Re: PBM design: advice please

From: jonmmorris@aol.comnospam (JonMMorris)

Date: Thu, 10 Jun 1999 00:00:00 +0000

>Do you think I should add to this by including the relative Attack and Damage
rating of each item as well?  It would seem that is what Greg and yourself
would recommend.
>
My personal experience is with a WW1/WW2 era game.  Since that's history, the
players are expected to know basic things like Tanks would be a good thing to
develop...  I would think (speaking with authority though posessing no
expertise) that part of the appeal of a space game would be the sense of the
unknown (a co-blaster fusion weapon should be better than a blaster fusion
weapon but 10% better or 100% better?)  Could you make this a variable
improvement from game to game?

In the first version of my game, I published everything - combat values,
movement rates, and the combat-results-tables.  A couple problems arose: 1)
Some players would calculate battles to the nth degree to determine probable
chance of victory, expected losses, etc.  Not very realistic - combat can't be
predicted that precisely.
2) With hundreds of battles going on, someone is going to get several bad "dice
rolls" in a row.  If that person is a bit paranoid they may suspect the
moderator's honesty, etc.  This doesn't happen often but when it does it's a
no-win situation.

My game runs much better with known combat values and movement rates but hidden
CRTs and individual military efficiencies for each player that modify the
combat values of their forces.  But, every game is different (YMMV).

>On a presentation note (I know I'm way off getting to the stage where I need
to worry about it) but has anyone everyone done rules as in hole-punched
format?  I'm sort of thinking that will be the format of the sourcebook so that
players will be given new sheets when they research new items or whatnot and
can add them to a folder of some description.

I've done prepunched rules, mailed the newsletters pre-punched and even
provided every player with pre-printed 3-ring binders, pre-printed tabbed page
separators, wall maps, pre-printed reply envelopes, blank turnsheets, etc.
The binders were met with indifference (many folks never used them), the
wallmaps with irritation (too cumbersome), but the envelopes were a big hit.

Go figure!

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References

Re: PBM design: advice please
"[Tariz] The Dungeon Master" <adnd@mailandnews.com>
Wed, 09 Jun 1999 00:00:00 +0000