Re: Ongoing Strategy Games.

From: Joshua Kronengold <JOKHC@CUNYVM.BITNET>

Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1993 14:46:15 +0000

It occurs to me, with all this talk about "players with one style of play
shouldn't nessessarily have any more fun than players with other styles of
play" that it might be advantageous to limit the amount of power a "leader"
type character (or any character, really, but empire builders would be effected
most) has over her recuits.
     A system could be set up such that all non-pc character has statistics
which determine their tendencies for learning skills (non-pc because a player
should be free to make up what their character should be like; possibly they
should be forced to choose a mode to keep them from having a "real" advantage
over npc's, rather than just the ability to trade off some things for others).
Possibly this should be on a one-to-one corrispondence with skill; possibly it
should be some "statistic" list, like int,cha,dex,per,bod,pow; possibly it
should be something neat, but really obscure, like an elements list (five or so
elements seems to be ideal for this) in which the mix of elements determines
the characters' tendancy toward certain things.
     Under this system, a player could play a "leader," with stats optimised
for leadership, and recruit all sorts of interesting subordinates, but would
rarely, if ever, gain one with the aptitude which a dedicated PC would have,
and even then, it would be difficult recognise aptitude in most things without
at least compitence in the thing in question.
     This would allow the players who wanted large, powerful empires to obtain
them, and allow those who desired to play characters who desired only
specialization to play a non-leader type, and still gain both fun and
uniqueness in their field of specialization.  If implimented properly in
combination with research (hard learning without a teacher; factoring a
charcter's stats into it would allow a good teacher to raise characters
somewhat above any skill they could ever attain by themselves) it might even
have "leader" types paying large sums to good "warrior" types and "mages" in
order that their lackeys be apprenticed.
     Of course, in order that this be implimented properly, information would
have to be partially hidden, so that a leader would need some of the
appropriate skill in order to assess a follower, or have an appropriate expert,
preferably a player character, look the person over.  How much information they
might be able to obtain would very much be determined by the underlying
mechanism, which brings us back to those three choices: a one-to-one
corrispondence between skill and stat; some basic stats based on "the real
world; an a completely arbitrary "weird" set of stats which determine, say, the
combination of the elements in the character.
     Doing this by skill tree seems to be the easiest to set up, but I would
shy away from it.  It forces specializaton, and will cause either homogenity
(if subskills are hidden) or sabatoge information hiding (if they are not).  It
will make it also very dificult to add new skill trees without upsetting the
balance, as older characters would automatically have average or no skill in
them, while newer characters will have the choice.  It makes it hard to
impliment partial information hiding, too, and either players will have
muliple full specilizations, or npc's will tend to have very low stats in
every catagory (with over 10 skill trees).  It isn't as fun as the other
choices, either; just the easiest to impliment.
    Reality based stats are fun, and get around many of the restrictions of
one-to-one, but can't be arbitrarily balanced, are a touch to obvious for signs
(partial information hiding) and too open to arguement (not to mention not
giving enough interest to my pet skill tree: magic).
    Wierd arbitrary statistics, like elements, have several advantages, and
several disadvantages.  They do not have a real world analogue, except for
humors and other "discredited" theories (this is both a disadvantage for those
of us who prefer simulation, and a relief for those who dislike extended
reality arguments on the net).  The can have signs which are recognisable, but
not obvious.  They give the designer full freedom, allowing her to use them in
any way she wishes, including making some skills prefer such things as balance,
lack in an element, or maximum in an element.  And they allow different schools
of magic to be fitted in effortlessly: make the requirement for magic be "close
to maximum" in one element.  Whichever element is at maximum, that's the
school.

References

Re: Ongoing Strategy Games.
desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)
Fri, 09 Jul 1993 03:35:06 +0000
Re: Ongoing Strategy Games.
skrenta@usl.com (Rich Skrenta)
Fri, 09 Jul 1993 12:30:28 +0000
Re: Ongoing Strategy Games.
markiel@callisto.pas.rochester.edu (Andrew Markiel)
Mon, 12 Jul 1993 12:20:57 +0000