RE: CF: Race, Reputation and other suggestions

[dragonm <dragonm@leech.org>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Wedel
To: 'crossfire@ifi.uio.no'
Sent: 10/28/99 8:36 PM
Subject: Re: CF: Race, Reputation and other suggestions


 A quick note about races:

 While it is nice to have distinction between races, be careful not to
make them to extreme or have more serious disadvantages.

 For example, it may be fun to make the ogre high strength/con/dex and
low wis/pow/cha - the end result is he is a super fighter and terrible
mage/cleric.

 However, if the game evolves to the point where you only need (or can
be) one distinct class, that great disadvantage may not mean anything if he
never plans to cast a spell.  So he gets all these great advantages, but no
direct downside.

-----Begin Response-----
Yes, the point of inventing the ogre race was to provide interest.  Extremes
are entertaining.  Tolkien's novels wouldn't be interesting at all if the
Dark Lord was just Yet Another Foozle.  The AD&D novels are practically
founded on Drizzt Dourden.  They wouldn't exist if he wasn't something
special.  The idea of having a race capable of becoming a "super fighter"
was to provide that kind of interest.  It's not supposed to be easy to
become a superpower, but it's supposed to be something possible to strive
for.

I think the game could evolve to the point where being great in any one area
has no disadvantages, but I don't think it should.  In fact, I think we
should specifically encourage evolution in the other direction.  A large
part of the point of Crossfire is to play multiplayer.  If you want to play
Crossfire single-player, you can always play Nethack.  I foresee maps with
quests that require extremes of magic as well as extremes of physical
strength.  If we provide a dual of the proposed ogre who is a super
mage/cleric and a terrible fighter, the two of them need to pair up to
complete quests.  The same quests could also be completed by two people who
were simultaneously mediocre fighters and mediocre mages, if they cooperate
well enough.  It's a different kind of cooperation than that employed by the
pair of extremes, but it works too.

Also, the same argument that justifies the existence of a half-elven race
applies here.  With a reputation system, enhancements to AI, and
race-dominated cities, the advantages of being a super fighter and being
able to chop heads off easily can be offset by a populance in
non-identical-race cities that are afraid you'll do precisely that to them.
If the NPC that is the starting point for a quest that rewards you with the
SuperDuper Sword of Great Power not only won't talk to you, but runs and
hides when he sees a member of your race coming, you aren't going to get to
even pursue that quest.  So how do you get the SuperDuper Sword?  You have
to find a member of a race that the NPC won't run from who is also willing
to put up with your noxious self, and partner with them.

RP'ing is supposed to be a social experience, and most digital RPGs have
been remiss in that regard, either eliminating entirely the social aspects,
or replacing it with inane interactions with artificial stupidity.  From
what I can tell, part of the enormous appeal of Ultima Online and its
brethren is the fact that you can carry on a meaningful conversation with
another sentience, and get meaningful support from them in a firefight.
Making design decisions with the intent of shoring up the single-player
experience strikes me as ultimately self-defeating for an FRPG that
considers the multiplayer experience important enough to have a dedicated
server binary.

So, going back to the scenario above, we can construct the following quest.
An elven mage-smith was forging a SuperDuper Coat of Armor, and Reagent X
that he needed was stolen in the night by another mage.  He's willing to
give a SuperDuper Sword he already forged to the person or persons that can
provide him with some Reagent X, and the only place he knows of to get any
is from the mage who stole his supply.  As an elf, he refuses to talk to
ogres, but he's willing to put up with a barbarian, if the barbarian is
particularly polite.  If an ogre wants a SuperDuper sword, he's going to
have to find a barbarian to partner with.  So he does, and the two can then
start the quest.  But remember, the dastardly being that stole Reagent X is
a mage, and the ogre and the barbarian specialize in bashing heads, not in
casting spells.  So defeating the mage and recovering Reagent X is going to
be a pitched battle every step of the way, because the ogre and the
barbarian have nothing to counter the spells being thrown at them other than
raw strength and sheer endurance.  Therefore, even now that they've managed
to begin the quest, completing it and acquiring a SuperDuper sword is going
to be anything but easy.  My thesis is, this is INTERESTING.

The icing on the cake is, the hack'n'slash people will love it, 'cause even
two of them together will have to hack and hack and hack and hack and slash
and slash and slash and slash, and the legions of mage-generated,
mage-controlled minions will still be coming at 'em.  Here we have yet
another disadvantage to being an ogre.  The ogre has to keep his barbarian
partner alive, because even if he does win the day alone, he won't be able
to return Reagent X to the elven mage-smith and get his SuperDuper reward.

Yes, it's possible to screw it up and make an unbeatable engine of physical
destruction with no disadvantages.  So don't do it.  :)  Some of the
examples you give below are worth adopting.  Ogres shouldn't be very fast,
so making their movement speed lower than any other race is perfectly
acceptable, and making them not slow down much as they carry heavier and
heavier loads is also reasonable.  Eating more is also perfectly fine.  I
acknowledged that Charisma is likely to go away, but the scenario above
describes how to compensate for that.  I said the +stats might need
adjusting, and that's probably fine too, though I still like the extreme.
Possibly the generic stat max of 30 for all races and all stats needs
rethinking too.  Should an elf really have the capability of reaching the
same strength as an ogre?  In any case, I think we have found plenty of
justification for including a creature like an ogre, without making the race
overpowering.
----------

 Also remember that the max stat is 30 - if you have characters with a
startng stat of 25 after adjustments, that isn't that far from reaching
maximum.

 So I have a few general suggestions on this:

 Try to limit stat positives to +5 at most.  Even +5 is really a 25%
bonus of the maximum potential.  dont rely on charisma as a balancing agent,
as it may go away as a stat.

 Look for other areas than just stats to make races more distinct.
Perhaps protections/vulnerabilities, which with graduated protections won't
be such a bonus as it is now.  Perhaps also character speed - the ogre could
perhaps be seen as a slow lumbering creature, and thus should have a lower
speed (which will likely be offset in that with his very high strength, he
could still carry a lot without his speed going down much further).

 The ogre should probably need to eat more often than other races.
After all, he is much bigger and therefor needs more food.

 This is just one example, but gives some general ideas.
-
[you can put yourself on the announcement list only or unsubscribe altogether
by sending an email stating your wishes to crossfire-request@ifi.uio.no]