by Scott Roberts
September 3, 2001

"The Devil's in the details."
— Colloquial

"Johnny said, "Devil just come on back
If you ever wanna try again.
I done told you once you son of a b****,
I'm the best there's ever been."
— "Devil Went Down to Georgia", The Charlie Daniels Band

One of the most striking things about online prose games that most folks will notice after spending any serious amount of time within them is the lack of nuance and detail that is used in roleplaying. Most characters, NPCs, and plots are roleplayed in the theatrical equivalent of primary colors, with very little hue or shading in terms of their portrayals. A marked lack of nuance occurs; people tend to communicate in long strings of declarative sentences (sometimes making speeches which make conversations seem less like dialogue and more like a constant political debate or duelling fiddlers).

The Skotos engine helps this out a bit by introducing the social verbs system to everyday conversation. Whereas other prose games rely on a set of two commands: emote, which is a free-form pose that has no pre-selected text before it; and say, which is free-form speech with no other options, the Skotos engine allows one to very simply pose /and/ speak without having to worry about complex punctuation or where to put the quote marks in your pose. This is better illustrated by example:

Standard Prose Game

    > say This is an example.
    Scott says, "This is an example."

    > emote Scott smiles and says, "This is an example of emote."
    Scott smiles and says, "This is an example of emote."

Skotos Engine

    > say This is an example.
    Scott says, "This is an example."

    > smile "This is an example."
    Scott smiles, "This is an example."

    > smile amuse "This is another example."
    Scott smiles amusedly, "This is another example."

As you can see, while the former set of commands relies on the user to constantly come up with combinations of means of expressions formatted appropriately, the Skotos engine goes out of its way to simplify the process (and require fewer keystrokes). Now there's room for debate on whether or not this is a good thing or not, or whether emotes should be enabled for those who want to write their own deathless prose; but it's hard to argue that the simplicity of the Skotos system doesn't make for more nuance in the gaming environment with less effort. The verbs and adverbs in our databases have in fact spawned a little sub-game amongst our players where they search for interesting and amusing combinations of possible adverbs and verbs, as our collection of such words is very, very large (for example, one might smile enigmatically or smile abstrusely... well, you get the idea.)

This simplicity of use, however, does lend itself to a bit of laziness. Not having to work to add some nuance to your characters occasionally has folks forgetting that there are alternatives to simple combinations of verbs and adverbs, or more often, forgetting that it takes more than just those things to make a detailed and interesting character.

Adding Nuance

When I first had the idea for this column, I was sick and lying in bed with a pretty bad case of the flu. It occurred to me, in the midst of daytime television (which, I am convinced, is merely a plot by the employers of the world to make staying at home so horrendous of a cultural experience that one is desperate to return to work just to escape) that there weren't enough sick people in online prose games. (Insert your own obligatory comment on relative sickness of online prose players here.) I've seen people play wounded folks and people with long-term fatal illnesses, lycanthropy, and other exotic or dramatic forms of sickness, but it's rare that I'll see someone sneeze, cough, and sniffle. The common cold has all but been eradicated within most prose games. Food poisoning and stomach ailments (aside from those associated with arsenic, cyanide, and the like) are rare as well. In most online prose worlds, the only kinds of illness one sees are the fatal or dramatic, rather than the mundane.

I'm not saying that everyone should run out and get sick. This is just one example of the sort of nuance that is missing from most online prose worlds – and the sort of thing that will make you a memorable roleplayer. Attention to detail and nuance will make you stand out from the crowd. Getting a new job, being pleased that you slept a good night's sleep (or complaining of being unable to sleep), having a bad hair day, and anything that is essentially enhanced attention to the "mundane" aspects of life in an online prose game can be a good idea. Snore. Sleepwalk once or twice. Wrinkle your nose at a bad smell or scent. Have bad breath.

Go beyond personal habits as well. Commenting on things which are not normal conversation in the context of the genre also serves to add nuance. Develop an interest in an off-stage hobby or pastime, such as fishing, collectibles, artwork, or something similar. An interest in architecture or other aspects of the environment you live in can lead to conversational hooks beyond the usual and give you a bit of differentiation from other characters in the game.

Future Columns

The next few columns you will be seeing on the Mummer's Dance are going to be covering playing in some of the more popular MMORPGs such as EverQuest and Anarchy Online. Recent developments in the industry and a desire to write a few replies to the Jessica Mulligan series "Biting the Hand" should make for some interesting topics over the next few weeks. As usual, though, I'm interested in reading your commentary and suggestions for future columns; please follow the link below to the discussion page for this column!