[MUD-Dev] Playing catch-up with levels

[Craig Huber]

On Wednesday, April 21, 2004 10:02 AM, Jeff Fuller wrote...
> Craig Huber said:

>> My question is, why does the vast majority keep circling back to
>> the class/level/hp paradigm in spite of the aforementioned
>> obstacles?  Is it a case of "Better the devil you know..."?  Is
>> there a sense that there are no other titles/paradigms that have
>> merit?  Is there evidence, anecdotal or otherwise, that D+D's
>> hallmarks of narrowly defined roles and geometric (if not
>> exponential) power growth are "what the typical player wants"?

> Personally I like how it was dealt with in Planetside. I know,
> it's not a "real" RPG but it's close and it's massivly
> multiplayer.

> But basically Planetside just has a bunch of skills and as you
> "level" you get more points to buy those skills. The differnce is
> you don't imporve those skills, once you get the skill your all
> set forever for that weapon type or vehicle type. Your proficient
> and it always does roughly the same base damage to a target.

> So in an RPG using those types of rules, everyone might know how
> to use a dagger with equal efficiency, but some people might buy
> the sword skill and be able to do better damage with swords, or
> some people might choose a magicial path to cast spells of healing
> or damage. But everyone would be able to engage the same
> enemies. It's just some people might be more effective if they can
> both cast spells and wield a sword because they are a more
> experienced player. The higher you level the more skills you pick
> up. Maybe different weapon types are better against different
> enemy types. The value of being experienced is your versitility
> instead of your raw dps.

The concept of "advancement through expanding versatility" has been
a big one for me for a long time, I must admit... which is at least
part of the reason D+D is not necessarily my favorite foundation for
the genre.

To illustrate... in pen-and-paper, I was the one who -always- played
a double or triple-classed character whenever D+D was the system of
the campaign: and I was the one who insisted on using RoleMaster or
a Chaosium title whenever the GM duties came back to me.  (My
apologies, btw, for always referring to pen-and-paper for
examples... it's just where my background is.)

Craig
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