Re: PBM design and formulae - getting hotte

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

Date: Fri, 02 Jul 1993 16:29:40 +0000

Steve Holmes <craa27@ccsun.strath.ac.uk> writes:
> I'd like to make some suggestions from a slightly more neutral standpoint.

> I have role played with some quite terrible rules lawyers. The worst
> of these were undoubtedly formula lawyers, those who knew what would
> give most plusses against every opponent, and always had it on top of
> their pack.

You aren't starting out with a very "neutral" point of view.  Adjectives
like "terrible" and "worst", when applied to people whose sole sin is to
know the rules of the game they are playing, seem unnecessary and
argumentative.

It seems to me that what you are complaining about---and probably
justifiably---is not the players, but the rules.  There's absolutely no
reason to play a game system in which detailed knowledge of the rules
gives a big advantage, if everyone involved isn't into studying and
using the rules.

The solution to that is obvious: keep the rules simple enough so that
most or all of the members of the intended audience are equally
comfortable with them.  I keep repeating the same few examples in this
discussion, but I think that they are good ones.  No one complains
about the publication of the formulas for Diplomacy, because they are so
easily understood that no one is likely to be uncomfortable with them.
The game is designed to be that way.

Steve goes on to give some other suggestions of design principles or
ideas, most of which I think are rather sound.  However I do want to
disagree with one of them:

> c) Combinatorial explosion. Where battle is a one shot affair.
> My Points - Your points + random = result
> the variety of outcomes is low, while battles tend to be fairly
> predictable.  If a battle can be broken down into many sequential
> events, the range of possible outcomes is increased, and hopefully the
> geeks with spreadsheets will go away and do something simpler like
> calculating Pi.

I think this is precisely backwards.  It's exactly when the game system
is complicated, and involves many distinct phases or events, that we
geeks move in.  "My points - your points + random" is awfully simple,
but it does have the great advantage that everyone involved can compute
it equally well.  While in Galaxy, for example, one can set up and solve
systems of partial differential equations in order to discover good
mixes of warships in fleets.  And Galaxy doesn't have a very complicated
phase structure---it's easy to imagine a much more complicated system.

I would propose the following rule: The more phases of interaction
between units that occur in a single turn, the more analysis will help.
In games which have only one round of combat between player moves (e.g.,
Starweb), it's pretty easy for all players to judge what will happen in
the one round of combat, and relatively hard for anyone, regardless of
the analysis they apply, to judge what will happen over several rounds.
Because the situation is continually changing due to player input.  But
in games with many rounds and phases, building simulators and
mathematical models can be extremely helpful.

David desJardins

References

Re: PBM design and formulae - getting hotter
rwallace@cs.tcd.ie (Russell Wallace)
Thu, 01 Jul 1993 23:54:03 +0000
Re: PBM design and formulae - getting hotte
craa27@ccsun.strath.ac.uk ( Steve Holmes, Computer Centre )
Fri, 02 Jul 1993 09:41:33 +0000