[MUD-Dev] Spoken Languages & Food [was RP thesis...]

[clawrenc at cup.hp.com]

In <199705270344.UAA14464 at user1.inficad.com>, on 05/26/97 
   at 08:50 PM, Adam Wiggins <nightfall at user1.inficad.com> said:

>Yup.  And although there tends to be kick-back to this sort of thing
>in the established mud community, I think it actually makes the game
>*easier* to get into.  One of the first muds I logged on to had an
>output that looked something like this:

><right hand>   10
><left hand>    10
><right arm>    25
><left arm>     25
><torso>        75

>etc.  This was pretty useless to me - I quickly figured out that the
>list of numbers was somehow related to the damage level of each limb,
>but the numbers were meaningless for a while.  I would have
>understood immediately, however, if the output had been something
>like:

>You have a nasty cut on your right arm and a bruise on your left leg.

This is really just a question of requiring an implicit undetanding of
the reader -- its bad design from a story-telling/communicaion PoV.
This is why so many bad SF books/movies have two characters explaining
to each other all about how some special XXX works when you know very
well that both of them are past experts in the area.  

  "Yes, Bubba PhD Oxon, as you very well know the gravitational tides
near a black hole can ripe a ship apart."
  "Why yes Boffo PhD MIT, they sure can!  In fact this is because of
the different orbital rates required at different distances from the
black hole."
  "Exactly Dr Bubba!  The inside end has to go around a lot faster
than the outside end, so the bit in the middle get pulled on!"
  "Golly gosh gee jumpin' willikers Dr Boffo!  You are right!  That's
why most planets have moons a lot smaller than their own size..."

Keeping the same format the following would have commincated well, if
lost the flavour:

  <right hand>   10%  damaged
  <left hand>    10%  damaged
  <right arm>    25%  damaged
  <left arm>     25%  damaged
  <torso>        75%  damaged

There's no more implicit understanting required other than what the
effect of the damage may be to the body part's utility.

--
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...