[MUD-Dev] Git out the boar spear, Martha!

[Nathan Yospe]

On Mon, 30 Jun 1997, Jon A. Lambert wrote:

:> From: clawrenc at cup.hp.com

:> For this area I fall into the grunt player camp.  I expect my
:> cahracter, outside of unsusual circumsatances (forced march across a
:> desert etc), to take care of his own nutrition without requiring my
:> attention or direct involvement as player.  Possibly this is because I
:> try and handle feeding my own body in much the same manner -- utterly
:> ignorable automaticities.  Eating is a bother and an unfortunately
:> necessary waste of time.  (Conveniently ignoring my own gourmand
:> tendencies which I see as entirely seperate -- eating for pleasure as
:> vs nutrition which I can't see translating into a text MUD well at
:> all)

Strong agreement here... I have the nice excuse of "Well, its sci-fi, far
future, and everybody is borged out... why SHOULDN'T they have nutrient
feeds automated? So eating is purely a pleasure thing for me. (Too bad I
tend to feel the same in real life... I'm losing weight at an alarming
rate now that I'm responsible for remembering to sustain myself.)

:I think this may well fall into theme.  It may be convenient to
:assume ALL characters can hunt if your game world is primitive/historic.  
:If you do a modern/future theme, this skill may be more unusual and 
:having it as a survival skill might make a game difference.
:
:Hunting down parts for the food replicator...hmm

*grin* Originally, I intended to force characters to eat until they could
get implanted feeds...

:> >I intend to allow the eating of corpses (of courpse, most players
:> >will have to cut them up into suitable food pieces and/or cook them
:> >first.. only trolls and orcs will be able to chow down on a freshly
:> >dead body with no chance of being ill). 

:> That "chance of being ill" piece is interesting.  Why should a
:> character get ill from eating a freshly killed carcass?  Parasites? 
:> There are amazingly few that can survive a human digestional system
:> long enough to be real bother.

:I not sure.  Maybe I'm misinformed.  I thought there was good reason
:to drain the blood from that boar before eating.  I also remember 
:something about people having digestive reactions to horse blood.
:Perhaps certain creatures require special preparation, like Fugoo.

That's Fugu (Accented hu, accented ku... I could do the hiragana or kanji
for it as well, but this is a text terminal) and the reason for special
preperation is that a certain gland must be removed without any damage, or
it leaks a deadly toxin into the meat. Fugu doesn't even taste very good,
for all that. Slightly dry, and a bit gamey. I far prefer ahi.

The thing about draining boar blood is a remnant... there was a disease
that often was contracted from pig flesh, if eaten raw, and not draining
the blood increased likelyhood. Same reason pork is not kosher. As for
reacting to horse blood? Horse milk I know, but I'd never heard of the
blood. FYI, Chris, we are not equipt to handle several parasites often
found in raw red meat in primative conditions. Our digestive system often
lets them through. This, I learned from Nepal.

:> There is considerable evidence (I find supportable) that Homo Sapiens
:> is by nature a cursorial hunter.  What is a cursorial hunter I hear
:> you cry in bewilderment?  Very simple:  A cursorial hunter is a hunter
:> which hunts its prey by running (jogging actually) it into the ground. 

I liked the reference to this out of David Brin's "The Uplift War". Only
time I've seen an author recognize the human's natural approach to
hunting.

:I spend much of my time hunting down my cursor. :)

Its right there, hiding behind the smiley!

:> Several "primitive" tribes continue to hunt this way to this day.  

:There may be some modern anecdotal evidence to support this.  
:Did you ever see a pack of children hunt down an ice-cream truck?

Or a pack of reporters hunt down a celebrity?

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Nathan F. Yospe - University of Hawaii Dept of Physics - yospe at hawaii.edu