On Wed, 4 Apr 2001, Patrick Dughi wrote: > You may not believe me. It's true... It's true that there are Muds that only want to have a certain group of people playing their Mud. I don't think this is related at all with the effect of excessive character creation systems. These only serve to deter everyone. They don't have a good taste for the full theme of the game, yet. It's therefore unrealistic to expect them to be able to write a good description for the game. Furthermore, it's unrealistic to expect them to be willing to write a description when they don't even know what your game is all about. It's one thing if the game is tailored for certain people and thus is off-putting to general players... It's another if the character sequence is off-putting to players, and thus you aren't even attracting your target audience. My point was that these sort of overblown, extended, advanced, uber character creation sequence that have people deal with minutiae and spend time and energy to create their character before they even know what they're getting into DON'T HELP you attract players in general, nor do they help you attract the players you want (whether this be role-playing or whatever). > Unfortunately, some of these people have decided that a MUD is > a good place to settle, which is a sad choice for many, and sure to > cause frustration for the FRP as well; they chose a system who's > foundation is the game, and where roleplaying is ...well... > unenforcable. That is, in a mud, a FRPs type of roleplaying can > occur, but only ontop of the existing game. Why they don't try an IRC > channel, this is beyond me... I disagree that Muds oppose role-playing or that role-playing is not possible within the framework offered by Muds. There are a few things to remember. First, traditional role-playing HAS rules and game elements and things like this. Muds are capable of representing role-playing very effectively. What needs to be understood is that role-playing, of all sorts, is more about communication than it is about suspension of disbelief and immersion. Muds are also capable of providing immersive environments that succeed in suspending disbelief. These are an entirely different class of games than the role-playing sort, and it needs to be understood. In role-playing, you're playing the character; in these games, you *are* the character. Games that have these bloated character creation sequences are generally of the type seeking to be immersive, with many qualities of fiction. They feel that it does not make sense for players to know the names of one another. And that's understood, it does seem illogical at first glance. But what must be understood is that immersion isn't about reality, it's about realism. > So, for the FRPs, I recommend you place this sort of system on your > mud. You're not looking for non-<your native language> speakers. I strongly disagree. My point was that these systems do not help any Mud attract any sort of player. At all. Period. Zero. They deter all players, even the ones you want. Everyone. They just don't work. Period. -dak -- +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | FAQ: http://qsilver.queensu.ca/~fletchra/Circle/list-faq.html | | Archives: http://post.queensu.ca/listserv/wwwarch/circle.html | +---------------------------------------------------------------+
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