> i think its pretty safe to say that life DOES have a consider command of
> sorts..you can look around at people and decide whether or not you could
> beat them..you could judge by the size of a person, how muscled they are,
> what kind of weapon (if any) they have, how they move, demeaner, the look
> in their eyes, etc..
All of which the MUD can account for; well, given you add variables
for these sort of things. But...
> a way to make considering mobs more..well..realistic (and i think it would
> add to rp as well, for those who constantly point out the seperation from
> rp and realism)..is to add in a scripting system (mob progs or dg scripts)
> to give more personality to mobs..add in a parsing function (string_parser
> by brazil from the ftp site) and have the parts of mobile descriptions
> that say whether or not you should run in fear be based on the level of
> the character viewing the description..so a young person might see the
> merchant guard as all powerful, but after a few years of adventure, he
> would return to wonder why he ever thought of the guard as more than just
> a dimwitted bully who could only beat up on bums and untrained children..
You should *never* (in my not so humble opinion) tell a player how they
feel or act. It's a cardinal sin of good writing (and, as hard as it is
to believe at times, "good writing" is one of the primary components to
a believable and enjoyable mud envioronment) to /tell/ the reader how
they should view something, instead of allowing them to make up their
own mind on it. It's truly a matter of perspective.
For instance, you'd never believe that a giant would be afraid of a
faerie in a hand combat situation. But, then, it seems ludicrous that
anyone should be afraid of a mouse, considering we can kill them with
extremely little effort.
And irregardless of the size or bulk of others (and I'm pretty big,
myself), because of my elephantine ego, I think I can take them in a
fight...which is quite alright, because most people back down if you
face them without flinching, and if they don't...well, Hell, I'm
pretty fast.
>
> this would take a lot of work and dedication to following some set of
> standards, but it would allow you to remove the consider command without
> making it impossible for your players to determine whether or not they
> could win a fight..
I don't think there's anything wrong with the consider command, nor
even the fact that it compares people by level. In most hack-n-slash
games, the player's level relates--at least indirectly--to the number
of skills they have and other attributes. However, when you want to
move into more complex systems (whether realistic or not), you will
eventually stop having to rely upon levels as the generic rating for
all things and use a multi-variable approach.
Personally, I think the 'consider' command can be used for a brief
synopsis of combat relative stats (though, whether all of the stats
relating to combat are a factor in the real fight is another matter).
For instance, a rough comparison of strength/weight/height/other
visible details by "estimation" (which would be performed by forming
groups of stats within ranges, and comparing the ranges instead of
the actual stats; for instance, strength might have {[3-6,weak],
[7-10,poor], [11-14,average], [15-18,good]} and thus, even if Bill
has 15 str and Bob has 18 str, they would still be rated the same).
-dak
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