Re: speaking of magic systems...

From: Graham Gilmore (gilmore@gmgate.vircom.com)
Date: 05/16/96


On Thu, 16 May 1996, the count wrote:

> also, i've been taking a lot of info away from
> the players' view, and was wondering how much
> would you be willing to have taken away?
> it's not designed as a strict role playing mud,
> and pkilling and pstealing are not allowed (i compiled
> with the NO option for both of those).  but i do want
> it to be a mud that is challenging and makes people
> think :)
> 
> things like ability scores should be ok by most
> i would imagine, but how about hp, move and mana?
> experience points and level?  (they know they are
> gaining levels since they can still see their skills
> and/or spells and know when they acquire new ones).
> i did away with the report command and am thinking
> of throwing out the score command altogether as well
> (or make it imm only, anyway ;)
> so, as an informal poll, how much info is too much
> to take away?
> 

	I think that as long as there is a (reasonably) clear means of 
comparing yourself to another player, or a mob, then that's ok.  If 
there's one thing that people like, it's knowing that they're tougher 
than X.  :)  Of course, a general 'consider' doesn't really work too 
well.  You could have the consider command include things like "You think 
you're a bit stronger than X" , or "You think you could beat the pants 
off of X in an arm wrestling match" or whatever.  With the magic system 
you're looking at (memorizing spells), the number of spells a mage can 
memorize at once becomes a very good indicator of relative power, when 
you take out the levels.  
	For hp/moves/mana, you would of course need to report at least a 
percentage or something similar to a player (and it would just be a 
matter of convenience to enable "report" to report the percentages).
	The point is, it's not the specific numbers that matter; it's how 
they compare to other characters' numbers.  :)  If you leave in the 
comparison possibility while removing the actual numbers, I think you'd 
have no problems.

	Graham Gilmore



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