[MUD-Dev] Logical MUD Areas

Kevin Littlejohn darius at bofh.net.au
Tue May 8 20:18:07 CEST 2001


"John Buehler" wrote

> Okay, so if some people have greys today and I present them as
> blacker than black, then I'm presenting them with a new angle on
> things.  If I really believe the things that I believe, it is worth
> my time to present those views to others.  If I'm off-target or
> simply incapable of presenting the ideas, I'll be ignored.
> Hopefully, I won't ever actually push anyone away from continuing to
> try to uncover a truth in a certain area.
 
> I spend a fair amount of time considering goods and evils.

So, you understand that you _will_ be presenting people with
disturbing choices to have to make, shades of grey, putting them in
situations where they'll be "encouraged" to do things they find
distasteful, etc?  Simply by virtue of your set of beliefs not being
the same as everyone else, that _will_ be the case, unless you build a
completely trivial stereotypical world and present it as such - even
then, you're likely to slip up on something you hadn't considered,
like this "hunting animals for food" thing.

Designing with this idea that you'll present no shades of grey, no
"interesting" dilemmas, is just going to send you down the same path
most other people have taken, where they present the good guys and the
bad guys, and various people go "but, what if I want to do blah?".

Design alongside the understanding that people will find things to
disagree with no matter what you do, and give people the flexibility
to play how _they_ want rather than pushing them into your mould, and
you'll get closer to the idea of "don't present disturbing choices"
than otherwise - but then you're dumping kids into something that
requires them to make decisions *gasp* ;)

> I would not provide reinforcement for values that I thought were
> unhealthy for them or for others.  I would assume that anyone with
> conviction of views and caring for others would do the same.  As for

"I may disagree with your words, but I will defend to the death your
right to speak them" - or thereabouts.  Your assumption is incorrect.
Otherwise I'd be a rabid lunatic harassing you all about providing
vegan possibilities in muds, wouldn't I? :)

KevinL
--
Internet techie                    Obsidian Consulting Group
Specialising in proxy servers and traffic measuring/billing.
http://www.obsidian.com.au/           darius at obsidian.com.au


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