[MUD-Dev] Spellcaster, or Waving Hands

[clawrenc at cup.hp.com]

In <33F40143.D1E at dial.pipex.com>, on 08/14/97 
   at 04:13 PM, Richard Woolcock <KaVir at dial.pipex.com> said:

>clawrenc at cup.hp.com wrote:
>> [snipped]
>> About the only other thing I'd like to change would be to remove the
>> reliance on the 5 fingers of two hands.  Thus players with
>> ambidextrous toes, or more fingers per hand could have an advantage.
>> This of it as varying the thread count...

>And what if someone loses an arm, hand, or even a finger?  

Then they are less able at spell casting, no?

>What about
>spell affects requiring more than just your hands...for example your
>right hand might represent offensive magic, whilst your left hand
>might be used for defensive.  Thus as soon as you see...

This was implicit in the base Waving Hands document.  Look at the
example battle.  They are building potential defences and attacks on
both hands as they proceed.

>However, why stop with hands?  While you're defending against KaVir's
>attack, and probably countering with something of your own, you
>decide to scan the area to see if any of his friends are nearby.

>   You wiggle your ears.  You sense someone approaching from behind.

>Uh oh, time to make a getaway.

>   You kick off a shoe and begin flexing your big toe.  You vanish in
>   a blaze of white light.

Precisely.

>Only problem is that mages might start looking a bit silly...

This would seem an advantage.

>One spell system I wrote before was using spell books.  Mages could
>design their own spells in it, by creating pages, writing on them,
>then putting them in their books... It also resulted in a lot of 
>(unfounded) rumours about what mages could do.  

That last would seem to be the real value in the system: the confusion
and uncertainty it gives to others.

--
J C Lawrence                           Internet: claw at null.net
(Contractor)                           Internet: coder at ibm.net
---------------(*)               Internet: clawrenc at cup.hp.com
...Honorary Member Clan McFUD -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...