[MUD-Dev] Re: generic objects, behaviors

[Jeff Kesselman]

At 07:16 PM 5/13/97 PST8PDT, you wrote:
>Its not that your magic system encourages players to hoard dead rats,
>its that dead rats discourage most rumour mongers from visiting you
>(aversion to dead, aversion to rats), and thus you can better conceal
>the fact that you are running a rat breeding/slaughter factory above a
>pool of TC's which feed mana to your highly unstable hoard of super
>magical objects.  

(etc...)

I agree that interractiosn of the system and emergent properties are what
dynaic systems are al labout... but it doesnt take an incredibly comples
simualtion to accomplish this...  recall the 3 body problem.  # obejcts,
one simple interractio nrulke and unpredictable results. Chaos is easy to
come by.
Thsi is why i don't see the drive to physicly simualter the wreal world as
useful, for too much processing for too .,ittle effect when simpler systems
wil ladaquately present an appearance of reality and all the variation you
could ask for.


There is a problem with Chaos though-- Chaos needs to be wrangled and
managed and THAT is what is truely difficult, otherwise your game ebcomes a
game of findign the holes in the system and exploiting them.