[MUD-Dev] Re:Telepathy Rules

[Michael.Willey at abnamro.com]

     ____________________Reply Separator____________________
     Subject:  [MUD-Dev] Telepathy Rules
     Author:   mud-dev at kanga.nu ("Lawrence W. Homer" <afn40452 at afn.org>)
     Date:          6/10/98 9:35 PM

>One problem that I have seldom encountered personally is the proper
>regulation of IC Telepathy. It is a vital part of various popular
>themes from Science Fiction / Fantasy / Superhero Comic Books, and I've
>often wondered how you regulate it when one character is a strong telepath
>and another character currently RPing with him should not ICly have any
>defense against having his mind read.
>
>If I were RPing a character who had anything to hide, and the local rules
>permitted a Telepath to insist that I OOCly tell him anything he wanted to
>know about my character's IC experiences, plans, etc., then whenever I saw
>a Telepath approaching I would run for the hills ICly. UNLESS there were
>some pretty strict rules in place limiting what he could get away with.
>But the more you limit his use of telepathy, the less thematic you are,
>because he's liable to end up never being able to use his powers at all if
>the rules say that he needs the OOC consent of the Victim on each and
>every point he wants to investigate.
>
>What solutions have been devised for this kind of thing?

Unfortunately I don't have a solution.  What I have is a reflection that
the genre conventions which allow and make powerful telepathy generally
don't do an adequate job of reflecting the changes that it would make on
society.  You commented that if you knew ICly that telepaths could read
through your mind without any resistance on your part, you'd run for the
hills.  That's a reasonable response.  You would have justifiable reason to
fear or even hate telepaths for that ability to invade your mind without
you being able to stop them or even know that they're in there.  It seems
like a kind of rape; perhaps the ultimate form of it.

If you watch it, consider Babylon 5 as an example - the telepaths in that
universe are hated and feared by normal people, yet they are victims
themselves.  They didn't ask for this ability, and in many cases they can't
help using it (it's been mentioned that *not* reading the thoughts of
everyone around you requires constant discipline and effort), and in the
end the viewer isn't sure whether they should be feared ot pitied.  In the
end, there will be war between the telepaths and the normals: each side
distrusts and fears the other too much to avoid it.