Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)

From: srt@aero.org (Scott 'Dr. Pain' Turner)

Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1993 20:04:50 +0000

rwallace@cs.tcd.ie (Russell Wallace) writes:
>Alright then, how about 200 peasants and 10 swordsmen?  The peasants
>will only win if the first 30 of them are prepared to die.  In real
>life, the leader of the swordsmen will have to figure out whether
>this will be the case, based on his intuitive knowledge of psychology
>and the tacit knowledge of the area that he has picked up.
>There is no equivalent of this when looking at a computer-generated
>turn report, hence to have a basis for a decision you need to have
>access to the rules.

What you're saying is that in real life, the leader of the swordsman
doesn't and can't know what the outcome of the battle will be, and the
same goes in the game.  Seems reasonable to me.  There will always be
situations (in real life and in a computer game) where your intuitions
may be vague or wrong.

However...

If the game publishes the exact combat formula, then the leader of the
swordsman *will* know exactly the outcome of the battle.  How is that
a good thing?

To put this whole argument another way, why call swordsmen
"swordsmen"?  You do so to get the player to think of them as
swordsmen and to draw on his intuitive knowledge about swordsmen.

-- Scott T.

References

Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
rwallace@cs.tcd.ie (Russell Wallace)
Wed, 23 Jun 1993 10:52:00 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
srt@aero.org (Scott 'Dr. Pain' Turner)
Wed, 23 Jun 1993 16:59:59 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
rwallace@cs.tcd.ie (Russell Wallace)
Wed, 23 Jun 1993 22:47:07 +0000
PBM design: give away the formulas?
skrenta@rt.com (Rich Skrenta)
Sat, 19 Jun 1993 18:12:59 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
rob@ccc.govt.nz (Rob McNeur)
Mon, 21 Jun 1993 12:00:33 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
ulim@coli.uni-sb.de (Ulrich Mayring)
Tue, 22 Jun 1993 10:41:26 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
gl8f@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl)
Tue, 22 Jun 1993 21:26:47 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
srt@aero.org (Scott 'Dr. Pain' Turner)
Tue, 22 Jun 1993 22:50:14 +0000

Referenced By

Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
rwallace@cs.tcd.ie (Russell Wallace)
Wed, 23 Jun 1993 10:52:00 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
srt@aero.org (Scott 'Dr. Pain' Turner)
Wed, 23 Jun 1993 16:59:59 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
rwallace@cs.tcd.ie (Russell Wallace)
Wed, 23 Jun 1993 22:47:07 +0000
PBM design: give away the formulas?
skrenta@rt.com (Rich Skrenta)
Sat, 19 Jun 1993 18:12:59 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
rob@ccc.govt.nz (Rob McNeur)
Mon, 21 Jun 1993 12:00:33 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
ulim@coli.uni-sb.de (Ulrich Mayring)
Tue, 22 Jun 1993 10:41:26 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
gl8f@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl)
Tue, 22 Jun 1993 21:26:47 +0000
Re: PBM design: give away the formulas? (*FORMULAE !)
srt@aero.org (Scott 'Dr. Pain' Turner)
Tue, 22 Jun 1993 22:50:14 +0000