[MUD-Dev] Justifying twinking

[Travis Casey]

On Friday, April 28, 2000, Christopher Allen wrote:
> Travis S. Casey wrote:

>> To me, it seems ridiculous -- no real squirrel or rat is likely to
>> inflict significant harm on a normal, healthy, awake & aware adult
>> human even *without* armor and weapons.

> This is true for game purposes, but I've had an incident with a coon who ate a
> hole through our roof into my closet, and another incident with pesky opossums
> that were ripping holes in PVC pipes under my house to get to water. Both were
> quite frightening, in some ways the opossum's even more so as I didn't think
> they would fight back so hard. Neither incident did I get harmed, but in both I
> had to fight quite hard to keep from being hurt, and both creatures have earned
> my respect as fighters.

People who haven't grown up around animals do tend to underestimate
them -- but as you mentioned, in neither case were you hurt.  Someone
who's wearing even minimal armor (say, leather) will have even less
trouble with small animals, and someone who's grown up around them
will know how strong and fast they can be.

I grew up on a farm, doing things like helping to hold down young
bulls when it was time to cut them.  We also kept cats on the farm (to
handle the barn rats), and the cats themselves were half-wild.  I've
bathed cats, held down calves for vets to take a look at them, given
medicine to dogs, applied peroxide to the wounds of a cat who gotten
caught in a trap, and generally had to manhandle animals in all sorts
of ways.  There were also packs of feral dogs in the area I grew up
in, but I was smart enough not to get close to those without a
shotgun -- a single medium-sized dog (we're talking about 30 pound
dogs here, not big ones) I can handle safely enough, but a pack will
rip you right up.

I know how surprisingly strong animals can be.  However, consider this:
in the settings of typical fantasy muds, one's character probably has
had a lot more contact with animals, both tame and wild, than a typical
person today.  I can't see a healthy 16-year-old wannabe adventurer
having any problem with a single small animal.  (Now, a rat pack is
another story -- groups of small animals can be dangerous even to
someone who knows what they're doing.)

Now, wolves, feral dogs, cougars, and other larger predatory animals
could easily be a challenge for beginning adventurers.  Rat packs
could be as well.  With a little imagination, it's easy to find
challenges for newbie adventurers without making super-squirrels.

> So maybe this says that for beginning fighters that incidents with small
> creatures can be quite different when put into context of an environment. A coon
> in my closet and opossums under my floor were both constrained places, so enough
> realistic rats in a tight or constrained sewer would be an interesting challenge
> for a new player.

Enough of them, certainly -- but I've been on muds where my starting
character was seriously threatened by *one* squirrel in the newbie
area, even when armed with a dagger and leather armor.

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





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