[MUD-Dev] To catch a mage (was fear of magic)

[coder at ibm.net]

On 29/10/97 at 11:02 PM, Derrick Jones <gunther at online1.magnus1.com> said:
>On Wed, 29 Oct 1997 coder at ibm.net wrote:

>> To visualise:
>[snip good description of a worm-hole]
>> 
>> Given this sort of model (to which you can add all sorts of Nathan-esque
>> resource and physical mechanics to (which I have done)), I define that the
>> two locations which were once one, now have a base level of "affinity" for
>> each other, and that that affinity can be detected, and that it and the
>> two spaces which have that affinity can be manipulated as a form of
>> mechanical harmony.  

>My definition is that the two places aren't one, but infinitely close;
>separated by the portal (worm-hole if you will) which the mage steps
>through.  The difference being that temperature, luminosity, and (most
>interestingly) pressure gradients go off the scale (opening a portal into
>a much lower pressure (air into vacuum or underwater into air) creates
>all sorts of fun).  

Yup, there are all sorts of logical conundrums under there.  I attempt to
side step most of them by defining that while the two locations now share
the same space, their coordinate systems are still logically continuous
with their original systems.  The result is that by default, event tho
there are objects from two different locations sharing the same space,
objects from different locations won't affect other objects from other
locations in the same space.

Think of it this way:

  Bubba walks down a road.

  Bubba is at a location where the space is shared between two different
roads.  

  He can continue walking forward on road #1, or he can continue walking
forward on road #2.  The choice is up to him.

  Beside Bubba a tumbleweed blows down the road (#1).  The tumbleweed will
never know that road #2 exists unless Bubba or some other concious agent
moves it.  It will continue down road #1.

  Similar for the arrow flying above road #2 at the same point, for road
#2.

The base rule is that by default, even tho the spaces are spatially
congruent, they don't actually intersect.  It takes a direct causitive
action to translate from one coordinate system to the other.

Visualise it this way:

  You walk down the road.

  You see road #1 ahead of you.  

  You blink, uncross your eyes, figit, and see road #2.  Blink again, and
see road #1.  Theya re both there in the same space at the same time.  but
there is a shift required to the other one.

>Yet the problem of tracability remains.  The protals themselves can be
>detected, as they exist (for Trekish worm-holes its the quantum
>fluctuations), but the pursuers can't link entrance and exit portals as
>the path between them is non-existant. Should there be a distinction?  If
>portals are one-way, then I guess the 'in' and 'out' have their own
>unique signatures, but a two-way portal (eww nasty spell) would by
>necessity be identical.  Although if you gear magic to absorb from its
>surroundings, then one end of the portal (enter) would most likely show
>the drop in ambient energies.

Hurm.  Another side piece I hadn't really thought of adding an explanation
for, is that the new affinity the two locations have for each other is
unique in character.  Its not a question of a generic affinity stat which
every location or location relation possesses to some extent, but that
there are uniquely coded affinity values between points which can be
detected on the basis of that affinity signature.  Helpfully, that
signature is partially a product of (flavoured by?) the creator of the
affinity (ie the one who teleported).  

>> At the lowest levels of affinity, a location can be made to "sing".  The
>> result is that the other, paired location also sings, and that fact can be
>> detected and located with great accuracy 9and some expense).  For a
>> location that has never been teleported from, the result is that the whole
>> local area then starts to sing, slightly.  

>Wouldn't this lead to Universal affinity, providing that teleporting
>becomes a fairly common practice?  

Nahh.  The affinities decay fairly quickly over time.  The result is that
while affinities compound, it takes a lot of activity in a single location
before yuo get something that will persist for any serious length of game
play.

>If large, different areas begin to
>mesh to be in 'affinity' with each other, then you will quickly get the
>majority of he popular spots being a soup of each others identity.  For
>example, say a swamp and desert were 'linked' by a spell, then the swamp
>with a snowy mountaincap.  The mountaincap would gain some affinity with
>the desert, even though they were never directly connected.  

No, that's not the way I work affinity.  It is a relation between two
point which is unique to those points and doesn't translate.  The fact
that A has high affinity for B, and that B has high affinity for C, says
nothing about A's affinity for C.

>Thus, after
>a few hundred jumps, it would become impossible to tell the original
>source of an introduced affinity.  However, if some mage teleports into
>town from his/her secret hideaway (assumed to be 'off the beaten path'
>and therefore retaining much of its orignal location signature), the
>entire town may be able to detect the shift created by the portal. 
>(There is danger in the air.)

*This* is true however, as a new flavour has been added to the town's
affinity.

>> This also reveals a standard ploy to prevent such tracing.  The mage first
>> drops a robot.  The robot is a trail hider.  The mage then teleports away
>> first, and very shortly afterward the robot teleports away to somewhere
>> (far) different.  The result is that the trail is more or less hidden. The
>> record of the later teleport is much stronger and tends to swamp the
>> mage's trace.  Really nasty cases drop multiple robots, and teleport
>> multiple times, each time dropping robots.  By the time the work is
>> expended to track them, the trail is cold.

>Nifty.  The same logic could be used in my system.  Th mage hires a few
>accomplices to teleport about randomly as the mage is committing the
>crime.  When it comes time to escape, the guards have an unusally large
>number of portals to investigate, thus spreading their forces thin to the
>point where they can be ambushed, or eluded easily.  Also,  the
>accomplices can stick around the exit-portals and give faulty information
>to the guards, or even make it seem that the mage did in fact use the
>wrong portal (dropping a hat simular to the one worn by the mage, etc).

Precisely.  Bingo.  

--
J C Lawrence                               Internet: claw at null.net
----------(*)                              Internet: coder at ibm.net
...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...