Power Emoting! Rawr!

[AdamBlue]

Usually, when barfight code pops up, if I land a counterhit, that's my chance to look cool as fuck but do what I hit with. If I toss a mug? Then I toss a mug and say it hit if it did actually hit.

With actual combat, if I do a grevious on someone's head, then it guess it's allowed to

The muscular dude absolutely ravages the halfling's head with his axe.

[RogueGunslinger]

However, don't be that guy who gets a successful hit message in a barfight, and then rips out a long emote about picking up your opponent, smashing him through a table, slowly breaking his fingers, and then attempting to cut his throat with a knife.

I've seen it, and I've experienced it, and it's really frustrating because your choices are... ignore someone else's RP and the game world, or accept it and file (or don't file) a player complaint later.

Five years and I've literally never seen anything like this. Or this:

Oh, What bugs me is seeing " Dipshit stabs his knife into his hand, his face showing no pain as he triple back flips over the bar, throwing a beer mug into your face" "Dipshit licks the beer off your face as it soaks into your shirt"
I've not seen it that bad but close a few times.

[musashi]

Me either.

[Synthesis]

Remember those radio shows where people would call in and be like, "okay, so I have this friend who...?"

Yeah, that's my guess.

[BleakOne]

I've seen it once, with someone emoting punching people so hard they flew into the distance or cowering before them. They didn't last long.

[timb]

However, don't be that guy who gets a successful hit message in a barfight, and then rips out a long emote about picking up your opponent, smashing him through a table, slowly breaking his fingers, and then attempting to cut his throat with a knife.

I've seen it, and I've experienced it, and it's really frustrating because your choices are... ignore someone else's RP and the game world, or accept it and file (or don't file) a player complaint later.

Five years and I've literally never seen anything like this. Or this:

Oh, What bugs me is seeing " Dipshit stabs his knife into his hand, his face showing no pain as he triple back flips over the bar, throwing a beer mug into your face" "Dipshit licks the beer off your face as it soaks into your shirt"
I've not seen it that bad but close a few times.

What I saw was kind of uncomfortable, I wished up and staff handled it. The power emoter's master level noob-ness was mind blowing.

[Kaineus]

I searched the forum, and I don't think this has been brought up: have we ever thought of implementing a Shadows of Isildur style roll command? It was a very effective way of doing skillchecks when emoting a scene that involved physical interaction or the emoted use of skills. Here's the helpfile:

Usage: roll <X> <Y> [ooc]
Usage: roll vs <stat> | <skill> [ooc]

This command is a completely OOC roleplaying aid, and should be
used only to determine the outcome of personal feats that are not
explicitly covered by the code. Using the "ooc" tag will broadcast
the results to the room.

For information on tossing IC gambling objects such as
dice, please see HELP TOSS.

Examples:

> roll 2 10
Rolling 2d10... 18

>roll vs str
Rolling vs. str... you pass.

>roll vs brawling
Rolling vs. brawling... you fail miserably.

> roll 3d4 ooc
A wind-blown, rooty fellow rolls 3d4, the result is 9.

> roll vs climb ooc
A wind-blown, rooty fellow rolls vs climb and passes gracefully.

So for instance, in instances of burly bynners armwrestling in a bar for coin, they can maybe do some sort of roll versus strength. Of course if Arma decided to implement something like this, they could choose to tweak it however they wish. So maybe you could even have a command with the [stat/skill/dice] paramater as well as the parameter of someone you are rolling against. Example, Stumpy the Bynner might roll vs strength with Amos to see who wins the armwrestling match.

[Bast]

However, don't be that guy who gets a successful hit message in a barfight, and then rips out a long emote about picking up your opponent, smashing him through a table, slowly breaking his fingers, and then attempting to cut his throat with a knife.

I've seen it, and I've experienced it, and it's really frustrating because your choices are... ignore someone else's RP and the game world, or accept it and file (or don't file) a player complaint later.

Five years and I've literally never seen anything like this. Or this:

Oh, What bugs me is seeing " Dipshit stabs his knife into his hand, his face showing no pain as he triple back flips over the bar, throwing a beer mug into your face" "Dipshit licks the beer off your face as it soaks into your shirt"
I've not seen it that bad but close a few times.

What I saw was kind of uncomfortable, I wished up and staff handled it. The power emoter's master level noob-ness was mind blowing.

Hehehe did he pick up his kank and walk away with it after? (side thought...what happened to the Baobob comic? I can not find a working link to save my life)

[evilcabbage]

No, to Shadows of Isildur! NO TO SHADOWS OF ISILDUR! NO!

NO!

There is enough code in this game for you to determine whether you succeed or not.

[AdamBlue]

Stats

You have incredibly amazing strength.

roll vs str ooc

You barely fail.


The scrawny, tiny-handed, young half-elf barely passes.

The scrawny, tiny-handed young half-elf beats you at armwrestling.


(CAN WE SEE THE LOGIC FAIL THERE AND WHY THAT ANYTHING FROM SOI OR THE AFFILIATED CODE WOULD BE FUCKING TERRIBLE? AWESOME FANTASTIC GLAD WE'RE ON THE SAME PAGE HERE [I DO NOT WANT TO SEE HALF-GIANTS LOSING ARM WRESTLING COMPETITIONS AGAINST ELVES GOD DAMN YOU])

[Case]

The original SoI roll command had statistical flaws in it until I went through and fixed it. Never did like it though.

[Kismetic]

You could code strength (or other stats) to compare via dice, or do a vanilla roll.  IMO, this would involve consent, and therefore just be clunky, and counter to RP.

[Maker]

Really not difficult to code a random roll system that takes the stats into account to generate realistic results.  Realy not hard...at all.

[Kismetic]

Well, technically, coding a true random number is the stuff of legend, at least that's what I understand.  Maybe Case can back me up on that. 

[Patuk]

Coming up with any random number ever at all, random or not, is the stuff of legend, codewise or not. Math is a bitch.

[Maker]

Well, technically, coding a true random number is the stuff of legend, at least that's what I understand.  Maybe Case can back me up on that. 

You aren't wrong.  All code generated random numbers are technically pseudo-random.  But that's as relevant as the gravity generated by the mass of your body is to the Earth.

[Case]

I will relate this back to the thread topic so bear with me.

Two things.

Firstly, I said statistical flaws. Not flaws with random number generation (hereafter referred to as RNG). It was something like a 1d30 being used and a pass counting as greater than the roll. Stat max was 18 to 20 or so, stat min was 8 or 9. Stat average was 92/7 = 13.1 with (+2 * RPP For Race) to the base 92 also needing to be factored. Because of the stat allocation and random point allocation system, it was weighted against passing. When web chargen came in, the writer of that system incorrectly translated the stat system across, forcing a more average roll across the board with something like a 1/3 chance to get a basic character with > 16 on a stat. Put all of this together, the system was sufficiently skewed towards failure and it had no real statement of the 'challenge' on the roll, as in, how difficult the roll is. I shifted the original roll to 1d25 I believe, and also fixed web chargen's code.

Secondly, and one of my favourite topics, random numbers. RNGs can produce very good random numbers. The absolutely amazing polymath John Von Neumann, who did early research in this area, joked about how a belief in true randomness from mathematical means would be a state of sin. However, Von Neumann also invented Monte Carlo simulation, which is a potent sampling of random number generation for theoretical/statistical purposes. The key with RNGs is separating the generator from the thing requiring the result, picking the right generator for your needs and picking a generator that will not repeat itself or form patterns before it can be restarted.

MUDs use basic RNGs, usually C's rand() function. These kind of generators, PRNGs (pseudo random number generators) use a mathematical function and some seeding values to generate a sequence you can continue to sample from. It will eventually restart when it hits the end. rand() has some inherent flaws, such as a low period (maximum number of numbers in its sequence) and a bias towards low order bits. It's 'good enough' for most uses although it's simple to implement better. George Marsaglia (RIP) created a few powerful PRNG methods as well as a battery of tests to compare and contrast them. Things like Marsaglia's multiply-and-carry are super PRNGs for MUDs and I'd definitely recommend something along its lines.

Modern PRNGs like Mersenne Twister are amazing (and also go on to show that modern Japanese mathematicians are fucking brilliant, whether it's the crypto behind bitcoin, the guy that wrote a program in Malbolge, the claim to proof of the abc conjecture or the aforementioned Mersenne Twister).

So, can random numbers be generated? First define random for me. Do you mean human random? Cryptographic random? Statistical random? Infinitesimal random? The universe isn't very random. If anything, it seems sequential and predictable. That's why we have science and consciousness and deterministic physical laws. We observe in the majority of cases in our universe that given inputs, a function or algorithm and time, you can get a predictable result. This is strongly tied in with the information garnered by the result. If you have a PRNG with a low period modulo 2 and get a sequence of 101010101010111101011, it's probably not going to be especially useful random, even if it's -random-. Yet, if we use a modern PRNG, with a high period (2 ^ 31 - 1, a Mersenne prime), over a constrained range (1 - 100), we'll get solid and practical MUD random numbers for a significantly long time that will be near impossible to determine are not infinitesimally random. Perhaps if you mapped out the numbers in X,Y,Z space, you might see patterns which could show it's not random, and definitely not cryptographically random, but since the range is constrained, this weakness is diminished to nothingness. All mathematically generated random numbers are not random by default - the fact you generated it once means you can generate it again given the exact same conditions.

Can entirely random numbers be generated? Yes. Sampling of radioactive decay provides pure random numbers as far as we can determine. Quantum mechanics are also 'proper' random. Both of these are random as far as we know - we might eventually learn what strings determine their behaviours.


ON TOPIC:
To allow for proper rolling, you need to test player A against player B at a certain rate of challenge. Otherwise the outcome is chance based, not skill/stat based. By analysing the results from this, you could estimate values of player A or player B - that's a significant problem in my book, I think it detracts from RPI culture when rolls are used for meta information purposes. I would vote no inclusion unless there was significant complexity behind the calculations with a high degree of randomity.

[Maker]

At what point were you planning to relate that back to the discussion?  

Your extensive Wikipedia research on random numbers notwithstanding, the fact remains that a random draw mechanic can easily be implemented with decent design such that it would generate believable results in numerous areas.  No one needs to implement the same mechanic from another system here. It is a simple matter to whip one up in a half hour using a basic random number generator.


...and absolutely nothing is random in the universe.   

[Case]

At what point were you planning to relate that back to the discussion?  

Your extensive Wikipedia research on random numbers notwithstanding, the fact remains that a random draw mechanic can easily be implemented with decent design such that it would generate believable results in numerous areas.  No one needs to implement the same mechanic from another system here. It is a simple matter to whip one up in a half hour using a basic random number generator.


...and absolutely nothing is random in the universe.   

Didn't need wikipedia research? Was off the top of my head.

I did say what you just posted if you actually read what I said.

[Case]

Just while I'm thinking about PRNGs, here's the MWC implementation I wrote for C++ futuremud way back when:

Code Select Expand

namespace Random {
// Complementary Multiply With Carry
const unsigned long long a = 4294957665; // Some prime from Numerical Recipes
const unsigned long long b = 4294967296;
unsigned int c = 0xabcdabcd;
unsigned long long x = 0xffffffff; // Storing the x(n-1) value in the upper bits for the latter c calculation

void setGenerator() {
x = ((unsigned long long)time(NULL) & x);
}

unsigned int nextInt() {
x = ((b - 1) - (a * (x & 0xffffffff) + c) % b) + (x << 32);
c = (a * (x >> 32) + c) / b;
return (unsigned int)(x & 0xffffffff);
}

unsigned int nextIntRange(unsigned int min, unsigned int max) {
return (nextInt() % (max - min + 1) + min);
}
}

Not really that scary.

[Norcal]

The super uber well toned muscular Norcal sighs as she/he/it looks at the group of geeks clustered at keyboards on the other side of the chat board.

The super uber well toned muscular Norcals' eyes narrow as she/he/ it listens to their incessant chatter about code in a thread about power emoting.

The super uber well toned muscular Norcal back flips out of her/his/its chair, spinning through the cyberspace to land  in the midst of the clustered geeks.

The super uber well toned muscular Norcal power stomps the geeks fingers, CRUSHING them, as the geeks howl and writhe in cyber pain! The geeks fingers are rendered incapable of further typing!

The super uber well toned muscular Norcal power back flips back into her/his/its chair with a cackle, in hopes of reading more about power emoting and less about power coding.

[Spider]

At what point were you planning to relate that back to the discussion?  

Your extensive Wikipedia research on random numbers notwithstanding, the fact remains that a random draw mechanic can easily be implemented with decent design such that it would generate believable results in numerous areas.  No one needs to implement the same mechanic from another system here. It is a simple matter to whip one up in a half hour using a basic random number generator.


...and absolutely nothing is random in the universe.   

Where's your data for that blanket statement? I thought of a few things the moment I read your blanket statement that at this point have no pattern.

[Qzzrbl]

At what point were you planning to relate that back to the discussion?  

Your extensive Wikipedia research on random numbers notwithstanding, the fact remains that a random draw mechanic can easily be implemented with decent design such that it would generate believable results in numerous areas.  No one needs to implement the same mechanic from another system here. It is a simple matter to whip one up in a half hour using a basic random number generator.


...and absolutely nothing is random in the universe.   

I thought of a few things the moment I read your blanket statement that at this point have no pattern.

Such as?

[Delirium]

how did we get from power emoting to randomized code epeen?

[kayza]

how did we get from power emoting to randomized code epeen?

I intended for it to go there, my master plan worked!

But seriously my questions have been answered, thanks!