Does Not Play Well With Others

For many years, long before the great Karinthadillo emerged from the chaos of the shattered worlds and established hegemony over all that is right, just and bite-sized, I always thought I knew what roleplaying was about in this kind of MUD context. Roleplaying meant abandoning the out-of-character, focusing on your character and your character's aims and motivations, and playing from that viewpoint. Essentially trying to be your character, and doing what he or she would do.

Quite a while back though, I came across a situation where somebody got really quite upset with this and felt it was rude. They believed that roleplay was like a play script, to be shared amongst the actors ahead of time, and that it was antisocial to suddenly spring a negative scene on somebody. That, for example, if I had a character who was planning to overthrow the king, it would be impolite not to tell the king's player this plan before suddenly surprising both the character and the player with the attempt.

Personally, I don't buy that. While it might be proper for other genres and situations of roleplay, I believe that in our kind of MUD setting, the best way to avoid OOC influences is simply to avoid introducing them in the first place. That telling other players of future IC plans would simply encourage them to use this knowledge to thwart or otherwise influence them. That, in this example, if the king's player was informed, he would surely find one way or another to remove his character from that threatened position. Or, to pick a more benign example, roleplay would simply become the reading of a script, which while interesting for onlookers, would become static and boring for those actually taking part.

I feel that roleplay is best spontaneous and off-the-cuff, drawing on the players' skills at improvising, accepting that things are unlikely to go exactly according to their plan, and taking this in stride rather than demanding a do-over until they are satisfied. I believe that by having everyone come to a mutual understanding beforehand over what will happen in the end, removes the thrill and variability that make it worthwhile.

What do you think, though? Is it being antisocial to refuse to share these plans? Is it simply cynicism underlying this, that I don't trust the other players to keep this knowledge out of their in-character actions? Does any of it even matter?

Back to the Beginning

Despite many hardships and even swimming upriver, a salmon instinctively returns to its spawning ground.

At the risk of sounding like one of those droning documentaries about nothing particularly interesting to anyone, this seems to be a recurring theme. My online life, as I know it, began on a very strict roleplaying game, although I long since thought that those days were past. I have grown away from the rules and norms, come to accept and appreciate other styles of play, and generally have broadened my horizons in a way that I would never have thought possible at the time.

However, I have, for the first time in two years or more, gone and partaken in some serious, deliberate, and very high quality roleplaying, on a game that even though I work on, surprised me with it. Karinth was the game that taught me, if you will, to be openminded and non-judgmental, and I always felt in the back of my mind that I had left behind the world of serious and detailed roleplay, and had best forget about it. Apparently this is not so, and I have high hopes for the future, which seems bright with the possibilities of kindred spirits, and enjoying such future events.

And it struck me, this is not receding, returning to old ways and habits, but in itself continued learning. Learning to be patient, learning that in such a wide and diverse environment, anything is possible. Learning that the future, at least in such a flexible medium, is indeed open: and also open to finding previously held preferences. In a new light, though, one that mixes the previous enjoyment with the more modern eclectic appreciations.

The world is what we make it, and what we seek is there to be found, somewhere, in some time, whether by our doing or another's.

If Greatness Only Comes Once an Era...

So, continuing with my recent theme of "topics discussed on mudconnector", here's another hot one (and I know it's hot because it kept me awake to write this): what makes MUDs great, players or developers?

Clearly it's highly subjective and depends on why someone plays a game. Also, just as clearly, some degree of development is required by someone at some point, otherwise there is no game to be good, bad or indifferent. As a result, there's no real point in arguing a general case since those are basically indisputable and totally varied for each individual. So, here's a neat segue into what I think, which is what you all wanted to hear, right? Right.

In my mind, both logically and from personal experience, it would totally be players. From a player's perspective, of course. I have played MUDs that are awesome technically, yet I didn't enjoy nearly as much as virtually stock MUDs that had a "better" playerbase. I don't enjoy mechanics in the least, in fact, I'm much more likely to stop playing a game because the mechanical side is too complex. I hate leveling but at the same time I prefer standard "boring" grinding because I would rather zone out and level rather than be forced to think about anything mechanically related in order to advance.

So why don't I just play a MUSH or chat in forums or something? Well, at the root of all of this, the reason I play MUDs generally is in order to achieve. To get somewhere, to be somebody. And in order to do this, there needs to be an independent, unbiased arbiter: the developer who wrote the code that applies to every player in the game. I have no interest in making up my own future without boundaries, because that has no credibility: it would just be unadulterated bragging without any backing whatsoever. I need this fair and unbiased source to tell me that I managed to kill my enemy, rather than just me making the story up.

To draw an analogy from my personal life, I am currently a university student for a couple more months before I graduate. I do not consider myself an "academic", although I have a lot of respect for academics. I am here to get a piece of paper that lets me get a (hopefully better) job in the future. I do not see assignments as something to broaden my horizons nor do they inspire my inner being or anything like that, they are obstacles to overcome to prove that I am worthy of gaining that piece of paper. On the other hand, they are necessary because they are unbiased proof that I actually did something. Much like attending a prestigious institution rather than a party school, it lends credibility and creates something to be proud of. I couldn't gain satisfaction from my achievements otherwise.

Essentially, from where I stand, the code forms a basic layer. It creates the rules, the physics for the world and forms a platform for player interactions. It is necessary for any enjoyment, yet does not especially increase enjoyment once it passes that necessary level of competency. In order to be truly great, in my opinion, a game needs a fitting playerbase, high quality interactions - whether they be roleplay, questing, killing, chatting or anything else. For those who would rebut this by saying that there are many great single-player RPGs out there: potentially, yes, although I have never enjoyed any of them.

How does all of this come together? It's another example of something fundamental yet flexible. Many of you will probably have different opinions, both from me and from each other. I'm willing to bet that if there was some way to plot all of these on a chart, we'd have a scatter similar to the last time I played darts while drunk. Yet we all play and enjoy the same game, that has numerous features yet encourages various interactions. One that includes both tremendous effort on the part of developers, as well as a great amount of loyalty on the part of players who shape the world from the other end.

Is it great? Whichever one you are, let's make it so.