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[Sean Mirrsen]

In terms of digital vs "analog" systems, I think that for all intents and purposes, an "analog" system that uses descriptions and approximations is far superior to the precise numerical system. Unfortunately, the analog system is only useable in the type of games that are scarce nowadays, the games where you don't get to distribute any points between anything ingame.

As for applying it to DF, I think DF must only use the descriptive system, that will be a combination of ADOM's monster memory and DF's own Legends and Lore.

An example call to the resulting "Monster Lore" would be:

[giant cave spider seen from a distance]
"This is a giant cave spider. A large black spider with long legs. It is fairly large. It moves quickly."
\/
[giant cave spider seen up close]
"This is a giant cave spider. A large black spider with six hairy legs and long fangs. It is fairly large. It moves quickly."
\/
[giant cave spider seen weaving webs]
"This is a giant cave spider. A large black spider with six hairy legs and long fangs. It is fairly large. It moves quickly. It can make giant cave spider silk webs."
\/
[giant cave spider seen shooting webs]
"This is a giant cave spider. A large black spider with six hairy legs and long fangs. It is fairly large. It moves quickly. It can make giant cave spider silk webs. It can attack by shooting webs."
\/
[having hit a giant cave spider]
"This is a giant cave spider. A large black spider with six hairy legs and long fangs. It is fairly large. It moves quickly. It has a tough chitine shell. It can make giant cave spider silk webs. It can attack by shooting webs."
\/
[having been hit by a giant cave spider's leg]
"This is a giant cave spider. A large black spider with six hairy legs and long fangs. It is fairly large. It moves quickly. It has a tough chitine shell. It can make giant cave spider silk webs. It can attack with its legs, or by shooting webs."
\/
[having been bitten by a giant cave spider, and subsequently paralyzed]
"This is a giant cave spider. A large black spider with six hairy legs and long fangs. It is fairly large. It moves quickly. It has a tough chitine shell. It can make giant cave spider silk webs. It can attack with its legs, by biting, or by shooting webs. Its bite causes paralysis over time."
\/
[having hit a giant cave spider with a torch]
"This is a giant cave spider. A large black spider with six hairy legs and long fangs. It is fairly large. It moves quickly. It has a tough chitine shell. It can make giant cave spider silk webs. It can attack with its legs, by biting, or by shooting webs. Its bite causes paralysis over time. It is vulnerable to fire."
\/
[given a description of this specific cave spider]
"This is Procusrot Eblint, a giant cave spider. A large black spider with six hairy legs and long fangs. It is very large. It moves quickly. It has a tough chitine shell. It can make giant cave spider silk webs. It can attack with its legs, by biting, or by shooting webs. It is said that its bite causes instant paralysis. It is vulnerable to fire. It was known to kill at least 28 people. You have been given a task to kill it by Homund Implond, mayor of the town of Ertiglom."

Note that in the example, if you were immune to the poison when bitten, you wouldn't notice the paralysing effect, and it wouldn't be mentioned. If you are given a description, you will see "It is said that" before the relevant ability you haven't observed. These descriptions are overruled by your own observations.

I am not completely against numeric systems, but in DF, only the descriptive system is possible. The points distributed at the start are a necessity, and so far the only numeric bit I can see being removed is the visible skill progress in adventure mode.

Wow long post.  

[Rondol]

Why re-vamp the system when the current one works just fine?

Also, Tormy, as much as you may think "more people would like it" your way, you sure haven't shown any proof thereof. Somehow, I doubt that a vote on this would go in your favor, judging by the posts here.

[Sowelu]

My enjoyment of the game would be hurt by people posting exact stats all over the wiki, and rambling about numbers in forum threads.  Or something.  I would prefer it if I shared a forum with people that did not have it turned on, were it optional!

Surely if you like this system better, you can wait until someone makes a third party mod like reveal.exe that runs alongside DF and gives extra information.

Me, I would like it if the descriptor list was vastly increased, and all descriptions were relative to the base race of the PC.  So an elf would see an unskilled dwarf as "clumsy", and you would see some really terrifying labels on a dragon.  Some goblins might show up as weak when they siege you, and you'd scoff until you faced four at once.  Yeah.

[Gangsta Spanksta]

quote:Originally posted by Sowelu:
<STRONG>My enjoyment of the game would be hurt by people posting exact stats all over the wiki, and rambling about numbers in forum threads.  Or something.  I would prefer it if I shared a forum with people that did not have it turned on, were it optional!

Surely if you like this system better, you can wait until someone makes a third party mod like reveal.exe that runs alongside DF and gives extra information.

Me, I would like it if the descriptor list was vastly increased, and all descriptions were relative to the base race of the PC.  So an elf would see an unskilled dwarf as "clumsy", and you would see some really terrifying labels on a dragon.  Some goblins might show up as weak when they siege you, and you'd scoff until you faced four at once.  Yeah.</STRONG>

Even in good role playing, it is better for the players not to know the creatures stats.  The DM shouldn't tell them.  It's computer RPG's that have gotten people to think they should know those stats about creatures.  But really, even knowing how many hit points a creature has left is bad!  The player should see such things as "The Hobgoblin is staggering" or limbs falling off.  But often times, a player retreating because he thinks he is losing, while in actuality the Hobgoblin is in worst shape, is part of the game. So is the player picking a fight with a monster that looks seemingly weak, but turns out to be a powerhouse (carps?).  In a good game, the player sees what a real person would see in those situations.  When you get into a fight with someone in a school yard, you don't see their statistics, there is no way of knowing that the seemingly weak looking kid has high dexterity and knows kung-fu.  Adding stats to the game would be cheating in a way. OMG! That gnoll has a dexterity of 23! AVOID AVOID AVOID vs. ah two untrained dwarves oughta take him out.  In fact, the only reason people know their stats in AD&D is for creating and developing the kind of character you want to play, and to make the game less complicated and time consuming in paper and pencil mode.  In real life you should know that you're strong, fast or hardy.  An increase in strength, should for game purposes be "You've grown stronger" which is basically what DF does.

[Gangsta Spanksta]

Though maybe stats could be displayed in a sort of cheat mode, which is okay for games to have, but I do see it as minor cheating.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

quote:Originally posted by Gangsta Spanksta:
<STRONG>

Even in good role playing, it is better for the players not to know the creatures stats.  The DM shouldn't tell them.  It's computer RPG's that have gotten people to think they should know those stats about creatures.  But really, even knowing how many hit points a creature has left is bad!</STRONG>

Indeed, and this sensibility can be seen in both Dwarf Fortress and Liberal Crime Squad. Neither game even allows you to know how many hit points you have left, let alone the enemy! Of course, they don't work on hit points exactly, but there are metrics like that which have you progressively dying as you get chewed up. Obviously there is a scale which causes creatures to "bleed to death", but you never get to see it. Instead you get more descriptive information, which communicates to you enough that you can say "yeah, I'm about to die."

[Gangsta Spanksta]

A good example of a old computer RPG that got it right would be: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_of_Daggorath

There you didn't get to see creatures stats or your own.  You heard your heart beat, and the more you got hurt the faster it beat.  Also, when you creatures were close to death, they would try to run away, from what I remember.   Anyway, it is considered a classic.

Also, being a bit of a software developer/game designer myself, The AD&D like stats are archaic when it comes to computer RPGs.  Why limit yourself to things like STR: 18.  Percent Based systems are better, where you have 1 to 100, but even that isn't optimal for computers.  Why roll a 1D100  when you can have the computer roll a 1D1000000  and interpret those results as 53.1341% for example.  Would you know what STR:54123 means for instance?  

[Tormy]

quote:Originally posted by Rondol:
<STRONG>Why re-vamp the system when the current one works just fine?

Also, Tormy, as much as you may think "more people would like it" your way, you sure haven't shown any proof thereof. Somehow, I doubt that a vote on this would go in your favor, judging by the posts here.</STRONG>

Well how many people are posting on this forum from the total DF community?
Besides, I said that this should be OPTIONAL for the players who would like to use this traditional stat system...or is that bad that for example I would prefer to see the exact stats of the creatures? Probably I was playing too much RPGs or I dont know, but I always liked the system what I mentioned in this thread.

[Gangsta Spanksta]

quote:Originally posted by Tormy:
<STRONG>

Well how many people are posting on this forum from the total DF community?
Besides, I said that this should be OPTIONAL for the players who would like to use this traditional stat system...or is that bad that for example I would prefer to see the exact stats of the creatures? Probably I was playing too much RPGs or I dont know, but I always liked the system what I mentioned in this thread.</STRONG>

I'm not totally against it, but I think it should be in a sort of cheat mode; there can be a sort of unfair advantage in seeing stats or hit points.  Not that everyone would be able to figure out what to do with the stats, even if they like them.

[Tormy]

quote:Originally posted by Gangsta Spanksta:
<STRONG>

I'm not totally against it, but I think it should be in a sort of cheat mode; there can be a sort of unfair advantage in seeing stats or hit points.  Not that everyone would be able to figure out what to do with the stats, even if they like them.</STRONG>

Hm well...why should be that cheating to check out the exact stats of the creatures? I dont think that this system would offer any advantages over the current system. This is just data.
Basically when you see ultra mighty, you will know, that the unit is hella powerful, and you can have some idea that how much that should be on a 100' scale.

[ November 05, 2007: Message edited by: Tormy ]

[Fishersalwaysdie]

quote:Originally posted by Gangsta Spanksta:
<STRONG>
Also, being a bit of a software developer/game designer myself, The AD&D like stats are archaic when it comes to computer RPGs.  Why limit yourself to things like STR: 18.  Percent Based systems are better, where you have 1 to 100, but even that isn't optimal for computers.  Why roll a 1D100  when you can have the computer roll a 1D1000000  and interpret those results as 53.1341% for example.  Would you know what STR:54123 means for instance?   </STRONG>

Your strength could be over 9000!!!!!

[Felix the Cat]

quote:Originally posted by Tormy:
<STRONG>

Well how many people are posting on this forum from the total DF community?
Besides, I said that this should be OPTIONAL for the players who would like to use this traditional stat system...or is that bad that for example I would prefer to see the exact stats of the creatures? Probably I was playing too much RPGs or I dont know, but I always liked the system what I mentioned in this thread.</STRONG>

Options that create different gameplay are generally bad. There are a few exceptions - difficulty level is a good example, and some games have different gameplay for different difficulty levels (i.e. Hitman). However, generally you want everyone to be playing the same game, rather than creating zillions of options.

This is one of the reasons why I'm totally against steampunk - some people say "make it an option", but DF with steampunk would be very different from DF without steampunk, creating two different games that we are playing. I wouldn't be against, say, a steampunk mod, and am generally for increasing support for game mods. But your game itself shouldn't be a collection of mods.

[Gangsta Spanksta]

quote:Originally posted by Tormy:
<STRONG>

Hm well...why should be that cheating to check out the exact stats of the creatures? I dont think that this system would offer any advantages over the current system. This is just data.
Basically when you see ultra mighty, you will know, that the unit is hella powerful, and you can have some idea that how much that should be on a 100' scale.

[ November 05, 2007: Message edited by: Tormy ]</STRONG>

It's cheating because, if some people did a [k] on a carp in this version and saw how powerful they were, then there would be less people initially killed by carps.  So, you have player A, who has 3 dwarves killed by fish, initially, and then you have player B, who saw the stats on the carp and was the cautious type and avoided them.

I said, I consider it *minor* cheating, not major.  You should learn about carps on your own, not [k] it and then plan a strategy on how to deal with them.

[Rondol]

It's less a method of cheating and more a method of metagaming. Metagaming is debatable. Somehow I think a pretty solid chunk of the people who play dwarf fortress wouldn't like this level of metagaming, whether it were toggle-able or not.

[Gangsta Spanksta]

quote:Originally posted by Rondol:
<STRONG>It's less a method of cheating and more a method of metagaming. Metagaming is debatable. Somehow I think a pretty solid chunk of the people who play dwarf fortress wouldn't like this level of metagaming, whether it were toggle-able or not.</STRONG>

It's cheating, because some how your dwarves developed psi abilities and scanned a creature.  Last time I checked, dwarves wheren known for their Psonic abilties. :q  Now maybe, if you ran a colony of mind flayers, it would make sense.