From: jliukkon@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Juha-Matti Liukkonen)
Newsgroups: rec.games.design
Subject: Net.rpg - Just some thoughts
Keywords: net.rpg
Date: 12 Nov 92 03:10:10 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

All the following is just IMHO & no strings attached, as much as
anything is in my head - and at 3 am. Couldn't leave the thread alone
though.

In general the net.rpg idea is great. However one tends to remember the
comparison between the ultimate OS, *NIX, which does everything as each
user would like it to, and DOS, which you can make do some of what you'd
wish it to be able to. The point is that you can't run *NIX with a $200
ages old worthless piece of electronic garbage everyone has tugged in
some deep and dark hole of their lodgings. *NIX may be superior to the
experienced user with proper resources, but to your  average John Doe...

Then again, our average John Doe runs D&D, eh? :)

All right. I like the kernel & shell & tools idea someone mentioned.
We'll (we'll?) need first to know the basic, most important concepts
that need to be hard-wired into the kernel, right? The kernel won't take
stand on the mechanics, except for the very basic issues regarding the
communication between modules.

I'd say that the most important single concept in a role-playing game
(and I mean game, not just a system) is the _charater_. The kernel
should desrcibe the most basic and essential concepts that make up a
character, and the means to expand this basic conceptualization.

Each living (and I suppose mostly also non-living, for game purposes)
being is of some Build, Fitness, Consciousness, and Subconsciousness. 
Let's not fix any ranges yet.

Why these oddly named properties? And what do they stand for? (And this,
as someone already mentioned, is one of the most important questions
regarding character conceptualization.) Well, every person I've met, and
every animal and other non-persons as well, have been of some size and
form. That's Build.

Now the chair I sit on at the moment is of some size, but is a worn out
and old item. And this, IMO, has nothing to do with its form of
existence. Also I myself am of no considerable physical prowess although
I'm rather tall and not even noticeably overweight. It's a distinct
feature from size and form; I'll call it Fitness.

My chair doesn't think (or at least it hasn't told me if it does.)
I, on occasion, do. I've got a cat who sometimes seems to be smarter
than me, but mostly not. The chair isn't conscious; the cat is quite
conscious, and me, well, I think that I fall into the more-than-not
conscious category. I consider the circumstances, odds and oddities, and
sometimes even consequences, whereas Sirius the cat most obviously does
not. Levels of consciousness.

How then does the cat seem to be so smart if he can't think further than
his whiskers? And what's the nagging sound that keeps telling me to go
to bed, that I have to get up and go to the faculty in five hours? And
why, oh why, do I wiggle my toes while harassing the keyboard... React
to sudden sounds, light intensities, and so forth. Subconscious? Not
conscious anyways. (To you it may be, but I'll be damned if I ever admit
I devote 10% of my CPU time to wiggling my toes, goddammit!)

Strength, Dexterity, how do I calculate Hit Points, I hear you asking!
Not my problem. finger elvis - that might help :) But seriously, I
wouldn't consider them to be any kind of basic attributes. STR, DEX, CON
and the rest of the physical based properties would depend mainly on the
form, size and fitness of the creature, wouldn't you say? And the same
can be applied to most of the mental-based properties as well.
Intelligence? Wisdom? IQ? The senses? Derivatives, says I. And you can
emphasize whatever you like. You may consider physical fitness more
important to strength compared to size - I wouldn't. Someone might even
say that "it's all in your head, dear Arnold." The kernel won't take a
stand on that; I use tcsh, you use whatever you like. But you _can_ run
sh's scripts in tcsh et al, at least partly - but most importantly, if
you know tcsh, you'll know what the sh script is intended to do.

I would consider the actual physical form (humanoid / dog-o-noid /
cat-o-noid / chair / whatever) to be quite a basic property, but that
wouldn't be describable in the integer range now would it? OK, let's
leave the syntax for the shell.

So, we would have an object "BasicProps (Build, Fitness, Consciousness,
Subconsciousness)." Now we can call a character "adventurer (Name, Age,
Hair Colour, Shoe Size, *BasicProps)." Or "character (Name, Height,
Weight, IQ = (Consciousness + Subconsciousness)/2, ST = (2*Build +
Fitness)/3, HT = (Build + Fitness)/2, DX = (Build + Fitness + Height)/3,
*Skills)." Gosh, I should've written BasicProps->Build instead of plain
Build etc...  But you get the drift, I hope, 'cause I really need to go
to sleep now...  (*Yawn*)

Oh, just a few words in general to mess things even more up. IMO, GURPS
has some very good ideas and implementations. The advantage/disad
concept is good; I personally dislike the implementation, how it fits in
the system as a whole. The ads/disads emphasize roleplaying, but I've
managed to guide my current character to a situation in which he, IMO,
would most certainly have to change his way of thinking concerning a
certain disad - and probably acquire another one. Our GM (he's one of
the good ones) would allow the swap if I asked him, but I can't justify
it to myself so easily. I'd gain about ten points which I really don't
feel the character - nor I - has earned. The new disad should just about
cripple him, but no - more CP's to poor Kebab. If we play by the rules.
And if we don't..? It sort of ruins the pretty game mechanics GURPS is
based on. I kinda feel that the ad/disad system is almost as confiding
as the D&D class system. You can do what you want but that'd be going
around the system then; I can do that with AD&D too.

Then again, GURPS's skill selection is good; magic implementation is
quite good; and the advanced combat is quite smooth even considering the
pretty detailed movements etc. But all in all, GURPS sort of leaves me
thinking I'm playing with a doggie rubber toy...

I use RuneQuest myself.  Not a perfect system, that one, either.  I tend
to play with kids and inexperienced people often, and they find it
intriguing to do a character's job history etc.  And as I allow quite a
liberal character development - if properly justified with a good story
- even the more experienced players can flesh out their character, much
like in GURPS.  Now they just don't pay in character points, but in
stories.  Of course I tend to restrict their professional skill
development if it seems appropriate, but I usually convince them to do
that themselves - another story to be told.  And the cultural and
professional stereotypish guidelines really help in doing the itty-bitty
background detail; if you don't want to delve on it, then you'll just
check what the barbarian warriors tend to learn and master on the
average, and add your own flavours.  And if you want to delve on it -
well, the GM I mentioned earlier had a duck who could arm wrestle a bear
- and win! (He did have an intriguing story behind that one...)

I suppose I'm trying to say that I'm also for the loose occupational
background thingy.  With skills.  And I like the RQ approach: racial
default skills affected by your characteristics - no IQ-5 for
everything.  But I miss the occupation effects on the skill learning
rates from Rolemaster... A priest would have a hard time to attune to
the way of thinking a hunter bases his skills on, and therefore would
have harder a time to learn hunting-related skills, no?

This might be solved by careful skill categorizing.

Well, that's that for the night (morning...) I'm off to bed. Let's hope
that the net.rpg yet comes to life - perhaps with add-on D&D and GURPS
compatibility modules, and whatever.

--
GM: What, a 03! That's a fumble! OK, you go to sleep, a _deep_ sleep
some people have come to known as coma... You don't wake up the next
morning. The good point is, that you've never had this colourful
nightmares!
-- 
               Juha Liukkonen, aka jliukkon@cc.helsinki.fi
       University of Helsinki, Dept. of Paranormal Investigations
           "Trust me, I know what I'm doing." - Sledge Hammer
Newsgroups: rec.games.design