non-RP mud than in an RP one. In an RP mud you can "pretend" to be anything you like - you need very little in the way of actual coded features in order to be successful. Obviously an RP mud can benefit from such features, but they are not critical.

A non-RP mud, however, must rely far more on the game itself to provide the entertainment. This means that the game must have more depth if it wishes to be successful - because the game itself (rather than the people) provides the focus of play. Players are less likely to "act out" different roles, so you need to find other ways to encourage them to be different. You can do this with races or classes, or some form of advanced customisation - it doesn't matter. The point is to create diversity, so that every character isn't the same.
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Old 05-17-2002, 03:30 PM   #5
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Races also give balance to the game. The same can be said of classes and skills. If players are allowed to min/max their character to the extreme the game would become either too easy for the min/maxers or too difficult for those that don't know the system well enough to take full advantage of it.

Other methods can be used for game balance, but for the reasons Kavir mentions I think races and some sort of class and/or skill system work the best.

The other reason I see for coded races and classes/skills is to provide the player with multiple experiences in the same game. If you master the game with one character you have the option of doing it again with a different set of advantages and disadvantages.
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Old 05-18-2002, 01:59 AM   #6
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To play the Devil's Advocate role a bit, you ask, why not roleplay? And while I can think of a million reasons why I think RP is a wonderful way for us not to only to escape reality as some people need it for, but also for us to find out more about ourselves, our pscyhe and who we really are by looking at things through the shoes of someone else we mighty pretend to be....I think there are some reasons why RP may not be for everyone.

For example, there are players in every game, we all know them, who basically can't escape the false reality that roleplay presents before them, real life becomes a burden or a job and the life outside of the small roleplay created world always stands a distant second. I think this can be very unhealthy for some, especially for those with obsessive or compulsive natures who desperately need to find more face to face socialization to help them find some help and understanding for the problems they may be facing.

I also find that too much roleplay can create a dislike for some people of themselves, they begin to envision the ideal as the character they roleplay, and themselves simply nothing more than a single figure who can be defined no more than as a grey person.

I think a good reason not to RP would be if you're a person in one of these situations, if you easily get overly obsessed or completely taken over by something such that it rules your life. You start skipping/work school to RP, you let it effect more important real life relationships, you burn your pop tart in the toaster cause you don't want to miss any RP, etc.

Thoughts? Other ways RP can be bad?
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Old 05-18-2002, 10:00 AM   #7
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I think you are engaging in black or white argumentation, Jazuela. Just because a mud isn't RP enforced doesn't imply that there is no RP in it. Only that it is informally handled. There are many levels of gray, and I personally prefer them. Unless I'm bursting someone else's bubble of suspension of disbelief let me do as I please. And sometimes the bubble must give up.
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Old 05-18-2002, 11:10 AM   #8
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I was just tossing this out, as DGate Collin said, for a topic of discussion. I wanted to hear what other people thought of it, since it really does interest me, being a "hard-core" roleplayer.

I used to not really grasp the idea of serious RP, I thought people who gave me flack for portraying my dark elf character as a giddy school-girl type were a bit anal retentive and needed to lighten up.

But then I started playing a more serious RP game, where the "dark elf" type race the game has would be considered inferior if they behaved outwardly emotional. I didn't understand, going into the game, why they would get so bent out of shape. And then I got into the RP. Nowadays, when I go to the other game to visit, I see people portraying the races SOOOO amazingly over the line of what that game's manual describes, and I flinch and run back to where I am now.

I know that serious RP isn't for everyone. I have also learned that people who are into serious RP have no place in "RP-Encouraged" games, because *any* overt attempt by others to go outside the definition of the world created for them will be a suspension of disbelief for the serious RPer.

But I was asking not about people who stretch the limits, but rather those who have no desire *at all* to roleplay. They just want to be themselves, use chat and OOC tells, and PK or powerlevel with no regard to roleplay whatsoever.

I don't begrudge anyone that right. Everyone has their own reasons for playing text games afterall. But those who have no desire to roleplay, to even attempt to "be" a dark elf..assuming the game they play has some sort of standard for dark elven behavior..what drives them to play an RP-encouraged game in the first place? And what do IMPs of those RP-encouraged games do, to encourage RP when they have so many people who just aren't interested in RP? Do they do anything? Do they do nothing? Why, why not?

I'm not sitting here judging anyone who does one or the other. Sure, I have my opinions of people who insist on RP yet refuse to play an RP-enforced game, and people who can't stand or can't handle RP yet insist on playing an RP-encouraged game. But this thread isn't for criticizing the people who do this. The thread is for discussing the whys and wherefors of both. Just because I'm curious.

I guess the whole RP-encouraged theme puzzles me. Someone who wants to "get into" their RP would have a hard time doing so if they're surrounded by OOCers, and someone who just wants to have fun in a community chat-setting would have a hard time doing so when there's RPers criticizing them all the time.

Why would either of these types play RP-encouraged games, and why would there even be such types of games? To me, either it's an RP game or it isn't.

R
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Old 05-18-2002, 01:44 PM   #9
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Old 05-18-2002, 02:35 PM   #10
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I've played a couple that were rp encouraged, but not enforced; they seem to handle it in similar, although slightly different, ways.

In one, the rule is that you don't have to roleplay, but you do have to be IC at all times.  This means no talking about movies, ballgames, cars, etc. in public places, but not having to try to act the part of the character you play.

In the other, rp is required any time you iinterract with another character.  If you prefer to just power train and hunt, it is an option; but unless you are playing the part, you are only allowed to interract with others there for the same reason.

Neither has separate areas for the groups, but both have areas that are strictly OOC for those who do want to discuss things that wouldn't be acceptable in the general areas of the games.

I think there are various reasons for people playing these games in spite of not wanting to rp.  Some I've known do it because they like the mechanics better; some do it because they like the idea of being someone/something else, but lack the knowledge, experience or self-confidence to try to play the part; some do it because they have friends who play; some do it just to irritate those who do like to rp. I'm sure there are other reasons, but those are the few I've heard from players.

The only reason I've ever heard given for an elitist playing in one that doesn't enforce rp is that it's where they started, and they feel at home there.  I think it's much harder on those people, and those around them, since they seem to constantly have complaints about how other people choose to play.  It's hard for them to stay IC when those around them don't, and many feel the need to try to dictate how the others should act.  It seldom changes anything, but often causes hard feelings on both sides.
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Old 05-18-2002, 03:39 PM   #11
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I don't have a problem differentiating between "Enforced" and "Encouraged":

Enforced: You MUST roleplay. OOC discussions are not tolerated (except possibly on some special OOC channels). People who don't roleplay will be banned.

Encouraged: The mud provides features which support roleplaying, and may even reward such activities. People who don't roleplay will be tolerated as long as they don't ruin the fun for those who do.

It's "Accepted" and "None" that I have trouble differentiating between.
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Old 05-18-2002, 04:30 PM   #12
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Along that note, KaVir, I have difficulty many times determining the difference between 'Accepted' and 'Encouraged' - in looking around on many, many different MUDs, I often find the ones 'encouraged' sometimes do not even fall into the 'accepted' category.
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Old 05-18-2002, 05:43 PM   #13
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Well I think the "RP encouraged" muds tend to provide support or rewards for roleplaying, while the "RP accepted" muds simply don't care whether you RP or not.

I suppose that means that "RP None" should mean "You're not allowed to roleplay"? But that seems rather silly...I prefer to think of it as "This is not designed to be a RP mud in any shape, way or form". GW2 is designed to be a non-RP mud, but I wouldn't object if people WANTED to roleplay - as long as they didn't try to force it on other people.

Of course in practice many people make mistakes on listings, and not just about RP.
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Old 05-18-2002, 06:09 PM   #14
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Great discussion, glad I asked!

Okay now here's a few golats worth from the asker <grin>

As I mentioned, I started out in an RP-encouraged game. At the time, it was (and still is) advertised as an RPG. To me, RPG means roleplaying game. It doesn't mean RP-encouraged, or RP tolerated, or RP accepted. It means roleplay is the primary focus. Unfortunately, their policies were very loosely written, and specified that roleplay was encouraged and being in-character was required. Well, that just made no sense at all. If you're not roleplaying, you're not being in character. If you are roleplaying, then you are being in character. So which was it? RP, or not RP? The answer, was that there was no answer.

It was a roleplay-encouraged game. The staff would "poof" into the game as GMs and not as NPCs, so if you needed help from a staff member everyone in the room would see:

>GM Tollhouse crashes through a cloud on a chocolate chip cookie!

And yet...if a player did something like...

>Delirioso says, "hey u going to the mets game this weekend"

they would be subject to bring brought into the consultation lounge by a GM or given an "official" warning.

I found this RP-encouraged atmosphere to be so inconsistent that I eventually left for a "real" RPG. In the game I play now, hunting and crafting provide the "standard" advancement abilities, just like in other "encouraged" MU*s. But RP is supported by the staff, and there is 100% consistancy. Someone saying what Delirioso said in my example would be told privately by other players to keep it in character.

In-character was equally as important as in-genre, the two go hand in hand. One is pointless without the other. And so while..

>Delerioso says, "wilt thou makest it to the mets game anon?" is in genre speech, it is not in genre for the world since there IS no mets game in that world, nor is it in character, since the character OF that world would have no knowledge of a mets game.

Not talking about real-world things doesn't constitute IC behavior. Being IC means immersing yourself into the world enough that you actually take on the role of your character, thus being IN- character. OOC doesn't necessarily mean only talking about real-world things.

Someone pretending to drop-kick a misalen down the stair, while the misalen character is standing there plain as day, is being OOC as well. Someone taking an in-game relationship out into real life, and then being jealous "in character" when their in-game mate kisses another character *in the game* is being OOC as well.

Any instance of crossing the lines between in-game and out-of-game is out of character, precisely because the character has no knowledge of anything beyond the confines and limits of the artifically created textual world. The same goes for a character that dies, the player logs off, 10 minutes later another character suddenly appears at that location who just so happens to be capable of resurrecting the corpse, the dead character reappears, and lives happily ever after. To me, that's cheating. It's bringing info out of the game, and taking OOC knowledge into the game to prevent "bad things" from happening to your character.

In a RP-encouraged world, things like this might be allowed. In some, they're even perfectly acceptable and standard fare. The ones who want to RP are limited, because "everyone else" is cheating in ordered to advance, yet they don't want to cheat. They want to play within the confines and limitations of the game.

But I think, like I've read in a few other folks' posts, that many of us start out in an RP-encouraged game, and determine based on our experiences there which way we are heading, and then head there.

Maybe that's why I'm in the RPG now instead of the RP-encouraged. Maybe that's why some folks are in the pure-PK games and not in the RP-encouraged. The "encouraged" seems to be more of a stepping stone to wherever we will ultimately end up.

R
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Old 05-18-2002, 06:48 PM   #15
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The first mud you mentioned was, despite whatever it claimed to be, "Enforced" - it "enforced" roleplaying on players, and punished those who didn't do so. The fact that the staff violated their own policies is a separate issue.

However Enforced and Encouraged are both "RP muds", they just have different approaches. As long as "Encouraged" doesn't allow the players to spoil the fun of those who ARE trying to roleplay, I don't see how that makes it any less of an RPG. That would like arguing that D&D isn't a roleplaying game, because lots of powergamers play it.

"Roleplaying" is a fairly loose term. Take an RPI mud for example - no global channels, no way to see who is online, no way to see the names of other characters, no form of OOC communication, etc. That's fairly hardcore, and many of the players consider that to be the only "true" type of RP mud. Take the typical RP TinyMUD derivative - no hardcoded combat or skills, everything is "roleplayed". Once again, many of the players consider that to be the only "true" type of RP mud.

I think the important thing to remember is that we all have a different idea of what makes up a good RP mud, and we should try to remember that many other people don't share our view. So rather than talking about "pure-RP" and "stepping stones", let's instead try to focus on what we as individuals look for in the way of an immersive roleplaying environment, and not try to be too judgemental of what we consider to be "inferior" muds.
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Old 05-18-2002, 07:34 PM   #16
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Right KaVir. That's why I have been careful not to make any proclamations of whether one type or another game is a "good" game or "bad" game. To each their own, what's good for me is bad for someone else, and vice versa.

I should have added, that the first game I mentioned had no particular problem with characters saying things like..

>Dilerious says, "eye'm gone killify ewe d00d"

To me, that isn't roleplay. It isn't even bad roleplay. It just isn't roleplay. The game was set in a quasi-medieval high-fantasy genre, and ebonics just doesn't fit the genre. Refusing to even attempt to fit in with the genre, and the staff's disinterest in preventing that sort of thing, tells me that it isn't an enforced RPG.

I hadn't thought about those games that don't have any combat mechanics, where everything is roleplayed. I don't think I'd be able to handle that! I like the combination of mechanics and "acting" things out via pose or act or emote. But I see having to justify why my character hunts, rather than just doing it mindlessly, or even not hunting and doing something else instead, one part of the roleplay in the game I play now.

Previously, there was no contest. You hunted. It was the only way to advance, unless your character was a healer or "rezzer." Currently, you can be a crafter, or if you don't mind taking a LONG time to advance, you can do nothing BUT roleplay, since the game acknowleges that we don't stop experiencing life simply because we're sitting at a table talking about current events. And so it rewards you with experience even if that's all you want to do. Very slow-going, but in that, it does in fact promote and support roleplay.

In addition, you don't "have to" advance at all. You can stay low level, without having any particular skills to speak of, and maybe be a storyteller or wandering minstrel if that's what excites you. No one does it, and only one person tried but she didn't stick around very long. Was a shame too, she was a great storyteller, one of the best!

But maybe she would fit in with that no-combat-mechanics type of game, where you RP everything that happens, including fights with the enemy or whatever.

Thanks for the insight!

R
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Old 05-24-2002, 03:18 PM   #17
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The MUD I play does the same thing, and I've actually found that it works pretty well, especially considering the pretty dramatic effects death has on level and experience. Those that spend almost all of their time "hunting" end up dying more often than those that spend almost all of their time in RP, and it about balances out in the end. I think this type of system works best for RP enforced and RP encouraged MUDs. for the RP encouraged MUDs it actually does something to encourage RP without having it be at the expense of leveling. For the RP enforced MUDs it just makes sense to reward RP somehow in addition to punishing those that don't.
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Old 05-29-2002, 02:20 PM   #18
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Old 05-29-2002, 03:15 PM   #19
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I skipped the last few posts because I got impatient, so if I end up repeating someone, sorry.

I've never been an RPer, and in fact I have usually been playing muds with people who are very non-RP-oriented. I have come to hate RP with a passion more for personal reasons than inexperience per se, but it's been a while and I couldn't even tell you anymore if I'm good at it still.

As for a question asked earlier, "Why do non-rpers even play rp muds", I think it has to do a lot with resentment. Really decent pkers, guys who spend a lot of time developing combat tactics that ensure them very effective victories against other players, hate the fact that most mudders don't log onto a good pk mud for more than 3 seconds anymore. Half the time it's an AOLer screaming about how they aren't level 51 yet with a huge sword, and the other half of the time it's an elitist RPer trying to stick their nose above the combat in an attempt to "convert" these "poor, lost, prepubescent initiates". It's frankly offensive to see this kind of stuff happen, and yet it persists.

I'd like to point out the fact that there is an RP forum on this site, but not a pk forum. Why? No one seems to think that pk is a large enough topic to merit having an actual forum.

I'm getting a bit worked up at the moment. I've seen some really stupid people log onto a couple of muds I play in the last few days, and it's been bugging me. Thanks for the conversation topic, and remember: just because you don't understand our motivations doesn't mean we aren't just as good at playing the game as you are.

-Visko

Oh, right, I was getting to the subject of why pkers play rp muds. Half the time, it's to sneak on when the imms aren't around, power-level as fast as possible, and depopulate the mud by way of totally illegally killing everyone OOC as much as possible. Seen it happen, heard the guys laughing gleefully afterwards. It's childish and stupid, but the fact that it works at all is my biggest cause for worry.
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Old 06-02-2002, 12:19 PM   #20
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Visko,

The fact that there's not a PK forum speaks to the fact that no one has stepped up to Synozeer with an offer to moderate such a forum (which is exactly what I did with the Roleplaying topic way back when TMS got its start).

You seem like a literate guy and you seem sensible. Send a proposal for the forum to Synozeer and he'll probably welcome your assistance.
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