I was wondering what everyone thought was necessary to have a Roleplaying Intensive MU*

I can only think of 2 criteria. Having a consistent world, having players that roleplay.

From what I've seen, everything else seems to be optional.

So what does everyone else think is required?

It depends on whether you specifically mean an RPI, or just a roleplaying-intensive MUD. An RPI is a roleplaying-intensive MUD (as of course that's what it stands for), but not all roleplaying-intensive MUDs are RPIs - "RPI" has a more specific meaning than that of its acronym, much like many other acronyms (for example not every Object-Oriented MUD is a MOO, even though that's what "MOO" stands for).

An RPI has various criteria, include no OOC channels or who list, enforced roleplaying, short descriptions instead of character names, no levels, etc.

A roleplaying-intensive mud has only the criteria defined by its name - that it should involve intensive roleplaying.

Ive never heard of that before. Well I meant the second criteria then. A mu* (MUSH, Mud, MOO, whatever) that is roleplaying intensive.

Well MUSH/MOO/etc are all types of MUD...

And as I mentioned before, there is no real criteria, other than that it have "intensive roleplaying", which is really very subjective - even a basic talker could be classified as having "intensive roleplaying".

You say that a role-playing intensive world requires a consistant world and players that RP, but that's saying next to nothing. The purpose of the moral life is to do good and avoid evil, but that kinda goes without saying, too...the question is more of how to make an immersive world and how to encourage RP.

Being overly general here, the MUD community has two groups: the powergamers and the RPers. The best way to encourage the powergamers to RP is IC competition. Make resources limited and fought over by two factions that hate each other for some reason in the world's background. They won't cooperate, since they want their power. Instant RP-enforced tension.

The best way to keep the RPers happy with the RP possibilities is 1) the intricacies of the struggle (people don't wake up one day and say, "What damage can I cause? I must do eeevilll! [insert evil laugh here].") There should be legitimate ideological differences...maybe the "evil" caste spent most of its life oppressed and has to work harder to make it on evil footing...their evil is really just ensuring that they don't get trampled by the overly-theoretical "good" people. Maybe some powerful force almost destroyed the world once...one faction harnesses it in an attempt to understand and focus it for the benefit of their community, while another thinks it's dangerous and sacreligious to dabble in it (or shelter those who do). If the RPers start debating in some public fashion, that's a good sign.

Also, a consistant world allows for real, concrete changes. It should be theoretically possible to win the ancient struggle (even if practically impossible). The characters should have the option to RP a change of heart and switch factions. If you use a class-based system, they should be able to change classes. It might be good for balance reasons to make this a costly choice in terms of the powergaming aspect, though.

None of the above qualify the product as an RPI, however. RPI's match a specific set of criterion, as generalized by KaVir in his previous post. To be an RPI, one must make the deliberate choice to follow their requirements - which (in my opinion) does not necessarily justify a better roleplaying experience.

It is entirely possible to have an intensive roleplaying MUD without it having the moniker of "RPI". Intensive roleplay is intrinsic to an RPI, but may also exist independent of such.

I would like to explain a perfect example of what you are talking about when you said that, by relaying it through something that happened in my mud.

A player of my mud decided she wanted PK, so she left the clan she was in and joined another clan and in doing so started a war between the two clans. She is a powergamer and merely wanted a little more PK in her game. But for alot of the rest of us it created a brand new way to RP with each other (as enemies), and also brought on more PK for the people that wanted it.
It is great fun and I am enjoying myself RPing and PKing in these two clans.

Unfortunately that generalisation is just too over generalised - I prefer the bartle categorisation of killers, achievers, explorers and socialisers. RPers tend to be a subcategory of socialiser, while powergamers would be a subcategory of achiever. There are still plenty (a majority in fact) of players who fall outside of either classification.

Don't forget griefers/carebears is a category.

Personally I think an RPI MUD is one where a character is never OOC, be it for mobkilling, exploring, whatever, and where you can be successful in the MUD by only roleplaying.

Well you could divide players up into as many different categories as you wanted - you could even divide them into "players who eat live penguins" and "players who don't", if you wanted to.

But as I mentioned before, I find the bartle categorisation to be the most well thought out. It's still quite general, but does divide players into four distinct categories - killers, explorers, socialisers and achievers. A "griefer" could fall into any of those categories, depending on what sort of griefer they were (eg someone who searched for bugs to exploit would be a type of explorer, while someone who went around sexually harrassing other players would be a type of socialiser).

That is part of it, sure, but as I said before an RPI mud doesn't really have that much to do with opinion - it's a very specific type of mud.

Yes, for an RPI mud, although they are not at all necessary for a roleplaying-intensive mud.

RPI and HnS are styles of mud ("mu*" is a redundant term). Neither are inherently more or less involved or invested, that fact depends entirely on the players and the mud in question.

Now, I'm confused. Doesn't RPI mean Role-play Intensive? Or am I just reading KaVir's sentence wrong?

Sorry, I just woke up.

Please read the thread - I already explained this in my first post.

When I said Mu* I was refering to mushes.

I stand by RPI muds being a more involved form then Mushes or regular muds. In Rpi you're playng someone who other people may very well depend on. Since everything done in game is ic and players depend on each other a lot, I feel like you have to invest more.

For a hack slash it's whenever you feel like logging in, it's no more invested then getting on an xbox live game or logging into Eq for a bit.

For mushes, since everything is up to the player, you can say whatever you want has happened, is happeneing, will happen, therefore the individual investment of players is less important, you get out of it whatever yuo put in.

For RPi, while the return is definatly based on what you put in, it's also largely based on the other players, because RPI's ultimately IMO are built on player involvement. The staff can't be large enough or invested enough to substitute a playerbase that does things on their own.

Another excellent way to promote role-playing is to take away numbers and replace them with descriptions instead. For example, instead of telling the players that a weapon can do 20 pts of damage describe it as being capable of devastating damage. Instead of saying that armor will reduce damage by 15 points, you can say that it will provide moderate protection.

Dragonrealms is an excellent example of how translating everything into words will steer people away from reducing their characters to a sheet of numbers. If everything is described in character then the average conversation will undoubtedly be in character as well.

Darn. I've been keeping up with this thread when it started almost month ago. Your definitions RPI and roleplaying intensive really just slipped my mind. A RPI is a RPI is a role-playing intensive game to me, I guess.

As for the question asked it the frist post. I'm fully awake so I guess I can add something good to this thread. I agree with most of the other posters.
One of the things that I think make a RPI different are the absence of global channels of any kind. The only exception maybe a newbie help channel available for the frist couple of hours (or levels, if the game has them).

A few other things is a on going theme or story that included the players in almost everyway: player-run econony, goverment, etc. Perma-death, because most likely players can be braver than normal when they know that the only thing their character will lose is a chunk of experience. Lastly, a RPI might need to leave out numbers when talking about skills.

Which are also muds (MUSH is a derivative of TinyMUD).

Or how about the perspective of an HnS player:

In a high-quality hack and slash mud, you have to thoroughly learn the ins and outs of the game, and constantly keep up-to-date with the latest changes to the mud in order to successfully compete with other players who are doing the same. Furthermore, in an HnS mud which uses clan systems you're playing someone who other people may very well depend on. Therefore you have to invest more.

For an RPI it's whenever you feel like logging in. It requires no more investment than a talker or going down the pub for a chat.

But you need to see the bigger picture. As I said before, neither are inherently more or less involved or invested, that fact depends entirely on the players and the mud in question.

KaVir, by making that list are you saying that an RPI mud would have many of those features or are you saying that an RPI must have ALL of them or else it is not an RPI.

If you are saying the latter, then I have to disagree with you. Having OOC channels has absolutely nothing to do with whether a game is an RPI or not.

In my opinion, not having OOC channels on any game is a terrible mistake. OOC channels provide one the most important and successful means of building community around a game. When people have a chance to get to know the people behind the characters they tend to have more respect for their fellow gamers and more empathy for the person behind the character. This helps people not only engage in less griefing but it also helps people understand that sometimes you have to let someone else have center stage for a while. If you do, then later on they will do the same.

I believe one of the most important things in a successful RPI or RP oriented mud is that players understand the fact that role play is inherently a co-operative process and that they respect the other players of the game.

Griefers ruin any game so I don't have to explain that.

The "center stage" phenomenon is also important in a role playing game. Most RPers out there have had to deal with those people who feel their character has to be the center of attention at all times. Often, such people are good RPers. But it just isn't fun if someone shows up to any situation, event, whatever and just takes control and makes everything about them.

We had a person like that on Threshold who was a marvellous and very creative RPer. But as the months rolled by he started to be really annoying and he was more of a negative presence. He would show up at an event that other players had planned and organized and make everything about him. In one case, he showed up at an elaborately planned wedding (yes, cliche I know) and started having such enormous fits of emotion and crying that nobody else could do anything. The event could not even proceed. About 30 or so people were involved and all their work was totally wasted.

It took some time but he became a much better citizen and RPer once this person understood that part of RP was letting other people have center stage sometimes. An important part of his understanding was the fact that he had chatted with some of the people on an OOC channel and he respected them as people. It made it a lot easier for him to see things from their point of view and have empathy for their enjoyment as well.



Necessary? You should not be so bold as to declare your PREFERENCES as necessities.

It is not necessary. It is one option. There are good RP based reasons for both permanent death and non-permanent death.

You already provided the main arguments for it. It is realistic and it makes people value their characters.

Some arguments against it: non-permanent death results in a richer history where the actual historical personages can be talked to, they can tell stories of days past in taverns/pubs/inns, it provides continuity to the past, etc. Basically, all the reasons older people are respected in modern society and why when people write books like "The Greatest Generation" the book sells quite well.

I'm not saying one is better than the other. I like both. The point is that there are roleplay benefits to both systems. Therefore, neither one is "required" for an RPI game.

In general, I think it is very dangerous to pick your favorite feature and say that is a *requirement* for a game to be an RPI.

For example, I think combat via emotes is horrific, arbitrary, and contrived. I personally feel it takes away from RP if the resolution to a violent encounter is handled by any method other than a fully coded system of combat resolution. In fact, the more elaborate the better in my view. A more elaborate system makes things more interesting and realistic.

However, I would never say coded combat is a requirement of an RPI because I am open to the fact that different people prefer different systems and that there are benefits to both.

Threshold, I personally think the issue here isn't whose right or wrong, it's a matter of what we're talking about.  When I say RPI, I am envisioning a mud that strives to be as close to realism as possible, while providing an enjoyably play enviroment.  

So more or less, when talking about what sort of ooc things to give players, I ask myself if it would affect playability (enjoyment of the game) and if it's more or less realistic.  Some things are given over for playability, like fantasy, magic and such is clearly not realistic, but it's also fun.  However, on the games *I* would consider RPI, magic for instance is limited heavily.

What's my point?  I'm not going to try to argue with your post because I disagree on many levels, but I don't think you're exactly wrong, I just think you and I have deathly different ideas.  I almost wish games like Armageddon, Harshlands, SOI, Fourlands, had their own classification, because frankly they fit so few molds it's not even funny.  

I can't really compare a game like Threshold to a game like Armageddon, because frankly, they're not going for the same thing.  Yes both are after RP, but they're different enough that I would find it hard to classify them together.

So then, I ask is this a thread about what exactly? When we say RPI what do we mean? Clearly there is disagreement on this factor, I wouldn't consider most games out there (99.9%) who claim to be RPI, actual rpis.  

It's hard to find a game that falls into my classification, for one, because there are so few of them, for two because most people don't reconize them as diferent.  Many people would throw harshlands and threshold together, but I would play one and not the other.  It's not a matter of quality, it's a matter of what I'm looking for in a game.  I think it would be nice if the mudding community as a whole would reconize these games 'Murpe' or 'RPI' or whatever you want to call them as being in their own catigory.

First, I honestly do not see resurrection as any less realistic than casting fireballs or performing other feats of magic. Even most pen and paper RPGs have some sort of resurrection, cloning technology, etc.

Second, I agree that this is not a matter of right or wrong but a matter of personal preferences. That was my main point in my previous post. I caution people to be careful when they are sharing personal preferences so they do not make it sound like their preferences are canon.


While we do not agree on our favorite set of features, I think we DO agree on the larger issue. The larger issue is that the more precisely you try to define the term "RPI" the more you will start getting into personal preferences.

I have absolutely no problem with someone saying:

"For me, an RPI game has permanent death."

What I take issue with is:

"For a game to be an RPI, it must have permanent death, no OOC channels, etc. etc."

In other words, I take issue with someone taking issues of personal preference and attempting to make them definitive traits that are bare minimum requirements.

Incidentally, I am not against the concept of permanent death. I think it is a great game design concept. I also see benefits in non-permanent death, however. While it is not a "role playing" game, I have made hardcore Diablo 2 characters that were a blast. Knowing that death was final definitely added to the excitement. Despite that, I still prefer games (as both player and designer) where death is not permanent. I have always felt a more long term, visceral attachment to such characters. That's just my personal preference.


Excellent point. I agree completely.

SIDENOTE: While I agree Harshlands and Threshold are very different types of games, they aren't completely incompatible. One of the long, long, long time admins of Harshlands has been playing Threshold religiously for 6 years. I imagine if I had the time I would probably enjoy Harshlands as well.


Actually, I think it is somewhat dangerous to attempt the creation of arbitrary acronyms for every type of game out there. The amount of arguing would be prodigious and it would most likely degenerate into countless flame wars.

I think it would be more helpful and less divisive to develop a few general categories and agree on some important options WITHIN that category that differentiate games of the same genre.

For example:

Mandatory RPI Mud Features:

* Role Playing is *ENFORCED* and is not optional.
* OOC banter is not allowed in any IC location, mode of communication, etc.
* Character development/design of some sort is required before a character can become a part of the game.

Then when you read more about a certain game it would be nice to have a list of how the game treated issues such as:

[y/n] Death is Permanent.
[y/n] Game has global IC channels of any sort.
[y/n] Global IC channels are very limited in scope or utility.
[y/n] Game has IC tells or some similar method of IC cross-realm individual communication.
[y/n] Game has channels, forums, or special rooms for OOC communication.

I remember this exact argument being hashed out on usenet years ago. Then, though, it was about what constitutes a MURPE. I remember it because I was at the time a Threshold player and arguing to maintain the purity of the term MURPE.

The problem, I believe, lies in the fact that people choose words for the acronym that, in themselves, carry meaning.

For instance: Role Playing Intensive. If you're saying that we aren't an RPI, are you trying to say that we don't have intense roleplay?

Multi-User Roleplaying Environment: If you say that we're not a MURPE, are you saying that we don't have multiple users and roleplaying?

If we're going to make an objective classification of MUDs, I think it would be beneficial to choose arbitrary names for the classifications like, Type A, Type B, Type C, etc.

Of course, this goes against every marketing ploy out there, as you want a descriptor for your mud that is that: descriptive. And that's what these classifications, and the arguments surrounding them, are really about in my opinion (marketing). A type of mud becomes buzzworthy (RPI now, MURPE in the past) and others want to jump on the bandwagon. They get mad when they're told that their mud doesn't fit the category and they can't be a part of the buzz.

I will say that, traditionally, the "RPI" class of muds (by that I mean FEM, HL, Armageddon, 4Lands, Southlands) all had certain objective game features in place. These included, but aren't limited to the following:
Permanent death, character creation, No global channels, and limited OOC communication ingame. There are probably a few more, but those are the ones that come to mind.

Anyway, it's a cyclical thing. For a while now, RPIs have been growing and burrowing out a niche in the mudding world. In the future, I wouldn't doubt it something else becomes the flavor of the month and we're debating what features make up a MUTE or RUT or who knows what.

Cheers,
Riga

I am saying that those are the features defined by the term "RPI". The label RPI stands for "Role-Playing Intensive", because RPIs are all Role-Playing Intensive muds. However the label represents more than just having intensive roleplaying - it represents a specific style of mud.

The same applies to other things as well, for example a "PK mud" stands for "Player Killing mud", yet it would not apply to a mud in which players were only killed by mobs, because it means more than the literal definition of its words. It represents a specific type of mud.

Equally, every mudder is playing the role of someone other than themselves - their characters have skills and knowledge different to that of the player, and often belong to entirely different races. So in theory every mud requires roleplaying - indeed, unless the mud allows you to play yourself, you could even say that it was "roleplaying enforced". However we don't list every mud as an RP mud, because RP is used to represents a specific type of mud.

It has nothing to do with whether or not the game is a roleplaying intensive mud - but it is one of the criteria for labelling a mud as an RPI.

I agree. In fact I find many of the RPI features contrary to what I consider a good mud, and some of them contrary to encouraging roleplaying. However no OOC channels is one of the features defined by RPI muds.

However the difference then was that Threshold wished to use the term MURPE as a replacement for being a MUD. RPI is not a replacement - it is a specific type of mud, no different from many of the other labels we use.

MOO stands for "Mud Object-Oriented". Yet I don't see every object-oriented mud claiming to be a MOO, nor do I see anyone claiming that if you're not running a MOO your mud is not Object-Oriented. The label RPI is no different. An RPI gets its name from the fact that it's roleplaying-intensive, just like MOO gets its name from the fact that it's object-oriented, but in neither case is there any implication that that is the only type of roleplaying-intensive (or object-oriented) mud.

So what happens if people start redefining terms? The people running RP muds which don't fit the criteria for an RPI are generally the ones that seem to take a dislike to the definition of an RPI, yet they are often highly critical of pseudo-RP muds that list themselves as RP muds. If you were to use RPI purely by its acronym meaning, then why not the others?

So lets say Bubba is running a typical stock mud, except he's renamed the classes to "smurf", "pokemon" and "ninja turtle". He knows that none of his players are smurfs, pokemon or ninja turtles, therefore he can safely say that every player is playing a role. Therefore, following the actual definition of RP (Role-Playing) he can quite legitimately refer to his mud as an RP mud. The main focus of his mud is PK - indeed, there is little purpose for mobs, as the main goal of the game is to beat other PCs to death with clubs or blow them up with C4. However Bubba can safely say that, while dozens of characters get killed every hour, no actual player gets killed. As the literal definition of "PK" is "Playing Killing", and no actual players are killed or do any killing, Bubba is also able to refer to his mud as a non-PK mud. As the word "intensive" is rather subjective, and Bubba feels that his players play quite intensively, he decides to call his mud a "non-PK RPI mud".

Do you think that would be useful for new players, who are searching for specific types of mud?

Initially according to the people who created the first RPIs presumably, in order to clarify their style of mud, although it's now fairly commonly accepted (except by those running RP muds which don't satisfy the RPI criteria).

I fail to see any claim of "superiority", any more than muds which claim to be RP or PK. It is simply another classification of mud.

In your previous post you yourself specifically suggested features you felt should be mandatory for an RPI. Yet when I point out that someone else has already defined those features (and over 12 years ago as well, I might add), you claim that it's "that kind of arrogance" that you "cannot support"?

The definitions arise through use. You're right though - there's no official body who can refute Bubba from listing his pure PK stock mud as a non-PK RPI mud. In fact there are many mud owners who go to the effort of misleading the public in order to try and attract new players. However most people will not take such muds seriously, and listings are likely to be audited, because sites such as this and TMC generally prefer to give the players accurate information based on their expectations. If I listed my mud as a MOO, it would no doubt be changed - not because my mud isn't a "Mud Object-Oriented", but because it doesn't fall into the definition of what a MOO is.

For the record, I agree with you on the dilution of accepted terms. I dislike it as well. My post was intended to address the motivating factors behind these little arguments. As for MOO vs. RPI, there's a big difference. Object Oriented isn't particularly marketable in the current game world. Intense roleplaying is.

Were Object Oriented to become an attractive selling point in the mudding community, I imagine you'd see similar disputes cropping up around the term MOO.

I think you've hit the nail on the head - IMO that's certainly the big reason for most of the complaints. However there's nothing stopping people from listing their muds as "roleplaying intensive" (in fact I believe Robbert does that, as he runs a high-quality roleplaying environment which doesn't fit the RPI criteria).

"Did", rather than "does". I and my wife shut down our game last year. And we chose to tout ourselves as "Intensive roleplaying" rather than "RPI (Roleplaying Intensive)" to avoid the connotation implied by RPI. Since our game had been developed after the de facto standards implicit in the term RPI were developed, and we did not - by choice - meet all of those criterion, it was decided that, while we were roleplaying intensive and that roleplaying was enforced, it was simpler to bill ourselves by a different moniker.

Having been involved directly in the interpretation and application of RPI as a criterion, I have an understanding of both sides. The same argument can be applied to MMORPG as a definition - at what point does one qualify to bill their product as such, and who has defined the standard? I submit that, were I to release the game I am currently developing, and bill it as an MMORPG, I would be derided by the operators of established games which meet that billing for falsely carrying my product as such. The definition exists - both for MMORPG and for RPI; making ones product meet that definition is up to the prospective implementor, rather than the public. The criterion does not change.

Note that there is a difference, which I do not believe has been stressed, between "RPI" as a moniker and "RolePlaying Intensive". The former means the game meets the criterion established by members of that (select) community. The latter simply stipulates that intense roleplaying exists on that game.

Those were just my opinions. I have absolutely no problem with someone saying "in my opinion an RPI has <feature 1>, <feature 2>, and <feature 3>."

What I have a problem with is someone picking an arbitrary feature that amounts to no more than personal preference and saying it is a requirement to be a Role Playing Intensive (RPI) game. Part of why I took issue with it so strongly is because some of those traits were no more related to role playing than the chipset or operating system used on the server.

Also, what I was suggesting in the last part of the post was that if someone wanted to attempt to create acronyms for classification (perhaps for use her at TMS) that it would be better to stay general as far as mandatory traits and then have further questions to differentiate within a classification.

Delayed response as I was away over Easter.

The two most well-known RPIs are probably Armageddon and Harshlands.  Harshlands is 2 years older than Threshold, while Armageddon is 5 years older, so I don't think it can be simply dismissed as "the latest trendy phrase".

So does "Mud Object-Oriented", yet I don't see people complaining about MOOs.  Not even "MUD" (Multi-User Dungeon) fulfills its prima facie meaning.  Nor, in fact, does RP (Role-Playing) - a term which I've seen you defend on more than one occasion when HnS muds have claimed to be RP muds.  So if you're arguing against people using the term "RPI" for a specific type of mud, does that mean you believe that every mud should be classified as an RP mud?  After all, every mud consists of a player playing the role of a character, which is the very definition of "role-playing".  And if every mud is an RP mud, and the "Intensive" part is agreed to be subjective, does that mean you believe that every mud should be classified as an RPI mud?

So does RPG, the term you use to describe your mud.  RPG is the cross-cultural abbreviation for "Rocket Propelled Grenade" and "Raketniy Protivotankoviy Granatomet".  It also has an official dictionary entry (in Merriam-Webster) as "report program generator".  Finally, it's also a registered trademark of RPG Diffusor Systems Inc.

You keep ignoring my points, Aristotle, but you won't distract me with insults. Let us go over this one more time. I have bolded the points which I believe you are claiming. The other points follow on logically. Please tell me at which point you disagree:

1) You believe that "RPI" should be used to represent its literal meaning, rather than being a label to refer to a specific style of mud. In other words, you feel that the label "RPI" should be usable by any mud that is "role-playing intensive".

2) RP stands for "role-playing". And the literal meaning of "role-playing" is simply "to play a role".

3) When playing a mud, a player never plays themselves - they play a character. That character may have certain similarites with the player, but invariably the character lives within a different world to (and possesses different powers from) the player. Ergo, going by literal definitions, every mud is an RP mud.

4) You feel that the term RPI shouldn't have to adhere to strict requirements - that any mud which involves intensive roleplaying should be able to use call themselves an RPI.

5) The literal meaning of "intensive" is subjective. Therefore if we're using literal meanings, any RP mud could claim to be an RPI on the basis that they feel the role-playing in their mud is "intensive".

6) As specified by point 3, going by literal meanings all muds are RP muds. And as specified by point 5, going by literal meanings any RP muds can quite legitimately claim to be an RPI mud. Therefore, going by literal meanings, all muds can be classified as RPI muds.

Which point do you disagree with, and why?

I did not ignore any of your points and I didn't insult you. You *DO* have a very bad habit of going way off topic, dredging up conversations from years past, and twisting them to your purposes. This is a well known behavior of yours. You did it to me in this thread. If you consider it an insult when someone asks you to stop doing it, then I would recommend that you not do it in the first place.

You also totally conjured up a straw man when you said "And if every mud is an RP mud, and the "Intensive" part is agreed to be subjective, does that mean you believe that every mud should be classified as an RPI mud?"

I never said anything remotely like the statements you were arguing against. I never said every mud is an RP mud, nor did I say anything even approaching that. Thus, yours was a classic straw man argument.

I simply refuse to indulge your flights of fancy.


Why do you insist on asking me to repeat myself over and over again? I already explained my view on the matter in great detail. If you actually want to know my opinion, re-read my posts (particularly my last one before this).

If you want me to refine one of my points, then try talking about my points rather than completely different ones that you invent and then attribute to me.

Nothing in your last post actually addressed anything I wrote. All you did was restate your "proof" that relies completely on steps that do not follow from each other. Points #2 and #3 are so ridiculous that they are laughable.

According to your points #2 and #3, Doom would be an RPG. If that is really what you want to argue, then have fun by yourself.

It sounds like all you want to do here is throw out your totally unconnected opinions and expect people to do nothing but discuss YOUR opinions. You aren't reading what I write and worse than that, you are attributing your own phantom counter-points to me. If you don't like the points I am making, you simply invent more convenient ones and act like I made them.

I honestly do not see what is productive about this discussion at this point.

It is ironic that the only reason I read this thread in the first place was when I saw you had posted here. Now it is because of your posts that I'm done. Your posts used to be very interesting and worthwhile. Both here and on usenet, I would read a thread simply because it showed "KaVir" as one of the posters. You used to stay on topic and respond to points people actually made rather than just invent new, more convenient ones that you erroneously attribute to them.

Those days are slowly becoming a distant memory. Of late, all I read from you is bitterness, rancor, and hostility. That's a shame.

Have fun with your straw men.

No, I didn't, I asked a question - the same one I asked again in my most recent post.  I had already made the premise that every mud could be considered an RP mud, and that "intensive" is subjective, and wanted to know if either (1) you disagreed with those premises (and if so why), or (2) if you agreed with those premises, whether that meant you also believed that all RPIs could be classified as an RPI.

It would have been a straw man if I had claimed you had made those statements and argued against you based on that interpretation.  But I didn't.  What you claimed was that "RPI" should be used as its literal meaning rather a specific style of mud.  What I'm trying to show you is what happens when you apply that logic to other abbreviations - because applying the logic to some and not others would be hypocritical.

Point 2: RP stands for "role-playing".  And the literal meaning of "role-playing" is simply "to play a role".

Now there are two points here.  Is it that you believe the statement "RP stands for role-playing" is "so ridiculous that [it is] laughable", or are you referring to the literal meaning?



Main Entry: role-play
Pronunciation: 'rOl-"plA, -'plA
Function: verb
transitive senses : ACT OUT <students were asked to role-play the thoughts and feelings of each character -- R. G. Lambert>
intransitive senses : to play a role

point 3) When playing a mud, a player never plays themselves - they play a character.  That character may have certain similarites with the player, but invariably the character lives within a different world to (and possesses different powers from) the player.  Ergo, going by literal definitions, every mud is an RP mud.

What is "so ridiculous that [it is] laughable"?  The suggestion that a player plays a character?  Or the suggestion that they live in a different world to (and possesses different powers from) the player?  Because both of those statements are true in every mud I've ever played.  The conclusion of the above statement is a logical step based on the previous statements and point 2.

Precisely, and that is the very point I am trying to demonstrate.  You argue that RPI should be used to represent its literal meaning - a role-playing intensive mud.  Yet you find it laughable when I suggest applying the same logic to other acroynms, such as RP.  Why?

In an earlier post you claimed "Unless something is managed by a standards body like ANSI or IEEE I do not think anyone can lay claim to what exactly defines RPI or any other game related acronym. Yes, people can share their opinions but nobody has the authority to outright declare what the precise and exact criterion are".

Is "RPG" not a game-related acronym?

You are arguing inconsistently.  Either acronyms should follow their literal meaning, or they shouldn't.  Most people (including me) use the meaning that that acronym has come to take on - an RP mud or RPG has a certain style of IC player interaction similar to pen&paper roleplaying games.  A PK mud allows player characters to fight each other.  A MOO is a specific mud codebase which happens to be object-oriented.  And an RPI is a type of RP mud which includes a specific range of features.

You obviously believe your mud to be a good-quality RP mud, and seem offended that someone could invent a classification of RP mud which your own mud doesn't qualify for.  You just need to rub the bruises from your ego and realise that an RPI is no better or worse than any other mud - it is simply a classification, and one which is useful to players.  It doesn't mean that anyone thinks any less of your mud, any more than they would think less of mine for not being a MOO ("But my mud is Object-Oriented" I cry!).

KaVir, is this really what you've been reduced to? You were once one of the most interesting and well reasoned posters on any mud community or usenet forum, and now you resort to cheap insults and personal attacks. That is a real shame.

I have said repeatedly that long ago I decided to just use "RPG" because that acronym carried no baggage, no trendy elitist meanings, nor anything else that could be controversial.

Aside from all the other points I have made, I think "RPI" just sounds silly and I'd never want to attach it to any game I made. Please stop acting like my opinion on this matter has anything to do with wanting to use this acronym myself.

And when the next trendy acronym rolls around a few months from now, I won't be interested in using that one either. If that acronym is created by an elitist group of people who want to claim they own it, I'll disagree with that one too.

This issue is not about me or my game, it is about a small clique of selfish people trying to act superior to others. They have invented an extremely arbitrary set of concepts that are no more about role playing than choice of chip set or operating system.

I am not arguing inconsistently. You are just not reading what I am posting. I am not arguing about what an acronym should mean. I consider arguments over the precise meaning of such acronyms to be pointless and unnecessarily divisive. I am arguing about WHO decides what an acronym means. I am saying that the meanings of acronyms like RPG, RP, PK, and even RPI get decided through use and not by declaration.

Consider it a corollary of : "Fighting the battle for nomenclature with your players is a futile act. Whatever they want to call things is what they will be called."

The difference between RPI and other acronyms is that RPG, RP, PK, etc. are not acronyms where a small group of people claim they are the sole arbiters of what makes something an RPG, an RP game, or a PK game.

The two things I object to most are:

1) A small group of people who act like they have the right and the power to CONTROL an acronym. They don't.

2) The attributes they have chosen are so arbitrary and irrelevant to actual role playing that it is the height of absurdity to claim such attributes are vital to any type of role playing. If someone said you have to run Red Hat Linux to be a PK mud, I'd be critical of such a comment as well.

Aha... more personal attacks. Oh, how far you have fallen. I read your posts now and they remind me of myself in my angry, flame war seeking, law school days. I am sure I am not alone in wishing we could hear more of the "old KaVir" and less of the new one who traffics in vitriol and venom.

I am a professional game developer and I am running a business. I would never be interested in using a vague, arbitrary term like RPI that is NOT widely known and would do nothing but confuse 90% of the people I would hope to recruit to my game. We recruit most of our new customers from OUTSIDE the mudding community because we want to expand the hobby.

Furthermore, I am not threatened by a couple of hobbyists trying to lord something over other hobbyists. Such cannibalism and in-fighting disturbs and saddens me but does not threaten me.

I do, however, think such behavior is bad for the mudding community which happens to be something I care about.

Y'know, I was going to bite my tongue and stay out of this, but this is really just too much.

I seriously hope you aren't referring to the admins of MUDs using the acronym in question as a "small clique of selfish people trying to act superior to others." If you aren't, then please disregard the rest of this post, as it won't apply.

You know what the really funny thing is? I don't see Sanvean, Revus, Alaire - or, come to think of it, any other admin from one of these games - posting here to argue over whether or not people should or should not be allowed to call their own game whatever the heck they like.

Really, the only person I see arguing is you, and to be frank, I don't understand at all why you're getting so worked up over this.

RPI, like any other acronym, is in place for the convenience of the community. Over the years it has taken on certain specific connotations - no better or worse than an Intel chipset versus an AMD chipset - and is merely used within that specific context to draw the attention of individuals who enjoy the elements said connotations entail as far as MUDing environments go.

Notice the complete lack of arrogance and elitism.

So do me a favor and quit slinging mud on the names and the hard work of numerous people who have done absolutely nothing to deserve it other than try to create free, immersive environments for folks to enjoy in their spare time. Actions speak louder than words, and at this point the only particularly selfish and arrogant individual I see in this thread is the one who made these disparaging remarks.

Thanks.

You are though - as you pointed out already, going by my previous points (which use the same logic as you've used for your view of what RPI should mean) Doom would be an RPG - yet you claim that those points "are so ridiculous that they are laughable".

Precisely what I've been saying.  Labels such as RPG, RP, PK, RPI, etc are not defined by the literal meaning of the acronym - instead, they take on their own meaning based on the way they are used. And RPI has taken on its own such meaning, over many years, just like RPG, RP, etc.

Except that this isn't "the next trendy acroynm", it's an acroynm that has been established over many years.  ?

Good lord KaVir. Are you ever going to realize that this is why you have become a laughing stock? "Remember this debate from 1997?" How about the debate RIGHT NOW. Do you have a problem staying in the present?

Lay off the google groups and stay on topic.

RPI *is* a trendy acronym. The fact that is has come "back" in style doesn't make it any less trendy. It is no different than suit coats with three buttons, bell bottoms, seersucker suits, horn-rimmed glasses, or any other retro-style that becomes trendy.

Please stop dredging up ancient discussions in lieu of actually staying on topic. Please stop misquoting people, quoting them out of context, and using their words in arguments they are not involved in for your own purposes.

In other words, have some integrity.

I don't know what happened to you over the years, KaVir, but it is truly a sad sight to behold.

I am completely done with this topic and unfortuantely done with you. I'll have to join all the other people who used to love reading your opinions but can no longer tolerate your insanities.

I'm not thrilled about it, however. This is up there with Barry Bonds using roids or Pete Rose gambling. It is always depressing to see someone you once admired let themselves fall into such a disappointing state.

You claimed that "RPI is indeed the latest trendy phrase- like it or not. To argue otherwise is to descend into silliness and absurdity." - and specifically asked me to provide a citation to prove how long it had been around.  Then when I provide the citation you asked for, you insult me for not "staying in the present"?

The citation I provided might not go back 10+ years, but it still proves that (1) the term "RPI" was already well established 7 years ago, and (2) someone explained the term to you 7 years ago.  So where exactly do you get this "latest trendy phrase" thing from?

Nothing happened to me - I have alrways responded this way to people who post inaccurate or inconsistant statements.  I've generally ignore your posts in the past because (1) I usually agree with your views, and (2) you're extremely tiring to argue with, as you take every slightest disagreement so personally.  This time however you specifically joined this thread by disagreeing with my points on an issue which (1) I knew I was right about, and (2) I had already explained earlier in the thread.

You didn't like it 7 years ago, and you obviously don't like it now, but the fact still remains that RPI has an established meaning for a specific type of mud.  And no amount of personal insults are going to change that fact.

I have to agree with this.  I myself have never seen any formal definition of RPI.  I've also used the the terms RPE RPI RPS RPF RPGM in many posts over the years after defining them up front and then using them as shorthand.  I was nevertheless suprised by a response that in essence declared they shouldn't be used that way and meant something other than what I said they meant.  

It does remind me very much of the MU* term and it's attempted use.  Or an even better example...


Were the people who ran muds in the TinyMud family attempting to distinguish and separate themselves from the Diku and LPMuds by redefining MUD and then later inventing MU*?  
You bet they were.  

I'm not going to get into the elitist snob argument.  The point being that arguing over the use of an acronym, and one that is not at all well defined nor recognized by the general mud community, is rather petty and ignores any points about role-play a poster is making.  

Anyway I've recently moved on to using the terms dwarves, hobbits and elves when describing types of role-players or non-role-players.  

Just for the record... IIRC this is my various freewheeling uses of the acronyms over the breadth of my posts.

RPI - role-play immersive/intensive same as RPE or RPW (hobbits)
RPE - role-play versus the environment (hobbits)
RPW - role-play versus the world (hobbits)
RPF - role-play freestyle (elves)
RPS - role-play storytelling (elves)
RPGM - role-play game mastered (elves-hobbits)
The rest - non-role-players, light avatarism, Hack-n-slashers, roll-players (dwarves, and some hobbits)

I'll probably continue my loose use...  
And I've always been upfront concerning my distaste of Hobbits...  That's where opinion comes in.  Consider the source.

It does remind me a bit of the recent post over on MudMagic exhorting us to come to a "mud community consensus" and agree to redefine the term MUD to mean multi-user domain or dimension, and NOT dungeon.   Like nobody has ever dictated that we use dungeon or chat kingdom or domain or dimension or shared hallucination in the first place.  

So until RPI is trademarked, I look on it the same way I look on Pavel Curtis's quote about what a mud is.  Yeah errm whatver.  (Note: I don't believe that is his position now BTW, but I may be wrong.)

Yeah... Threshold is an RPI/RPE/RPW type of mud.  Quite similar to Armeggedon and Harshlands.  That's all a player needs to know.    ;-P

The acronyms like MUSH/MURPE/etc were attempts to try and differentiate themselves from MUDs. RPI is the reverse - it is a specialised classification of MUD type, just like PK muds, RP muds, or HnS muds. It might be poorly named, but (like other equally poor-fitting acronyms such as MUD or MOO) it has been around long enough to stick.

Right - which is why I think it would be equally silly to try and refine "RPI" when it has been around for so many years.

Actually the whole TinyMush, TinyMuck, TinyMage, TinyMuse, TeenyMud came about merely to distinguish a particular implementation and likely as a courtesy to the prior authors.  Same reason we have Diku, Circle, ROM, etal.  Long before Diku existed and the Tiny people decided to divorce themselves from hack-n-slash play.  You can imagine the confusion if the Circle or Merc authors called themselve Diku 2.0 and Diku 3.1.   Interestingly enough in LPs just that sort of confusion happened.

MURPE... well AFAIK I think though I'm not sure that Aristotle started that one.  hehe.  There's a lot of muds calling themselves MURPEs out there today.  I've never seen a definition of MURPE either nor have I seen anyone suggest that someone shouldn't be using the term MURPE because they don't meet some criteria.  Have you?

I think you just made the argument against how it's (RPI) being treated here.  There are no specific criteria defining exactly what PK, HnS or RP muds are, other than what the acronyms themselves suggest.   PK for instance is implemented quite differently on WODMush than it is on GodWars.  

No I think it's exactly like Curtis's definition of muds.  At least Curtis actually published his arbitrary criteria.  I've yet to see any published definition of RPI.   Yeah I even searched the sites of those muds.  So if I missed it, maybe you can point it out.  

And you know I've been around long enough and involved in enough different styles of games to know it just isn't a "well-recognized term" in the mud community at large.   And it's not simple stubborness and contrariness that I don't use it, because frankly I only see a small handful of people using it.  A smaller handful than those using MURPE even.

Now much as I might respect Pavel Curtis, if he'd logged into my mud and said "Hey this ain't a mud, because I can't create any objects and it has a score command", I would have told him to frag off.  Same thing goes for RPIers.  There are many role-play immersive or intensive games that do have channels and score commands.   More to the point it's an extraordinarily poor choice, because I sure as heck ain't going to type out RPI, more than once in a post whether I mean role-play immersive or intensive.

I don't even know the criteria for this RPI, but I do know Mr. Curtis's criteria for muds.  So I don't even know whether to reject it or not.  What I do know is that whether channels exist or not has very little to do with role-play and immersion and is just as arbitrary as defining muds as those not having a score command.  And yes just as obviously it's being used as some sort of proprietary term.  And not some friendly distinction for the purposes of discussion.   I.E. This thread.  Isn't that exactly what's being argued here?  

There's a big difference between someone calling their server a new made up name to describe the activity in that game (i.e. MUCK - multi-user chat kingdom) and telling others who happen to use that same acronym to describe something else (for example me using MUCK as multi-user creative killing ... hmm that's a nice one) that they ain't a MUCK and shouldn't use it.  Besides as your probably aware, many descendents of MUCK have as little to do with Chat than many MUDs have to do with Dungeons.

Let me try to drive the not so subtle point home.  Differentiation is fine.  Invent as many acronyms as you want.  Call your game a MUD and say it's a multi-user dimension.  Great.  But don't tell people that someone owns the acronym RPI and it has a well-defined meaning.  Or that anyone using RPI differently is trying to intentionally confuse people, because they aren't and it don't have a well-defined meaning.  Or more importantly that RPI should PROPERLY be used if your mud meets criteria X, Y, and Z.  
Because if you do, your going to have to come up with some precedent for that.  

What other term in common use in the mud community has only a specific meaning and not a generalized meaning?   No not even Mushes, Mucks, and MOOs have specific criteria in that regard besides simply acknowledging actually formal derivative history or inspiration.

Yet as I already pointed out, going by the acroynm itself practically every mud would be classified as an RP mud, while no mud would be classified as a PK mud (at least, I've never heard of any mud which killed the players, unless you count the occasional suicide). The meanings might not be as specific as RPI, but we still give acroynms such as RP/PK/etc certain meanings which go beyond the literal wording.

But don't you think it would be worth telling that person that MUCK already has a meaning, that it already refers to a specific style of mud, and that if they call their "Multi-User Creative Killfest mud" a "MUCK" then many potential players are going to confuse it for a completely different type of game? Furthermore, if that mud listed itself as being a "MUCK", do you think it would be unreasonable for an auditor of the weblisting to flag the entry as inaccurate?

Those are specific codebases. My scratch-written PK mud is object-oriented - what sort of response do you think if I advertised in on a forum for MOOs?

Of course I'm perfectly entitled to call my mud a MOO (or indeed anything else) if I like, but that's not really the point. MOO already has a specific set of features, many of which have nothing to do with OO, and based on those criteria my mud doesn't qualify. Calling my mud a MOO would therefore just lead to confusion.

Excuse me but what exactly are you auditing?  

If someone is auditing games for the term RPI, then they are doing players a disservice.  They are no longer auditing, they are involved in subjective game review.  

It's especially annoying because apparently only a handful a people are privy to the EXACT definition that's being audited against then.  And apparently that definition isn't even consistent based on the various RPI muds web pages I've visited.

Now I've asked twice now and so have a few other posters.
Where can I find the definition of RPI?  

Do you know when it first appeared on Usenet?
It looks like 1998 to me.  Looks like someone defined it as having multiple currencies and horses and carriages. :-P

KaVir's point is valid here - if I, as a game owner, were to bill my game as "PK Intensive", and it were not, it would be a misrepresentation of the game, and could be detrimental to an auditors impression (I believe TMC still does audits, although I no longer frequent that site). Ditto the term "RPI" - although I have never asked for quantification of the term, when this situation arose several years ago regarding my game, I quickly determined I didn't (by choice) meet the arbitrary criteria the term RPI represented. Rather than debate the issue, I simply billled the game as IRP - intensive roleplay.

Having been intimately involved in that discussion (early '01 if I recall correctly), and after doing some cursory research into the term back then, I chose not to debate the issue, because the term RPI had become the de facto standard for a specific set of criterion. Now, several years further down the road, it should be even more firmly ensconced, regardless of how well it has been published.

Perhaps, rather than debating the timeline and history of the applique', this thread would be better realized by codifying the specifications, to allow citing in the future. It need not be KaVir's definition; we can appeal to those who run games quantified as RPIs for their interpretation.

As someone that gave up playing hack-and slash and only plays RPI, I've come to expect certain things from that term.  I've searched for similar MUDs, games that were designed for role-playing, not killing.  In addition to an environment of strict in-character role-play, these MUDs may have a base like the average MUD, but its been modified to remove all traces of elements that don't pertain to a realistic, non-game-like experience (experience, levels, global channels, and everything else that has no meaning or place in role-playing, unless you're role-playing a video game character).  A lot of MUDs call themselves RPI, but to be honest, they don't meet the standards of RPI.  Their code looks like any other non-RPI MUD.  It's like the owner of a Ford Focus claiming he drives an exotic sports car.

By this definition, I've come across less than a dozen RPI MUDs, only a few of which can be found on TMS.  Most of these MUDs are no longer active either (last time I looked, there were only three active and two still in development).

The overuse of the term RPI is distressing, or at least annoying for those of us that seek such games only to be disappointed time and time again by games that don't meet the expectations that term suggests.

Take care,

Jason

The accuracy of the listing. On TMC I've done this numerous times for the "codebase" field - Diku's listing themselves as "custom", GodWars listing themselves as "Merc", etc. Players looking for MUCKs will most likely do searches based on the codebase criteria, and "MUCK" is already a standard codebase. If everyone were allowed to write what they wished, then it would render the by-codebase search useless.

RPI is not quite as clear-cut as MUCK, because the latter is a specific codebase while the former is a style of mud (although in many ways it is almost like a codebase). In addition there is no listing entry for "RPI", but if there were I would treat it the same as any of the other fields.

The same could be said for many of the other fields. If you think "RPI" is subjective, you should try quantifying something like "Detailed Character Creation" or "Extended Race Selection" (a certain infamous mud actually tried to claim the latter on the basis that, although it didn't actually have any races implemented, players could pretend to be whatever they liked). Most of the definitions are open to mis/interpretation, but at the end of the day, if the listing is to be of any use to its target audience (ie potential players), there needs to be some amount of consistancy. And IMO the best way to do that is by precedent and common sense. It's not perfect, but if you want to be completely non-subjective you're really not going to be able to provide much information.

There are enough bits and pieces around to work it out, but I've not yet found a full definition (RPIs aren't really my thing - they're just something I've stumbled over a few times over the years - so maybe someone else can point out a link).

What I believe happened is that many years ago someone created a specific style of RP mud, and over the years other people have copied that style of mud, and thus the term RPI has sprung up among the players of those muds to represent their genre. Sort of like an "adopted codebase" I suppose (derivatives without the physical source code itself).

Regardless, the term "RPI" has a well established meaning among those who play such muds. If you list some random mud as an RPI, then players who like RPIs will connect, quickly discover you're not what they were expecting, and leave. Meanwhile those who dislike RPIs will simply ignore your mud, expecting it to be something other than what it really is. It's a misrepresentation that nobody benefits from (unless you're specifically trying to dilute the term RPI, which would be one possible long-term goal).

I've already provided a link to July 1997, that's the earliest reference I've been able to find on usenet (although I've not had time to search thoroughly).