Re: long-term fun

From: "Enno Rehling" <rehling@usa.net>

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 00:00:00 +0000

>How about ageing monarchs, generals, troops?
>Characters/troops/whatever age, hit (and pass) physical and mental
>peaks, then weaken, and eventually die/retire, forcing players to
>find replacements, or fight off challenge(r)s.

That has been proposed quite a lot. In some games, it may even be possible.
Most games though, can't incorporate that, because
a) Time doesn't pass that quickly. In Eressea, for example, a turn is
roughly a month. You won't realize the ageing of an elf, we're only in our
thirteenth year.
b) Tracking age would be complicated. That's true only for those games that
have a large number of units, and those die a different death anyway
(players can't write turns for 2500 units forever). In Eressea, an average
faction has somewhere around 500 units, I think, and that stays manageable
only because many of them are doing default-commands that don't have to be
changed a lot. Ageing would make that more complicated, although only a bit
(your average aging kind of predictable).

a) seems to be the point that most PBeMs would have a problem with. You'd
need a gaming world where a game-year goes by every week, and the average
fantasy/strategy game doesn't work like that.

Or does it, and I'm merely playing exotic games?

Enno.

--- Eressea PBeM: http://eressea.home.pages.de/

References

Re: long-term fun
David desJardins <desj@math.berkeley.edu>
Fri, 05 Feb 1999 00:00:00 +0000
Re: long-term fun
skrenta@pbm.com (Rich Skrenta)
Tue, 09 Feb 1999 00:00:00 +0000
Re: long-term fun
Andy Gaw <andy.gaw@zetnet.co.uk>
Wed, 10 Feb 1999 00:00:00 +0000