HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: np2@doc.ic.ac.uk (Nat Pryce)
Newsgroups: rec.games.design
Subject: Re: Dice
Date: 17 Nov 1992 11:37:24 -0000
Organization: Department of Computing, Imperial College, University of London, UK.
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: oak9.doc.ic.ac.uk


In article <1992Nov16.214348.443@news.wesleyan.edu>, CDRESSER@eagle.wesleyan.edu (CLAYTON J. DRESSER) writes:
|> 
|> here are some opinions on dice use in a well-designed game reesponding to
|> previous posts.
|> 
|> 1.  People love using different dice.  Perhaps not all people but part of the
|> fun is using dice that aren't just d6s.
|> 
|> 2.  Try using just a few dice (like only d% and d6).  AD&D v.1, for example
|> went ahead and used all the dice in all the situations according to whim.  (Oh,
|> no where'd i put my four-siders, I have to roll 6-24 for number of monsters
|> encountered).  For example, they could have relatively easily based on monster
|> numbers or damage etc. on one die mechanic (as they did for hit dice).

The less kind of dice the better I agree. Personally I prefer just d6s.

|> 3.  I don't think d6's offer enough spread for every mechanic.  You can make
|> the range wider by using more d6s but then you get a really steep bell curve
|> with a very small chance of rolling extreme numbers (e.g. consider rolling
|> 8d6).  You can try something like reading the d6s as digits (then you could use
|> 3d6 to roll from 111 to 666 with no numbers with digits other that 1-6
|> occurring - but as long as you're going to do that, you may as well use
|> percentile).
|> 
|> Clay

How about using D6s, but treat them as rolling from 0 to 5, by discarding any
6s rolled. Then you can have bell curves all starting at zero. You can treat
rolls which add up to zero as fumbles. This also has the advantage that the 
max dice-rolls go up in increments of 5, which is quite easy to grasp ( human
friendly ) and simple for fast mental arithmetic.



-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  ///                     Nat Pryce (np2@doc.ic.ac.uk)                  
 ( oo  It is essential to dig the most for if you do not dig you lose your
 |\_|  superiority over the square and so are less likely to be cool - Kerouac
From:  (Spike)
Newsgroups: rec.games.design
Subject: Re: Using Cards for Da Net.rpg
Date: 17 Nov 92 15:34:55 GMT
Followup-To: rec.games.design
Organization: GE Power Generation

My $0.02:

I feel that Net.rpg should have 1) Diced, 2) Diceless
and 3) Cardplay  resolution systems; the three create
entirely different flavors and we should make them 
all available to Net.rpg players.

Concerning the cardplay system, there is one 
element I think you are overlooking. You must make
the actual cardplay challenging - managing your hand
is an important element of any card game, and you 
need to account for this. You have some excellent 
suggestions, but they all seem (to me) to make it 
too easy to replenish your hand.

As far as the actual mechanics go, I think you need
two "sub-systems:"

1) Casual cardplay. The GM says, "You're confronted
by a wall." You need a method of resolving whether
or not the character can climb it, resolve it quickly
and get on with it. Maybe setting a difficulty would work;
if the player has a card he's willing to play that, added to
the appropriate skill, beats the difficulty num., he's over
it. If not, "the climb is too difficult" or "he doesn't think 
he can handle it," and must find another way.

2) Brutal, head-to-head play. This is for combat, and
possibly other forms of action (or perhaps even
diplomacy, haggling etc). Cards are added to skills - 
I'd say, make the balance about 50/50. There should
be rules for multiple cardplay - "Aha! With my Jack of
Spades, I parry your pitiful thrust!" "But I counter with
the Queen of Hearts, feinting and slipping by your guard
with the fatal blow!" . Suits should, IMHO, define
special effects, for colorful, cinematic fighting (which 
is what this res. system is best suited to, I feel).

Regarding actual mechanics:

- Obviously, the GM will need a hand. Rules for him
to replenish it (perhaps one or two cards each time
a grunt NPC enters the fray?).

- Level = # cards in hand: yuck. Make it a Luck 
statistic, but for PA char gen, it should be expensive,
and hard to roll high randomly (and everybody should 
watch it being rolled, cuz it's crucial . . . )

- Re: numbers - I like the idea of adding the numerical 
value, but dislike the suggested uses of Aces & face
cards. My sugg: use two decks, but only one set of
Aces & face cards. Make these especially valuable:
J = 15, Q = 20, K= 30, A = 50 (??).

TTFN
Spike
Newsgroups: rec.games.design
From: magnus@bark-fddi.ii.uib.no (Magnus Alvestad)
Subject: Re: net.rpg: Character Stats (LONG)
Reply-To: magnus@ii.uib.no
Organization: UVBS -> SFK/T-DSA / SOPS - HOS / RNoN
	<1992Nov18.172809.16951@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
	<KETIL.92Nov19171458@sandel.ii.uib.no>
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 20:47:04 GMT


Brian> Physical:
Brian>  Strength:
Brian>   Power, Build, Speed
Brian>  Toughness:
Brian>   Endurance, Resistance, Pain-threshold
Brian>  Dexterity:
Brian>   Accuracy, Agility, Flexibility

Brian> Cognitive:
Brian>  Reasoning:
Brian>   Logic, Comprehension, Faith
Brian>  Wisdom:
Brian>   Intuition, Charisma, Perception
Brian>  Knowledge:
Brian>   Memory, Experience, Studiousness

Brian> Energy:
Brian>  Magic:
Brian>   Invocation, Alteration, Channeling
Brian>  Psychic:
Brian>   Equilibrium, Synchronicity, Essence
Brian>  Innate:
Brian>   Control, Force, Focus

I mentioned this earlier on - I don't think we could have a strict
tree-structure like you have proposed here. The problems Ketil bring
up just go to show that, IMO. For example - Build would influence
both the raw-strength-power-to-kick-ass stat and the
tough-enough-to-be-shot stat. 

I think a better way would be to make a interconnected net, but where
you could work your way from the skills up without getting into loops.

For example:

Muscle.
Height.
Weight.
Endurance.
Concentration.
Build:		Height, Weight.
Toughness:	Endurance, Muscle, Build.
Strength:	Muscle, Concentration.

where of course, Build is for example calculated by some operation on
Height and Weight - average or something simpler.

	Ketil> o Is Build 'below' strength?  I'd put it the other way
	Ketil> around, but..

Agreed. Or I'd rather put Height and Weight below Build.

	Ketil> o Same for agil/dex, agility should be the more general
	Ketil> stat IMHO

Agreed.

	Ketil> o Faith is Reason? How about under wisdom?

Wisdom is a stat I cannot stand. 

	Ketil> o XP as a stat...well why not? :-) Untraditional to say
	Ketil> the least..

Well, depends on how we want to implement the payback for play. If we
just give the players skill-advancements, we may not need Exp at all. 

	Ketil> o 'Energy' appears to me to be a little arbitrary, and
	Ketil> genre-dependent, and I don't at all see what the

Agreed. Keep magic to the genre-spesific parts. Make magic a seperate
method that stays below the Concentration-like part or the
Intelligence-like part, for faith-magic or magician-magic.

-Magnus
Newsgroups: rec.games.design
From: dmatiske@nd.edu (David Matiskella)
Subject: Re: net.rpg: Character Stats [based on skills]
Followup-To: rec.games.design
Organization: University of Notre Dame
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 03:50:18 GMT

In article <1992Nov21.132524.1@kean.ucs.mun.ca>, jbridson@kean.ucs.mun.ca
wrote:
> 
> In article <20NOV199220532891@gergo.tamu.edu>, carl@gergo.tamu.edu (Carl D. Perkins) writes:
> > In article <1992Nov19.194427.1@kean.ucs.mun.ca>, jbridson@kean.ucs.mun.ca writes...
> >>
> [my view (that if you have a high stat, it must be manifested somewhere, in 
> at least one skill) deleted.]
> 
> > This is clearly nonsense. Someone who has never practiced the "agility
> > increasing skills" could still have a high inate agility. They simply have
> > not spent the time to learn to use it. Say someone like a bookworm type who
> > has never played any sports, but who could learn them rapidly and easily if
> > he became so inclined to do so.
> 
> I think the problem here is that we're using different meanings of the word 
> "stat".  When I say stat, I mean the up-to-date, current level of ability.  
> When you say stat (I think) you mean the genetic, instinctive potential for 
> ability.  In other words, if my character has high agility, it is because 
> *at* *this* *moment* he is very agile; if your character has high agility,
> his body type, genes, etc. allow for him to become agile easily, to easily 
> become good at running, tennis, dodging, etc.  I see now that if you do 
> look at my post with your definition, you might think it nonsense.
> 
> By my definition, your bookworm type would not be at all agile.  If he 
> can't dodge, run, play tennis, [etc]..., or skin dive well, he is not good 
> at any action involing agility.  Therefore, he has low agility.
> 
> > --- Carl
> 
> Robert Bridson (using the account of jbridson)
	If you use stats as a potential would never be used in the game except
to limit the skill of the user. For example the super dex character is
terrible with the foil( lets give hime a scoure of 5,dex 60) while the slug
is an
 experienced fencer with a score of 40, dex of 40.  When Slug fences Dex he
kicks
his ass. Dex goes off and spends a month practicing. His fencing now is 60.
Slug mean while is off practicing also. However he is at the maximum level
for his dex and can't get any better. Dex now kicks Slugs butt.(Note I am
using Dex
as the maximum value for the skill. YOu can use any formula you want.)
	The problem with a system like this is that the characters knows from the
beginning 
how good he is going to get, and can tell if he is ever going to be among
the best. It
sort of depends on how you play wether this is desirable or not.
Newsgroups: rec.games.design
From: magnus@bark-fddi.ii.uib.no (Magnus Alvestad)
Subject: Re: Net.rpg: Skills
Followup-To: rec.games.design
Reply-To: magnus@ii.uib.no
Organization: UVBS -> SFK/T-DSA / SOPS - HOS / RNoN
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 92 22:43:51 GMT

I just wanted to say that I don't think we should worry about using
ideas found in other games. All the commercial games have borrowed
from each other, why shouldn't we. Beside, no one would ever bother to
or be able to bring us to court. 

-Magnus
From: wayne@bragg.bio.purdue.edu (Wayne Twitchell)
Newsgroups: rec.games.design
Subject: Re: Net.rpg: Diff genres, diff skills?
Date: 19 Nov 92 14:33:26 GMT
Reply-To: wayne@bragg.bio.purdue.edu
Organization: Purdue University, Dept. of Biological Sciences

>Personally, I'd like to see a large, comprehnsive skill list,

Spike,  I think that you should try Yisgarth (ragnarok (sp?))
you can have such exciting and in-depth skills as CLAMMING.  *joy*
I guess that you should remember the saying about 
'Be careful what you which for, you migth get it'
I like the idea of a large skill list but this can quickly become 
cumbersome and downright frustrating unless it is organized well,
and organization is a skill very few game writers seem to have put many
points into (a private vote for some form of point allocation }:) ).
Newsgroups: rec.games.design,rec.games.frp.misc,rec.games.frp
From: dunkelza@titan.ucc.umass.edu (KEITH C MCCORMIC)
Subject: Re: Stars
Organization: University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 15:37:51 GMT

In article <Af23KT200WBNQ7MZkP@andrew.cmu.edu> William Henry Timmins <wt0b+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
>I'm interested in star information. Basically, a list of stars
>(particularly singular main sequence F G and K stars) in the vicinity,
>class/type/mass, and position.
>
>I'd like electronic info, please. I've had enormous difficulties trying
>to find something useful in the libraries (most list stars by
>brightness, so that FGK stars are rarely indicated)
>

    I have a star mapping utility called...MAP.  I found it on one of the FRP
ftp sites.  It is in the map directory, so you can't miss it if you're on the
right one.  It is also in C, so you will need to compile it.  It takes an
ascii database and plots it to one of several types of .ps files.  (Will run on
DOS or on UNIX).

Dunkelzahn

P.S.- Includes a database of all stars in a roughly 20ly sphere from Sol.

-- 
_____________________________________________________________________________
| Dunkelzahn the Greater Western Dragon | "Eternal vigilance is the price   |
| Dunkelza@titan.ucc.umass.edu          |  of Freedom"                      |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.games.design
From: ketil@ii.uib.no (Ketil M. Malde)
Subject: Re: net.rpg:  separate skills and stats altogether
Followup-To: rec.games.design
Reply-To: ketil@ii.uib.no
Organization: student of numerical analysis at the University of Bergen, Norway
	<1992Nov17.153924.29597@crd.ge.com>
Date: 18 Nov 92 16:46:12

>>>>> On 17 Nov 92 15:39:24 GMT, (Spike) said:

 	Robert> Agility: Endurance: Toughness: Wit: Possibly some
 	Robert> other "mental" stats.
 
	Magnus> Ugh! No, I think we'll stick to the four stats someone
	Magnus> proposed earlier on; Form, Fitness, Consciousness,
	Magnus> Subconsciousness. Or maybe: Form, Fitness, Intellect,
	Magnus> Instinct.  F's for the physicals and I's for the
	Magnus> 'intellectuals'.

	Spike> How about "Form, Vigor, Consciousness & Instinct, or some
	Spike> such? I hate alliterative characteristics - I can't abbrev.
	Spike> them to only 1 letter.

	Spike> And shouldn't we start talking about what these things actually
	Spike> *mean*?

Again, I would make the distinction between Talents that affect your
ability to learn skills, and Attributes that affect your ability to
perform them.

Just to draw up an arbitrary set of stats (partly based on earlier posts):

TALENTS:
	Consciousness - rational, conscious thinking, "intelligence"
		Numerical - numberacy
		Literal - understanding of words and writing
		Spatial - how things work, what the back side of
			  objects look like, abstract thinking

	Psyche - the mental strength of a person
		Awareness - being aware of one's surroundings
		Will - the power to force oneself to go one step
		       further
		
	Instinct - unconscious thinking "wisdom"?
		Musical
		Arts - esthetics, pictures, shapes


ATTRIBUTES:
	Form
		Strenght
		Health/Toughness
		Stature

	Substance
		Agility
		Speed
		Endurance

				
There may be reason to add a few points here and there, I 'lost'
Spike's posting, however, I feel that Talents should be grouped in a
similar way to the above.  This will make it simple for people who
desire less detail to use the 'groups' (cons, psyche, inst) whenever
one of the more detailed stats are required. (I.e. use psyche instead
of will)

This is just a suggestion, feel free to take it to pieces.

POINT #2

I don't really see the point of Object Orientation, I mean, ok, you
define the same stats for a Human as a Dog.  This works out fine, I
suppose.  Now use the same stats for a shotgun. 

Right.

For a person you want to know things like strength, agility, size, etc
etc.  For the gun, you need to know Rate of fire, Accuracy,
Reliability, types of ammo, and so forth.

How do you propose to do this?

Will each object have a set of interpretations of the same stats (I.e.
a gun's ROF depends on its "Agility", it's accuracy depends on it's
"strength" and so forth, ad absurdum)?  Or am I missing some point
here that everybody else understands?

-ketil

--
 = Ketil Malde                     In real life:  ketil@ii.uib.no =
 = Nuke the whales!                    Honk if you love unicorns! =
From:  (Spike)
Newsgroups: rec.games.design
Subject: Net.rpg: Attributes
Date: 16 Nov 92 19:34:47 GMT
Followup-To: rec.games.design
Organization: GE Power Generation

This is (yet another) attribute proposal. Yes, I
know people seem committed to Form/Fit/Int/Instinct,
but without an alternate proposal, developing this 
system would be like an election in the pre-glasnost
USSR (one candidate, one vote!).

Howard Gardener is a researcher working at one of
the big east-coast schools (Harvard, perhaps? I don't
recollect exactly) on the nature of human intelligence.
He proposed that what we lump under the broad label 
"Intelligence" is actually a collection of related, but
different intelligences: Kinesthetic, Linguistic, Mathematic
Spatial, Musical, Knowledge of Self and Knowledge of
Others. I have always felt that this would make a good
basis for a roleplaying game. Change Mathematic to 
Logical, Musical to a more generic Aesthetic, and 
rename the last two to the less-clunky Self-Awareness
(or even Intuition) and Social, respectively.

The way I would use them would be to relate skills to
various intelligences. High int in an appropriate area 
would allow characters to learn those skills more 
quickly. The logical way to do it would be to have each 
skill controlled by two separate intelligences: Shooting =
Kinesthetic + Spatial; Architect = Spatial + Logical; Fast-
Talk = Linguistic + Social.

Ironically, although I didn't realize it when I was reading
Gardener, Aftermath has a system very similar to this.
Go figure.

Spike
 
Newsgroups: rec.games.design
From: stv@unislc.uucp (Steve Spencer)
Subject: Atributes, a different way
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Organization: Unisys Corporation SLC
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 19:08:14 GMT


Hi all,
I have been following the net.rpg, and SLUG threads for some time now. 
And while I was walking downstairs to get a pop, mulling over the
plusses and minusses of the two, I got an idea for how to do stats.
Here's how it works:
Each stat (Strength, Agility, Mind, and Personality), have two
substats for them: Passive, and Agressive (for lack of a better word).
Passive stats are in effect all the time. And agressive stats are things
you need to be concentrating on to do. For instance, someone with
a really good Agressive Agility, but a poor Passive Agility, might be
a good sword fighter, bow shooter, etc, but they tend to be clumsy
when their mind is on other things. They might be great at picking 
locks, but don't trust them for sneaking around.
Here's how I'd do it:

STRENGTH:
	AGR:Lifting things, hitting things, etc.
	PAS:Stamina, Endurance, Hit points, Healthiness

AGILITY:
	AGR:Sword fighting, Shooting, Throwing
	PAS:Falling without getting hurt, Dodging, Walking and chewing gum.

MIND:	
	AGR:Channeling magic powers, casting spells
	PAS:Magic resistence, Pain resistence, Willpower

PERSONALITY:
	AGR:Fast-talking, bluffing 
	PAS:Appearance, respect from others, standing in community

So whadda ya think? I think that this system would work REALLY well with
SLUG, but I also think it's be great for net.rpg. 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
| It's the sputter of a raindrop. It's the sunlight on my face |
| My mind's eye into other realms. It's my paradise escape.    |
| Steve Spencer	SLC, Utah 	stv@unislc.slc.unisys.com      |
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Newsgroups: rec.games.design
From: cleggp@aix.rpi.edu (Paul Jason Clegg)
Subject: Re: net.rpg.slug: Action resolution
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 19:47:03 GMT

In article <1992Nov20.171410.19515@oz.plymouth.edu> sos@oz.plymouth.edu (Steffan O'Sullivan) writes:
>This solution is not quite as intuitive, alas, but it's not too hard to
>remember: instead of making Average a value of 4, let's build the bell
>curve right into the numbers representing the words.  Average then
>becomes a 6, and we roll the whole thing on a single d12  - here's the
>whole proposed chart:
>
>Terrible = 	1 =	8.3%
>Inferior = 	2 =	16.7%
>Poor = 		4 =	33.3%
>Average = 	6 =	50%
>Good = 		8 =	66.7%
>Superior =	10 =	83.3%
>Excellent =	11 =	91.7%
>
>Automatic failure = 12 = 8.3%
>
>First, keeping to the seven-tiered, named quality-levels is very
>intuitive, and it will be a snap for the GM to assess any NPC
>instantly.  Just run your eye down the list of words, and you'll see
>what I mean - it's not hard to decide if someone is Average or Good in
>a skill, but what does it mean to have a skill of 6 or 7?
>
>Second, it combines the best of a bell curve with a flat increase
>system:  you can still have a +1 modifier, which moves an attribute
>from, say, Average to a little above Average, but not quite good.  I
>like this idea.

Why do you insist on a bell curve?  A bell curve brings up one major problem:
Modifiers.  Whether or not you have the bell curve built into the stats, or
you have the bell curve in the dice convention, you still have the problem
that at the ends, a +/-1 modifier means nothing, but means a lot more in
the middle.

What's the difference between using your d12 w/ bell curved stats vs. straight
stats and using 2d6?

For the former, average is 6; a +1 modifier gains him +8.3%.  Middle above
average is 10; a +1 modifier gains him what?  8.3%  BUT it moves him/her to
the next highest classification as well!

For the latter, average is 7; a +1 modifier gains him (some big number).
Middle average is 10; a +1 modifier gains them a lot less than what it did
for the 7 guy.

I personally think that the bell curve idea should be chucked.  It's easy to
represent a bell curve in a linear system, but it's difficult to represent
a linear system through a bell curve.

...Paul


-- 
+                +        +    +  + + +  +    +        +                +
  Paul Clegg, cleggp@aix.rpi.edu.   Project Galactic Guide Coordinator.
            System One RPG designer.   But generally unknown.
+                +        +    +  + + +  +    +        +                +
Newsgroups: rec.games.design
From: magnus@bark-fddi.ii.uib.no (Magnus Alvestad)
Subject: Re: net.rpg: Character Stats (LONG)
Reply-To: magnus@ii.uib.no
Organization: UVBS -> SFK/T-DSA / SOPS - HOS / RNoN
	<1992Nov18.221344.3370@alf.uib.no> <Bxz45u.EMB@acsu.buffalo.edu>
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 92 00:23:55 GMT

>>>>> On 19 Nov 92 17:20:17 GMT, leet@acsu.buffalo.edu (Brian D. Leet)
>>>>> said:

	Brian> Agreed!  In fact I'd really like to see a bit more
	Brian> criticism of specific parts of the listing from people
	Brian> on the net.  I have seen a couple already and they have
	Brian> been very helpful...

I may be a few days behind now, but I hope you'll look at the comments
and create updated versions? There were a few problems with the
originals. It's exciting though.

	Brian> of all this tree is obviously generic, so it needs to
	Brian> have a section that is applicable to high-fantasy or
	Brian> super-normals situations.  This section is not going to

No, I don't think so - you could use smartness for the ability to cast
magic-user spells, concentration for the ability to cast
power-of-the-mind kind of spells, and something wisdom-or-faithish for
the casting of clerical spells.

-Magnus
Newsgroups: rec.games.design
From: magnus@bark-fddi.ii.uib.no (Magnus Alvestad)
Subject: Re: Net.rpg: problems with skill tree
Reply-To: magnus@ii.uib.no
Organization: UVBS -> SFK/T-DSA / SOPS - HOS / RNoN
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 92 00:33:10 GMT

I will outline my thoughts on the subjects.

While a stats/skill tree may be unwieldy if used unwarily, I think it
will be efficient if used wisely. For example, all complicated
calculations would have to be done at Character Creation time. We can
make C.C. take quite some time, especially when playing at the
complicated levels of detail.

Also, with the system I proposed, choosing skills and then using the
skill scores to calculate the broader skills and stats above them, you
can have quite a large potential tree, using only a small part for
each character. 

-Magnus