> 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).
Well, as an FRPer, you don't want randoms. You don't want someone
who stops by and decides to stick around or not, after a few hours of
light play. Those few hours shatter the illusion that the rest of your
characters and admin staff have been working to promote.
Think of it like an exclusive club - you don't want just anyone;
you only want the people that other members will vouch for, or who meet a
set of given criteria. Letting in just anyone potentially lowers the
(high) level of quality of the establishment.
It is not supposed to attract players; you're not doing it so
people flood your mud. You'd be doing it to keep people from flooding your
mud, unless they're the right people.
Once again, if you're an FRPer, popularity and population are not
your principal goals. They're nice to have, but not at the expense of
shattering your illusion of your custom made world.
So, it's better to cull your potentials with the idea 'better to
loose a potential player than allow a potential nuisance'.
> I disagree that Muds oppose role-playing or that role-playing is not
> possible within the framework offered by Muds.
>
I never said that you can't roleplay on a mud. The fact of the
matter is this:
You can have a pure, goal-oriented game, numbers, virtual dice, accouting
of stats and levels and all that - and still have massive amounts of what
you and I tend to call role-playing. They exist - for the most part - in
a stable harmony as long as they're aware of eachother. However,
FRP-style roleplaying cannot co-exist with ANY other system.
FRP-style roleplaying is well defined by the following quote;
"They believed that characters, through their players, should imagine
themselves as fulfilling a role in the real world, and further declared
that each character should be a personality completely separate from the
player, so that the player becomes more of an actor than a participant in
a game. <FRPer> disparage anyone who does not create an elaborate persona
for each of his characters, each different from his own personality. The
most hard-line advocates of this school of thought refuse to believe that
there is any other "proper" way to play, and they measure the skill of a
role-playing gamer in accordance with how closely he or she meets their
notions of role-playing as theater."
Perhaps you haven't met this type before; most who use muds
actually use the emote command instead of cast/fight/<do_skill>/etc.
Death of players is a consensual act. Battles are simply rooms of people
emoting their percieved actions at each other. It is, literally,
improvisonal theatre, and that's IT.
This idea contrasts with a quote from the same article defining
what I believe to be not only a 'better' (subjective view) form of
roleplaying, but also what the majority of persons believe to be
roleplaying;
"<They> believe that the point of a role-playing game is to put oneself
into a situation one could never experience in the real world, and to
react as the player would In other words, the game lets me do the things
I'd like to think I would do if I were a wizard, or if I were a fighter,
or perhaps, even, if I decided to take the evil path. Consequently, it
would be foolish for me to create a personality quite different from my
own, because it would no longer be me. The game is not a matter of "Sir
Stalwart does so-and-so" but "I do so-and-so." In my imagination, I am the
one who might get killed - not some paper construct, however elaborate it
may be."
Which is probably what most people start out doing.. That's why
you chose a fantasy or magic or sci-fi or whatever type of RPG you chose
in the first place. It's because you wanted to be a princess, or wizard,
or killer cyborg or wasteland mutant, or whatever.
Haven't you ever seen an argument about who gets which monopoly
piece? C'mon, that's just a tiny metal figure, doesn't even affect the
gameplay. But someone, sometime, had to make the dog bark, or have the
shoe kick one of the other metal figures, or run everyone down with their
car. (Ever notice how people will unconsciously scoot the rolling-type
playing pieces, whereas they'll lift-move-tap lift-move-tap the other
sorts?). In their mind, they _are_ the piece, and that means alot to how
they play - even when that doesn't affect the game.
> But what must be understood is that immersion isn't about reality, it's
> about realism.
>
Though I don't think that the definition of 'immersion' is so
clearly defined to anyone, I agree with your definintion in this context.
The difference between an FRPer and a 'normal' mudder though is that
realism comes first, last, and only; but only insofar as their actor
(character) is concerned. Not as far as the mud's internal representation
of the world is concerned. All the mud has to do is to not break the
actor's percieved representation.
When it comes down to it, many FRPers are troubled by mud systems
which actually DO things like require an introduction method, or have any
hardcoded rules or limitations on their characters, and ESPECIALLY on
their characters interactions.
Say I make a character who's a peasant boy, who has no plans in
life until he sees a local warrior hero give a loyalistic speech in the
middle of town. Now, my character has just joined the local garrison -
which is where I start playing him.
Are you telling me then, that I don't know this person who has, in
effect, determined the course of my entire life - that the player that
runs him actually has to type 'introduce myself to peasant_boy as Bob'
before it can be understood that I KNOW who this person is?
This sort of thing pops up alot, though you see it first when you
realize that everyone wants/needs customized descriptions for equipment,
and most muds don't have a good way to do that - and also monitor for
inapproprate descriptions.
This comes down to several issues;
1) We need the mud to enforce almost nothing
1a corollary) We need the mud to be as limitless as possible. Each player
needs admin level control of the world (not the players). Time to look at
most MUSH setups.
2) Players are responsible for acting within the tenets of the mud's RP
rules at all times, especially enforcing a consistent FRP atmosphere.
3) Any minor disruption to a players percieved view of reality is a major
problem. (ie, break of reality to an FRP is equivilent to having your
character nerfed to level 1, and all eq removed for a powergamer)
4) FRPers cannot peacefully coexist with anyone but other FRPers. (See
#2 & #3)
Thus, not only will one or two people be capable of totally
destroying the experience for many people, if they're actually given the
same abilities (like making items, etc), they can have a profound,
lasting, and highly invasive effect upon ALL players, even those who have
not yet started to play.
.
> 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.
Again, they're not supposed to attract players. At all. Period.
Zero. This system is to drive them away, the unwashed hordes, the
unwanted biomass. You want to hand pick your players, every one,
though your complicated character creation system can be seen as marvelous
filter, rather than just a stockade wall. If someone, by themselves,
actually does complete the character creation process, they're obviously
very dedicated to the type of system which requires that creation process.
ie, they're going to be a great addition.
Even a small addition, like "please type a 3-5 line character
history", or requiring that someone fill out their long desc before
playing cuts out a great deal of not-very-interested-in-FRPing people.
A nice step is requring that this history/etc be approved before
the character is allowed to even log on - each extra requirement removes
that many more lousy players who'd just muck up your game.
PjD
* - article mentioned above was from Dragon Magazine, issue #, and author
unknown. I believe the article was called "The vicarious roleplayer"
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