[MUD-Dev] Introductions and

[Matt Chatterley]

On Wed, 17 Dec 1997, Marian Griffith wrote:

> Thread subjects:
> [skills of hiding and finding]
> [recognition]
> 
> 
> On Sat 13 Dec, Richard Woolcock wrote:
> 
> > Adam Wiggins wrote:
> 
> > > [Stephen Zepp:]
> > I was thinking of doing something similar for groups of people -
> > something like:
> 
> > "You see a large crowd of people, three of which you recognise as Bubba,
> > Boffo and Biffo."
> 
> > The problem I can see is - if the crowd is really big, would I actually
> > be ABLE to recognise everyone (or even anyone)?  What if you barely know
> > them? 
> 
> Depends on how big and how dense the crowd is I'd guess. If you can see
> less of each individual face  you are less likely to recognise anybody.
> So in big crowds,  or lots of people packed tightly together  of if you
> are some distance away you are not likely to recognise.
> It also depends on how much you  -want-  to restrict people recognising
> each other. It might be more convenient to the players 

Yeah. I use stats which are internally 0 to inf in range (average
maximum would be 100, but varies with race and limits are not absolute,
just about as high as you can get on the exponential approach without
serious, read: divine, assistance); bearing this in mind:

I would make a statement such as 'The difficulty of spotting one person in
a crowd is adjusted by their relative size (if it is higher, it is
easier), and the number of people in the crowd', and formulate it
something along the lines of x = 1/2n + s/2n - y/p

Where n is the number in the crowd, s is the relative size (if standard
size in the crowd is '10' and Fred '20', s for fred = 2), and y is the
number in the crowd whom you might recognise, this being your chance of
recognising a *specific* individual. You might want to consider a proper
statistical distribution, but its early, and this seems nice and simple to
me. :)
 
> > Could a thief (as in someone who had just robbed you, rather than thief
> > class) hide  in a crowd to escape the authorities?  Maybe you should
> > have to push through a crowd in order to find someone?
> 
> I think anybody should be able to try to hide in a crowd. And have a fair
> chance of success, depending on the crowd of course. Somebody who trained
> at being a thief on the other hand  should be much more likely to be able
> to -move- through a crowd without drawing attention.  And of course some-
> body trained at catching thieves should be more likely to spot you hiding
> or moving through a crowd.

On this topic area:

I use guilds in a skill based system in such a way that there are two
types of 'spell' where 'spell' is definined as an applied skill or special
move (a mage's fireball is a *magical* spell, a thiefs backstab is a
spell, and 'hide' is a *general* spell).

Normal spells must be learnt at a suitable guild (thus you must convince
the guild tutor to teach you, which does not always involve being a
member). Magical spells must be learnt from other mages or researched, and
general spells are available to *everyone* without teaching.

The difference here is that the 'hide in crowds' a thief might learn from
his guild would be *better* than the 'hide in crowds' that everyone has
(the latter more a 'run into crowd and mull like a mulling-thing', and the
former more planned, calculated and practised).

Regards,
	-Matt Chatterley
	ICQ: 5580107
"I shall never believe that God plays dice with the world." -Einstein