The thing I''ve been trying to reconcile is how to allow players to have creative input into the game (actions affecting setting and story) while, at the same time, employing rules and structures in order to keep conflicts dynamic and impartial.

The problem with MMORPGs is the totally clinical interaction between the world and the players. The world or engine doesn''t care who you are or what you want. It really doesn''t care what you do unless you''re practicing skills or killing things while collecting levels and items. Relevant social interaction is limited to cooperating to kill stuff, practice skills and cooperatively gain levels and items. Anything else isn''t the province of the world engine and that tends to stunt meaningful or compelling player spawned storytelling and roleplaying - aside from acting a role "just ''cause" and knowing that it''s a rather futile and meaningless act. This serves to explain a bit of the rift between MMORPG roleplayers and the powergamers. The former are in denial that roleplaying In Character in the context of a MMORPG is just silly. Who cares if you''re a Ranger with a tragic life whose village was burned by Orcs? Your story will never have a point or a resolution because it /never happened/ as far as the world is concerned.

MUSHes, text based online roleplaying, have their own problems. Because of the deeply creative and personal nature of the roleplay IC issues often become OOC, cliques of players form, and powerjockeying becomes as much an OOC activity as an IC one. New players often feel completely clueless and picked on by judgmental old hands whose characters are all powerful and who often control crucial administrative spots. Newbies themselves can also be incredibly disruptive to the creative ecosystem as the strength of a MUSH comes from an assumed culture of cooperation. If newbies abuse the setting or the rules vast tracts of roleplay may have to be retconned, or erased, so that continuity or consent issues aren''t violated. Over time entrenched players often grow jaded and highly selective with their play but unwilling to abandon coveted positions of control over storylines and props. This leads to total stagnation.

There has to be a middle way and I think, again, this comes down to simulating a world, with mortality, economics and flushing toilets and letting the players do what they will. If powergamers can find a niche that roleplayers find highly useful and roleplayers can serve a function that powergamers will recognise as realistic and actually useful then the world simulation is doing its job. Factions and family should be more important than levels and magic dodads. Wages or rewards from players should be more important than scraps of gold from monsters mugged. Form the channels and let human nature take its course. There will be stories aplenty in a world where personal background and goals can be taken into account and made relevant and where an the benefits of an impartial engine, instead of flawed human administrators, can be used to best effect.