[MUD-Dev] Re: Mud Tales

[Caliban Tiresias Darklock]

On 11:29 AM 5/19/98 -0700, I personally witnessed John Bertoglio jumping up
to say:
>
>12 year olds can be useful, loved, lovable, friendly and
>many other fine things. But few can say that they are "important" outside
>of their family. 

I remember being very shocked and impressed when I ran a BBS in my local
area at the discovery that one of the most lucid, intelligent, and just
flat-out balls-to-the-wall GOOD contributors to my local forum on assembly
language was twelve. (I never told the rest of the users. He *deserved* the
respect he had, and I wasn't going to ruin it.) And I remember being online
when I was eight and nine years old, talking to adults and being TREATED
like an adult, and finally feeling like people listened to me for a change
instead of going "You're just a kid, you don't understand". And I still
maintain, we have a community here where the intelligent and interested
people of the world can come and be treated like real people and not like
children. I'm glad to hear other people are still seeing things like this
happen. Kind of gives me hope for the next generation. 

>In the online world of UO he is important to a number of
>people. 

That's the major reason people like RPGs in the first place, I think.
Because you can be important, and the fate of the world can rest on your
shoulders, and YOU get to brave the gorge of eternal peril and cross the
bridge of death and slay the dragon and get the girl. (Even if you don't
necessarily know what you're supposed to *do* with the girl just yet.) We
don't get many chances to be a hero in our regular lives. Most of us
wouldn't know how. But for the time you spend in that game, you know the
rules, and you can perceive the grand scheme of things, and you can feel
like you're in control for a while. And then you pack up and go home, and
the next day you go off to a job you don't enjoy at a company you don't
like working for customers you don't understand with people you don't know.
And after a week of that, I think everyone needs a little time to feel like
they're important.


--
MUD-Dev: Advancing an unrealised future.