LUCK From: crip@Micor.OCUnix.on.ca (Garth Werner) Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1992 21:49:19 +0000 First off, I haven't really written much lately due do a change in mailers here, and my lack of a good off-line mailer/text editor has limited my responses in the r.g.pbm forum. I still keep my ears and eyes open to everything on a close to daily basis, and I just thought it was about time to add my $.02 * .7995 exchange rate worth of thoughts. With regards to the latest discussion on 'luck factor'. There was at one point in time a newsletter, coulda been Hoser Report, coulda been Deke's long forgotten project, who knows, but a non-RSI employee wrote that he was fortunate enough to witness his character being entered into the database of DM. A number popped up somewhere on the screen (I will arbitrarily call this number 10). Well, our mysterious inquisitor pursued the source of this sign from the gods and asked a nearby programmer, (who I will take a shot in the dark at with my waterballoon, and arbitrarily name Chuck) for the meaning of this arcane cryptic figure appearing on the ultra-modern computer screen. Well, rather than admitting to the Power of Greywand, he concocted some brief rebuttal to the effect that this number was a luck factor. Period. Now based on the word out of the mouth of some guy arbitrarily named Chuck, rumours spread, golden calfs were worshipped, Ghost of Eldrid proffessed the science of Numerology, and 98.76% of DM managers became obssessed with the statistical numbercrunching to determine the meaning of luck factor and what impact it would have on the World Series in the year 2012. Follow me now as I squash the rumours. The guy arbitrarily named Chuck never once said that the arbitrary number 10 was an all knowing number. He did not say it had a greater purpose in Duelmasters, he noted that it tended to vary from 0 to 15 though, in increments of 5, so perhaps this number 10 which I arbitrarily numbered wasn't so arbitrary at all. He did not say that this was the only number generated in the creation of a Duelmasters character, and this is where I have to interject with my own opinion. I think that their is no singular luck factor that results in differences between characters. What I beleive happens is there is a certain set of numbers which make up the essence of a character, and the scope of these numbers is in fact beyond 7 stats, and 6 areas of skills. I do not claim to know all of the other number based definitions of a DM character, but I believe each one is determined based on a combination of starting stats, the style selected, and a randomly generated number. The weight of influence of each predetermined or randomly generated number in determining a rating varies from case to case, and it is the wide ranging impact of several unknown random numbers which causes the great mystery of character generation. I don't know about you, but it is not the solving of the secrets of character generation which keeps me glued to this game, but rather the joy of watching your characters develop and improve through their lifetime. One day, they max out on skills, raise each stat 6 or more times, and you become disenchanted with them as they apparently cease their development. This is remarkably in parrallel with parenthood where young parents are consumed by the progress of their offspring, yet years down the road, become grossly disenchanted with their teen-agers. What remains to be discovered with DM is what will RSI use to deal with the adulthood phase of DM characters. Crip "I have a theory, but I'm no expert" Well, in that case, exit Crip Up