<!-- MHonArc v2.4.4 --> <!--X-Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] Alright... IF your gonan do DESIESE... --> <!--X-From-R13: Oqnz Ivttvaf <avtugsnyyNvasvpnq.pbz> --> <!--X-Date: from babe.globecomm.net [207.51.48.8] by in4.ibm.net id 866715285.57788-1 Thu Jun 19 10:14:45 1997 CUT --> <!--X-Message-Id: 199706191014.DAA17756#user2,inficad.com --> <!--X-Content-Type: text/plain --> <!--X-Reference: 3.0.2.32.19970618221359.00b4b41c#mail,tenetwork.com --> <!--X-Head-End--> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> <html> <head> <title>MUD-Dev message, Re: [MUD-Dev] Alright... IF your gonan do DESIESE...</title> <!-- meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" --> <link rev="made" href="mailto:nightfall#inficad,com"> </head> <body background="/backgrounds/paperback.gif" bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000" link="#0000FF" alink="#FF0000" vlink="#006000"> <font size="+4" color="#804040"> <strong><em>MUD-Dev<br>mailing list archive</em></strong> </font> <br> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] <br clear=all><hr> <!--X-Body-Begin--> <!--X-User-Header--> <!--X-User-Header-End--> <!--X-TopPNI--> Date: [ <a href="msg01353.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg01355.html">Next</a> ] Thread: [ <a href="msg01349.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg01375.html">Next</a> ] Index: [ <A HREF="author.html#01354">Author</A> | <A HREF="#01354">Date</A> | <A HREF="thread.html#01354">Thread</A> ] <!--X-TopPNI-End--> <!--X-MsgBody--> <!--X-Subject-Header-Begin--> <H1>Re: [MUD-Dev] Alright... IF your gonan do DESIESE...</H1> <HR> <!--X-Subject-Header-End--> <!--X-Head-of-Message--> <UL> <LI><em>To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#null,net">mud-dev#null,net</A></LI> <LI><em>Subject</em>: Re: [MUD-Dev] Alright... IF your gonan do DESIESE...</LI> <LI><em>From</em>: Adam Wiggins <<A HREF="mailto:nightfall#inficad,com">nightfall#inficad,com</A>></LI> <LI><em>Date</em>: Thu, 19 Jun 1997 03:14:22 -0700 (MST)</LI> <LI><em>Reply-To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:nightfall#inficad,com">nightfall#inficad,com</A></LI> </UL> <!--X-Head-of-Message-End--> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-Begin--> <HR> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-End--> <!--X-Body-of-Message--> <PRE> > >There are lots of problems, the most > >signifigant being that the building blocks of the universe are all constant. > >Atomic bonds have a set strength (for our purposes, anyways) and gravity > > Huh? What the hell does an atomic bond strength have to do with the > possability of very large lizards? Flesh, bone, etc etc are all constant density, material, makeup and so forth. Here's some more questions on these same topics (I'm not a scientist, nor do I have any formal education beyond high school) - Why are the largest sea creatures so much larger than the largest land creatures? Why are there no 50-ft insects? It would seem that since insects really can live much longer except for their size (ie, you drop them from a height of 50 times their body length and they happily scurry off) that if you just made a version of them that was several times larger they could pretty much rule the earth. So why is this not the case? > matter of gravity and mroe a matter of the square/cube law-- to wit, as an > obejct increases in size its surfgace increases by the square while its > mass increases by teh cube. Yeah, as I mentioned. It's not actually mass that increases by cube, really, it's volume - but as I said before, all the building blocks stay the same (density of flesh bone etc) and the volume just increases cubicaly. Things get nasty. At any rate, without getting to in depth into something that I doubt anyone really cares about - I find the idea of incredibly intelligent, viscious, flying lizards which dwarf the size of any creature ever known to exist on this planet (land based or not) to be improbably to the point of disturbing my suspension of disbelief. Even given this, the idea that a knight armed with a sturdy lance and a good shield can take one out before lunch I find pretty laughable. > Thsi has relevance when dealing with a foot's ability to hold up a body,as > we as, far more importantly, the surface area available to release heat > through or absorb it in through. Large size proves a problem in heat > management, thsi is expecially true with creatures who depend on the > outside to regulate their body temerpatures, such as cold blooded > lizards... but most dragon biology attempts Ive ever seen make then warm > blodded and in fact, there is a deabte right now over wheterh or not some > of the dinosaurs were in fact warm blooded. Good point, I haven't even considered this. > >> On top of this, they are meat-eaters. > >The T-Rex is probably the best direct comparsion on this, and it had problems > >at a mere 6 tons or so with keeping itself fed. The massive amount of energy > >(== prey) which it takes to keep that sort of a body in motion is damn > >near impossible to maintain... > > To quote a good point from a bad movie "life always finds a way". The > Hummingbird has a far greater problem then your big creatures. In order to > sustain its mdoe of flight it needs a rediculously high metabolic rate. If > the humingbird stops eating, it immediately starts starving. To overcome > thsi and allow down times, humingbirds go into deep hibernation EVERY NIGHT > when they go to sleep. Yes, hummeringbirds are pretty amazing creatures, but they do exist, which is (all other conjecture aside) give them a pretty good believability factor. > >now imagine a creature four to ten times larger. > >(A T-Rex is roughly the size of what...a very, very small D&D dragon?) > > Um, nope. Ild say a T-rex is the size of a full adult dragon based on all > the illustratiosn I've seen and my own experiences standing under a T-rex > skelleton. Well, I've never liked D&D, nor am I all that familar with the creatures which populate it, but I have quite a few friends that are pretty into it. In particular one had a very nicely painted poster (by Jeff Easly I think) with the relative scale and measurements for all the various colored dragons, and I recall seeing quite a few on there which clocked in at 250 ft. A T-Rex is what, 16 feet tall at the shoulder? (Course, things get a little zany here if you start meassuring tail length in with the height.) In addition, I recall quite clearly adventures where our party of 6 or 8 people would run into a "baby" dragon (50-100 feet) and we'd win, without any casualties. It's like, "Dragon breathes lightning. My 7th level dwarven warrior with a 19 con makes his saving throw and takes 30 points of damage, down to 35 hitpoints. Dragon smacks you, dice roll...does 20 points of damage." I suppose this is supposed to be analagous to the dragon's breath just sort of clipping me, then the dragon's stomp/bite/claw kind of glancing off as I dodged out of the way. Just have trouble envisioning this, that's all...and on top of this, the rest of my part is happily pumping arrows into this thing and smacking it with their weapons (which, thanks to a nice big thac0, easily "penitrate" the dragon's scales), meaning the poor thing only has a few rounds to live, if that. > >The worst part is that D&D dragons usually have a 50 strength or so. > >This would seem to imply that a couple of good human warriors (18 str) > > This is athe problem witha linear scale., Note however that NOWHERE in the > AD&D ruels doies it actually SAY strength is a linear scale. COudl be its > not, in which case your math is fallacious. T'was just conjecture. The point is that every RPG which has followed after uses this same sort of setup. Thus you end up with an ogre with a giant growth and 10 strength spells being able to armwrestle a dragon and win. The system wasn't set up to handle this sort of thing correctly, so it's not any big surprise that it...doesn't. > >strength chart wasn't linear, but it just doesn't work this way. > > Um.. show me where it says it linear. Page number, book, and paragraph # > please. What I said was not, "The D&D strength scale is linear." What I said was, "I assume that the strength chart wasn't linear, but it just doesn't work this way." Note keyword: "work". The D&D strength scale does not correctly model non-humanoid creatures, regardless of what it may "say" it does. > >Any descently experienced character can expect to live at least one > >shot from a dragon. > > AD&D is balanced aroudn the cocnept of the myth of St. George and the > Dragon. ie one fulyl decked out high levle fighter with war horse, alnce > and luck can take a dragoin down. Yeah, and that's fine. I'm just bored as hell of this, and I never liked it much to begin with. The whole point of my post was stating that what you've said above is the case, and why I find it both ridiculous and bad for overall gameplay. > There is a very good quote on thsi dichotomy in the literature in "The > Glass Harmoica" (also published as The Book Of Wierd) a totally UN ad&d > related encyclopedia of fasntasy cocnepts. It defines a drago nas > "That most fiercesome, terrible, and pwoerful creature that, ocne actually > encountered, proves suprisingly easy to kill." *grin* > Part of your mistake ofcourse is that you are treatign AD&D characters as > normal peopel. Theya re not, at high levels they are epic heros. Yeah. I'm bored as hell of this is all. > >The part I just *cannot* stomach is the idea of two or three well > >equiped adventurers taking one out. If we assume that dragons have the > > Then design your own. Noone is stopping you. Everything in the monsert > manual is a sugegstion. Yeah. Keep in mind, however, I'm not targeting D&D...that's just a nice big bullseye for me, and a good place to draw examples from that I'm pretty sure everyone can relate to somehow. My main complaint lies with everything *since* then which has ripped off the D&D system without addressing fundamental problems in the changeover from a small, customizable, human-run game with handmade campaigns and small parties of adventures, to a computer-run system containing hundreds of players with ongoing adventures. I *still* don't like D&D, and I wish that muds had chosen a better model (RuneQuest, for example) at the start. Unfortunately it didn't work out that way...as a result I frequently find myself doing things a certain way just because it's the exact *opposite* of the way D&D (and subsequently, a large number of muds) did it. </PRE> <!--X-Body-of-Message-End--> <!--X-MsgBody-End--> <!--X-Follow-Ups--> <HR> <ul compact><li><strong>Follow-Ups</strong>: <ul> <li><strong><A NAME="01375" HREF="msg01375.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Alright... IF your gonan do DESIESE...</A></strong> <ul compact><li><em>From:</em> Jeff Kesselman <jeffk#tenetwork,com></li></ul> </UL></LI></UL> <!--X-Follow-Ups-End--> <!--X-References--> <UL><LI><STRONG>References</STRONG>: <UL> <LI><STRONG><A NAME="01349" HREF="msg01349.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Alright... IF your gonan do DESIESE...</A></STRONG> <UL><LI><EM>From:</EM> Jeff Kesselman <jeffk#tenetwork,com></LI></UL></LI> </UL></LI></UL> <!--X-References-End--> <!--X-BotPNI--> <UL> <LI>Prev by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg01353.html">[MUD-Dev] Name/language generation</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg01355.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Life</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Prev by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg01349.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Alright... IF your gonan do DESIESE...</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg01375.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Alright... IF your gonan do DESIESE...</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Index(es): <UL> <LI><A HREF="index.html#01354"><STRONG>Date</STRONG></A></LI> <LI><A HREF="thread.html#01354"><STRONG>Thread</STRONG></A></LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> <!--X-BotPNI-End--> <!--X-User-Footer--> <!--X-User-Footer-End--> <ul><li>Thread context: <BLOCKQUOTE><UL> <LI><STRONG>Re: [MUD-Dev] Alright... IF your gonan do DESIESE...</STRONG>, <EM>(continued)</EM> <ul compact> <ul compact> <ul compact> <ul compact> <ul compact> <ul compact> <LI><strong><A NAME="01388" HREF="msg01388.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Alright... IF your gonan do DESIESE...</A></strong>, Marian Griffith <a href="mailto:gryphon#iaehv,nl">gryphon#iaehv,nl</a>, Sat 21 Jun 1997, 02:56 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="01503" HREF="msg01503.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Alright... IF your gonan do DESIESE...</A></strong>, clawrenc <a href="mailto:clawrenc#cup,hp.com">clawrenc#cup,hp.com</a>, Thu 26 Jun 1997, 07:22 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> </ul> </ul> <LI><strong><A NAME="01339" HREF="msg01339.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Alright... IF your gonan do DESIESE...</A></strong>, Adam Wiggins <a href="mailto:nightfall#inficad,com">nightfall#inficad,com</a>, Wed 18 Jun 1997, 10:54 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="01349" HREF="msg01349.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Alright... IF your gonan do DESIESE...</A></strong>, Jeff Kesselman <a href="mailto:jeffk#tenetwork,com">jeffk#tenetwork,com</a>, Thu 19 Jun 1997, 12:12 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="01354" HREF="msg01354.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Alright... IF your gonan do DESIESE...</A></strong>, Adam Wiggins <a href="mailto:nightfall#inficad,com">nightfall#inficad,com</a>, Thu 19 Jun 1997, 17:14 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="01375" HREF="msg01375.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Alright... IF your gonan do DESIESE...</A></strong>, Jeff Kesselman <a href="mailto:jeffk#tenetwork,com">jeffk#tenetwork,com</a>, Fri 20 Jun 1997, 13:22 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="01361" HREF="msg01361.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Alright... IF your gonan do DESIESE...</A></strong>, Nathan Yospe <a href="mailto:yospe#hawaii,edu">yospe#hawaii,edu</a>, Fri 20 Jun 1997, 01:50 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="01376" HREF="msg01376.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Alright... IF your gonan do DESIESE...</A></strong>, Jeff Kesselman <a href="mailto:jeffk#tenetwork,com">jeffk#tenetwork,com</a>, Fri 20 Jun 1997, 13:28 GMT <UL> <LI><strong><A NAME="01401" HREF="msg01401.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Alright... IF your gonan do OWLs...</A></strong>, Nathan Yospe <a href="mailto:yospe#hawaii,edu">yospe#hawaii,edu</a>, Sat 21 Jun 1997, 11:20 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> </LI> </ul> </ul> </ul> </ul> </LI> </UL></BLOCKQUOTE> </ul> <hr> <center> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] </center> <hr> </body> </html>