Re: Olympia Times v4n1

From: gl8f@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl)

Date: Mon, 18 May 1992 04:11:44 +0000

In article <1992May18.015904.27498@aero.org> srt@aero.org (Scott "TCB" Turner) writes:

> I mean, I'm
>sure that new players are happy to get Oleg's map, but aren't they a little
>disappointed that everything's been mapped out and done already?

Rich says that only about 1/3 of the provinces have been visited. All
I did was take what every damn peasant & older player knows and give it
to the newbies. Same thing for the lore sheets: this is stuff that is
commonly bandied about; I just made it a little more common.

As you can see, I dislike games where *too much* information is
hidden. Not knowing where a nearby market is is silly -- even in the
depths of the middle ages, you could generally find someone who could
tell you what was around. Not knowing what is to the East of Pesbrand,
across the ocean, makes sense. "Here be Dragons", but not less than a
2 month's march away. You want to spend your first couple of turns
wandering around totally disoriented? Then don't read the map.

Along the lines of "discovery" games, I present to you the
closed-ended game "State of War". It is a simulation that a friend of
mine has played several times. There are funky ways you can do things
with your units that aid combat -- which you can't discover until
you've played for a while and keep your eyes open. The end result is
that a player who hasn't played a game before is dead meat. It's
unlikely that a new player will be given this information by an old
player. Personally, I've got to wonder if this situation doesn't scare
off more new players than it's worth. But it's their business.

-- Oleg: friend to newbies, painful to listen to, generous in his
         bountifulness, and generally an obnoxious kind of guy.

p.s. The next newbie that refers to me as "Mr. Loudmouth" doesn't get a
map.

References

Olympia Times v4n1
skrenta@blekko.rt.com (Rich Skrenta)
Sun, 17 May 1992 06:14:36 +0000
Re: Olympia Times v4n1
Bill.Viggers@comp.vuw.ac.nz (Bill Viggers)
Sun, 17 May 1992 23:47:33 +0000
Re: Olympia Times v4n1
srt@aero.org (Scott "TCB" Turner)
Mon, 18 May 1992 01:59:04 +0000