Widespread Literacy (The Way sub-idea)

[Desertman]

I think a growing period of literacy among PC commoners, with the PC templarates trying to combat it, would lead to literacy not growing at all, myself, particularly at a PC level.

I think that back-stage antics are the best way to introduce such a thing as this, and while you could include PCs in the advent of such a thing, I feel like tying the world's shoestrings to the PC's shoes, in this case, isn't the best idea.

I just noticed this post.

This is my opinion as well.

I think the only way to really do this is to just go hardmode and enforce an overall change on the staff level that changes our entrenched mindsets.

Sometimes there is no clean IC way to do things that makes everything make perfect sense.

It would be uncomfortable for about two RL weeks, then it would be business as usual. I think the gains far outweigh any risks, if there are any.

[Redheart]

Again, I'm reminded of the movie Equilibrium.

If you have not seen this yet, I would encourage you to do so paying special attention to any scene with literature involved keeping DMan's idea in mind.

[Desertman]

Again, I'm reminded of the movie Equilibrium.

If you have not seen this yet, I would encourage you to do so paying special attention to any scene with literature involved keeping DMan's idea in mind.

Yup, seen it. Part of my inspiration. 

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Hmmm. If you didn't get killed or jailed for have written stuff but it was illegal, and it was just yoinked, I'd be alright with that.

[Molten Heart]

Hmmm. If you didn't get killed or jailed for have written stuff but it was illegal, and it was just yoinked, I'd be alright with that.

Templars do what they want.

[Desertman]

Yeah, I don't think they would actually stick to the idea of, "We only take it away.".

They would probably do what they do now with any other criminals, which is punish them severely, most of the time.

If petty pickpockets/thieves are getting arena time/tortured/beat up/killed, I doubt we will see "literature smugglers" treated any less harshly, even if it is intended that they should be.

If we make it illegal it really kind of puts a damper on the whole system. I would take it, but, it wouldn't be ideal in my opinion and would kill a lot of the potential the idea has to offer in my opinion.

I would rather just see, "Blasphemous literature.", seen as illegal.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Yeah. I'm not saying that I agree with keeping it illegal - I'm saying that if it were, I wouldn't want to see you be killed for it.

[Desertman]

Yeah. I'm not saying that I agree with keeping it illegal - I'm saying that if it were, I wouldn't want to see you be killed for it.

Agreed.

[slatefox]

I know this is nearly a month-old thread, but I wanted to jump in and add my opinion on literacy as well. 


One of the major 'environmental draws' of ArmageddonMUD is the illiteracy.  Most 'RPI' or RPI-wannabe games that I had played previously allowed full-blown, unexplainable literacy -- you had characters with the IQ of a stump writing Shakespseare and reading Theories of the Effects of Chaos in Metaphysics.  There was nothing quite as game-breaking (and immersion-breaking) as players using the in-game message boards by writing first-person posts to one another.  'Today, a man with [insert verbatim sdesc and ldesc here] cut off my arms.  I am going to kill him and you should too!'  One of the games I played actually had libraries, and you'd find half the playerbase in there studying up complex skills. 

I don't expect ArmageddonMUD to ever go that far, or for the staff to allow players to start using the in-game boards as their personal diary, but the experience had burned me. 

People take their literacy for granted.  Reading (and writing) is hard and takes a long time to learn.  Understanding spoken language is not the same as knowing how to write in it, either -- and 9 times out of 10, game admins don't bother to draw a distinction between the two because it requires a lot of extra coding and bug testing. 

With Armageddon's current theme, it simply does not make sense a lot of people would know how to read, even if it were legal.  You would not send your children to 'school', and because reading is not a survival skill, poor parents would not waste their very valuable time trying to teach it to their children, even if they knew how to read (somewhat) themselves.  The only non-nobles who may know how to read would be cushy merchant family members -- but then you have to deal with the fact that the templarate may not appreciate having commoners (even rich ones) able to intercept and read their carefully-guarded secrets and histories.

Lastly, there is no pressing -need- for writing.  Few people would ever NEED to write messages, and there's no NEED to have interpreters or message scribes in either city, because (as I remember it) the Way is global, accessible by everyone, and instant.  Perhaps if there were strict distance limitations applied to the usage of the Way, or have a person's ability to Way a particular person be based on how long along they were in close contact (i.e, you'd have to meet them first, but your ability to reach them will fade over a time), then maybe there'd be a use for it.   (As an aside, the Way's not even restricted to the game world -- I distinctly remember 'contact Godzilla' actually working a few years ago.)

[Fayos]

I shudder to think at the amount of database memory would be tied up by saving all the random written works written by literate PCs if literacy was made anything but illegal.

[Is Friday]

I shudder to think at the amount of database memory would be tied up by saving all the random written works written by literate PCs if literacy was made anything but illegal.

You obviously haven't seen some of the bad "bard song" posts.....

[Evilone]

I think don't make it illegal, but make it not so easy to acquire, part of an extended subguild for example... but I would so love to see more writing in the game, keeping records of interesting characters, and treasure maps, and stuff like that. I think it would add more flavour than take away from it. It could pass in the senate for a trial period.. and be revoked if it don't work out?

[Eyeball]

I think don't make it illegal, but make it not so easy to acquire, part of an extended subguild for example... but I would so love to see more writing in the game, keeping records of interesting characters, and treasure maps, and stuff like that. I think it would add more flavour than take away from it. It could pass in the senate for a trial period.. and be revoked if it don't work out?

I think it would add a lot to the game too, so long as it were allowed to. My impression (from the GDB, not experience) is that books and scrolls tend not to persist in the game (i.e. they disappear or are removed by staff eventually).

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

It could just be that learning to read and write could be a boon of life-swearing to a clan, in later ranks.

[Eyeball]

(sig quotes Ami)

Should be the newbie catches fire and you're left with charred meat.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Heh.