[MUD-Dev] narrative

[Matt Mihaly]

On Mon, 26 Aug 2002, Damion Schubert wrote:
> Brandon Van Every:
 
>> I guess I'd have to show up on your MUD and see if we're
>> comparing apples to apples for writing quality.  I'm not talking
>> about Diablo II quests or FedEx quests.
 
> Some random notes that relate to this thread:

>   1) You can have staggeringly effective story participation by
>   writing your stories and events in such a way that a _character_
>   is not a protagonist or antagonist (a 'storytelling unit'), but
>   rather a _guild_ is.  "The King has issued a call to arms, and
>   the Rockshashas have responded!  The Chaos Factor stands in
>   staunch opposition!  And the Knights that Say Nee have saved the
>   day!"  Just by shifting your mental framework that much, you
>   create events that hundreds of people feel like they are part of
>   the story, instead of a handful, and that newbies feel like they
>   have a part in by association.

Absolutely, though I'd substitute player organization for guild,
just to be more broad. Much, if not most, of our large-scale plots
work like this.
 
>   2) Also, note that if you do the previously mentioned, that your
>   events coordinator can often work together with the guildmasters
>   to ensure that the event goes off in an interesting manner.

Also very effective. Our event coordinators are also in-role Gods,
so they take direct hands in events quite often.
 
>   4) The average player could care less about random backstory
>   that happened 300 billion years ago.  They are very fascinated
>   by the victories of players and guilds that they recognize.
>   Have books dropped and NPCs speech reflect these guild
>   victories.

I think the backstories can be extremely effective when combined
with current happenings. It provides a context within which to
discuss an event and makes current events seem more epic.
 
>   5) Large-scale stories are most certainly possible, so long as
>   you don't expect to have 5000 carefully handwritten quests that
>   are different for each player.  Most players won't care about
>   them anyway.  Instead, have a long backstory that explains a
>   change in the rule system (in game, on the website, whatever),
>   and have that backstory explain a new player activity that fits
>   into the old rule system (for example, orcs have been sighted
>   near town - go kill them!  We need iron for the ore effort - go
>   get it!  Dwarves now hate elves on sight - go do your duty!)

We introduce about half of our major changes with some sort of plot
like this. It works well, though it can be tedious insofar as
sometimes you just want to get a damn feature in, not explain why
it's suddenly in or run an event that results in it being unveiled.

--matt
Ashcroft needs a beating.


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