[MUD-Dev] Commercial value of RP

[Jon A. Lambert]

On 11 Jan 98 at 20:21, Mike Sellers wrote:
> 
> Another way to look at this is contained in the story of Beowulf, as it's
> changed over the centuries.  As I understand it, the story progressed along
> lines something like this:
> 
> 1) We went out.  We killed the monster. 
> 2) We went out.  We killed the monster.  We came home and got drunk.
> 3) We went out.  We were scared.  We killed the monster.  We came home and
> got drunk.
> 4) We went out.  We were scared.  We killed the monster.  We saved our
> village.  We came home and got drunk.
> 
> Most RPGs/MUDs/etc are at 1) or 2) above: just the external facts, perhaps
> with a little heroic celebrating.  The addition of the internalization
> evident in 3) is signficant, and is the beginning of real theater,
> roleplaying, and satisfying fiction.  With 4) we see the beginning of the
> addition of the theme, the human-mythic context that makes the story
> *meaningful* and adds human context to the string of events.  That, I
> guess, is the kind of thing I'm going for in my games (tabletop or online).
>  I continue to think that there is immense commercial and human value in
> this, but that actually doing it is no easy feat.
> 

Cheers! I think this is an excellent example of the point at which 
game-only playing metamorphs into role-playing.  

--
Jon A. Lambert
"Everything that deceives may be said to enchant" - Plato