[MUD-Dev] Re: DGN: Why give the players all the numbers?

[Rayzam]

From: "Lars Duening" <lars at bearnip.com>

> This topic showed up in text mud development before, and opinions
> differed widely and wildly. Practical experience showed that
> players are smart enough to assign numbers to the various
> measurable items and skills themselves and then circulate the
> lists.

> And there is also the point of view that in real life you can tell
> whether something is abysmal/bad/average/ok/good/excellent - which
> immediately gives you a scale from 1 through 6, just using words
> instead of numbers.

> I think that hiding the numbers (either completely or by giving
> them names) can improve immersion only indirectly in that it's a
> way for the game designers to tell the players that this game is
> not targeted at MinMaxers. Of course, if the players steadfastly
> ignore the hint or if the rest of the game content (I start to
> dislike this word) doesn't follow suit, hiding the numbers won't
> help you either.

I disagree with that. While I agree that players will find and
assign numbers anyways, the reason why it improves immersion is one
of directionality. If you give numbers, its hard to convert them
into words to be immersed into the world if you want to be. However,
if what the game gives is the descriptive, not the numerical
version, then you can convert them into numbers, but you can also
play the role and be immersed as you desire. So by only giving
numbers, you prevent a way of playing that is very little overhead
to support. But by giving words, you don't prevent players from
using numbers.

In fact, you can do both. What we do on Retromud is to give
descriptive scales for many stats [though not player stats]. Then we
have helps that list all the descriptions in order. Players can then
rank them, assign numbers to them, use any sort of math they
want. But when it first hits them, it is in descriptive words.

    rayzam
    www.travellingbard.com
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