[MUD-Dev] The laws of probability

[clawrenc at cup.hp.com]

In <199706110153.SAA12207 at user1.inficad.com>, on 06/10/97 
   at 06:59 PM, Adam Wiggins <nightfall at user1.inficad.com> said:

>[Chris L:]
>> One thing I've been looking at is causitively controlling probability
>> within the game.  Thus, at the crude level, a Ring Of Luck could say
>> make all probability choices come out in the player's favour, or a
>> Ring Of Bad Luck could make them all come out against him.  It gets
>> more interesting if you merely warp the probability field instead of
>> forcing it to 0 or 1 however.  Then you could have a curse of Minorly
>> Bad Luck, which would just mean that probability choices for that
>> player would start to fall against him more often.

>Very cool, although I'd want to make it a bit more complex than this.

So would I.  I'd love to have everything from Good/Bad moons, faery
stones, black cats crossing your path, the Norns weaving your fate,
broken mirrors, salt over the shoulder, etc buried in there.

>Tie in things like phases of the moon(s), strange rituals used to
>activate various luck-inducing items, items which can induce bad luck
>on others, and so on.  Now you get an effect of voodoo 'magic' which
>is actually not having any immediate effect (ie, a fireball consuming
>your enemies) but instead you wave your arms around, chant some list
>of words when the moon is waxing, and rub your lucky ring to ensure
>good luck on that night's endevors.  Conversely, make a charm from a
>strand of someone's hair and chant a different ritual under the
>waning moon to ensure bad luck for them.

Precisely.  I gave the ring and other examples as simple stereotypical
examples which everybody would be at least familiar with.  That way
the base idea is the only new thing introduced to the model in
question.  Everything else will be familiar, if hackneyed.

>In a way, this is a sort of player balancing thing - if many people
>hate your character, they would all be doing bad luck rituals out of
>spite. Just one by itself may not have a large effect, but if several
>people are doing them simutaneously, you suddenly find yourself with
>a very long streak of bad luck...

Neat.  You automatically get a sort of "approval rating".  Cute.  This
could be used to greater effect for certain quests where to suceed the
player must get an "approval rating" (a seperate probability field)
higher than X.

Hurm.

This would be a great tool to lampoon the idiocies of democracy.

>> The thing you can't do is to invert the entire probability field.  

>Heh, memories of the Improbability Theory from Hitchiker's Guide.

Bingo.  Cf the Heat of Gold, and the infinite number of monkeys typing
on an infinite number of typewriters (selectrics?) who had a script
they wanted to show Arthur.

--
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...