Race Relations - Character Diversity in RPGs

I'm sharing with you a concept I learned in my Global Communication class, the idea of a message coming down to the basic human condition. What better way to explore the condition of race and diversity, on a level we can each see for ourselves. Don't get defensive. Just know that we are all racist in some aspect or another. Accept it, find it in your own lives, and then deal with it. Now, I'll explain how we can do this.

Let's say in a classic text based role-playing game (RPG) every class of character is built with a different set of properties. So for example, I may play a human at 6'1" and maybe 210 lbs. If I have 200 hit points, 85 endurance points, and 300 spell points, as a basic human, I will have different reactions in game movement than another character of a different race.

If I get hit badly, I may lose a lot of blood (hit points), but then I might heal faster than the other guy. I may elect to heal myself by eating various types of food items or by consuming healing potions obtained within the gaming environment. Otherwise, I could be a cheap ass and wait for time to pass in order to heal my wounds.

A game may have a timer on restoration of hit points and maybe one set of characters has a different calculation in rate of restoration than another. That's how you distinguish races/classes in an RPG, in other words, diversity!

If the other guy is a cleric, he can heal himself with his spell points, which also restore at a particular rate with time. Either way, the dynamics of gaming, together in this sense, can be very rewarding or very exasperating. Diversity is a wonderful thing. You expend points dependent upon the situation: how aggressive the creature is, how much energy is required to swing your weapon, how far away you are in proximity to the creature, and even how protected you are with the armor you are wearing.

When fighting beside another character in a party, you have to be mindful of one another, else things could become fatal. One situation you might find yourself in is becoming idle, waiting because you are partying with someone who doesn't mind sitting around healing with the passing of time rather than using other resources like food and potions to bind their wounds (maybe they didn't know where to acquire such resources, but how would you know). One such example happened to me years ago, when my character was out hunting with an elf. I say the word elf with derision and note how classless they are. Now that's racist!

The examples I show below will have a black background because that's my favorite config when it comes to text based RPGs. So, after an exhausting battle with an aggressive ogre, I looked at my partner the elf, and this is what I saw:

He is in critical condition!

The text is in red to connote blood. The next stage after healing a bit might be something like so:

He is bleeding profusely!

This movement from one stage of injury to the next would indicate he is getting better (his hit points are slowly being restored) and we would be able to continue on and look for other creatures to kill, but in the condition he was in (critical), it was best to remain where we were - out of harms way. Patience may be a virtue, but I don't have any while gaming because...well just because. I alternated screens while waiting for him to heal. I decided to do some writing, so my attention was elsewhere until I returned about 15 minutes later to see the following text on my screen:

Elf says, "So, what you been up too?"

Elf looks at you.

Elf pokes you.

Elf says, "You must be thinking really hard about something."

Elf dances around and snorts.

I felt guilty as hell. I should have taken the time to role-play and get to know the character a bit. Maybe some interesting dialogue might have occurred. But, this was a missed opportunity.

I take another look at the elf:

He is in critical condition!

What the hell?! Now I'm pissed because this guy is such a cheap asshole. I never played an elf so I have no idea why he's not healing quicker, but I'll be damned if I wait around all night for this fucker to heal. I know food costs money, but time is money for me as well, maybe not for him.

You say to Elf, "EAT something!"

Then I realize how lame I was being. This is completely out of character in a game where role-play is strictly enforced. What should have happened was something like so:

You kneel beside Elf.
You say to Elf, "Here, let me bind some of your wounds."
You give sirloin steak to Elf.
You give sirloin steak to Elf.
You give sirloin steak to Elf.

Elf consumes sirloin steak.
Elf consumes sirloin steak.
Elf consumes sirloin steak.

You look at Elf.

He is slightly wounded.

You give Elf a thumbs up!

You say, "Ready?"

Elf nods.

Elf exits North
You exit North

If this makes you giggle, fine! But that's how we do it. Now, when you look at it from this perspective, it is kind of funny, but hell...you can't beat text based RPGs.

When we gamers get together like this, we bond like no other group of people you will ever meet! If the rest of the world could show some tolerance and compassion for one another like so, it might be a better world. Just saying.

I can only imagine how the perspective must have looked from the other side.




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Strategic Gaming - Learning and Advancing

Okay, like...WHAT?? It's mine!

I know getting killed in a game can be somewhat painful depending on how far you've made it to the next check point, but the development of gaming expertise comes with some pretty specific criteria, namely knowing how to build your skill set.

With the game controller being the only input device utilized during game play (besides the inner workings of your brain), it is important to master all of the additional features packed into the already complex mechanism.

Once you've mastered the controls, the next important concept to wrap your brain around is strategy. If you're going to die (and you are), you must die in a manner which will produce the most efficient and effective ratio of learning to advancement. I'll explain.

Learning = how much knowledge and skill you develop while utilizing the controller through the duration of game scenarios

Advancement = the swiftness and accuracy with which you utilize the controller while advancing through game scenarios

I'm providing two examples below, and if you or anybody you know is in the tech field, you already know this. It's okay to die often if your method is to collect data in order to advance your knowledge.

Example #1

You've recently acquired a Longbow and 10 arrows and wish to try out your new weapon, so when a zombie appears in the distance, oh say about 70 yards away, you immediately mount an arrow, aim, and fire off that pointy stick. You miss and quickly try again. By the time the zombie is 10 feet in front of you, you've used up all but one arrow and BLAM! You finally sink one deep into its chest.

Now you'll spend your time advancing forward, searching for more arrows to replenish your stock. But you won't find any before you pass the next check point and another zombie latches onto your jugular and you die. When your life is restored, you still have no arrows. Learning=1, Advancement=1

Example #2

Same scenario, but when you spot the zombie 70 yards away, you mount an arrow, aim, and wait for the zombie to get within 10 feet before firing. You miss because you hadn't quite had enough time to learn the controls, it was your first shot! The zombie devours your jugular and you die.

When your life is restored, you have all your 10 arrows and you try it again, over and over until you succeed in killing it with one arrow before advancing through the game, passing through two more checkpoints and expertly killing another zombie or two along the way. Learning=1, Advancement=2

The moral here? Maybe it's not really a moral, more of a preference in game play for me. I'd rather learn first than to go in like a blind mouse in search of cheese. You'll get further in the long run, but that's just my opinion.



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The Last of Us - Newbie ALERT!

At the end of my first semester at Purdue, I decided to reward myself with the new PS4 500GB The Last of Us Remastered Bundle. For all you non-gamers out there, it's the latest in a series of competing console gaming systems feeding the zombie craze.

What did I do with my last weekend of the semester? I wasted 4 hours of my life mastering the demise of the newbie zombie slayer. One can't just simply go to school, make good grades, and never achieve anything more of significant value, right?

After attaining my newest checkpoint: this is the point in the game where you will return when you die or become disconnected during game play. In newbie terms, this is where you will spend a lot of your time.

You can sit here and ponder what will kill you next, or you can move forward in the game, get killed, and ponder what happened after the fact. Either way, the goal is to get to the next checkpoint without dying so much that the game play isn't any fun. But don't delude yourself. You WILL die.

One of the many things you will learn as a newbie zombie slayer is how to be a forward thinker. This is a skill which we all need to master and it comes with experience, some pretty painful ones. It's why we don't make the same mistakes twice (most of the time). It's a shame I have to relearn this while playing a game which takes place in a zombie infested world of non-thinkers on a mindless quest for brains. Wait, that sounds too much like reality. Where have I seen this before?

One thing to keep in mind is not to shoot at everything you think might be out to get you. My big mistake was popping off the only 6 rounds I had into an NPC needing my help. I should have realized shooting him was a moot point when the first round did not achieve any significant change in my environment, and the man maintained this cool steady gaze while pleading for help, "Please, help me..."

How ironic I kept hearing those same words screaming in my head, realizing there were zombies close by and I was out of ammunition. Time to learn some new combat skills! It takes a sick mind to develop these games.

Sneaking up on a zombie can be a lot of fun. Your adrenaline is pumping and they can't see you. I found one standing in a room, completely unaware of my presence because I had stealth mode activated. It thrilled me to strangle it with my bare hands and loot ammo from its decaying body! My ego was severely deflated however, when shortly afterward, I attempted to sneak up on two more zombies as they fed hungrily on human flesh. Stealth mode suddenly deactivated and I realized, as they began feeding upon me, I had not reloaded my weapon with the ammunition I had acquired from my latest kill. Hell, I wasn't even holding a gun.

Why would I be holding a gun anyway? I was gonna surprise attack and strangle the mother fuckers, so my hands had to be free, right? And remember this, when you're strangling one zombie, the others aren't going to stand around and wait for you to finish. Bon appétit!

Moral of story?

1. Just because you successfully strangled one zombie, does not mean every attempt at killing a zombie should be with your bare hands. 
2. When you acquire ammunition, coincidentally when you really needed it, use it, because you probably really need it.
3. The stealthy sneak attack is pretty cool, but it's totally uncool when you are doing it wrong.

Coming soon! More zombie gaming tips for newbies.

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Retro Gaming Icons - Writing Prompt

The writing prompt for this month at Absolute Write is something I can definitely give a little twist to and still stay on topic.

Whatever your definition of retro, gaming, or icons, now is the time to get your classic game on. Super Mario, Shigeru Miyamoto, the Atari 2600, Tim Schafer, Baldur's Gate...any game or gaming-related icon is up for grabs! Or, if you like, invent your own! Entries may be of any genre so long as they are 1000 words or less.

Many years ago I was a key player in an online role-playing event which caused our guild's guild master to go missing. Her name was Katidyd and she was, in my eyes, an iconic symbol in the game of Threshold, a multi-player online role-playing game. I later discovered that she had left the game and her character was permanently retired.

I never really knew the OOC (Out of Character) reasoning for her permanent removal (I think it was to join the Aether). However, the event was an intensive in-character development and relied upon the coordination and respect of many other players.

I'm sharing the link to a page where I've compiled a more color friendly version of the log entries titled "Katidyd Disappears". It gets more interesting toward the end and everything I colored is system generated spam to indicate a spell or special character ability rather than dialogue or emotes controlled by players. I hope you enjoy.

Click on the picture to view the entire log!!

As you may guess from my forum name, I'm playing the male character Pyrosama. :)

Visit the other participants to see what they have to share for this topic!

Participants:
orion_mk3 -  (link to post)
Ralph Pines -  (link to post)
meowzbark -  (link to post)
Pyrosama - (you are HERE)
Anarchic Q -  (link to post)
AndreF -  (link to post)
MsLaylaCakes -  (link to post) [after 1/18]

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The Art of Sign Disobedience Part I

Many of my articles deal with writing and the progress I've made in the past several years. I try to share most of my experiences with you. This article is no different, but we’re not discussing my writing. We’re discussing the writing crafted by those folks who design signs and those of us who read them, or not.

But Diane, why are we discussing signs? I’m interested in fiction. How about some grammar tips or helpful links instead? Okay, here's one: It's okay to break grammar rules. Onward!

We’re discussing signs because I’m feeling a little rebellious this week and my +Threshold RPG friends have been oh so encouraging with their own willful disobedience when it comes to signs. Let me explain.

It started with a sign I’d come across during my trip home from Savannah, Georgia.

I couldn't help but wonder if the crow’s attempt at stirring my muse was a bit intentional. God speaks to me in many ways, but this was too odd. A crow mocking the words on a sign had me in stitches, so I posted the photo on my Facebook page. And thus began the sharing of sign disobedience photos.

This one had been posted by the Administrator of Threshold, known to me and my Thresher friends as Aristotle. You rebellious rule breaker, you!

Anyway, now we’re getting into some really intentional stuff here. I know the crows can be explained because, obviously, they can’t read. But Threshers read. We must, or else we meet our own demise. See “The Importance of Reading in a Text Based RPG” and “10 Profound Mistakes Made by RPG Players.”

But what if...what if people really aren't reading? Maybe signs are posted in the wrong places. Like, maybe a sign posted directly in front of people - like this one.

Nope. Apparently, if you look somewhere other than directly in front of you, this is excusable. Really, it is. What if someone stumbled into this dude and he spilled his Latte Grande all over the Asian’s device and damaged it? Oh, excuse me. How do I know she’s Asian? Trust me, I know...she’s got a camera doesn't she?

So this gives us the unintentional, the intentional, and the excusable. What next? The exception.

Obviously, this rule is not enforceable. My driver’s license prohibits me from driving without my glasses. How else would I find my car in the parking lot if I’m not wearing my glasses? Hmmm.

I did point this out to the owner of the establishment, but the sign remains. And so does my willful disobedience.

Then there’s the incidental rule breaking. The one that happens just before you read the sign declaring said rule. This happened to me while visiting my husband in Gainesville at the Red Roof Inn after his surgery.

I salute rule #6 just before finishing my Miller Lite. Don’t you think these rules should be posted on the outside of the gate rather than on the inside? Hell, I’d already broken the rule as soon as I stepped into the pool area and before closing the gate behind me.

From www.dictionary.com in-ci-den-tal: adjective 1. happening or likely to happen in an unplanned or subordinate conjunction with something else.

Get it?

Then we have the Master Kard, the connoisseur of sign disobedience.

Con-nois-seur: noun 1. a person who is especially competent to pass critical judgments in an art, particularly one of the fine arts, or in matters of taste.

Thank you to all my Thresher friends for sharing their photos!

If you have a photo depicting sign disobedience, please post a link in the comments.

If you care to, please vote for your favorite rebel.

Increase Your Enthusiasm For Writing

There were five of ten shared points I took away from my attendance at the TWA Writers Conference last month. These points have something in common. They keep me enthusiastic about writing; therefore, I'm sharing them with you!

1. Learn something new

Why does this increase your enthusiasm to write? Because, when we learn new things it boosts our confidence and that is something we need as writers in order to allow our creativity to explode onto the screen.

When I was learning Photoshop, I wanted to share my experience, and I did. Likewise, my first digital photos made it into a blog post as well via an embedded sideshow (something else new to me, but I did it and shared it).

2. Make an outline

I never believed this would ever help me, so I never created one, though I kept petering out on every novel I started. I'd get really excited about this story in my head and before I could even pound out a beginning, I'd lost interest. I didn't know where to go when I reached chapter 5. I now have two books with exactly 5 chapters, each sitting in an electronic bookshelf somewhere on my computer. But, now I have an outline, so we'll see if it helps, or if I might just be a lazy procrastinator.

3. Set goals for yourself

Whether it's an hour or 500 words, you must have a daily goal for your writing progress. If not a daily goal, you should at least have a weekly one. I'm one to be the cheerleader for goal setting, right? Here are a few things available to choose from, and I've done them all. The ten minute stream of consciousness is the most fun.

• Stream of consciousness writing (at least 10 minutes non-stop, even if writing non-sense like, "This is stupid, so so so so stupid I can't think of anything to write, oh and you can't spell check or worry about grammar, just WRITE! Can you tell I'm having fun?")
• Word count goal (500, 1000, 2500)
• Chapter per day/week
• Blog post per week
• Daily journal entry

4. Understand your audience

Whether you're writing erotica (*cough* gamers of text based RPGs), YA fiction, or horror, you should know your audience. Not everyone is going to love what you write, but if you know your audience, then you know what they love and you can bring it. I'm a Stephen King fan because he's not shy describing gross things like a half naked woman handcuffed to her bed while a stray dog gnaws at her dead husband's scalp as he lays lifeless on the floor because he had a heart attack in the middle of an S&M session with his wife. [deep breath] Moving along.

5. Reach out for support

Nothing will get you more enthusiastic about writing than reaching out to other writers and sharing your struggles. Believe me! I've been struggling for years, but I'd never be as far as I am if I'd not joined the Tallahassee Writers Association or the Florida Writers Association and met some really awesome writers, authors, editors, and publishers. We are all in the business of loving what we do, so why not share?

How do you keep your enthusiasm to write kicking along at maximum speed? Share your ideas.

10 Profound Mistakes Made by RPG Players

Unless you've played RPGs on a regular basis, you may not have experienced all of these or any similar form, but you might agree with me, these are pretty easy circumstances in which to fall victim. Some of these are text based and the rest are from PC games. One scenario would happen in a game I develop (which hasn't happened yet, but oh well). If you're the first to guess which one, I'll send you a free copy of Snow Leopard.

1. You fire your cross bow at a huge skeleton. The arrow flies through the air and darts between the two lower bones of his rib cage, missing the skeleton entirely, and striking the wall behind it. You have no other weapons.

2. You fall down a well. The only "obvious" exit is dragon

You exit dragon

3. You cast a 30-yard range fire storm at a goblin, killing him instantly, but wasting 20 seconds of fire damage on no apparent enemies within a 30-yard radius. After the spell dies out and while it recharges (which takes another 20 seconds), twenty Whiptail Devourers spring from the soil.

4. You stumble upon a trap door. After close inspection, something tells you, it doesn't REALLY look like a trap door, does it?

You open door

5. Before going inside to negotiate with the giant Cyclops, you say to your fighter friend, "Don't worry, I have a high charisma attribute."

6. Your new friend says, "Nothing bad is going to happen. I'm friends with the DM."

You follow new friend

7. You enter into combat with a giant crocodile. It is unusual this creature hasn't gone down yet and you're about to die. You look at your weapon. It is not wielded. You are fighting with your bare hands!

8. You didn't bother to read the room description when you entered the sewer, so you are unaware of the high concentration of methane gas all around you. It is dark.

You light torch

9. In an angry tirade, you tell an Admin to go screw themselves. 

10. Every potion you'd ever had identified turned out to be a healing potion. You are bleeding, but you find yet another unidentified bottle of potion. Why pay a spell caster to identify it? It will still work without being identified.

You drink potion

*Note: Unidentified POISON will still work, too!

Cheats, Hacks, and Walkthroughs

Ever wonder how some people seem to breeze through a game with little to no frustrations? One day the gaming industry will wise up and stop creating difficult games and then providing solutions to "get around" the difficult obstacles. I mean, what's the point, right?

I work all day long analyzing, creating, problem solving, and debugging technical glitches. My mind is literally exhausted when I get off work. The last thing I want to do is sit down and play an online RPG and struggle with the logic of the story and the technical mechanics of the game play. Forget that it sucks when you die. It’s worse when some kid reaches level 100, dons a cape of invisibility and kills you with one thrust of his triple action bullwhip all the while screaming, "Die old lady!" This is the society we've created.

Well, I'm fighting back! I'm going to educate all those people like me who want to get back at these little cheaters, fight them at their own game. We need to take back our pride, show them we can do it too! Grab your walking canes, ladies and gents. So here goes.

First, you need to know the difference between 3 universal terms you'll find almost everywhere in the gaming world. Do not use them lightly. They are each very specific.

Cheats

Cheats are special instruction codes shared amongst an elite group of players who, by way of leaks, receive them from those designers "in the know".

Scenario #1

I'm a software developer and I create a game called Diane's Dungeon, and I decide I'm going to create a special command or a group of commands which do special things. It could be anything from creating a crap load of gold or doubling your experience points so you can level up faster. On release day, I whisper to my friends who are aching to exact revenge on the kid down the road for kicking their asses in Diablanco III, a game created by my arch nemesis (who also made cheats for his game).

My friends tell their friends, who in turn tell their friends. Before you know it, everyone is a millionaire level 100 who beat the game already. It's not the end for the designer though, no worries. The gamers who really enjoy figuring things out on their own will take a leisurely stroll through the game world and request some assistance along the way until they are about 90 years old and still haven't beat the game, but we'll learn about walkthroughs shortly. I want to talk a little about hacks.

Hacks

Hacks are designed by third party people who are not responsible for the game itself. These persons may have an awareness of unique features of a game and they utilize those features to enhance the user experience (I like the sound of that).

This is all client side stuff, so if you connect to a multi-user server and expect to keep your new enhancements, think again. Not all is lost though. You can seek out any number of hacker havens, places where you and other "enhancement seeking" players can log in and duke it out with your new hacked uber powers.

Scenario #2

If I’m lucky, I might get to level 100 by the time I'm 90 years old. Gaming is unbelievably time-consuming! But being the true hacker that I am, I want to see just how skilled I would be using my magic at level 100. I log into one of my hacker havens, perform the hack steps and increase my levels, TA DA! Uber fighter dude does the same thing.

Now we battle it out, a level 100 mage and a level 100 fighter. The fighter wins because he took additional steps in hacking room C, which got him unlimited amounts of healing potion. Silly me! I'll be ready next time. Just have to remember the healing hack.

Neither one of those scenarios ever got me too excited. I got bored too easily. Once you hit the maximum level, there’s nothing left to do! Cheat codes to get the most powerful weapons are no good when you’re in the newbie area. What are you going to do? Maul a tiny rat with a 3-skull, flaming flail? When you get to be my age, all that desire for the fancy stuff sort of dies, but you don’t want to stop discovering the fun, cool things by doing it the right way, the way game experience is intended. That’s why when I get stuck anymore, I use a walkthrough, or better yet, the Universal Hint System.

Walkthroughs

A walkthrough is the simplest form of cheating which does not harm the integrity of the game code or your PC. It is nothing more than a step by step instruction on what actions to take in order to beat a foe, clear an area, find a stone, or enter a secret passage. You name it and it will be covered in a walkthrough.

Scenario #3

Up until a point in the game, everything had been easy. You’re a level 10 warrior, but every time you try to enter the “Cave of Untouchables” a giant tarantula comes crushing through the wall and eats you. You’re at your wit’s end, it’s 2:00 a.m. and you have to go to work in the morning.

Google: Planet of Aros Cave of Untouchables tarantula walkthrough

Voilà! The step by step instructions lead you to the entrance, but before you enter the cave, you must click on the ninth point of the chandelier hanging above a pile of stones. Really. Isn’t it enough to make you want to strangle the programmer who came up with that logic? I’m not making this up either. No wonder kids need cheats and hacks!

And there you have it, in simplest terms and no techie talk, just good old fashioned English. Now, let’s go find us a game to play.  My favorite of all time was Baldur’s Gate. Do you have a favorite game? Multiplayer or single player?

Gamer to Fiction Writer - 10 Milestones

 THIS POST IS NOW PART OF

THE OLD-POST RESURRECTION HOP!

I’m publishing these because I started out my fiction-writing journey on a game called Threshold. Here is a list of these milestones in chronological order. Your order may be different, but most of these should be familiar to you if you started out on text-based games.

10. You joined a multi-player online role-playing game and instead of combating gelatinous cubes and giant scorpions, you spent your time reading room descriptions and crafting your own written prose to share with other players who were all combating gelatinous cubes and giant scorpions.


9. You wrote dramatic speeches for your cleric character and role-played him to the point of becoming chosen by the Gods and then created conflict that pissed off the Gods and got your character thrown out of the Church of Azeroth.


8. You had mud sex on text-based role-playing games to establish a fan base of your writing.


7. You applied for a virtual job on a text-based role-playing game as a writer for the virtual local paper, which paid you a virtual salary for the real life articles and stories you submitted.


6. You saved all the stories you ever wrote for your text-base role-playing game, even the shitty ones.


5. You saved all your logs from a text-based role-playing game because you thought that one day you might want to write a novel about your character and the dialogue would come in handy when you cut and paste it into your word processor, thereby saving you the re-typing.


4. You learned how to create websites so that you would have a home for all the characters that you developed on a text-based role-playing game.


3. You offered to design websites for free to build a portfolio of designs with "designed by Your Name" and "All rights reserved - Copyright 2011" displayed at the bottom of each page, just like you envision will be in the first few pages of your published novel.


2. You built a blog to self-publish your articles and used Twitter, Facebook and other social media to broadcast links to your blog (shameless plugs) which will one day host an entry for your upcoming novel...or other works in progress that will be coming out once you have finished mass marketing and making a name for yourself.

And the most important milestone in your journey from gamer to fiction writer (the last one that needs to happen for me)....


1. You finished writing that novel you had been working on!

Old Post Resurrection Blog Hop

Many of us spend a lot of time perfecting a post, and then it's buried away in our dusty post archives. So I've joined this blog hop to resurrect a favorite old post and link up with other writers. Please visit this oldie of mine: Gamer to Fiction Writer - 10 Milestones.

• Please link yours up as a NEW post. Don’t just link from an archive
• Preface it as part of the "Resurrection Old-Post Hop"
• Link back to my site.
• Comment on at least three other posts

This is open to ALL bloggers. Please join! I want to read your favorite archived articles. I shared mine.

:)

The Importance of Reading in a Text Based RPG

Patrick slipped his headset into place, securing the ear piece and twisting the microphone closer to his mouth. He reached for his bag of Cheetos and grabbed a handful of the thin, corn nuggets, then tossed the bag aside.

Seconds later, Todd's voice streamed through the receiver, "First lesson of a text-based role-playing game is to find a target that will fight back and then see what happens after you attack it."

"Okay, so let's try that newbie farm you were telling me about." Patrick was anxious to get started. He wanted Todd to show him this mysterious new text-based game he'd been playing for the past six months.

"When you see a portal, just type enter portal and it'll teleport you to where I'm at in the game. From there, follow Marythtor. That's me. Oh, and don't forget to wield your weapon."

Patrick nodded once as an assurance to himself that he will follow and learn. Then he logged into the game.

####################

A portal

You enter the portal

You are transported through thin air and arrive at the Eastern Farm!

Marythtor, the swordsman

Marythtor opens a gate

Marythtor leaves east

You follow Marythtor east

You have entered the farmyard!

Marythtor, the swordsman

A Yellow chick

Marythtor looks at A Yellow chick

You look at A Yellow chick

You say, "I should attack the Yellow chick, right?"

Marythtor says, "That's up to you. But you'll never know unless you try it."

You attack A Yellow chick with your tiny fists

You are not wielding a weapon!

A Yellow chick bites you

You are gushing vital fluids!

You hit A Yellow chick with your tiny fists and do little damage

A Yellow chick bites you

You shrug off your mortal coil

You must pray before you can do anything else

You pray

You have been resurrected in the Temple of Vivoria

Marythtor enters the Temple of Vivoria

Marythtor laughs at you!

####################


Patrick placed a finger to his headset. "Tell me I didn't just die to a little yellow chick."

"That was freaking hilarious!” Todd’s laughter bellowed through. "Did you read the description? Dude, that chick was like seven feet tall. Who the hell attacks a seven foot bird without a weapon?"

Patrick removed his headset and spoke into the mouth piece, "Good night, prick."

The End

If you liked this, you should play Threshold.

April Blog Chain - Dead Bunnies

This month's prompt:  Dead Bunnies - by Absolute Write

Write wherever the prompt inspires you. It can be fiction or non-fiction. So, here's mine: This is totally made up, but I included a link to the real game in case anyone would like to try it out. Everything else, including the name of the city is made up. Invasions do happen on Threshold, but I've seriously customized this so that it will fit within the theme of this month's blog chain. I hope you enjoy!

It is a late night around 1:00 a.m. I can't sleep and it is too late to start drinking beer. I log into Threshold, my favorite text-based online role-playing game.

I am not logged in for long before a spam of text splashes across my screen.

Attention Adventurers! 

INVASION, INVASION, INVASION!!!

A band of monster bunnies has been unleashed into the meadows on the eastern border of Azelroth! Arm yourselves and prepare to defend this great city!!

BOOM!! Explosions everywhere! The Lord Bunny of Demonville has arrived!!! Casualties have been reported!!!

Crap, I just leveled up last time I was logged in. 

All I want to do is read the boards and find out what's been going on. If I log out suddenly, the Admins will think me a cowardly wimp. If I join the invasion and get killed, well, there goes my newly acquired level AND 1,000,000,229 experience points.

[System message from Admin]What are you waiting for? There's an invasion going on!

Great, they see me logged in. Damnit!

I type in the commands and head to the armory where I purchase the basics for protection (leather boots, leather gloves, simple robe and a cowl). Then I purchase a small dagger. I'm a mage, so I do have magic at my disposal.

I head out into the streets. Dead bunnies, everywhere! Adventurers running about, wielding swords and casting spells scream obscenities. I run passed them and seek shelter in the local tavern. I request a bottle of ale and the barkeep produces it and hands it to me. 

I'll hide in here until the invasion is over. I can stay logged in long enough to where it looks like I participated.

Before I drink the first drop of liquid pleasure, in storms a black, 20-foot monster bunny from hell. Fire blazes from its eyes and smoke streams from its nostrils. Before I can wield my dagger and defend myself, the bunny pelts out a deep, gut thundering roar and swipes at me with its paw, gashing me open. It continues to strike me with its sharp claws and bite me with its pointy, 1-inch teeth. I watch in horror as my hit points tick down by the hundreds. 

A display of ascii art in the form of a skull and crossbones appears before me, an indication I have perished.

So much for dead bunnies!

If you enjoyed this theme, don't forget to visit these other participating blogs. Links will become active when they've posted:

orion_mk3
KatieJ
kiwiviktor81
Nissie
SuzanneSeese
pyrosama YOU ARE HERE
dclary
randi.lee
Turndog-Millionaire
julzperri
Penelope
AFord
Araenvo
areteus
writingismypassion
magicmint
Anarchicq
Ralph Pines
Whisky
Bogna

Joliedupre
Tomspy77

My Poetics - Why I Write Fiction

My desire to write started when I failed, repeatedly, at this online text-based role-playing game. My first experience was horrible because I didn’t understand much about online gaming, let alone text-based gaming AND role-play. You create a character, log into the server and utilize a series of commands to perform functions. In simplistic terms and structure, it looks something like this:

You see a dagger
>get dagger
You get a dagger
>look dagger
You look at a dagger

Then on the screen, you might see something like this:

It is a small, steel dagger with a leather grip. The steel blade has a 12-inch, engraved surface: The Enforcer

>wield dagger
You wield a dagger. You are ready to adventure!

I hope I was able to demonstrate how a character would interact in a text-based online game. It gets more complicated as you advance within the game. However, to elucidate, I left it at simple interactive steps.

Anyway, I found myself in a world that became increasingly easy to maneuver and I loved the descriptions of the settings, the descriptions of other characters who obviously played the game for many years, as they were very adept in gaining levels and playing their roles. I was considered a “newbie” in this world, but when I reached a certain level in game play, I realized that I had not played a successful character. In order to play a successful character you have to be believable. I was a big joke.

In other words, I had not done the evil things expected of an evil character, to which I was. Evil characters do not smile and wave cheerily at people. Evil characters steal from people and they even kill people, neither of which I was prepared to do. I also had a hard time keeping white bunny rabbits from devouring me in battle when attempting to collect fuzzy, white, rabbit feet. I wasn’t very convincing in my role.

Therefore, after living in this game world with my first character, I decided that I would build another character and hope that I could play it more successfully, and I did. However, something was lacking. I had this brand new character and I mastered all the commands. Now what? There were the same weapons, the same monsters to kill and all the descriptions of the land were the same. In essence, I was another character in the same setting and I was bored!

Nevertheless, I could make it work. I could role-play my character and interact with the other characters and we could create our own story, right? Wrong. Try joining a religion, where all the characters that have to accept you must like you. However, you are an evil character! In addition, you are trying to join Set’s church, God of Darkness, Hatred and the Fiery Depths of Hell….but the other characters don’t like you because you once stole from their friend and you once killed their high school buddy who plays the character Sinbad!

My angst grew and grew. Those were my frustrations in trying not only to play a character but to create a story within which others must participate in order to make real and believable. Even though it is role-play and fictitious, it was hard to get past all the egos and get other characters involved. Try forming a clan and becoming a boss when everyone in the game wants to be a boss. Therefore, you have 20 players, 20 clans, and they all have exactly one member…the boss of the clan. Okay, that was an exaggeration.

Thus, I hung up my joystick and took to solitary writing so that I could create my own stories and nobody could stop me from writing it just how I wanted it to be written. In addition, if my character joins the Church of Set, all parishioners will bow when he enters and they will accept him or experience the wrath of Diane Carlisle, the writer of this damn story!