[MUD-Dev] No bots allowed

[shren]

On Sat, 12 Jan 2002, J C Lawrence wrote:

> Playing a game against/with NPCs is ultimately sterile.  Outside
> of puzzle games player-vs-machine games are something I have no
> patience for any more.  (Arguably puzzle games are basically
> player-vs-self games) Occasionally non-puzzle single-player games
> will last a bit if I can clearly sense the human designer behind
> the game and cam make him either the protagonist or admired
> quality -- but that doesn't last too long.

I wish to elaborate on this.

I run and play a bunch of live action games (non-boffer), and I've
noted that there is a fundamental difference in the worlds presented
in fiction.  In one type of world, the main characters face legions
of enemies, most of which are weak and insignificant except in large
numbers, with the occasional 'head bad guy' that's a challenge for
all the main characters and then some.  Example: Lord of the Rings,
Shadowrun, Werewolf : The Apocalypse.

Then there's the occasional world where nobody, good or bad, gets
short shift, and all are somewhat equal, power-wise.  Example:

  Vampire: The Masquerade, The Amber Chronicles.

The first set is almost unrenderable in a larp setting, as few
players want to show up and play the hordes of bad guys necessary to
render the setting.  Everyone wants to be a title character.  The
second is much more doable.

Offline, single player RPGs almost universally fall into the first
catagory.  Online games try to be both the first catagory and the
second catagory all at once, it seems, these days, and it seems a
lot of problems spring from this - trying to both let the players
have a rocketing rise to power and then putting human players of
such wildly different power levels in the same world, so the
powerful players can dispatch the weaker players like the weaker
monsters.

Has anyone tried rescaling player power against monsters?  It takes
a phenomenal swordsman (hypothetically in real life) to fight two or
three competant fighters.  Something like:

  phenomenal swordsman    8
  competant fighter       3
  orc                     9
  dragon                  50

except the player skill is squared against monsters.  So the three
fighters (total : 9) are better than the phenomenal swordsman (total
: 3), yet against monsters, the three fighters only score a
collective 27 (3 orcs or so), while the phenomenal swordsman has a
64 (7 orcs) - letting the phenomenal swordsman be a whirling dervish
against legions of orcs while still being brought somewhat back down
to earth when dealing with other players.

Hmmm.

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