Is actual RP in MMORPGs another next impossible thing?
gsoylent:
I meant it's a feature of the MMO as medium that less flexible with visual things than tabletop. There are other things specific to the medium for instance MMO rolepalying forces you to do things in real time while in table top you routinely skip ahead several hours or even days at a time, jump fro location to location in a blink. I am sure LRP and Pbem as mediums have their own advantage and restriction. However focusing on this things in the context of this discussion I think is a distraction.
My point is in both MMOs and (most) table top games there are a range of ways things get into the SIS. There are things like combat for which the access to the SIS is strictly controlled by the rules, And there are things like a player character's thoughts and feelings which are entirely controlled by the players. For most other things, including cutting down a tree, the authority to write this to the SIS is consensual. In table top it's likely to be the GM who says "Yes you can cut the tree down."or "No you can't" or even "Roll on your lumberjack skill". In an MMO it's the community, your peers who say "Yes, you can do that." or "No you can't".
Cutting a tree might be one of those things that are awkward in an MMO (however in an earlier post I how it was possible to 'egg' a police station in game). But likewise there are things you can do in an MMO that would be awkward in table top game.
Take for instance something like a formal debate. Say in a generic fantasy setting you wanted to have a public debate as to whether bringing the dead back to life with magic is ethical.It's not sort of thing that comes natural in table top. In an MMO however you can easily find a moderator for the event, a couple speakers interested in championing one or the other side, and maybe 30-40 people to come along just to listen and ask questions, some who you might know, some who you have never met and some who might have just passing through and got curious.
What you have characters thinking about issues in-character. I don't know where that fits in the Big Model but it is damn satisfying and a lot of my roleplaying in AO has moved away from conventional stories to exploring issues and challenging perceptions.
Callan S.:
Hi Lance,
This is what I see from my perspective - there is no evidence of this 'feature' being in TTRPGs. It doesn't matter if one author writes in that you form a consensus for doing X, because that author doesn't speak for all other authors. And there is no central authority, like sports often have, that determine if this 'feature' is in all TTRPGs.
From my perspective, your arguing against Patrices idea only based on your own preference to vote on whether the system is used at any given point. I know it appears to you as being a fact, but I currently see no evidence to support it as a fact of play and currently defaults to merely being your preference.
I think Patrices idea is fairly strong, as it rests on the backbone of people, initially, only using the system to change the imagined space. In a mmorpg that's pretty restricted, so eventually they break out of just using the system and set up a 'parasite' system on top of the standard system (here they 'vote in' whether to accept the systems results into their shared imagined space). BUT given that the world is very, very persistant, this puts players off imagining they are mayor or that a forrest was burned down, because the mmorpg keeps ignoring them and portraying something else. So where to imaginatively go to that the game can't continually counter? Morality!
That's as I understand Patrice's idea - I might have it wrong.
In terms of your nitpick, I think it's entirely possible to have a money talks/bullshit walks system, yet players might take on other peoples suggestion simply because that suggestion is cool or nifty. Your frown of dissaproval is bullshit that can walk, if you don't have the system currency to block me. But although your frown can walk, a nifty suggestion from you might hook and inspire my imagination, drawing me to use the system in a way that follows your idea (or even sexier, I might have a second idea, that draws upon your idea/is a hybrid of your thinking and my thinking, together). To me, that is beutiful imagining - where I have system control to ignore things, yet its wonderful ideas cropping up that make me drift in whole new directions I would not have otherwise (I have the freedom to do as I normally would, and yet I may not! That is the wonder!). It is the shock and awe of the cool and nifty that changes my system use, and NOT frowns of dissaproval/threatened social ostracism, or bending to genre conventions which when examined, aren't genre conventions but simply how player X at the table wants things done "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" style. Rather than actually spending some coins/system resources to establish that honestly directly.
I'm ranting a bit, but I get so tired of quietly designing money talks systems, because all the vocal forum space is filled up with dissaproving frown design. So I vocalise ("I am money talks, here me roar...), slightly out of place, but vocalising for a money talks system in a dissaproving frown forum is always going to be out of place. And I know your going to say I make too much of the dissaproving frown example - But I've watched actual play accounts for over a decade - I do not make too much of it. [/my nitpick]
Lance D. Allen:
I'm reading "Well, that's your opinion."
Nice discussing with you. It's been productive for me, at any rate.
Callan S.:
I was thinking I didn't describe enough the tone I mean "Your front of dissaproval is...' - I meant it in the same sassy way as you, and meant as nicely as your own use of the BS word. It might not come out that way so I'll take it on the chin if you want to say that was badly expressed. My error :(
Callan S.:
Gah, frown, not front...ah jeez...
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