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

[J C Lawrence]

On Thu, 11 Sep 2003 15:40:31 -0600 
Chanur Silvarian <chanur at guildsite.com> wrote:

> In all sorts of conversation threads about every conceivable topic in
> this list there is always the mention of how players will use <topic>
> to maximize their experience, damage, or other numbers.  The basic
> assumption is that the players have all of the numbers to do such
> optimization.  It is assumed that the players know how much experience
> they have, they know what level they are, how much damage their weapon
> is capable of dealing to a given armor, how much a given armor is
> resistant to a certain damage type, etc.

Practice and history has shown this assumption to be not only be true,
but to be reliably true.  Players have been known to derive stats,
tables, curves, formulae, and all the rest, in amazing detail for game
mechanics.  See the archives for prior discussion.

  Remember: Almost every curve, not matter how complex, can be
  approximated by a simple quadratic.

> I would assert that the player doesn't need to know any of these
> things and that they are only a hold-over from a medium in which there
> was no way to hide them (pencil and paper).  

If you don't provide them the players will compute them themselves,
document them on web sites, and then use those numbers and formulae.
Empirical observation is a well honed art in the computational
min-maxer.

--
J C Lawrence                
---------(*)                Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas. 
claw at kanga.nu               He lived as a devil, eh?		  
http://www.kanga.nu/~claw/  Evil is a name of a foeman, as I live.

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