Re: PBM design: advice please

From: tim@leaphome.pelican.org (Tim Franklin)

Date: Sun, 20 Jun 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Greg Lindahl <lindahl@pbm.com> wrote:
>tim@leaphome.pelican.org (Tim Franklin) writes:
>
>> Now imagine if you couldn't make a particular weapon unless your monster was
>> flagged as having received that particular blurb.  Everyone now has to make
>> each discovery for themselves.  You've changed the nature of the game
>> completely - the large alliances have much less value, and information-sharing
>> is largely limited to map data - but you've also made information into a
>> much more valuable in-game resource.
>
>No.
>
>Players will still exchange information and it will serve as a
>road-map when they want a given skill or weapon, i.e. "Joe know show
>to make a club, and he found out by hanging out in a swamp."
>
>I have a concrete example of this: The game Olympia started by hiding
>all the information about researchable spells. But players quickly
>exchanged information, so everyone knew which magic categories to
>research to gain a given spell.

OK, so randomize it.  By game, or indeed by player, so that player A needs
3 widgets and 1 grommit to build a macguffin, but player B researches it a
different way and can only build a macguffin using 2 grommits and 2 sproings.
There are probably any number of ways to justify that in game terms - I can
do it quite easily for technology or for magic.

Even as it stands, I think you've taken the whole thing back a level - Joe
got the blurb by hanging out in a swamp.  But which orders contributed to him
getting the blurb?  What had he done before that made him suitable to receive
that blurb?  There's still a lot more work to be done by each player, unless
the players get together and do some *real* research - lots of similar players
issuing similar orders in similar positions to see which ones get the blurb.
That's exceedingly hard work, and probably does deserve some kind of reward.
It's no longer as simple as "anyone who gets the floodle and stands in the
Oojimi Forest will receive a +1 Flagbatter - I'll tell all my allies", at any
rate.

Regards,
Tim.

References

Re: PBM design: advice please
tim@leaphome.pelican.org (Tim Franklin)
Sun, 20 Jun 1999 00:00:00 +0000
Re: PBM design: advice please
lindahl@pbm.com (Greg Lindahl)
Sun, 20 Jun 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Referenced By

Re: PBM design: advice please
tim@leaphome.pelican.org (Tim Franklin)
Sun, 20 Jun 1999 00:00:00 +0000
Re: PBM design: advice please
lindahl@pbm.com (Greg Lindahl)
Sun, 20 Jun 1999 00:00:00 +0000