[MUD-Dev] Focus on Hocus Pocus

[Kwon Ekstrom]

From: "Matt Chatterley" <mpchatty at hotmail.com>

> When playing Muds, I love to be a magic user. Actually, that goes
> for all RPGs too (especially D&D). But, with most games, I find
> that my imagination is constricted to picking out which spells to
> use in which sequence in order to inflict maximum damage on
> Bubba. Oh, and which pretty coloured starbursts I want to see
> today. Or who I want to heal, and by how much.

> I'm planning out a system whereby the Mud implementation holds the
> *components* of magical spells - effects, types of spell,
> elements, and so forth.

> A player wizard would take a bunch of reagents, some time, a bit
> of thought and imagination, and create a sequence of events and
> effects, which cumulate to the spell that he wants.

> He can then write this spell down (either as a one-shot scroll, or
> in a spellbook). In short, all spells in the game would be created
> by players, using provided tools - some wizards would be the
> 'programmers' of magic. In fact, programming is probably quite a
> good analogy. The tool I intend to provide will most likely use a
> simple form of pseudocode.

I've been reading this thread (actually catching up on email in
general), and this sounds similar to one of my goals.  Before I can
explain how I intend to do this, a little background information on
my advancement is necessary (since it's the base of everything
else).

There are several levels of advancement in my system.  Knowledge and
Channeling are the most important to spells in my system.
Characters gain in various areas through experience (doing tasks
that use that area).  Advancement is set on a see-saw system, for
each gain, there is an equal loss spread to multiple
sections... never dropping below 0.  This allows a character to
learn several tasks, but makes it easier to specialize.

Anyway, I feel that there should be 4 basic components, environment,
gestures, verbal, and material.  Environmental was one I hadn't
thought of before reading this thread so it's pretty undeveloped,
I'll see what I can do about that tho since it does add a layer of
complexity for "high end" spells.

Basically material and verbal components modify values which
determine the affects in a way that depends on a specific sequence.
(??? environment is default values ???), material and verbal
components should increase the amount of energy needed for the
spell.  Gestures will be used to modify other values, such as what
is affected, duration, and targeting.  Some gestures should decrease
the amount of energy needed.

For each necessary component of a spell (except material and
enviromental) the duration is increased...

The "values" used to generate spell affects should be linked
directly with the spheres of knowledge... certain affects simply
require a certain amount of knowledge to be used.  I haven't had
time to decided exactly what these values should be, or even a full
list of knowledge fields.

This system will allow several ways to cast "similar" spells... you
could make a quick fireball for example, but it'd require more skill
and channeling ability than a longer version might (assuming you add
gestures to reduce energy), you could also pile on the affects, but
it'd also slow you down, and increase the skill and energy
needed... this encourages mages to use simple spells during combat,
or have an escort to protect the mage while casting more complex
spells.  (If you get hit hard enough, it will interrupt the casting,
which may simply dissipate the spell or force the affect to be
generated using the current values)

I've noticed alot of focus on scrolls and books, and errors copying
a spell... in my system, instead of just using a generic decrease in
power, several components will be linked to "similar"
components... these don't mean similar effects... but
rather... similar gestures, phrases, materials, etc...  Which could
either improve a spell, or have disasterous consequences. (turning a
heal into a curse, etc)

Hrmm, perhaps distractions during casting could call the "similar"
effects as well, creating a margin for error... depending on skill
ability.

I've left the actual affects open for a reason (it'd be nice to get
feedback on this system), a few problems that I see atm is the
amount of processing necessary, and the level of planning needed to
write the system in an updateable manor.

-- Kwon Ekstrom

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