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[Felix the Cat]

If you ran a colony of mind flayers, you probably wouldn't be playing Dwarf Fortress, you'd be playing Dungeons and Dragons Fortress.

On a side note, the co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons teaches at my school.

[Seryntas]

Actually, there's a Prestige class in D&D 3.5 for dwarves called the Iron Mind...they're basically dwarven psionics who use their armor to bolster their psionics and psionics to bolster their armor, specifically to help defend dwarven cities against the threat of mind flayers.

And now you know.

I actually like the DF system of stats so much that at one point when I was thinking about designing an RPG, I thought up how I would take it a step further.  I don't think I can find the exact system right now, but I do remember that it would be possible to have "Impressive Strength of Arm" and "Notable Mettle of Will" under the system, among others.

[Tormy]

quote:Originally posted by Felix the Cat:
<STRONG>If you ran a colony of mind flayers, you probably wouldn't be playing Dwarf Fortress, you'd be playing Dungeons and Dragons Fortress.

On a side note, the co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons teaches at my school.</STRONG>

wow nice, he must be a cool teacher!
 

[Axehilt_VuP]

The term "cheating" totally sidetracked this thread.  If you're going to argue against numerical stats, calling it "cheating" isn't the way to go.

Why?  When I play DF, I see 15+ rooms at once.  It's a giant, enclosed stone fortress...and I see 15+ rooms at once, including all the inhabitants, friend or foe.

So unless DF is a game about a mind flayer running a dwarven fortress (an idea not without its merits) then there's already some "cheating" occuring in how much information you're given about your fortress.

In short, "cheating" is a terrible argument.  I agree that numerical stats shouldn't exist, but there are better reasons than "it's cheating".

[Cosmonot]

quote:Originally posted by Capntastic:
<STRONG>Descriptive words are more descriptive than numbers on an arbitrary scale.  

QED.</STRONG>

This is incredibly wrong. It's very difficult to differentiate between similar verbal descriptions without knowledge of the values assigned to them. An easy example would be the skill system. How am I supposed to know whether a dwarf who is an "Adept" miner is better or worse than one who is "Professional" or "Competent"? I'm probably supposed to be able to tell that a Professional is better than Adept and Adept is better than Competent, or else they would not have different labels. However, if I were to come across two goblin guards, as a new player trying Adventure mode, I would be unable to tell whether the Competent Guard or the Professional Guard is the greater threat, whereas a more experienced player would be able to tell due to metagame knowledge of the hierarchy of skill ranks. If instead they are labelled as a Level 3 Guard and a Level 9 Guard, it should be clear to anyone who has read whatever basic documentation is eventually supplied that the Professional/Level 9 Guard is the greater threat.

As a final note, verbal descriptors are almost meaningless to a non-native English speaker. If someone has to look up the words in the thesaurus to determine which is better, he'll only learn that the adjectives are synonymous.

[Rondol]

Are we still arguing about this? While I didn't think it was a particularly good idea to begin with, I certainly didn't expect it to develop into a two plus page long discussion. Although I do see the numerical stat thing developing a little following... though it's side tracked away from the original attributes and into the realm of skills.

[Funkadelic Jive Turkey]

Great point Cosmonot. Also let's not kid ourselves as if numerical stats don't exist already. They do and are concealed by descriptives. If people are helped by seeing the numbers, let them. Make it optional as has been suggested.

Personally I don't want to see them in-game, but I won't go so far as to say that everything is ruined the second I do.

Also, as far as seeing stats forcing you to power-game, ideally this should be nullified by respective weapons having pros and cons to balance them. And even without stats being visible, you're telling me the experienced player can't tell between a copper dagger and a *adamantium long sword*? Actually, on that note, why is every person in the world an expert on item quality and instantly able to tell what material everything is? (Of course the answer is probably that Toady hasn't gotten around to it, but in the meantime...) How many of you can differentiate at a glance between groundhog and jaguar bone?

[Gangsta Spanksta]

quote:Originally posted by Axehilt_VuP:
<STRONG>The term "cheating" totally sidetracked this thread.  If you're going to argue against numerical stats, calling it "cheating" isn't the way to go.

Why?  When I play DF, I see 15+ rooms at once.  It's a giant, enclosed stone fortress...and I see 15+ rooms at once, including all the inhabitants, friend or foe.

So unless DF is a game about a mind flayer running a dwarven fortress (an idea not without its merits) then there's already some "cheating" occuring in how much information you're given about your fortress.

In short, "cheating" is a terrible argument.  I agree that numerical stats shouldn't exist, but there are better reasons than "it's cheating".</STRONG>

What you see as a feature of the game, I see as something that hasn't been implemented yet, because it is more difficult to code than say adding a new item to the game.  Since DF is a living work in progress, I have a strung hunch that hiding things, like the insides of a goblins fortress, will be an eventual -- or is a planned -- edition of the game.  It is unrealistic to see what treasures are inside a goblin's hideout.  To me that is due to an unimplemented feature that should be part of the game.

[Sean Mirrsen]

The progression of skill adjectives can be learned, both ingame (when picking initial skills) and on the forum/wiki/manual.

Statistics being hidden is really a part of the game. Seeing exact comparable numbers would be similar to hacking the Matrix - ergo, cheating. I presume such ability would be a part of a "wizard mode" that lets you be Neo, but the game itself should present no such numbers. Not even as an alternative.

Also, there's this nice guideline for developing - "Don't remove, fix!". If you find the system not providing you with something, find a way to improve it so it does, without completely swapping the system for something else. You can see comparison with easily identifiable words - "This is an adamantine golem. It seems impossibly strong. It seems somewhat clumsy." - that would change as both your abilities, and your perception (intelligence/lore/experience) improve.

[Gangsta Spanksta]

quote:Originally posted by Cosmonot:
<STRONG>

This is incredibly wrong. It's very difficult to differentiate between similar verbal descriptions without knowledge of the values assigned to them. An easy example would be the skill system. How am I supposed to know whether a dwarf who is an "Adept" miner is better or worse than one who is "Professional" or "Competent"? I'm probably supposed to be able to tell that a Professional is better than Adept and Adept is better than Competent, or else they would not have different labels.

There is some truth in what you say, but as someone who has a lifelong interest in game design, I must say the solution to the problem you say is simple: color code the levels.  It's like I said, even the player in an RPG knowing how many hit points they have is unrealistic.  It is part of paper and pencil roleplaying, because you have to keep track of things on paper, since the human mind is limited.  It detracts from the realism of the game.  Do you know how many hit points you currently have?  A much more realistic way to write a computer RPG would be to hide the hitpoints to the user and instead use sound effects.  Have a heart beat fade in and increase in volume and tempo as the player experiences more trauma, and add heavy, irregular breathing when someone is hurt, with maybe the occasional grunt or painful moan.  Hit Points are also abused in that some people decide to retreat when they go down to a certain number.  For example, in a made up roguelike game the hit points turn red when they reach like say 6, and the player follows an algorithm in his head that if it gets to 4, he runs.  Furthermore, many computer RPGs adjust the colors when you move up levels.  say you gained enough experience to advance a level, now the hitpoints turn red when you have 10 left, since it is assumed you will go down a dungeon level and fight creatures who take more points off.

quote:
However, if I were to come across two goblin guards, as a new player trying Adventure mode, I would be unable to tell whether the Competent Guard or the Professional Guard is the greater threat, whereas a more experienced player would be able to tell due to metagame knowledge of the hierarchy of skill ranks. If instead they are labelled as a Level 3 Guard and a Level 9 Guard, it should be clear to anyone who has read whatever basic documentation is eventually supplied that the Professional/Level 9 Guard is the greater threat.

See, and there you go again wanting to cheat.  When you come across two guards, who you never met before, how do you know one is a 3rd level and the other one is a 5th level.  In AD&D, the Dungeon Master is not going to tell you this, because it takes the role playing out of role playing and you are turning the game into hack and slash.  The proper way -- which a better designed computer RPG game would use -- is to have your adventurer sneak up behind a bush, using his sneak skills, and observe.  After a few minutes of watching, the sneaky adventurer can see that one guard is more muscular and alert, while the other one is not paying attentions and yawns.  See the thing is, people don't know how to roleplay anymore.  A good player would say they are sneaking up behind a bush to observe, and a good DM would give that kind of information.  The creatures stats would be hidden.

quote:
As a final note, verbal descriptors are almost meaningless to a non-native English speaker. If someone has to look up the words in the thesaurus to determine which is better, he'll only learn that the adjectives are synonymous.</STRONG>

Again, color code, possibly intensify brightness.

[Gangsta Spanksta]

quote:Originally posted by Funkadelic Jive Turkey:
Personally I don't want to see them in-game, but I won't go so far as to say that everything is ruined the second I do.

I don't mind it being in the game either, but   I'd prefer it to be in a cheat mode, to let the player know they really not supposed to know all this information.  It does give *some* players who use it, a *very small* advantage over someone who is playing the game more realistically.  Very, very minor cheating.

quote:
Also, as far as seeing stats forcing you to power-game, ideally this should be nullified by respective weapons having pros and cons to balance them. And even without stats being visible, you're telling me the experienced player can't tell between a copper dagger and a *adamantium long sword*?

Normally, I would agree, but we are talking about dwarves!  What kinda dwarf doesn't know his metals?  He should be kicked out into the cold and outcast!

[Gangsta Spanksta]

My dwarf knew his coppers from his irons before he could walk!  Just what kinda weird dwarf colony are you running, anyway?

[ November 06, 2007: Message edited by: Gangsta Spanksta ]

[ November 06, 2007: Message edited by: Gangsta Spanksta ]

[Mechanoid]

quote:Originally posted by MindSnap:
Saying that you took down an ultra-mighty troll king is cooler than saying you took down a troll king with a strength of 90.

[Stof]

There are a LOT of bad arguments going on here   The only good one given was that numerical stats are indeed far more user friendly than Profesional/Adept/Competent ... It's true and non english native players will have even more of a difficult time with that. Also, color coding isn't great either because a lot of people has difficulties seeing colors.

And in truth, once someone has written in the wiki that Dabling<Novice<   <Adept<Competent<Professional, it's no different than saying your dwarf is a level 4 metalsmith. The ONLY additional information available here is that you don't have to go check if Competent < Adept or Adept < Competent. Note that the real internal stat might very well be more detailled (and in fact, it is), it's just that an option for a numerical display of the stats would be more user friendly  

Next, could we please avoid any kind of metagaming cheating abuse to the discussion? There are already many sources of metainformation on monsters, it's not like giving the monster stats for free would change much:
- player already faced one before, his dwarves now have the metaknowledge that it is dangerous
- player found one, paused and checked the wiki

The only small difference would be that really novice players could avoid a premature death if they got the info. But hey, losing is fun and stats are rather meaningless in the game anyway. Adventurer mode proves it already when even the most ultra mighty ultra fast adventurer can be killed easily by any kobold child that happen to pickup a crossbow   Not worth changing anything about that IMHO.

Also, about the reason behind the D&D D20 system, it's because of psycological effects. Basicaly, in D&D the smallest possible bonus is +1 which translates to 5% more damage/chances etc... In a percentile system it's +1 which means 1% more chance to succeed. But a 1% increased chance to succeed is too little, too insignificant. It doesn't feel like an increase at all for the player and so, such detail level is nearly useless. It's not worth the increased complexity for a pen&paper game which should remain computationaly simple.

[ November 06, 2007: Message edited by: Stof ]

[Gangsta Spanksta]

quote:quote:Originally posted by MindSnap:
Saying that you took down an ultra-mighty troll king is cooler than saying you took down a troll king with a strength of 90.

And furthermore, since I am a dabbling writer, eventually when you have time to polish the game, you add to "ultra-mighty" with a physical description, of his muscle bulging out of his armor and so forth.

"You look at what appears to be an extremely mighty troll king.  Wearing a bone crown, he is holding a heavy looking stone club, as his muscles bulge out of his armor.  He is looking at you intently, challenging you to make a move.  You hear your heart pounding, as you feel fright."

Well   you have to write it to fit a game, but that kind of stuff is more realistic, and what a DM would say in an RPG.  For the computer, you probably would show off key words using colors, since the person doesn't want to read the description every time.  Highlighted: Extremely Mighty, King, heavy stone club, bulging, looking at you, fright.