August 2001
- [DGN] RP awards (was: Something in the water) Ananda Dawnsinger
- [DGN] RP awards (was: Something in the water) Matt Mihaly
- Anarchy Online (was Community Feeling) Matt Mihaly
- Anarchy Online (was Community Feeling) Hanz, Rob
- Anarchy Online (was Community Feeling) Travis Casey
- Anarchy Online (was Community Feeling) Dave Rickey
- Anarchy Online (was Community Feeling) Richard A. Bartle
- Anarchy Online (was Community Feeling) Steve {Bloo} Daniels
- Anarchy Online (was Community Feeling) Koster, Raph
- Anarchy Online (was Community Feeling) Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- Anarchy Online (was Community Feeling) Daniel James
- CGMud testing Chris Gray
- TECH: STL / Heaps, Eli Stevens
- TECH: STL / Heaps, David Bennett
- TECH: STL / Heaps, Travis Nixon
- TECH: STL / Heaps, Vincent Archer
- TECH: STL / Heaps, Sean K
- TECH: STL / Heaps, Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- TECH: STL / Heaps, Sean K
- TECH: STL / Heaps, Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- TECH: STL / Heaps, Adam Martin
- TECH: STL / Heaps, Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- TECH: STL / Heaps, Ling Lo
- TECH: STL / Heaps, Paul Schwanz
- TECH: STL / Heaps, Chris Jones
- TECH: STL / Heaps, Kwon Ekstrom
- TECH: STL / Heaps, Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- TECH: STL / Heaps, shren
- TECH: STL / Heaps, Jon Lambert
- Dictionary of Body Language ling.lo@coment.dk
- Dictionary of Body Language Koster, Raph
- Where to go with the maddog page Frank Crowell
- Academic journal on computer games Jussi 'Sulka' Haro
- "The gaming situation" by Markku Eskelinen Jussi 'Sulka' Haro
- "The gaming situation" by Markku Eskelinen Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- "The gaming situation" by Markku Eskelinen Madman Across the Water
- "The gaming situation" by Markku Eskelinen Matt Mihaly
- "The gaming situation" by Markku Eskelinen Travis Casey
- Non-Linear Item Combination Systems... Justin Rogers
- Rats in a cage? J C Lawrence
- Rats in a cage? J C Lawrence
- ECTS 2001 & GDC Europe Adam Martin
- ECTS 2001 & GDC Europe J C Lawrence
- Java tidbits (was: TECH: STL / Heaps, etc.) Ling Lo
- Java tidbits (was: TECH: STL / Heaps, etc.) Bobby Martin
- Java tidbits (was: TECH: STL / Heaps, etc.) Alistair Milne
- Player Types (Was Anarchy Online) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Korean marketing effort... Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- TECH: programming languages (was: TECH: STL / Heaps, etc.) Bruce Mitchener
- TECH: programming languages (was: TECH: STL / Heaps, etc.) Federico Di Gregorio
- TECH: programming languages (was: TECH: STL / Heaps, etc.) Bruce Mitchener
- TECH: programming languages (was: TECH: STL / Heaps, etc.) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- TECH: programming languages (was: TECH: STL / Heaps, etc.) Luke Carruthers
- TECH: programming languages (was: TECH: STL / Heaps, etc.) Bruce Mitchener
- TECH: programming languages (was: TECH: STL / Heaps, etc.) Robin Lee Powell
- TECH: programming languages (was: TECH: STL / Heaps, etc.) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- TECH: programming languages (was: TECH: STL / Heaps, etc.) Robin Lee Powell
- TECH: programming languages (was: TECH: STL / Heaps, etc.) Bruce Mitchener
- TECH: programming languages (was: TECH: STL / Heaps, etc.) Robin Lee Powell
- TECH: programming languages (was: TECH: STL / Heaps, etc.) Bruce Mitchener
- TECH: programming languages (was: TECH: STL / Heaps, etc.) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- TECH: programming languages (was: TECH: STL / Heaps, etc.) Robin Lee Powell
- TECH: programming languages (was: TECH: STL / Heaps, etc.) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- TECH: programming languages (was: TECH: STL / Heaps, etc.) Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- TECH: programming languages (was: TECH: STL / Heaps, etc.) Bobby Martin
- TECH: programming languages (was: TECH: STL / Heaps, etc.) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- TECH: programming languages (was: TECH: STL / Heaps, etc.) Miroslav Silovic
- TECH: programming languages (was: TECH: STL / Heaps, etc.) Kwon Ekstrom
- TECH: programming languages (was: TECH: STL / Heaps, etc.) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Skotos Articles: Why Marrach Isn't the Movies #1, #2, #3, and a Coda [LONG] Christopher Allen
- [BIZ] Job on a MMORPG Dave Kennerly
- Personality Types (was Anarchy Online (was Community Feeling)) Dave Kennerly
- Personality Types (was Anarchy Online (was Community Feeling)) Richard A. Bartle
- Personality Types (was Anarchy Online (was Community Feeling)) Ian Collyer
- Personality Types (was Anarchy Online (was Communit y Feeling)) Koster, Raph
- Personality Types (was Anarchy Online (was Community Feeling)) Ling Lo
- Personality Types (was Anarchy Online (was Community Feeling)) Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- Personality Types (was Anarchy Online (was Community Feeling)) Richard A. Bartle
- Personality Types (was Anarchy Online (was Community Feeling)) Marc Fielding
- Personality Types (was Anarchy Online (was Community Feeling)) John Hopson
- Personality Types (was Anarchy Online (wasCommunity Feeling)) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Personality Types (was Anarchy Online (was Community Feeling)) Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- Personality Types (was Anarchy Online (was Community Feeling)) Adam Martin
- Personality Types (was Anarchy Online (was Community Feeling)) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Personality Types (was Anarchy Online (was Community Feeling)) Erwin S. Andreasen
- Personality Types (was Anarchy Online (was CommunityFeeling)) Dave Kennerly
- Personality Types (was Anarchy Online (was CommunityFeeling)) Erwin S. Andreasen
- Personality Types (was Anarchy Online (was Community Feeling)) Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- TECH: programming languages (was: TECH: STL / Heaps, etc.) Brian Hook
- MudDev FAQ - part 1 Marian Griffith
- MudDev FAQ - part 1 Marian Griffith
- MudDev Faq - part 1 Marian Griffith
- Mud Dev FAQ - Part 1 Marian Griffith
- Mounts and Vehicles Greg B
- Mounts and Vehicles Justin Harvey
- Mounts and Vehicles Richard A. Bartle
- Mounts and Vehicles Ammon Lauritzen
- Mounts and Vehicles Koster, Raph
- Mounts and Vehicles susan wu
- Mounts and Vehicles Tamzen Cannoy
- Mounts and Vehicles J C Lawrence
- Mounts and Vehicles Richard A. Bartle
- Mounts and Vehicles lwl@black-knight.org (Lydia Leong)
- Mounts and Vehicles Frederick Nacino
- Personality Types (was Anarchy Online (was Community Feeling)) Trump
- Wilderness (AO) Peter Tyson
- TECH: programming languages (was: TECH: STL / Heaps, etc.) Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- TECH: programming languages (was: TECH: STL / Heaps, etc.) Brian Hook
- TECH: programming languages (was: TECH: STL / H eaps, etc.) Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- TECH: programming languages (was: TECH: STL / Heaps, etc.) Justin Rogers
- TECH: programming languages (was: TECH: STL / H eaps, etc.) Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- TECH: programming languages (was: TECH: STL / Heaps, etc.) Bruce Mitchener
- TECH: programming languages (was: TECH: STL / Heaps, etc.) Dave Kennerly
- TECH: programming languages (was: TECH: STL / Heaps, etc.) Jeremy Noetzelman
- TECH: programming languages (was: TECH: STL / Heaps, etc.) Nathan F. Yospe
- small outfit is looking for computer game designers/programmers Frank Crowell
- Personality Types (was Anarchy Online (was Community Feeling)) Marc Fielding
- Personality Types (was Anarchy Online (was Community Feeling)) Kristen L. Koster
- Personality Types (was Anarchy Online (was Community Feeling)) Kwon Ekstrom
- Pocket PC Development Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- Pocket PC Development Peter Tyson
- Pocket PC Development Frank Crowell
- Pocket PC Development Peter Tyson
- Pocket PC Development Frank Crowell
- Pocket PC Development Peter Tyson
- Pocket PC Development Paul Schwanz
- Pocket PC Development Peter Tyson
- Pocket PC Development Matt Owen
- Pocket PC Development Coyote
- Pocket PC Development Frank Crowell
- Pocket PC Development Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- Pocket PC Development Peter Tyson
- Pocket PC Development Ling Lo
- Re[4]: d20 Travis Casey
- Re[4]: d20 Travis Casey
- Re[4]: d20 Michael Tresca
- Re[4]: d20 Travis Casey
- Re[4]: d20 Michael Tresca
- [TECH] [ObjC] : programming languages - Obj-C as opposed to Java Adam Martin
- [TECH] [ObjC] : programming languages - Obj-C as opposed to Java Bruce Mitchener
- [TECH] [ObjC] : programming languages - Obj-C as opposed to Java Brian Hook
- Chances of success (was d20 system) Bobby Martin
- Chances of success (was d20 system) Travis Casey
- Chances of success (was d20 system) Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- Chances of success (was d20 system) Travis Casey
- Chances of success (was d20 system) Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- Chances of success (was d20 system) Jon Lambert
- Chances of success (was d20 system) Kwon Ekstrom
- CoolMUD lives!, sort of. Robin Lee Powell
- CoolMUD lives!, sort of. Bruce Mitchener
- CoolMUD lives!, sort of. Dan Root
- CoolMUD lives!, sort of. Robin Lee Powell
- CoolMUD lives!, sort of. Miroslav Silovic
- CoolMUD lives!, sort of. Robin Lee Powell
- CoolMUD lives!, sort of. Bruce Mitchener
- CoolMUD lives!, sort of. Miroslav Silovic
- CoolMUD lives!, sort of. Robin Lee Powell
- MBTI vs Bartle Type (was: Personality Types) Ian Collyer
- Personality Types (was Anarchy Online (was Community Feeling)) Matt Mihaly
- Re[4]: Chances of success (was d20 system) Travis Casey
Friday, August 17, 2001, 6:43:33 AM, Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com wrote:
> Travis Casey on 16 August 2001 20:10 wrote:
>> Thursday, August 16, 2001, 8:35:05 AM,
>> Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com wrote:
>>> I do have one issue with the system proposed in the linked post
>>> however, and that is with having the arbitrary hit point cap of
>>> 120.
>> It's in how you define "hit points". The D&D-style definition
>> includes not just how much damage you can take, but also your
>> ability to *avoid* damage. That's why a D&D character's armor
>> class doesn't generally get better with higher levels -- the
>> increased hit points reflect improved defensive ability.
> Doesn't this system take some of the drama out of combat? As I
> level a character, I like to see bigger numbers not more 'You
> dodged the blow' messages. Thus if I was in a fight with a dragon
> that could hit hard, for the fight to be viable, he'd have to miss
> an awful lot if I want him to be able to hit as hard as I'd
> like. Sad I know, but it makes it more visceral for me to see
> bigger numbers and I can't be alone. If after two years playing
> and 100 levels, monsters still on average hit me for 10 hit points
> dmg where is the progress?
> Perhaps I'm just over conditioned by games I've played so far.
Personally, I think it's *more* dramatic. With a D&D-style system,
a 20th-level paladin fighting a dragon can say something like, "Ok,
I know that I can take at least six blows before the dragon will
have any chance at all of killing me, and on average I can take
twelve hits before then. So I can stay in the fight until he's hit
me five times, then retreat, go use my healing stuff, and come
back."
With this sort of system, though, any blow *could* be one that can
end the fight, if your opponent is lucky enough, or you're unlucky
enough. To me, to have that constant risk is more dramatic than
being able to count blows.
Further, such systems tend to have something else different from D&D
-- instead of making you harder to hit, armor usually absorbs
damage. Since more experienced characters will tend to have better
armor, stronger monsters can do more damage on average -- the amount
that *gets through* might not change, but you can still have numbers
that go up.
And, for that matter, if you just really like big numbers, there are
other ways to get the same effect. The paper RPGs Villains &
Vigilantes, Palladium, and Star Wars (WotC's version, not the old
one) all use a system like this:
- Characters have an amount of "hit points", which does not go up
(or goes up very slowly) as they go up in levels. These represent
physical ability to take damage.
- Characters have a second pool of points, called by another name
(Fatigue in V&V, SDC in Palladium, Vitality in Star Wars). These
points represent some or all of the "other factors" in D&D hit
points. This pool grows steadily as a character advances.
Here, you still have a large total pool of points. Combat hits come
first from the second pool, then from hit points once the second
pool is exhausted -- thus, you can have large amounts of damage
thrown around in combat. However, you also have the option of
having some things bypass the second pool and go straight to hit
points -- e.g., falling damage, pools of lava, critical hits, and
other such things.
> I think I'm going to set up a spreadsheet to model this system
> we've been discussing to try and get a better feel. I definitely
> like it in principle if I can get over a few stumbling blocks.
>>> Of course better armor will factor into the original hp limited
>>> equation too I guess. Balancing these multidimensional curves
>>> is truly a nightmare. Just because computers allow you to make
>>> complex systems doesn't make us any better at concieving and
>>> understanding the full ramifications of our design decisions ;)
>> It's more difficulty, but I'd hardly call it a nightmare. Pencil
>> & paper RPGers have been managing to successfully create and use
>> more complex systems than the typical mud game system for more
>> than twenty years now. Of course, it's possible to go too
>> complicated -- but I think there's a lot of room between a
>> D&D-style system and one that's too complicated to be
>> usable/understandable.
> I'd contend that P&P systems don't need to be as robust as a
> massively multiplayer system for obvious reasons.
Possibly not. But that doesn't necessarily mean that D&D-style
systems are the only ones that can work for massively multiplayer
games. And, for that matter, I'll note that not everyone wants to
create a *massively* multiplayer game -- there are a lot of people
on this list, with a lot of different goals.
--
Travis Casey
efindel@earthlink.net - Re[6]: d20 Travis Casey
- Re[6]: d20 rayzam
- Re[6]: d20 Bobby Martin
- MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #404 - 16 msgs Dr. Cat
- Personality Types Corey Crawford
- Chances of success (Bobby's algorithm) Bobby Martin
- SMAUG Code (was Personality Types) Kwon Ekstrom
- SMAUG Code (was Personality Types) Corey Crawford
- SMAUG Code (was Personality Types) Alistair Milne
- SMAUG Code (was Personality Types) Kwon Ekstrom
- SMAUG Code (was Personality Types) Miroslav Silovic
- SMAUG Code (was Personality Types) Kwon Ekstrom
- SMAUG Code (was Personality Types) Bruce Mitchener
- Re[6]: d20 Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Writing a MUD Server in Visual Basic? Matt Owen
- Writing a MUD Server in Visual Basic? Dan MacDonald
- Writing a MUD Server in Visual Basic? Kevin Littlejohn
- Writing a MUD Server in Visual Basic? Troy Fisher
- Writing a MUD Server in Visual Basic? Chris Gray
- Writing a MUD Server in Visual Basic? Matt Mihaly
- Writing a MUD Server in Visual Basic? Lars Duening
- Writing a MUD Server in Visual Basic? Dan MacDonald
- Writing a MUD Server in Visual Basic? Chris Gray
- Writing a MUD Server in Visual Basic? Dan MacDonald
- Writing a MUD Server in Visual Basic? Kwon Ekstrom
- Writing a MUD Server in Visual Basic? Jon Lambert
- Writing a MUD Server in Visual Basic? Sean K
- Writing a MUD Server in Visual Basic? Caliban Tiresias Darklock
- Writing a MUD Server in Visual Basic? Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- Writing a MUD Server in Visual Basic? Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- Writing a MUD Server in Visual Basic? Matt Owen
- Writing a MUD Server in Visual Basic? verb@rpn.port5.com
- Writing a MUD Server in Visual Basic? Travis Casey
- Writing a MUD Server in Visual Basic? Matt Owen
- Writing a MUD Server in Visual Basic? Troy Fisher
- Writing a MUD Server in Visual Basic? Matt Owen
- Writing a MUD Server in Visual Basic? Dan MacDonald
- Writing a MUD Server in Visual Basic? Matt Owen
- Writing a MUD Server in Visual Basic? Bruce Mitchener
- Writing a MUD Server in Visual Basic? Tess Lowe
- Writing a MUD Server in Visual Basic? Nathan F. Yospe
- TECH: .Net (was: programming languages (was: TE CH: STL / Heaps, etc.)) Daniel.Harman@barclayscapital.com
- Pocket PC Development Peter Tyson
- Mental Nudges (was Pocket PC development) Paul Schwanz
- Mental Nudges (was Pocket PC development) Frank Crowell
- Mental Nudges (was Pocket PC development) Ian Collyer
- MojoWorld, or a new product for generated content Bruce Mitchener
- MojoWorld, or a new product for generated content Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt
- MUDs as an educational tool in impoverished regions? Eric Rhea
- ColdC documentation (SMAUG Code) brandon@roguetrader.com
- MUD to include space and more Daniel Bendiksen
- MUD to include space and more Brian Hook
- MUD to include space and more Andrew Norman
- MUD to include space and more David Loeser
- MUD to include space and more Phillip Lenhardt
- MUD to include space and more shren
- [DSN] Why Permadeath is Irrelevant Paul Schwanz
- [DSN] Why Permadeath is Irrelevant Robin Lee Powell
- [DSN] Why Permadeath is Irrelevant John Buehler
- [DSN] Why Permadeath is Irrelevant Paul Schwanz
- [DSN] Why Permadeath is Irrelevant Daniel Bendiksen
- [DSN] Why Permadeath is Irrelevant John Buehler
- AOL lawsuit Matt Mihaly
- AOL lawsuit John Robert Arras
- AOL lawsuit Matt Mihaly
- AOL Lawsuit John Robert Arras
- AOL Lawsuit Matt Mihaly
- AOL lawsuit Marian Griffith
- AOL lawsuit shren
- AOL lawsuit Jon Lambert
- Release and social aspect Ola Fosheim Grøstad
- Release and social aspect Daniel Bendiksen
- Mining the SW:G Forums Eric L. Rhea
- Mining the SW:G Forums Trump
- [TECH] MySQL for mud databases Brian Hook
- [TECH] MySQL for mud databases ryan daum
- [TECH] MySQL for mud databases Jim S
- [TECH] MySQL for mud databases Brian Hook
- [TECH] MySQL for mud databases Jussi 'Sulka' Haro