[MUD-Dev] Foods (was Character evolution)

[Matt Chatterley]

On Mon, 25 Aug 1997, Marian Griffith wrote:

> > Caliban Tiresias Darklock wrote:
> 
> > > On Sun, 17 Aug 1997 05:01:44 PST8PDT, Richard Woolcock
> > > <KaVir at dial.pipex.com> wrote:

[Snip]
 
> > Encouraging players to eat certain types of food could also bring the
> > art of assassination to another level...poisoning (which IMO is vastly
> > under-rated in all the muds I've ever played) could be a very simple
> > way to get rid of that "unbeatable swordsman".  Simply sneak into his
> > favourite cook's house and poison the food.  If many people were using
> > the same cook, this could cause real devastation - and a 'tasting' 
> > skill could prove very useful.
> 
> Of course there are other reasons why poisoning in muds is rather poin-
> tless.  Doing a pityfull 5 pts of damage each round against a character
> that has 2000 of them isn't going to kill him anytime soon.

Perhaps that WILL come as a shock to players of Caffeine (if we ever get
to a stage where we can have them!). 'Hitpoints' are used (along with
other factors) as a measure of the bodies capacity for physical (external)
damage, and you can die without running out of them (and vice versa).

While there are many forms of Toxin, one designed to kill a member of your
race quickly and efficiently will do so with no qualms, so if you have
reason to suspect food may be dodgy, you'd better get it tasted (and if
you don't suspect it, you deserve to get killed off)!
 
> > > [big snip of edibility index]
> 
> > Interesting idea!  Players should certainly be able to build up a 
> > tolerance for bad food given enough time.  However, this encourages
> > players to constantly eat the worst food they can find all the time.
> > How about adding some sort of 'happiness' or 'satisfaction' attribute,
> > which goes up when you eat good food?  This might give you bonuses in
> > any concentration-related situation, as well as possibly other 
> > situations.  This means a good cook could make a fortune by selling
> > their dishes to other players (as well as rich mobs, who would try
> > and buy the best food they could afford).
> 
> Maybe a better solution would be to give poor food a lower sustenance
> quality, and have what makes  'good food'  defined according to race.
> Creatures can theoretically stomach about anything but not everything
> they eat will help them much, if at all. E.g. humans may need a fair-
> ly balanced diet with sufficient fruit, vegetables and some meat.
> Trolls, on the other hand, thrive best on (raw) meat.  They too could
> eat potatoes  if particularly pressed,  but it would mostly serve  to
> numb their hunger and won't help them much in any other way.
> This also opens up the interesting twist to the game that a character
> can be suffering from severe malnutrition without being hungry. Hung-
> er is after all only a signal that your stomach is empty.  If you eat
> anything,  as long as it is enough to fill,  the feeling will be gone
> again.  If you use sand to get rid of the feeling of hunger your cha-
> racter will still eventually starve to death.

Yup. This is vaguely how I plan to handle it - tracking nutrition as well
as literal "Hunger". This is really essential to stop players just
gobbling a vast amount of the cheapest food available - and also to allow
things to get evil when they are in the wilderness, and have ample
supplies of dried and/or preserved foods.

[Snip]

Regards,
	-Matt Chatterley
	http://user.itl.net/~neddy/index.html
"Speak softly and carry a big stick." -Theodore Roosevelt