Tactical Interest Was Re: [MUD-Dev] Re: MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #142 - 4 msgs

[Travis S. Casey]

On Thu, 16 Sep 1999, Spin wrote:

>   If shield affects some combat statistic (damage avoidance) which is
> affected by other factors as well, eg character speed, then some players 
> will indeed survive both encounters with a light shield, or a heavy shield,
> or neither. Obviously this opens the system up to abuse by power gamers, 
> but this is really a game balance issue, which I don't even want to open 
> the lid on.

I think the whole quantisation thing is largely restricted to muds.  Most
paper RPGs don't have binary values for things -- they have a range of
possibilities, which can often be modified by many things.  The only
reason I can think of why muds would be more likely to have binary values
for things is space-conscious admins -- you can store a lot of binary
values very compactly.  In a paper RPG, of course, giving something a
numeric level takes only a little more space on a character sheet than
giving it a binary.

>   As I embark off on a totally new project, I'm striving to totally avoid
> such quantisation, however I'm not sure that I can do without it. Aside
> from pregnancy, has anyone ever encountered something that was best
> simulated with a binary type variable? The only other problem I see with
> this is the need for objects to carry around a large number of values for
> what they affect and by how much, but as my game is to be a sort of real
> time diplomacy, there won't be a huge number of affectable things to
> start with...

Actually, not even pregnancy is best simulated with a binary variable --
there's a considerable difference in how being one month pregnant impacts
your ability to do things versus being eight months pregnant.

--
       |\      _,,,---,,_        Travis S. Casey  <efindel at io.com>
 ZZzz  /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_   No one agrees with me.  Not even me.
      |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-'
     '---''(_/--'  `-'\_) 




_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev maillist  -  MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
http://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev