[MUD-Dev] Re: Introductions and descriptions

[Brandon J. Rickman]

On Fri, 28 Nov 1997, Adam Wiggins <nightfall at user1.inficad.com> wrote:
>[Derrick Jones:]
>> On Wed, 26 Nov 1997, Adam Wiggins wrote:
>> > Better yet, use seeded randoms.  Thus it's still a roll, it's just always
>> > the same for a given object.
>> So, when the character first encounters the mushroom, the character checks
>> to see if he can identify it.  (if skill > rand(0,100) + difficulty). The
>> game then remembers the result of rand() and stores it with the character
>> for each type of mushroom.  What is gained from this as apposed keeping
>> track of object recognition?  Certainly not memory, as you have to
>> remember the roll, which is larger than a single bit (recognized/not
>> recognized) for each object.  
>
>No, no, no!  That was my whole point above.  You don't have to store
>*anything*.  They keyword above is 'seeded'.  Here's some example
>code, which might make it clearer than my description.
>[...]
>If you do it correctly, it works like this:
>"Hrm, I tried to sneak into the dragon's lair once before - I got nailed,
>hard.  My skill has gone up since then though...we'll see."
>The idea is to make it slightly random without making it silly (a
>master thief has a chance of failing to sneak through a room he always
>sneaks through..).  Since we also affect the sneak rolls by the amount
>of concealment in the room, the size of the person sneaking, the size
>of the observer, the amount of light in the room, and a few other
>factors, it's rarely a very fixed value.  It, however, a value that
>players can hope to make an estimated guess about.  "Sure, I can sneak
>past that minotaur - they are a big and stupid, and I can sneak through
>that room pretty well."
>Of course - this is another thing I forgot to mention about the
>stealth skills - whether you get 'seen' or not is not a boolean value.
>Some characters may see you sneaking (if they were paying special
>attention to you, if they are highly perceptive, if they are good at
>stealth themselves, if they are your size of smaller) and others may
>completely miss it (they're in the middle of combat, they are twice your
>size, they have poor vision in low-light conditions, they have low
>perception and stealth abilities, etc).  This is especially fun for
>pick-pocketing - one character does not notice themselves being
>pick-pocketed, but a character nearby does.  That character can choose
>to warn the victim of the crime, or can just keep it to themselves.

I remember having this discussion some time ago somewhere, I'll check my
archives, perhaps it was rgm.admin.  The point I tried to make was that
the random() part of a skill check was really just the indeterminate
affect of all those little things that no one has yet bothered to
model.  The question was "When would a theif sneeze when attempting
to backstab?"  Given all those conditions - character skills, lighting,
character perception, background noise, phase of the moon - one could
argue that the backstab should always succeed for given conditions.
The better fighter should always win in combat, right?  Well, no, 
because that wouldn't be particularly interesting, besides how do
you determine who is the better fighter?  (This is a rhetorical
question, but I just know someone will answer it.)

I'll see if I can find the old posts.  I really like discussion of
pseudo-random skill checks.  But how could a character "learn" something,
like how to identify a very specific species of mushroom?  If mushroom
recognition is dependent on a very genreal skill, such as survival,
and "my" seeded skill requires an 87 to identify a particular mushroom
but my current skill is 13...  

>Also, none of these skills have boolean outcomes.  For instance, while
>stealing (which is best done when combined with some other type of
>physical contact, such as a big hug or a slap on the back), you can
>try to go for the object, but then decide its too risky (they saw you
>moving that way) and stop at the last moment; you can go for the object
>but they notice and you fail; you can go for the object and get it, but
>they notice; or you can go for the object and they don't notice at all.
>The messages for the in-between values of success usually look like
>"You notice Bubba eyeing your dagger" or "Bubba seems to run his hand
>across your dagger hilt, but jerks back as he notices you watching."
>Of course - and here's the best part - characters with a high paranoia
>(via their player settings, or better yet, through drugs their character
>has been taking) they may get stray "Bob seems to be eyeing your dagger"
>messages when Bob didn't do anything.  Zany fun ensues.

This should happen more often:

% west
You go west.
Outside the Orphanage
Shoehorn is here.  A stranger is here.
Shoehorn shoves past you, leaving east.
%
Bubba arrives from the east.
Bubba exclaims, "Motch my old buddy!"
% hug Bubba
You hug Bubba.
Bubba hugs you.
You suddenly realize someone has stolen your wallet!!!
A stranger shoves past you, leaving east.
You hear a shout from the Orphanage: "More!?!  You want more!?!"

>Nods, that's a problem.  I like the pseudo-random method because it
>solves two problems at once - you _always_ remember something once
>identified (given the same conditions - you might fail in low light,
>or if your skill decays), and it takes 0 bytes of storage.

Everyone is so concerned about storage!  It isn't how much you store, but
what you choose to store.  Seeded random numbers are good, because you
are storing the algorithm and not some array of numbers.  With the array,
if you need a longer history you store more digits, but with the
algorithm you have a potentially infinite history. 

- Brandon Rickman - ashes at zennet.com -
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