[MUD-Dev] Playing catch-up with levels

[John Arras]

On Wed, 21 Apr 2004, Ben Hawes wrote:

> In general, I really think the old level-up, rigid-class RPG has
> had it's day. It was fine for pen-and-paper RPG's, which naturally
> have to limit their game mechanics somewhat to make them playable
> by people without a degree in mathematics. Now we have computers
> doing the sums, there are better ways, IMHO.

I think so, too. Doesn't this come down to not wanting players to
get all abilities all at once? There are many ways to prevent this,
such as by grouping abilitiess into subsets that players pick
(classes), or giving players a subset of all abilities
(skill-based), or requiring a certain amount of time before they get
the ability (level-based) or requiring other abilities beforehand
(prerequisities). Restrictions might be stat-based, or based on
choices made during character creation, or players might be allowed
to do things by virtue of in-game positions of authority.Then there
are the various ways in which the skill can be "learned" from
questing, to trainers, to other players to practice.  And of course,
there are combinations of bits and pieces of any of the above and
any other restrictions that can be coded in.

I like systems where players can have more ability to explore and
experiment. Getting abilities by a series of smaller choices that
can be undone is superior to forcing a permanent choice that can
only be undone by starting over. By having many smaller choices,
players can search and find the character they want
incrementally. They will pay a price by making the "wrong" choice,
but this penalty will be much less than the penalty for picking the
wrong class. I don't like the idea of "pure" classes, and I think it
would be better to have a weaker class system where players didn't
have to pick classes until later, and then they could choose to
specialize in a few classes, or generalize and know a bit of
everything. On the other hand, getting raw access to a subset of a
huge collection of skills seems too intimidating and daunting to me,
and it's better to parcel out the choices more slowly as the player
learns the game.

John
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