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, an internet forum, or in a chat. 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., 1800s, 1950s), 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.

Varieties

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. Usually it is played through 'Script' and 'Story' format, both styles area interchangeable and work well but it depends on which the player prefers.

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.

Real-time human-moderated

Some games rely entirely upon human moderators to dictate events, and physical print books for rules sets. Such games may use code dice-rollers, to generate random results, and may include databases for the purposes of maintaining character records. Interaction between characters is controlled by communication between individual players (with each other) and with moderators (who portray non-player characters). Communication software and database options vary, from the DigiChat front-end / character database back-end pairing pioneered by Conrad Hubbard at White Wolf Publishing, to the numerous AOL and Yahoo chats with hosted character databases. Free-form games may even do away with database integration or dice-rollers entirely and rely upon individual players to keep their own records, with online community reputation dictating how other players react.

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, text-based games allows players to exercise their writing skills, while using writing as a medium. The internet also makes it relatively easier for individuals to meet and 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 (or powerplaying), 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.

Consent

The term "consent" refers to players' "veto power" over what happens to their player characters. Often referred to in the rolling roleplay community as "orthodox", "unorthodox", and "hybrid". Levels of consent might be:

Non-consent: This does not necessarily mean that they use a traditional role-playing game system: it could just be that consequences are enforced based on a "common sense" basis, e.g, if several police officers go to seize a character, even without dice rolls, an administrator might say that the only reasonable outcome is that the character is brought into custody. Or, if there is such a system, this means that the results of system calculations are final.
Limited consent: Usually, this would be control over the character's death. A setting might strictly enforce In Character consequences, with or without a system, but allow the player an 'out' to avoid character death. For example, if it is decided that the character was mortally wounded, it might be allowable to alter in-game reality just slightly and instead have the character suffer only a serious wound.
Consent: Nothing can happen to a character without the player's approval. This is a very rare style to use.

Most RPGs have limited consent, allowing game masters some leeway if the player asks for it (in fact, almost total leeway, though this may destroy the believability of the scenario).

Elitism

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. One form of elitism was not accepting posts from players that were below a defined limit, such as four hundred words, six hundred word, or, in extreme cases, over a thousand words. It is common to lambast poor role-playing in such circles, so much so that entire communities have been established solely for this purpose, though others and most roleplayers' advertising/networking forums try to offer a more balanced approach to whatever critiquing they do in-group. It must be allowed, though, that in a medium which is primarily or exclusively text communication, individual players' writing skills have far more importance and effect on the whole game than they do in other mediums of roleplay.

Rules systems

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 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 after a review of all related 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. 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-based and turn-based. Of these, the former is such that the involved parties seek to outmatch one another via superior typing speed and stratagem. The latter has no emphasis on typing speed, but focuses wholly on strategy. Both systems are further divided into explicit and implicit subsets (also called open and closed), which refer to whether the outcome of an attack is stated by the attacker or assumed to have happened in the flow of battle.

There is a large rift of ideologies within the community of sparring. It comes from the basis of the spar's purpose and intent, and divides sparrers into two categories, being roleplayers and fighters. Roleplayers are grouped as "orthodox" combatants, where no "autos" are acceptable, and it is a mutually respectful practice. Orthodox matches are completely based upon the honor system, and are held more to the ability of the character than the mechanics of the system. Explicit guidelines and rules apply to the fighters, in an "unorthodox" system. Unorthodox spars tend to use hit claims, as discussed above as open and closed.

External links

Online (Forum) Role Playing Tips
Maintaining An Online Game
Roleplayer Guild - Play-by-post community involving free-form roleplays.

References

Social Interaction in Online Gaming from the SKOTOS forums
Internet Game Timeline 1969-1990
Koster, Raph (2002-02-22). "Online World Timeline". Raph Koster's Website. Retrieved 2007-03-26. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

Footnotes