Non-Combat options

[dfryer]

The player behind the character will eventually show through.  Where roleplaying really is important is a) making decisions (do you make decisions that reflect the character you\'re playing?)  b) dialog (it would be a boring game if your character did all the talking automatically c) where and how the character spends time.

I think knowledge of certain things (secret codes etc) should not be something spreadable by IM, email, forum, etc.  One way to get around this is invisible \"items\" in the inventory - you can\'t actually speak the password unless you\'ve overheard it.  Still, to prevent the game from being too dry the game could tell you what the password *is*, it just wouldn\'t help out anyone you gave it to.

[karakth]

Well yeah, although we could also use an honour system. It\'s been seen to work (the quests).

[dfryer]

The honour system is great, since it allows \"real\" RP.  Unfortunately it probably won\'t scale to 1000 active players, if the history of the human race is any indication.

The problem with qualities like \"intelligence\" ( & especially \"wisdom\") is that they\'re very hard to automate- true intelligence and wisdom depend on the player.  I have a hard time roleplaying someone who doesn\'t make the best decision I can think of, but in order to be a good RPer, that\'s what I\'d have to do.

Back to the original topic, a lot of non-stat based content to the game would be have a positive \"community\" impact.  On the other hand, it could turn a \"game\" into a squabbling mass of social problems, i.e. real life