[MUD-Dev] (fwd) Re: Roleplaying

[Ling]

On Thu, 26 Mar 1998, J C Lawrence wrote:
> From: cimri <cimri1 at gte.net>
> Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.admin
> Subject: Re: Roleplaying
> Date: Wed, 25 Mar 1998 22:31:46 -0800
> 
> KaVir, Richard Woolcock, and Aristotle, in their brave fight
> against spam wrote various words more or less summarizable as:
> 
> - life has levels
> - no it doesn't, it's more like skill-based
> - no no, life is like both skill-based and level-based systems

Heh, though I think skill-based can be treated as a superset of
level-based systems.  Like integers belong to rational numbers but not
vice versa.

> A working definition for the sake of discussion: I propose that 'level'
> mean 'level of experience' and refer more or less to what we mean when
> we say 'that person has a great deal of (or not much) experience.

That's the original D&D definition.  Knowledge is power and all that.

[snipped]

> For example, I know people in my field that are wildly experienced,
> much more than others, and I know people that are totally inexperienced,
> and all sorts of folk in between.  Some of the newbies to my field are
> very good at one or two things, and know much more than, say, someone
> very much more experienced.  Still, their level of experience is a
> real and approximate-able thing.  And it's meaningful to use the
> expression.  Level of experience in this case refers, more or less,
> to a sort of weighted average of all the skills attained, with a
> random factor of sorts thrown in for just plain service time or
> years of life.

Several board games use this system of plugging all the stats into various
formulae to produce several different scores plus one combined overall
score.  This isn't just for the GoP's sake but also for the GMs who might
need a quick comparison.  Wargames with customisable units often have some
sort of point system, useful for creating scenarios.  Some measure of
overall value is required (we have CV/resume).

> Over and over again I've seen it -- more experienced people just do
> better at things, even things where the less experienced people
> (in the field) may have a few individual skills that exceed those
> of the more experienced people.  Okay, it might be arguable that
> that just means the more experienced people have some obscure
> 'skills' at higher levels, but we just didn't know what they were,
> like, hmm, "thinking on your feet about matters related to your
> field" or "improvising jury-rigged solutions" or whatever. Fine.

Isn't that the advantage of a differentiated system?  (skill or level
based)  By splitting the areas of expertise into sufficiently small
chunks, the example should be possible.

> Either way, levels of experience, or just levels, can be meaningful
> as an expression of some sort of overall attainment, and levels are
> not at all incompatible with skill-based OR roleplaying systems.
> Or so I would happily assert.

All this realism stuff doesn't really add up when characters are learning
new skills and bringing them up to godliness in a mere year.  I think the
arguments are moot with respect to realism.  However, if it was taken from
the game design/balance point of view then I see the point of arguing
for/against differentiated/blob skill/level systems.

Maybe I'm in a bad mood.

  |    Ling Lo of Remora (Top Banana)
_O_O_  Elec Eng Dept, Loughborough University, UK.     kllo at iee.org