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Old 09-16-2009, 08:03 PM   #1
misao
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Looking for RP-focused MUD with as little combat as possible

When looking for RPI MUDs, I seem to find them divided into 2 genres:

MUDs which claim to be RPI, but really all that means to them is that IC is enforced in IC rooms. I don't know about the technicality of things, but RPI to me personally means good poses with sufficient detail (like a story), and good fleshing-out of character concepts and traits. I really cannot feel immersed in RP in which the poses are as such:

xxx says, "Hi"
xxx smiles
yyy says "Hi xxx!"
yyy grins

Etc. There is no fleshing out of how a character acts, etc, in poses, because, well, it's kinda hard to do so when practically everyone on earth (or whatever world you're based in) would smile at one time or another.

Also, there seems to be a high emphasis on combat/questing/levelling in such MUDs. I don't play MUDs to fight, quest, or level. I would much rather play graphical-based games if I wish to do such.




On the other hand...

I have found MUSHes in which RP, or writing a story rather, really IS everything. (admittedly, the majority of such MUSHes are adult-based MUSHes *blush*) To the extent where there are virtually no code limitations; you pose out everything and if your fireball hits someone, there will be no coded changes in his character as well.

Those MUSHes have a culture in which detailed poses are the norm... and while this is good, it can be brought to an extreme sometimes. Elitist behaviour is often cultivated in which players say, "I refuse to RP with anyone who poses in less than 8 lines!"

Another drawback is that since most RP in such MUSHes occurs in private (because it's really hard to coordinate group RP when everyone poses 8 lines and takes 10 minutes to do so!), and that, combined with the lack of code, causes there to be no... well... society-based RP. As in, people RP in isolated 'scenes', which has no effect on the society in general, because there was no society to speak of in the first place, since everyone huddles in rooms with one other person. Okay, fine, so it's an adult MUSH.




I really wish to find a combination of the two, a midway point. A MUD in which there is SOME detail of posing (like, 'xxx exclaims, "Hello, dear!" with a slightly lopsided grin on his face'), and pure emphasis on RPing out your character's development and its role in a closeknit society without questing/levelling/killing mobs. But I don't want to hole up in a room taking 10 minutes per 8-line pose with one other person, which has no effect on the society around me, either. It's turning out to be far more difficult to find than I imagined.

I have found The Inquisition which I enjoy greatly, but it does have the drawback of a rather small playerbase, no new players, and some old players which tend not to be very enthusiastic to RP much because, well, who can blame them if they've been there for 5 years? I wouldn't be very enthusiastic either.

Skimmed through a few others til I found New Worlds, and gave that a good shot as well. The constant two-word poses put me off, though. I would probably give Harshlands a go, too, when I have time.



Any recommendations? Bear in mind, all the above are just my personal preferences and opinions, nothing more.
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Old 09-16-2009, 08:13 PM   #2
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Re: Looking for RP-focused MUD with as little combat as possible

Armageddon?

Arm has a detailed emoting system that allows alot of detail in your RPing without requiring or encouraging MASSIVE emotes.

There is alot of combat, but it is by no means required and I've seen literally hundreds of characters get by without ever sparring or fighting one single 'beast'.

Honorable mention goes to Harshlands, the setting of which I -LOVE-, though I've not gotten to enjoy the game as much as I would have liked to.
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Old 09-16-2009, 08:36 PM   #3
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Re: Looking for RP-focused MUD with as little combat as possible

If you want a traditional RPI then your choices are quite limited. There's a list of them in a recent thread here and there's not that many. However it sounds like what you're looking for isn't necessarily what most people define strictly as an RPI so you might want to broaden your search to other roleplay enforced MUDs.

It's tough to find a game you enjoy with the style of RP that you want and I'd say almost impossible to find one where all the players have the same attitude as you. Whatever the style of the game there will always be different approaches to roleplaying among the playerbase.

As an example, on my game we have a few players who really enjoy detailed roleplaying of the type you describe, but from the other things you've said it doesn't sound like our game is really what you want.
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Old 09-16-2009, 09:16 PM   #4
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Re: Looking for RP-focused MUD with as little combat as possible

Yes, I agree that it doesn't comply with the strict definition of RPI. If it had, I probably would not have needed to post here to ask.

I also agree that there will be different approaches to RP, but there tends to be a 'culture' in most MUDs that I have been in. People who don't fit in that culture generally don't last long.

Your game looks lovely, but it does seem far too combat-based for my liking.


Really, combat isn't required on Armageddon? Their site seemed to mention differently. I will give it a try, then.
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Old 09-16-2009, 10:01 PM   #5
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Re: Looking for RP-focused MUD with as little combat as possible

Yes I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to someone looking for a MUD with as little combat as possible. That said we do have players that don't really participate much in combat and prefer other pursuits. We have quite a detailed crafting system where almost every item in the game is player crafted, so in this sense there is no requirement to kill mobs for gold or loot. It's also possible to hire NPC guards to accompany you which would allow someone to gather materials for crafting or travel around without needing to fight themselves. We also have politics and player run organisations which again give a more social aspect to the game that doesn't involve combat.

I'm not trying to give you the hard sell by any means, just pointing out that things are not always as clear cut as they may appear.
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Old 09-16-2009, 10:17 PM   #6
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Re: Looking for RP-focused MUD with as little combat as possible

Thing is, I don't care about items, loot, material, etc.

I just want an immersive fantasy environment (preferably medieval-type) in which my character interacts with other characters (who are well-played and distinctively fleshed-out), and contributes to shape the society that he/she lives in.

I find that if the game itself emphasizes a lot on combat and things of the sort, people tend to focus on it too and even if I don't, the environment just isn't there.
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Old 09-16-2009, 11:02 PM   #7
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Re: Looking for RP-focused MUD with as little combat as possible

I don't know Orrin. Saying what most people define as RPI is rebuffed to the extreme in this thread:



RPI is widely defined and arbitrary, so I think the poster here is well within the bounds of definition with their requirements.

Misao,

Thank you for trying NW-Ateraan. I can agree that while NW has many players that utilize standard emotes, many also engage in robust emoting as customized emotes, pmotes, omotes, rstatus, ostatus, and many other roleplay enhanced functionalities are there for this purpose. However, when you have 20 people in a tavern, speed and grace is of the essence and brevity is applauded. Slow, long roleplay is grand and found when players are in small groups, religious, political, entertainment, romantic, guild, or other events. I recall the other night NWA had fifty people in one room and players were asked to be still because of the sheer magnitude of spam created by even short emotes.

Not to get off track, I can recommend a few MUD's for you. I would not recommend Armeggedon as it is a very PK oriented game and death is second nature. As this is a permadeath game it can destroy good solid "story" roleplay that you seem to be after. Not to mention the emote system is mostly based on the following:

A short, stocky dwarf with curly hair and a scar on his chin and deep set dark brown eyes smiles at a thin athletic human girl with the long blond hair, trim legs and sparkling exotic hazel eyes who has a missing index finger on the left hand.

A long blond hair, trim legs and sparkling exotic hazel eyes who has a missing index finger on the left hand nods purposely at a short, stocky dwarf with curly hair and a scar on his chin and deep set dark brown eyes.

A short, stocky dwarf with curly hair and a scar on his chin and deep set dark brown eyes chuckles at a thin athletic human girl with the long blond hair, trim legs and sparkling exotic hazel eyes who has a missing index finger on the left hand.

After about twenty similar emotes you are practically praying for the simple: A dwarf waves at a human girl.

You might like Shadows of Isildur if you like skill based crafting and a Tolkien world. However, tedius crafting for hours to increase skill levels can be a downside.

You might want to try Materia Magica as it has a very robust crafting system and well developed world. The downside is that it lives in ASCII graphics that can be annoying at times.

Harshlands is also a choice. It has very fleshed out descriptions and roleplay is promoted. It is skillless and classless and the hugeness of the world vs. the playerbase might be an issue for you for interaction.

I wish you luck in your search!
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Old 09-17-2009, 12:58 AM   #8
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Re: Looking for RP-focused MUD with as little combat as possible

Shadows of Isildur hands down.

Whoever said Armageddon.. FAIL. Arm has the highest character turnover out of all the RPI's without a doubt. There are tons of pkillers just roaming around looking for a chance to kill other players. Granted that exists everywhere but in my personal experience, SOI has far less of this and they tend to gravitate towards more tavern-sitting, political roleplay, whereas -all- of the clans on Armageddon incorporate combat in some shape way or form. Whereas on SOI I can only think of a couple combat clans in Gondor.
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Old 09-17-2009, 01:03 AM   #9
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Re: Looking for RP-focused MUD with as little combat as possible

This is not accurate. RPI muds do not let you have a short description that long at all. Arm limits their sdescs to 35 characters and I believe SOI is around 45. Either way. The emotes don't look like that. At best it would look something like this.

The point is that you can add as much flavor as you'd like to the emote. The sdesc isn't what makes the emote long, it's the writers flair or ability to do such. You can play an RPI and simply not emote and use only socials to interact with other players. Granted this won't get you much respect in my book but whatever.
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Old 09-17-2009, 06:33 AM   #10
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Re: Looking for RP-focused MUD with as little combat as possible

Notice I said strict definition of an RPI. Sure anyone can use the term to mean whatever the like, but that's not really the point. The term has historically been used to refer to a specific set of features found in the Harshlands mud and it's derivatives. If people want to use the term more widely that's fine by me as I have no claim on it, but that's what I mean when I talk about the strict definition of an RPI.
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Old 09-17-2009, 12:09 PM   #11
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Thumbs up Re: Looking for RP-focused MUD with as little combat as possible

If you're willing to try sci-fi with a slight fantasy bent (we call ourselves space opera), I'd invite you to give OtherSpace a try.
While we do have 4-8 line poses (with a few players who do do more), at the same time, we have a coded skill system (using dice rolling, similar to tabletop games, if you've played any), and damage you do to someone will show up on their +sheet.
We try our darnedest not to be elitist, and while I can't vouch for every player, we don't condone that kind of thing on OtherSpace.
We are certainly not an adult game in the sense you're talking about (sex and violence happens, but more as a seasoning than as the main dish), and we do have an overall society. Almost all characters will interact with all other characters over their lifetime. Your actions can (and often do) affect the world at large, from sciency (a scientist with an anarchic streak released a quickly-spreading disease he created that just made you glow for 1-3 days, creating a pandemic of light), to compassionate (a totalitarian leader caused the slaughter of an entire planet, and players created a relief organization to provide aid to the survivors), to silly (a player salvaged a giant fan, and the game played kites for an afternoon).
Our playerbase hovers around 20-40, so there's almost always someone on to rp with.
We have no one who does two word poses.

If you're interested in a peek, look at , or telnet directly in at jointhesaga.com: 1790. I hope to see you there!
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Old 09-17-2009, 12:13 PM   #12
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Re: Looking for RP-focused MUD with as little combat as possible

No. Wrong. Your historical reference is completely inaccurate. Just because a group attempted to seize the term Roleplay Intensive (RPI), does not make it a strict definition of RPI. You must have not read the link I gave you so I'll give it again:



Some of the key points are in post #142, #147, and #148.

For those who don't with to muddle through whopping 239 posts on this thread, the basic ending argument was that RPI is a poor term for a group of MUDs that really should have something akin to PK, Permadeath, Guildless, Classless, etc. This group still refuses to drop the term and they should, by taking up one of the suggested terms: ARP (armeggedon style Roleplay) HRP (Harshlands Roleplay). Using one of these terms (since those two games were the founding games of this group) would be much more accurate and definitive.
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Old 09-17-2009, 12:26 PM   #13
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Re: Looking for RP-focused MUD with as little combat as possible

Don't even get me started. Just because we have similar coded features to Armageddon or Harshlands doesn't mean our roleplay is at all similar or comparable. The reason it's RPI isn't necessarily just the features. It's because the features allow for a more in-depth roleplaying experience, whereas MUDs that do not use the features listed in the thread will have shallow roleplay by the most basic definition of the word.
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Old 09-17-2009, 12:41 PM   #14
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Re: Looking for RP-focused MUD with as little combat as possible

Thanks for all the help, guys. Please, don't argue about RPI in this thread, it isn't what I intended at all. I don't quite care whether the type of MUD I like really is considered an RPI in technical terms or not. I just want to find it.

Newworlds, I didn't participate in much tavern RP during my stint there. I joined the Southlands because I loved the concept of it, and while I loved the concept even more during my few days as a slave, I really am pretty sure that almost everyone I saw during that time was like 'grins', 'waves', 'cheers'. Especially during code-based activities.

So what IS a harshlands-type MUD and a armageddon-type MUD? ^^;

I did find Shadows of Isildur in the listing when I searched, but I was hesitant to try it because I have virtually no knowledge of Tolkien, which I imagine would make it rather difficult.

As for OtherSpace, I might give it a try as well, although I generally tend to gravitate towards MUDs which involve mainly humanoids. Elves and the like are fine I suppose, but I really try to stay away from animals, reptiles, tentacles, aliens....
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Old 09-17-2009, 12:44 PM   #15
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Re: Looking for RP-focused MUD with as little combat as possible

Sorry Bub, it's just a heated topic. Read the thread that NW posted and you'll see why. Players who play RPI like myself, don't even consider other muds in the same league as far as the roleplay quality goes. RPI's like SOI and Arm bring far more immersion then 'normal' muds. Many consider that an elitist point of view, but whatever.
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Old 09-17-2009, 12:52 PM   #16
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Re: Looking for RP-focused MUD with as little combat as possible

I don't think you need any Tolkien knowledge to play Shadows, though it does help. Give Otherspace a try too.

If you end up not finding what you are looking for, come back to NWA and start in the North. You will get a more indepth feel for the game and then perhaps go back to the South. Try to get into the merchants guild or a religion. Who knows, you might find many players with your style of emoting and you might become a director and have a play in the grand theater where all you do is emote story lines with special rp commands and functions.
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Old 09-17-2009, 01:03 PM   #17
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Re: Looking for RP-focused MUD with as little combat as possible

Newworlds, I really did enjoy the South concept, and I think it's a nice change from the norm. I do not enjoy doing 'typical' stuff in MUDs, like working on a nice profession and joining a guild and doing normal stuff. My characters tend to be either underhanded criminals, underdog classes, or double-faced backstabbers. While I understand that it is indeed possible to do underhanded/different stuff in the North, I think I would enjoy the South life better. My grouses have nothing to do with spawning in the South rather than the North, unless people emote with radically different styles in the North, which I'm betting is not the case.

I'm currently awaiting email verification for SOI. Cross your fingers for me!
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Old 09-17-2009, 01:11 PM   #18
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Re: Looking for RP-focused MUD with as little combat as possible

No, no. You're wrong. So there.
It's impolite to assume that someone who disagrees with you simply hasn't read your argument.
I get why you don't like the way the term RPI is applied to a small subset of roleplaying muds, I really do. There's an implication that only the features and tradition those RPI muds represent can produce a game with intensive roleplaying. I hear you. But that doesn't alter the fact that over the years in the mud community the term has been used to apply to that small subset of roleplaying muds.

If you want to apply the term to any game which features intensive roleplaying then be my guest, but please don't try to pretend that it doesn't apply the way I used it.

Last edited by Orrin : 09-17-2009 at 01:13 PM. Reason: Typo in final paragraph
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Old 09-17-2009, 02:00 PM   #19
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Re: Looking for RP-focused MUD with as little combat as possible

Please, stop. I don't want my thread to turn out like the others did. That's why I made my title into something -without- the term RPI in it. Thank you.
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Old 09-17-2009, 03:02 PM   #20
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Re: Looking for RP-focused MUD with as little combat as possible

I'm not crossing my fingers because I know you will get verified. But I will cross my fingers for you that SOI becomes enjoyable and is fun for you!
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