[MUD-Dev] Re: skill system

[Adam Wiggins]

On Fri, 29 May 1998, Jo Dillon wrote:
> Andrew C.M. McClintock (andrewm at tiger.hsc.edu) spake thusly:
> > I've been mulling over some ideas for the skill system in my mud (at
> > this stage still no more than a fantastical whimsy) and thought I
> > would bounce the ideas off the list.
> > 
> > For each skill there would be:
> > 
> > Knowledge (book learning/education) -
> [snip]
> > Practical application (experience) -
> [more snip]
> 
>   Presumably you would want to limit the influence of book learning
> over practical application for some skills; trying to learn swordfighting
> from a book would likely not get you very far, the only way to learn it would
> be by practical experience (or would tuition by a fencing master go under
> education? It seems more logical to me to use the same mechanism for
> a fencing master's training bouts as for real fights). Rather than
> using book learning to set the maximum you can learn by actual practise,
> I'd probably have a default maximum value for each skill which would exist
> without book learning, and then allow book learning to give you a small
> amount of practical skill (depending on the skill in question) and raise
> that maximum by certain amount (again depending on the skill in question).
> So for instance, swordfighting would have a high maximum, and learning
> from a book would give minimal practical experience and wouldn't raise
> that maximum. Alchemy, on the other hand, would have a very low initial
> maximum, and book learning would raise actual experience and maximum
> experience by large amounts.

Lotsa good stuff in the archives about this.  Search for "applied
knowledge" or maybe just "practical".

In our system (which has components very similar to the above), we store
not only a difficulty for each skill but its major and minor stats.  So if
you don't like the above effect (becoming a knowledge swordmaster from a
book), you can look at the major stat (probably agility) and the minor
stat (probably strength), you can limit how much you can learn of a
physical skill without actually doing anything.  Herbalism, on the other
hand (which would probably have a major stat of wisdom and a minor stat of
perception) could be much more readily learned from a book.  Of course,
it's generally always wise to try to limit how large the delta is between
the two skill values.

Another option you could try but that I've never found a need for is a
"vicerealness" (is that a word?) of the skill.  Meaning, how much do you
really have to get hands on to learn it?  Combat skills would have a high
value.  Arts like cooking would have a medium value, and
knowledge-oriented skills like written languages would be low.  Or
whatever values you like; you could adjust them to your preference if you
find that it's too hard or easy for players to learn from books.

Adam