When a well known designer starts linking to and talking about theories that sound vaguely familiar, it makes me feel good. Warm fuzzies, etc. etc.

I’m mostly a fan of single player games and interactive narrative, so I don’t really think of the MMO aspects of having action effect player as character. In fact I think it’s much harder to accept yourself as a character when you know that the other characters you are interacting with are actual people. Since there’s more freedom of response from the person sitting across from you, there’s more expectation for you to have a great freedom of response. From a talking / typing / action standpoint anyway.

All Raph really mentions, though, is personality questions to determine class, like those used in Ultima, and not systems that will affect the availability of future events, actions or play styles. Of course having these systems in an MMO creates all sorts of problems, since most MMOs have a core play mechanic that requires repeated play, not single shot events and storylines. Single player interactive narrative, though, have no such problems, which is the reason I’m more drawn to them than MMOs.

I apologize if this seams a little poorly thought out. It’s been a long day. I promise to expand at some point.