All modern people surely deplore discrimination. None of our players of course would ever discriminate based on gender, race, religion, sexual persausion, or any of the other utterly silly things that people have warred about for all of human history. You see, our group, if not the rest, is utterly free from all biases. Right?

However, what does the fact that everyone on Redwall MUCK in reality being perfectly free from all discrimination have to do with how our characters act in the game setting?

Brian Jacques' universe isn't utopian. The Abbey dwellers were of fairly few species, and they didn't trust and weren't joined by other species. In fact, those beasts living in Redwall Abbey pretty much distrusted foxes, weasels, martens, rats, etc. Sure, they had cases where an individual might have managed to show that they didn't count; Gingivere the wildcat, an occasional rat or such. But, in the terms of discrimination, those are called "token" members. In other words, for good or for ill, Brian Jacques wrote his heroic characters as speciesist.

Further, he went to answer questions about it at Redwall's official web site in the Ask Brian areas saying that there weren't good vermin and bad woodies. His storylines didn't work that way.

Now, we have neither the means nor the desire to control the choice of species or the attitude of characters. But we do have the means and the desire to see that canon areas in the game are operating in ways that new players who visit them see them as being consistent with the books.

Non-canon areas, such as Collinsel, are free to act as they wish. Organizations like the Silver Star that are "integrated" are paving the way to the future, clearly. But, those organizations aren't found in the books, aren't canon, and while they are free to play and follow their beliefs, can't be treated as representative of the books. Because they aren't: that's what it means to be non-canon.

In the Redwall books, the groups are all very tightly speciest. There's a skipper of otters. How many squirrels live (not visit, or befriend, but live) in the otter holts? There's a foremole. Is it possible for a squirrel to get that job? How many weasels belong to GUOSIM? In fact, the name GUOSIM (Guerrilla Union Of Shrews In Mossflower) is purely indicative that their allegience is speciest.

The Abbey itself contains an Order that is primarily mice. Yes, mice. They have some squirrels and moles, but they are few. The moles mostly live with the other moles. Friends do cross the species, such as Arula and Samkim. Or Basil and Matthias. This doesn't mean that moles and squirrels live in Salamandastron among the hares, does it? Or that moles live in treetop Floret as a rule?

When visitors of vermin species would come to the Abbey, they weren't turned away, but they weren't trusted. They were escorted. There was suspicion. There wasn't an open-armed embracing of them for their diversity.

This notion of social order provided the special cases the ability to make a plotline with conflict.

The reason we push so hard for acceptence of diversity in RL is because it reduces conflict and allows peoples to live together. In reality, we do our best to reduce conflict to avoid the consequences. In the game, we require conflict in order to generate plotlines. Plotlines that Brian Jacques' fans would recognize, because that's why they come here.

So now what?

Because Redwall Abbey's RP is enormously stagnant, and it's not very welcoming of new players (new to MUCKing and the game, not just new characters that understand all the backplot and are willing to integrate with their friends), we tried making a large disaster to cause excitement. This was the earthquake TP last year.

This worked very well. We had great interest for a number of weeks, and then as we kept pushing various consequences, we were told, "We can take it from here. You don't need to keep hammering." So, we took the people at their word, and within three weeks the event collapsed.

This taught us a few lessons.

1. Most players have an internal view, that stops at the boundaries of their circle of friends
2. In order to maintain conflict, external force is needed
3. Without a clear and well known basis arguments destroy RP

Actually, we knew these things before, we'd just figured that things were going well enough that people had learned to get beyond them. We were wrong. I was wrong, since it was my decision to allow the involved players to take over thus freeing the staff from further coordination and effort.

Some people don't need external motivation for good role-play. This is clear and true. However, the Abbey needs exceptionally good role-play consistent with the books if it is to act as a magnet for drawing new members to the MUCK that have never been on a MUCK before. New players are like sponges, and they go where they know, which is Redwall Abbey. What they see there must be our best, and like the books.

Why the emphasis on the books? Because, well, we're Redwall MUCK. We could be "Early Days MUCK" again. We could be "Medieval Magicless MUCK with Furs" (MMMF). We could be all sorts of things. But we aren't. We're Redwall MUCK.

This doesn't mean that we can't have things not in the books. It doesn't prevent us from having integrated cities or even a floating collection of junked boats being home to moles. It does, however, obligate us to being like the books in the areas from the books.

There was a quake. As a result of the quake, the order of things was trashed. Non-canon groups came to help. Canon groups (such as the Long Patrol) are in the area. This is fine. But, what they are going to help restore is from the books.

This is going to disturb a lot of players. It shouldn't. The purpose of the game is to play. Not to live out another life. If the game is being used as a replacement for a reality that is horrific, the help needed isn't in-game but from a trained therapist.

The essence of role-play is acting as someone else. The essense of plot is conflict. The more miserable and distraught the character, the better the play should be for the player. If the misery of the character causes grief to the player, the player oughtn't be playing. They clearly can't distinguish IC vs RL, and if that's so, no policy on the game will make things better.

So, expect and embrace the struggles, the battles, the losses, and yes, the victories (some large and some small), since those are the topics that made the stories in the books we came here to play.

Redwall isn't about peace and harmony. It's about the struggle to obtain it.

Struggle on.

Otter, Chief Wizard, Redwall MUCK.
Brian Jones, brianj@otterspace.com

Copyright 2003, Brian Jones.