Re: Olympia Lore Sheets for PCs

From: cedman@714-725-3177.nts.uci.edu (Carl Edman)

Date: Thu, 14 May 1992 19:45:31 +0000

Scott "TCB" Turner writes
> I think this would be destined to non-use for the same
> reason the "message" command doesn't see much use.
> People would rather spread rumors via e-mail, like Oleg
> does to all the new players.  Why would anyone bother
> spending a unit's time generating a rumor when he could do
> so more effectively via e-mail?

Many reasons:

1. Spread rumors are anonymous. This can be extremely valueable and
would become even more so if one eliminated anonymous articles in the
Olympian Times. Non-anonymous rumor spreading is fairly pointless.

2. A clever person could make rumor items which look exactly like
game-generated rumors (of which I think there ought to be many
different types).

3. Rumors are semi-permanent. Spreading a rumor via email keeps it
around for a little while. Spreading a rumor via RUMOR might allow
people interested in your target to see that rumor for game years.

4. Rumors are just the generalized case of invidual character lore
sheets. In fact, it would probably be a good idea to allow every new
character (and every character when rumors are introduced) to write two
or three lines of level 0 rumors about himself. And later on it would
still be relatively easy for a character to spread rumors about
himself.

In addition many controversial game elements (like the lists of high
scorers is various areas or the obituary column) could be made part of
the rumor system. This would ensure that people would research rumors.

As a matter of fact, I like this idea enough, I'd even sacrify my own
time to program it. :-)

Carl Edman

References

Re: Olympia Lore Sheets for PCs
srt@aero.org (Scott "TCB" Turner)
Thu, 14 May 1992 17:35:01 +0000