Re: PBM design and formulae - a summary

From: desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)

Date: Thu, 01 Jul 1993 18:42:48 +0000

Arthur Gorski <m16547@mwunix.mitre.org> writes:
> So my thought is 1) DON'T publish formulas, and 2) adjust the formulas as
> the game goes on based on variables like game turn, total wealth of all
> players, tech level, etc.

Yes, I think this is a valid solution.  In the commercial PBM world,
there are a lot of human-moderated or mixed-moderation (human plus
computer) games which try to put a human in the loop in order to provide
a certain amount of "intuitiveness" to the game, in place of the rigid
formulas a computer game must necessarily use.  Having the human fiddle
with the formulas is a nearly equivalent notion.

I think the advantages and disadvantages of such a scheme are fairly
obvious.  It's safe to say that I and most of the people with similar
views to mine simply wouldn't play such games.  I'm not interested in a
game system where the way to win is to guess what the moderator is
thinking.  But I agree that people who prefer the "intuitive" feel might
well like it better---although virtually everyone involved in such games
will be at least occasionally frustrated, when their intuition disagrees
with the moderator's.

David desJardins

References

PBM design and formulae - a summary
rob@ccc.govt.nz (Rob McNeur)
Mon, 28 Jun 1993 09:53:02 +0000
Re: PBM design and formulae - a summary
desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)
Mon, 28 Jun 1993 20:30:42 +0000
Re: PBM design and formulae - a summary
m16547@mwunix.mitre.org (Arthur Gorski)
Thu, 01 Jul 1993 12:58:22 +0000