[Discuss] In-Character info? Was: Netherworld on Dwilight

[Alex]

John P. Murphy wrote:
> You're assuming, though, that the list of rulers/characters is  
> necessarily in-character information.  To be honest, that's a tough  
> call for me.  A ruler on any other island would be expected normally  
> to know the names and families of all the other rulers on the  
> island.  On Dwilight, though, that's a tough call, with so much of  
> the map blacked out.  Is it reasonable to expect two nations on  
> opposite sides of the continent to know about each other and be able  
> to converse?  The mechanics are in place, sure, but that doesn't mean  
> that we have to avail ourselves of them.
>   
Your point about not always knowing other rulers is fair enough, but 
doesn't explain why you would send a messenger into wherever Haktoo is. 
I can't see why if we're not supposed to take this as some kind of omen, 
it's not possible to have Haktoo as an invisible recipient (infil's not 
showing up on recipient list code comes to mind, for starters). As for 
rulers conversing - if it's RPed that they're not, then fine, but if a 
mechanic is there the rule of thumb is that you can use it. A limitation 
of messaging only people within a few hundred miles of your realm might 
have been an interesting idea for Dwilight (I'm pretty sure Tim has 
ideas on the wiki somewhere about it), but then it should have been put 
in before this issue, and we shouldn't be being told we should play this 
way after the event.

> You've lost me here.  Using the character list is already a stretch  
>   
Why? To use another Dwilight thread's reference, weren't you an advocate 
of  knowing who the heck the Relak's were? Same concept, most of them 
aren't even on the same island.
> -- to go ahead and use the absence of a name to conclude that someone  
> isn't human is just too much of a jump.  Unless your character is  
> suspicious about *all* the other remote rulers, it seems that your  
> character would assume that a new person is human as well.  And I'm  
> still not entirely willing to concede that all of this information is  
> in-character in the first place.
>   
No, I can see why there would be issues with using it IC (my character 
hasn't done anything about this new general because I'm not sure about 
the legitimacy of information, not that he does much at all anyway). But 
the difference between other foreign rulers/council members/whatever is 
that you know them, you can find out about them - you're a noble, these 
tools are available to you. You know their families, you may have heard 
rumours of their own achievements, their homes are probably on the map 
and researchable. You can't find anything about Haktoo beyond his 
apparent existence , and that would indicate to me if I were in that 
position that something just isn't right.

OOC, it stinks of bricks under hats.

-- 
"Abashed the devil stood, and felt how awful goodness is."
-Milton