[MUD-Dev] Re: Introductions and descriptions

[Adam Wiggins]

[Richard Woolcock:]
> > Well Bob will find out eventually if he keeps seeing this mushroom, because
> > for the game to describe it as "Oooh a lovely mushroom", it requires Bob to
> > perform his survival skill and he could succeed at some stage.  The only way
> 
> Hmmm you could use a 'chance of success' - however what I was referring to was
> more along the lines of skill levels - thus
> 
> Survival 0 - You know nothing about survival.
> Survival 1 - You know the basics, recognise simple plants, etc.
> Survival 2 - You are intermediate, can recognise poisonous fungus, etc.
> Survival 3 - You are skilled, blah blah blah....etc....
> 
> Thus if Bob has Survival < 2, he won't recognise toadstools, whilst if he
> has Survival >= 2, he will.  Survival ROLLS would be used in 'chance' 
> situations.

Better yet, use seeded randoms.  Thus it's still a roll, it's just always
the same for a given object.
For instance, in this case, use the object id of the toadstool plus
the object id of the character as your seed.  You roll, from 0 to 100,
a 74 (maybe adding in some 'bonus' for the type of toadstool).  As long
as that particular character's 'shrooms skill is below 74, they won't
recognize the mushroom.  Once they reach 74, they always recognize
it.  Now, a different character might recognize it at 68, and another
at 77 - giving you a bit of randomness without making looking at the
room twenty times useful.
This can be used quite effectively for sneaking, hiding, any sort of
lore skill, picking locks, whatever that you want to be a little random
without being spammable (ie, typing sneak over and over until your
buddy tells you you're sneaking).