[MUD-Dev] Acting casual about casual gamers

[Travis Casey]

Thursday, June 29, 2000, 1:40:17 AM, Malcolm Valentine <spin at fastlink.com.au> wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 28, 2000, Charles Hughes wrote:

> <snipped funny UO chicken joke>
>> So what's the difference?  Whether a player is told that the dragons look 
>> like
>> chickens, or the dragons have the stats of a chicken, it's the same thing.
>> It doesn't take long to figure out that dragons have chicken stats, and 
>> then
>> when the newbie finds this out later on, he's embarrassed to be gloating 
>> about
>> killing a dragon as a newbie.

>   Well I think the representation of mobs is the whole problem. A "dragon"
> should present the same threat to a new character as a seasoned hand. The
> seasoned character (and the seasoned player behind them) should be better
> equipped to handle them through their equipment, skills and knowledge.

>   Merely piling on hitpoints and extra attacks to make a "stronger" mob is
> bound to fail. Contrast these two scenarios;

> 1) Characters encounter a sleeping orc, not liking orcs, one of them creeps
>    up to it and slits it throat. End of orc, beginning of orc corpse.

> 2) As above, but thief makes 2.133456 attacks causing 64.24455 points of
>    damage to the orc's left nostril. Orc wakes up, long spammy battle ensues.

>   With a human DM it is easy to decide which of the two is called for, most
> muds however enforce the second option. Yes, there are lots of game balance
> issues, but they already there, simply unaddressed. 

A mud doesn't have a DM to "correct" the rules, but it's not too hard
to create a set of rules under which such things work out.  For
example, many paper RPGs are set up so that the chance to hit someone
depends primarily not on their armor, but on how well they can dodge.
In such an RPG, a sleeping orc is going to be an easy or automatic
hit, since it can't dodge at all.

Some paper RPGs base damage not on a random roll, but on how much the
minimum roll needed to hit was exceeded.  Thus, you're likely to do
more damage to an easy target -- like a sleeping orc.  Third, some
paper RPGs allow you to take extra time for an action -- in combat,
this is sometimes done with a "prepare" maneuver.  Sometimes this can
be repeated, up to some maximum beyond which no further benefit is
given.  This makes the character more likely to hit... which in turn
implies still more damage on a successful hit.

Many paper RPGs also have such concepts as "called shots", where you
can aim for a specific hit location on a foe.  Certain locations may
do more damage or have special effects -- e.g., a head hit might do
more damage and have a chance to stun, an arm hit might do less
damage, but have a chance of making a foe drop anything carried with
that arm.

Thus, the sequence might become:

 > prepare
 > prepare
 > attack throat orc 1
 You strike the orc's throat with your dagger.  The orc is dead.

(In many ways, such a system is actually superior to having the DM
"step in".  For one thing, it's not dependent on the DM, so you don't
have to worry about the DM being overly-literal in interpreting the
rules.  For another, while it might be clear that someone with a
dagger can easily cut the throat of a sleeping orc, can you cut the
throat of a unconscious knight in full plate before he comes to?  Or
cut the throat of a sleeping dragon deeply enough to kill it through
its scales before it wakes up?  These questions aren't quite so
cut-and-dried.)

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





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