Re: PBEM Totem

From: dylanw@demon.net (Dylan O'Donnell)

Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 00:00:00 +0000

Paul Evans <pevans@sfcp.co.uk> wrote:

>peter@WOLFENET.COM (Peter Sarrett) wrote:
>>When we played Totem, we thought it was broken.  The math of the hunt
>>guarantees that you never catch more birds than you need to feed your
>>people,

>So? Some people starve. It's a hard life.

I'm just wondering how I'll do the cyclic allocation of birds, when with
simultaneous orders there's no "first player". I might have to just
rework the hunt entirely; the number of hunters as a proportion of all
hunters, gives you a proportionate number of birds... it'd have to
be rounded up at low numbers, and rounded down at high numbers, I think,
to even out extremes. I'll take a look at the maths.

>>Then there's the rich-get-richer problem of giving
>>you more spells as your totem rises, so early leaders just get
>>stronger.

>Yes: it needs a concerted effort by the other players to pull back any
>clear leader - success in this depends on guessing which spells and
>counter-spells have been chosen.

Which will be easier in a >4 player game; more potential allies to
contribute their resources to the effort. And the 2xelderly spell
limit we've introduced means that leaders don't get full advantage of
their lead in this respect, unless they keep otherwise useless mouths
around to feed.

It may well still be broken, or at least strongly flawed. But I like the
theme and most of the mechanics, and I think that greater player
interaction with more players will solve a lot. I'm looking on this email
game as pretty much an experiment. Or it would be, if anyone would agree to
play :-)

--
Dylan O'Donnell (dylanw@demon.net)
Demon Internet Ltd, Southend slave deck annexe
http://www.vy.com/psmith.html
Aka Psmith (elsewhere). Badger? *urf*

References

Re: PBEM Totem
Paul Evans <pevans@sfcp.co.uk>
Tue, 23 Jul 1996 00:00:00 +0000
Re: PBEM Totem
dylanw@demon.net (Dylan O'Donnell)
Wed, 24 Jul 1996 00:00:00 +0000
Re: PBEM Totem
peter@WOLFENET.COM (Peter Sarrett)
Thu, 25 Jul 1996 00:00:00 +0000
Re: PBEM Totem
Paul Evans <pevans@sfcp.co.uk>
Thu, 25 Jul 1996 00:00:00 +0000
PBEM Totem
dylanw@demon.net (Dylan O'Donnell)
Fri, 19 Jul 1996 00:00:00 +0000