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

[Ben Chambers]

<EdNote: This message had an unusual quoting format when submitted.
I think the following is a correct interpretation>

From: Russ Whiteman

> OTOH, I -have- seen players develop effective measurements even
> without any numbers, and knowing neither inputs nor coefficients.
> Deus Ex, one player calculated the effective increase in speed for
> each available leg mod, by killing guards, laying them out head to
> head (in order to get an accurate measure of distance), and then
> running/walking/crawling/swimming alongside the bodies under
> various conditions.  He gave his final results in terms of miles
> per hour, which likely didn't exactly match up to the developers
> terms, but was certainly good enough to have a clear understanding
> of the effects.

> I've also seen our players (in GemStone III) reverse engineer a
> highly complex formula to the point that while it may not have
> been an exact match, it gave results within less than a tenth of
> percentage point of the actual system.  Not bad for a formula
> involving some 12 different variables...an error rate of 1 in a
> 1000 is pretty good for anything practical.

> You simply cannot hide the mechanics from determined players, unless
> said mechanics have -no- visible effect on the performance of a
> given task, which would kind of defeat the purpose of the mechanism
> in the first place.  ;-)

But these people are going to find out either way.  But isn't the
knowledge they gain a form of rewarding their efforts?  By hiding
the formula's you add another level of difficulty to the game.
Those who choose can determine the numbers.  But this raises the
question would this behavior be considered meta-gaming?  If so there
are two solutions, either prohibit it which would be ineffective or
provide the information to all players.  I would suggest, then, not
providing these numbers to the players, but providing documentation
of how these numbers are derived.  This would allow them to
understand how things would work, but will not tell them exactly who
is better.
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