[MUD-Dev] Level abstractions - Realism vs Game Issues

[Adam Wiggins]

[Matt C:]
> On Sun, 29 Jun 1997, Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:
> > 	Hit points are static. You have X hit points plus your usual
> > 	constitution bonus, period. Your additional ability to survive 
> > 	comes purely from skills like dodge, parry, and increased damage
> > 	from weapon skills and multiple attacks.
> 
> Pretty much sums it up, although: Constitution/Endurance/Stamina
> statistics should be increaseable, although not necessarily by a lot.

We have a lot of different stats for general physical stalwartness.
The one which is not changable is constitution, which basically represents
your body's actual resistance to damage - the traditional example being
that dwarves have high constitutions due to very strong bones, thick limbs
(relative to their height), and are very 'meaty' in general.  All
the other stats can vary dramatically during the character's life, and
include:

physical fortitude (ability to take pain without crying like a baby)
mental fortitude (ability to watch someone be beheaded without puking)
long-winded stamina (ability to run a marathon)
short-winded stamina (ability to sprint 100m)

Dividing it out like this makes it possible to have a fairly wide
range of characters as far as this is concerned - you can have a burly
young hero who turns green at the sight of blood and whines like a baby
when he cuts himself; an old lady whose body is frail but who is highly
resistant to pain and emotional trauma; or a doctor who has no problem
watching open-heart surgery and eating lunch, but isn't all that physically
tough.

Also, at high levels the first two (fortitudes) have a large affect on
your text.  Ie, Bubba the newbie sees:

Buffy swings her axe in a deadly arc, decapitating Bruno in a shower of
blood!  You gag at the overwhealming smell of blood and death which
suddenly fills the air.  Buffy turns and burries her axe into your arm!
Agh, the pain!  THE PAIN!  The world turns red and begins to spin...

Boffo the hardened killer sees:

Buffy swings her axe in a deadly arc, decaptitating Bruno in a shower of
blood.  Buffy turns and burries her axe into your arm, making you
very angry.  You yank the axe out of your arm and raise your sword...

Mobs also take advantage of this when relating events to players:

You ask the shopkeeper, 'What happened?'
The shopkeeper says, 'Buffy KILLED Bruno!  It was terrible!'
You ask Boffo, 'What happened?'
Boffo says, 'Buffy killed Bruno.'

> Hmm, I have a rather different view on "Mana". To try and put it fairly
> MPs (Mental Points) are the mental equivalent to SPs (Stamina points), the
> latter dictating physical state (Normal -> Exhausted), as opposed to HPs
> (Hit Points, which dictate injury level, to a degree - although being
> somewhat linked to SPs, if you're tireder, you get hurt more). That made
> no sense, so to state it bluntly: MPs dictate your mental state, from
> normal to mentally exhausted, and are NOT used solely for magic, but for
> anything which requires extra thought or consideration. That means mainly
> magic, which requires mental (and sometimes physical) exertion.

Excellent.

> Casting a spell drains your MPs, and tires you, but is related to your
> Mana (the more Mana you have, the more MPs you'll tend to have - not the
> sole factor - and the faster you'll gain them, but your magic will be more
> powerful overall as well).

So is mana also a stat 'contained' in characters?  We currently have it
set up so that actually holding mana in your body is very difficult, hence
it only tends to be drawn from its source (depending on what school(s)
you follow) immediately before the actual spellcasting is going to take
place.  This makes drawing and channeling the mana generally more involved
than the actually spellcasting itself.