[MUD-Dev] Alright... IF your gonan do DESIESE...

[Adam Wiggins]

> >The idea is that if you encounter a dragon  you have no chance of
> >surviving a fight. No matter how powerfull a fighter you are. No
> >matter how well made your dwarven armour is. Dragons are simply too
> >strong and tough, and deadly to fight. 
> 
> This is reminiscent of a classic old AD&D line given by a player with
> an incredibly buff character to his DM:
> 
>   DM: A dozen six-headed dragons fly in from the south.
> 
>   Player: What! I'm being attacked by a *flock* of Tiamats?

*sigh* This is something I've long argued against, for a lot of reasons,
a few of which I'll detail below.

>   Are dragons (or Tiamats for that matter) so deadly that they might
> as well be considered the archetypal irresistable force, or is there
> some gradation?

As the one who originally posted the dragon example, I should say that
I believe that *all* situations have gradiation.  I just chose that
one as being so utterly extreme on the scale as to be universally
recognizable as being and irresistable force, even though I believe
there to be no such thing.  (For example, it is possible for a player
to actually become a dragon on our mud, at which point other dragons
would become quite resistable.  Except for the really good-looking ones,
I suppose.)

> Translation:
> 
>   Bubba Joe as staggered out of a bar vs dragon == dragon food.
> 
>   Bubba Joe as suitably perpared with all possible dragon
> killing/weakening EQ/magic/etc vs dragon == what?

Ha.  Ha.
As stated above, the idea of a human, equiped with anything but possibly
an F-16 or possibly a bazooka, being anything but dragon food is ridiculous,
at least given the type of dragons you have in D&D.  Of course, this is
just one more reason why I pretty much loathe D&D.

For starters, the mere idea that a land creature of that size could actually
exist is pretty preposterous.  Most of the D&D dragons clock in at a size
that would dwarf just about every dinosaur to ever walk this earth, and
we all know how well THEY did.  There are lots of problems, the most
signifigant being that the building blocks of the universe are all constant.
Atomic bonds have a set strength (for our purposes, anyways) and gravity
is constant, as well.  Density of flesh and so forth...to make matters worse,
volume is a cubic function *shudder*.  On top of this, they are meat-eaters.
The T-Rex is probably the best direct comparsion on this, and it had problems
at a mere 6 tons or so with keeping itself fed.  The massive amount of energy
(== prey) which it takes to keep that sort of a body in motion is damn
near impossible to maintain...now imagine a creature four to ten times larger.
(A T-Rex is roughly the size of what...a very, very small D&D dragon?)
On top of this, a dragon would squash you in a single swipe, regardless.
The worst part is that D&D dragons usually have a 50 strength or so.
This would seem to imply that a couple of good human warriors (18 str)
could wrestle one to the ground.  If we assume that strength increases
more or less along with size (volume), a 250-ft dragon would have a strength
somewhere between 500,000 and 1 million.  (It would be fine if the D&D
strength chart wasn't linear, but it just doesn't work this way.
Any descently experienced character can expect to live at least one
shot from a dragon.  Of course, this goes back to hit points not exactly
being equal to your health points, which is yet another bone of mine...but
anyhow)

However...I am willing to accept all of the above.  It is fantasy after
all, and there's always that excuse that, "Well, they are MAGICAL."
They subsist off of the radiance of their treasure hoarde, they spend most
of their time sleeping, etc etc.  Fine by me.

The part I just *cannot* stomach is the idea of two or three well
equiped adventurers taking one out.  If we assume that dragons have the
armor plating, size, strength and so forth as is usually put forth by
fantasy worlds, then this is roughly equivilent to a couple of small mice
equiped with tacks trying to kill a fully-grown man wearing head-to-toe
skin-tight bodyarmor.  Usually the reasoning is, "But the mice are *really*
strong, for mice, and the tacks are *especially* sharp!"  Maybe if the
man was asleep, but even then it would probably take them hours if not
days to hack through to the vital organs.  (This would be a bit more reasonable
if there were gaps in the armor large enough for the mice to fit their bodies
through.)

> Next up is consideration of the dragon as a predator, and by that
> view, what level of control and affect players have upon their
> predators.
> Do you intend for the only solution to the threat posed by dragons to
> be avoidance?  If so dragons and their (seemingly random?) travels
> almost come to represent the clumsy fatal hand of fate -- not a big
> winner with many players.  Is it possible to either dissuade dragons
> from passing over or through an specifc area?  Conversely can you
> encourage dragons to haunt or travel through an specific area?  Are
> the two possibilities related?
> Translation:
>   To what extent can your player's control of influence the habits of
> dragons?

A good question.  To establish my position of this sort of creature:
I like big, intelligent, mystious, mythical creatures.  I just think that
they way they are usually handled is both unbelievable and incredibly
degrading to the idea of an incredible powerful beast like this.  (See
the flock of Tiamats thing, above.)
So, we do have dragons, and other large creatures.  First of all, we've
brought the scale down to a reasonable level, since we assume constants
related to basic physics and atomic stuff to be the same as RL.  So, humanoid
giants range between 9 and 15 ft (15 feet is REALLY big...you're basically
gonna be hacking at their shins).  Dragons go between about 20 ft and 50 ft,
where a 50 ft dragon is nigh invincible due to its incredible size.  A 20 ft
dragon might be taken down by a few really buff players, particularly if
they have magical aid in the form of help from the gods or a very powerful
elementalist.  If you don't think a 20 ft dragon is that big, go to the
zoo and stand close to the largest elephant you can find.  Now imagine a
creature several times that size of the elephant.  That's our smallest
dragon.
Finally, we don't have dragons roaming the land at all, simply because I
don't want walking deathtraps cruising around ripping people to shreds.
The game is dangerous enough as it is without *that*.  Mostly they hang
out in their caves and sleep on their treassure.  The main idea is that
ocassionally a player will get the idea to go and try to filch something..
which should most likely result in the dragon adding whatever the player
was carrying to its hoarde.