[MUD-Dev] Re: skill system

[Richard Woolcock]

Adam Wiggins wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 11 Jun 1998, Richard Woolcock wrote:

[snip]

> > [ consider bear
> > Looks like you might need a hand with this one!
>                             ^^^^^^
> 
> Har har!

Well *I* thought it was funny ;)

> > You could just rate them according to your own fighting abilities.  Bubba
> > the swordmaster might think you sucked, while Biffo the student might think
> > you were a great warrior.  How would you rate them?  Well you could see how
> > well they fought against someone, and rate it according to your rating
> > against that other person (if you have one) and/or how well they fight,
> > mainly taking into account their fighting skills.  This could create some
> > interesting affects when the person you thought was 'rubbish' slaughters
> > you, due to the unfortunate fact that you'd only ever seen them fighting
> > against swordmasters - but this doesn't seem unreasonable.
> 
> This also has some interesting effects when you consider character
> development.  Ie, Bubba Newbietrouncer kicked your ass when you were a
> newbie.  Now you're a swordmaster - how do you rate him?  Do you
> 'remember' that your skill was low back then, and decide that with your
> new skill you'll be able to ace him?  Or something else?

Interesting, and to be honest I'm not sure.  I don't see any problem with
either method - if you were bullied as a kid, how would you feel if you
met that bully again as an adult?  What if said bully was still far bigger
and meaner than you?  Perhaps it could store the fact that you hadn't fought
him for a certain amount of time (I might use 3 bits, giving a number of
real-life days between 0 and 7 since you had last fought them - 7 days = 1
mud year, which would be a reasonable maximum).  Then you could have messages
like:

   [consider bubba
   You've not fought him for several months, but last time you met he almost
   killed you.

You could even have the messages vary over time according to traits of the
player - if Bubba had a huge ego, he might remember a close fight a mud-year
ago as "you almost won, but they managed to escape".  If Bubba had a really
poor self-image though, the message might be more like "they almost killed
you!".  Such considerations could also be used to give penalties and bonuses
in combat, and could work well when combined with intimidation as a form of
'will vs will' pre-combat technique.  Think of it as a sort of face-down, and
such factors could well influence what you think your chances are of beating
that person in a fight.  With a little work it could be worked into an optional
non-fatal combat system that runs alongside (and influence) normal combat.

KaVir.