Score

[Rhyden]

Score. It's what we dread. It's what we love. It's how our characters manipulate in our world and how our world manipulates our characters.

Sometimes, our characters will get a really good score, sometimes they won't. Sometimes a score will be very unporportionate to a character's physical and mental attributes, sometimes it's not. Sometimes our score is fair, sometimes it's not. So, is it really worth the wager to get a completely random score then risk everything when that score is unfair for another score that could be all the above results?

Here's my little idea: Perhaps, instead of getting a totally random score, the score of our characters becomes a little less uncontrollable. What if... instead of random scores, a random number of 'points' was given to a character. With this number, as many 'points' as wanted can be contributed to a certain attribute (Strength, Agility, Wisdom, Endurance). Of course, like the original version, if the first roll of 'points' isn't satisfactory, another can be rolled.

Here's an example: Score Points = 25.

Add 7 points Strength.
Add 5 points Agility
Add 7 points Wisdom
Add 6 points Endurance

Points could be something like 1= very poor, 2= poor, 3= below average, 4 = average, 5 = above average, 6 = good, 7 = very good, 8 = extremely good, 9 = exceptional, 10 = absolutely incredible
(I think I have these in order)

Therefore, your final score will still look the same as original score system:

Your strength is very good, your agility is above average, your wisdom is very good, your endurance is good.

Comments, ideas, questions? Shoot away.

[Gaare]

Less PowerPlay more fun.

[Trenidor]

They have this on other muds, and frankly I don't like other muds. (period)

"Hey! I'm an assassin type...I'll boost up my strength to extreemly increadable, then jack off my agility in case I have to fight...maybe I could throw the rest to wisdom."

or

"Hey! I'm a stupid ass noob that likes to spam craft...why not add all my points into wisdom and endurance...screw the strenght and agility, With my brainpower I'll be making enough to buy my own brawn"

and on and on and on.

-N-O-

Stop

-N-O-

this is just one more way people can bend the code to their own unjust whim.

[Dracul]

Totally...bad bad bad.

Curses on you Rhyden. You bad, bad bad person.

[Majikal]

I enjoy the randomness at times, sure, you'll have some really cool char idea and it'll get screwed by landing your awesome magicker with poor wis or something of that nature. But then again, sometimes you might nail an assasin with absolutely incredible agility, *shrugs* adding an element of player control would take away the uniqueness of every char.
Ever warrior out there would have awesome str, every magicker with absolutely incredible wisdom and assasins and pickpockets with amazing agility.. it would pull away from the game I beleive.

[jmordetsky]

I like the randomness...I've always like the idea of your stats being somewhat reflected in your background though.

The idea of having some background questions that affected your stat/skills always appeaked to me.

[Manhattan]

I preview new MUDs almost daily; and when I come across this "point shit" on the chargen, I close my screen. End of story.

[Xamminy]

I think the way stats are deteremined could use a little work, but nothing like you're saying, Rhyden.  You're going way too far into numbers.

[jmordetsky]

I played this one RP mud once, I can't remeber waht it was, the code was shitty but...the chargen was sort of cool.

After you entered your BG description, it asked you questions about your life on their world.

How were you raised?
a. in the streets
b. well to do
c. with a tribe
d. on a farm

and based on these questions would calculate your stats and skills. There weren't any classes. I thought it was cool

[moab]

Not to derail, but I thought maybe there are some additions to the score command we could look at:

adding one's race to the score command would be useful
adding one's class and second-class would be cool

seperating status from background and adding current ldesc to the status page would be cool

Well, anyway, back to the thread. :-D  I think it would be nice to tweak the stats a bit, but I'm also used to the way things are now.  I hate getting a crapping strength when I'm playing a warrior, but I LOVE getting a good stat by surprise.  To allow us to tweak the scores would deny us this pleasent surprise.

And any happiness in a harsh world should be treasured.

[Cavus]

My best char had bad stats, but he was so cool. In this respect, stats are not -very- important for being successfull. But, a warrior with poor str is nothing more than a RP hero. Stats are very very important if you want to be uber warrior, but who wants this? I think most of Arm players want to -enjoy- this game. We are not here for Hack&Slash.

But, there can be a system that has some constraints. For example, a warrior cannot be with poor str, or a magicker wit poor wisdom, or whatever. Let's think about an elf warrior. He has worse str than humans naturally, but if he has also poor str, then this means much worse than poor str human. He cannot do anything because the player had a char concept that includes some fighting thing. This stat won't help the player for his char, and make him to retire that char soon, or that char would die very soon by the help of player. Ok, he could rp some kind of dump warrior, but he was dreaming a badass, or at least average warrior and he wrote his background and objective according to that.

Anyway, I don't want to see any numbers at my stat for str or other things. The way that a char devlop is cool and I am happy with it. But, we can add some constraints to randomize function of stats. My suggestion is:

Warrior: at least average str, at least below average agility, any wisdom, any endurance

Merchant: any str, average agility, average/below average wisdom, any endurance

Assassin: any str, average agility, any wisdom, any endurance

Ranger: similar to warrior, maybe better agility

Note: There can be some coefficients for races, so it can be balanced more.

This list can grow more, but it's getting much into game mechanics. I am happy with current system, but there is always a better than a better. The stats here reflects the way I see a guild. It doesn't mean below that stats cannot be good char. We have skills, remember?

As a last note, yes all chars cannot and shouldn't be very strong (physical or mental, or whatever), but code should allow them a suffecient conditions. CONSTRAINTS.


------------------------------------

For the first post, I don't think total point system is good. That will create similar characters. I'd like to play with poor wisdom to make my char stupid (understands hardly), but this will left 24 points for other stats, and this means uber power for other stats. How can stupid char train himself physically to get Abs. Inc. str? Hey, this also supports my suggestion. If I have abs. inc str, but poor wisdom, it does not make sense. Because in reality, that char has to train himself physically to get this much str. With that wisdom, he shouldn't be that much successfull at improving himself. Or this can be a constraint for agility, too. Because, a person with poor wisdom cannot determine his next action quickly, right?

Oh god, list is growing more. It started to become a mathematics problem, and I hate mathematics    We cannot get perfect system with any way of change. But, constraint thing can make sense.

[Krath]

IMHO, It is fine the way it is. I dont want 10000 uber PCs running around. Armageddon isnt
the perfect world, and it is not suppose to be. You are suppose to be weaker than other warriors,
slower than other thieves, less hardy than other HG's, it is what makes the game realistic, if
you start letting people determine how and where to put points into stats, it takes away the
whole element of realism.

[elvenchipmunk]

I played another MUD one time, I forget what it was, but in the character creation menu, you can chooses which scores you want to be rolled highest. I thought this was pretty cool, and could be a good addition to Arm (I think).

Anways, it was like this: You put the scores you want from best to worst in order when it asks you. Ex: strength, wisdom, agility, endurance. Once this is done, it rolls those the highest in order, but that doesn't necessarily mean it makes your strength amazing, it would just be the best. So the outcome could be something like: Strength-good, wisdom-good, agility above average, endurance- average.

In my opinion, I think this would be useful, but there's probably more cons than pros on this one. Just thought I'd offer this idea.

This would still offer some randomness, but some control as well. Example: You have the tall, muscular man as your sdesc, but his strength turns out to be below average. Is this realistic?

[Steel Leopard]

I voted that it was fine, although I do think that it would be cool if the stats did reflect character history and my character's description to some degree.  Of course, then we'd have a bunch of people running around all 'lean' and heavily muscled.    Of course, larger muscles usually constrain blood flow to the muscles, thus lowering endurance.

[Canadian Beaver]

Not to derail, but I thought maybe there are some additions to the score command we could look at:

adding one's race to the score command would be useful
adding one's class and second-class would be cool

seperating status from background and adding current ldesc to the status page would be cool

Your current ldesc is already shown in score. Most of the time it just says 'Code Generated Long Description' unless you've changed your ldesc.

As for the race and class... if you can't remember that on your own... :shock:

[Spoon]

Though I like the rANdoM system in place at the moment, I think, if it's not already in place, something could be done to make characters more likely to recieve mid-range stats. So, average would be roughly the mean average of the PC population, rather than the range.

Just increase the dice roll from 10 to say, 20......

1= really shit, 2= shit, 3-4= naff, 4-5= below average, 5-7= average, 8-9= above average, 10-11= good, oh crap.... I dropped maths when I was sixteen.

Anyway..... perhaps you get the idea.

[moab]

Your current ldesc is already shown in score. Most of the time it just says 'Code Generated Long Description' unless you've changed your ldesc.

As for the race and class... if you can't remember that on your own... :shock:

Hey, I hate filling my screen with useless score information when I want to see my current long desc.  I mean, really, do I need to know my strength is "average" everytime I want to see if I'm posed correctly?

And 2nd class is more the concern here - currently the only way to tell (I think) is though the main game menu.

Dude, and as for not remembering main class - my 190 day warrior looks like a ranger with the amount of skills I've branched.  I can't actually remember if I'm a ranger or a warrior.  Maybe that's on the main menu as well.  Anyway, I would like to see it in game.  :-D

[facehugger]

Look at it this way... when  you were born, did you get to pick how strong you'd be? How smart you'd be?

A person can choose their profession, their lifestyle, their this, their that... but their body, that's something they're born with.

[elvenchipmunk]

Facehugger,
You're right, you don't get to choose your body when you're born. But, in Arm, it isn't possible to start out as a baby, and then your body develops as you go. You normally start out as a fully-grown whatever, be it human, elf, whatever. So when you make your character, his background and all, you're describing his life, what he's done all his life. Now it isn't very realistic if you've got, say, a 30 year-old lumberjack who's so weak they can't use an axe right?

That's my opinion.

[Rhyden]

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold on a minute, hold the press, hold the phones, calm down, don't get so excited! This was just one particular way this could happen. I'm not saying that this -exact- way would be better, this is one of many.

Here's a good example to refreshen this thread:

Let's say that I just made a human male. In his ldesc, it is stated that he is quite muscular, looks quite athletic. In his background, it is written that he is very dumb, not even knowing how to count to ten. So, what happens? I'll get a score like this:

Your strength is poor, your agility is average, your wisdom is extremely good, your endurance is good.

:!:

This -is- a problem and immortals probably won't fix it. So what has to happen? My character will be opposite of what he commenced. This won't ever happen, you say? It does, frequently.

I'm just saying that score would be better if it was more customized to our characters traits. You don't like my idea? Make a better one.

[Rhyden]

Oh, another thing. Some of you are extremely negative. This happens a lot on this GDB, I find. Please stop. When somebody has a good idea, it would be better if you didn't beat the shit out of them if you think it's a bad idea. If you have nothing good to say, don't say anything at all, thanks.

[Spoon]

Look this one up with search, Rhyden. I'm pretty damn new to this mud and even I've seen this post before.

[FiveDisgruntledMonkeysWit]

Rhyden wrote:

If you have nothing good to say, don't say anything at all, thanks.

Then we have a thread full of people pretending to like a crappy idea.

[Krath]

Rhyden, You can LOOK Muscular and not be strong trust me. I work out at the Gym consistantly.
I do not look muscular at all, but I am stronger than most people of my build. Then there are other
people, very ripped, and large sized, that can not lift as much as me. Your physical appearance
has very little to do with your physical strength.  That is why it is your Physical Description
you write and not your Physical attributes.

[Agent_137]

if you came up with a simple concept and your first roll and reroll doesn't give you the minimium stat you need to work that concept, email the mud account.

like the 30 year old lumber jack who can't life his axe: email the mud.

oh, also, refrain from putting extremes in your mdesc and especially sdesc. Adjectives that can cause problems are:
Burly
Brawny
Strong-looking, etc.

You can get away with the skinnier adjectives. Skinny but strong people exist. But you'll feel akward if you have a huge burly guy with below average to poor strength. So don't use that adjective.