Online text-based role-playing game

An online text-based role playing game (OTBRPG) is a role-playing game played online using a solely text-based interface such as TELNET or an internet forum. Online text-based role playing games predate graphical online games by several years, and can be attributed to the first attempts to bring multiplayer gaming to the internet, which culminated in the invention of MUDs, the forefather of MMORPGs.

Roleplaying appears to be popular mainly with adolescents and young adults. There are varied genres of online text-based roleplaying, including medieval fantasy, period drama (e.g., 1800's, 1950's), modern horror, anime, and media-based fan role-play. Role-playing games based on popular media (for example, the Harry Potter series) are common, and the players involved tend to overlap with the relevant fandoms.

MUDs and MU*s

Precursor to the now-more popular MMORPGs of today are the branch of text-based games known as MUD, MOO, MUCK, MUSH, MUX, DUM and MUSE, a set of games on similar platforms collectively termed as MU*s within the community by players and aficionados. The main difference in the various platforms lies in their purpose; some, like the myriad codebases for MUDs, are employed in combat-intensive games (either player versus player or against mobs), while MUSH and MUCK are seen in games that focus more on player interaction and role-play. Although interest in these games has suffered from the popularity of MMORPGs, a large number of them still operate. For a more complete history of these games refer to the entry on MUDs.

Play-by-post and PBEM

Play-by-post role-playing games or PBP rpgs refer to another type of text-based gaming. Rather than following gameplay in real-time, such as in MUDs, players post messages on such media as bulletin boards, online forums, Chatrooms (such as like AOL and Yahoo chat) and mailing lists to which their fellow players will post role-played responses without a real limit or timeframe. Of late such blogging tools and sites as LiveJournal have been utilised for this purpose. This includes such games as play-by-email (or PBEM) rpgs. The origins of this style of role-playing are unknown, but it most likely originated in some form during the mid to late 1980s when BBS systems began gaining in popularity.

Characteristics and social aspects

These methods of role-playing have many advantages and disadvantages in comparison with more traditional, off-line role playing systems. On the one hand, the freedom that the style allows the players to have, in addition to using writing as a medium, gives the players an opportunity to exercise their writing skills. The internet also makes it relatively easier for individuals to play together. This freedom, though it is a great strength to the system, also has the potential to be a great weakness. Such broad freedom of expression can easily be grossly abused, most often by new players unfamiliar with the mostly unwritten etiquette of the text-based gaming community. This has caused many more experienced players to form tight knit cliques, which can also be detrimental to new players seeking to join the community. Types of behavior commonly considered breaches of etiquette include power gaming and god-moding.

Another aspect of note is the development of a role-playing vocabulary that are almost exclusively limited to those who have experience with or are actively immersed in this pursuit as a hobby. Some terms overlap with those in commonly used in popular fandom. Terms as Mary-Sue, slash, powergaming, god-moding, OOC, and IC are among the terms used with relative frequency in text-based role-playing circles, and it has come to be expected of role-players to be familiar with such jargon.

A number of text-based role-players consider themselves to be elitist, and will exclude and ridicule those who do not attempt to use proper spelling and grammar. There are those who have what are seen as considerably high standards in the composition of their written replies, and a role-player's status within a given community is often tied to the quality of their writing as judged by their fellows. It is common to lambast poor role-playing in such circles, so much so that entire communities have been established solely for this purpose (Bad Roleplayers Suck, for example).

Though countless systems of rules exist, far too varied to be properly summed up, there is a single universal criterion that separates role-playing from collaborative writing — there must be a variable under the control of one or more players that some other players cannot control. The most common example of this is for each player participating in the activity to have their own characters that no other participant may write dialogs or actions for.

Various forms of gaming that developed within these mediums, such as sparring (see below), have garnered their own cult following and developed their own sets of norms and subcultures over time.

Sparring

Sparring is a form of online role-play that explicitly deals with combat between two or more characters, usually conducted on play-by-post mediums. Two or more players take turns in writing a joint-narrative battle, each one attempting to defeat his or her rival. The battle ends when one participant acknowledges defeat or one is judged the victor by an unbiased arbiter who views all posts. In the context of Internet-based role-play, sparring retains its traditional meaning of play or practice combat, but is limited to written interaction and is naturally frivolous. It is different from role-play in that sparring contributes nothing to a story or character development and participants are subject only to the rules of an agreed on role-play fighting system.

These fighting systems fall into two categories, speed and turn-based fighting. Of these, the former is such that the involved parties will seek to outmatch one another through superior typing speed, stratagem, or confusion. The latter has no emphasis on typing speed, and instead focuses purely on outwitting the opposition.

References

External links

Reviews: Internet MUDs - Interactive Multiuser Computer Games

Multiplayer online games | Role-playing games