[MUD-Dev] Character evolution

[Ned Lovely]

> game. Traumatic experiences do not care if it you are playing a game
> or not.  Because it seems to be very difficult  for the average male
> of about college age to imagine how emotionally devastating this ex-
> perience is. This discussion however is hardly suited for this list.

I'd just like to suggest that those who have any doubts about the 
seriousness with which people take this sort of thing read:

ftp://ftp.lambda.moo.mud.org/pub/MOO/papers/VillageVoice.txt

Its an article that appeared in the Village Voice about an online rape
that occurred on LambdaMOO. Its an interesting exploration of exactly
how much people associate their characters with themself. I'll leave
the decision of whether identifying with a character on a mud is healthy
or not to the reader ;).

No matter how much we say, "It's just a game." or "It's a social
experiment." we need to recognize that there are real people playing
our "games".

While I will be the first to agree that the modern feminist extremism
has almost trivialized the concept of rape (please flame me off the list
for that comment), rape is still a very powerful and emotional concept
that runs roughshod over some of the most private areas of the victim.

This is not an issue of trodding over taboos. This is a matter of 
sticking a knife into people's most painful crevices and prying it 
open for your amusement.

> Dark theme or not, there is little valid reason to include this kind
> of commands  that potentially run roughshot over the emotions of the
> players,  and a lot of valid reasons  to exclude them from your game
> without becoming overly politically correct.

It's a matter of human kindness, not a matter of being PC.

--
njl