11 Mar, 2009, Cratylus wrote in the 21st comment:
Votes: 0
http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view...

It takes a highly trained athlete years of practice to
be able to accurately predict the trajectory of an
object flying at him well enough to smack it 1/3 of the
time…and that's an object traveling at 132fps. Dunno
the average fps of an arrow, but I'd be impressed as
hell if you could swat a 300fps paintball, even from a
single shooter at great standoff with a single shot
and no distractions.

I will grant you that the baseball is hurled in a fashion
as arbitrary as possible to evade contact…but consider
the narrow "box" the pitcher has to put the ball in, and
this more than makes up for comparison error. If anything,
it tends to help emulate the randomness of field combat.

Having said alllll of that…in a mud you can have people
horyuken and kamehameha for over 9000 damage. Arrow
catching is juuuuuuust on the other side of plausibility.
I think it's ok to nudge it over back to this side, for
entertainment purposes.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net
11 Mar, 2009, tphegley wrote in the 22nd comment:
Votes: 0
Cratylus said:
Having said alllll of that…in a mud you can have people
horyuken and kamehameha for over 9000 damage. Arrow
catching is juuuuuuust on the other side of plausibility.
I think it's ok to nudge it over back to this side, for
entertainment purposes.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net


If you have spells in your mud then you aren't really going for realism anyways. I think this post kind of hits it on the head, not to put down Elanthis' realistic approach, which some muds do, but just as kind of a factor in determining how to do it. My original question was how do people utilize arrows in muds and every post was exactly what I wanted to see, so I don't have any problems with keeping it as fantastical as spells, but just wanted to get an idea on how to implement it better to where it is usuable again.
11 Mar, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 23rd comment:
Votes: 0
There are two kinds of realism: the kind where everything matches our world and its physics, and then the kind where the laws of physics are slightly changed to allow for things like magic, but where the system is still internally consistent and believable.

So, just because a world has fireballs doesn't mean it's suddenly believable that people are catching arrows left and right.

Compare it to science-fiction: just because there are warp drives, laser guns, space ships and so forth doesn't make it any more believable that humans are able to dodge bullets. (Maybe they could with some kind of cybernetic implant – but that's different, ne?)

Now, it's also worth mentioning that when you play this kind of game, you're not playing run-of-the-mill people, you're playing epic adventurers who are in fact like the "great heroes" of fiction (Legolas, Aragorn, etc. to stay in the LotR fiction). So I don't find it hard to believe that the player characters can do extraordinary things (but perhaps not impossible things).
11 Mar, 2009, elanthis wrote in the 24th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
However I'm very dubious about the method they used - they built a stationery mechanical hand with a reaction time based on that of an "expert", which closed when the arrow was fired. A human would anticipate the shot rather than wait for it, their hand (and indeed their entire body) wouldn't be stationary or have the limited range of motion of the mechanical hand, and they'd likely attempt to deflect the arrow rather than catch it.


The velocity an arrow travels at would shear the flesh off your hand even if you DID manage to get your hand grasped around the arrow shaft. I believe an average medieval longbow would fire the arrow at a speed of almost 800 feet/second.

David Haley said:
Very trained and skilled martial artists can "catch swords" (that is, catch a sword that is being brought down in a swing),


In late period fencing it is not uncommon to see sword grabbing (when gloves are worn, naturally), but even then it was dangerous – if you grabbed my sword, I would push or yank bank very hard and likely slice through glove and skin. Far more common would be sword deflection, where I would keep an open hand pushing against the flat of your blade. This was only really seen with lighter fencing blades, though – older, larger swords had far too much force in a swing to be deflected safely with just soft leather and flesh. When done properly an overhand sword swing will cleave through skull and sternum. The amount of force put into a proper swing is simply amazing. Realize that a true sword martial artist doesn't just "swing" the sword down in an overhead chop like an axe – he uses his ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, both arms, and forward momentum to move the blade at incredible speeds with very, very deadly force. He begins putting this force into the attack before he is even in range to strike (or be struck) and used not only the extension of his arms but also footwork to smoothly close the range while striking. And he does so without leaving any opening in his own defense.

I did just take a quick look at some of the "sword catching" techniques and other unarmed-vs-armed martial arts out there. The sword catching was definitely just a demo – the unarmed man was prepared and knew exactly which attack his opponent was going to execute. The rest of the unarmed techniques were all questionable to me. All of the videos are based on Japanese katana fencing, which I'm not familiar with; I do know that their range is closer than western longsword fencing. I find it unbelievable that any skilled practitioner of any armed martial art would blindly run in and wait until _after_ he came into hand-to-hand distance to begin his attack (which seemed to always be blind wild overhead swings).

As KaVir said, nothing wrong with sword or arrow catching in a fantasy game, if you're going for the Hollywood superhuman fantasy feel in your game. Just please don't try to back up the decision with claims of realism. :)
11 Mar, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 25th comment:
Votes: 0
Elanthis, I think it's not very fair to not quote the second half of the sentence, where I explicitly talk about a cooperative situation being basically necessary for success, and then lecture about how hard it actually is in a fight. :wink:

FWIW, I'm talking about the grandmaster at our dojo; he did a lot of these sword-catching demos (with katanas) with various partners. And yes, this is obviously a very cooperative environment. Nonetheless, it's very impressive.
11 Mar, 2009, KaVir wrote in the 26th comment:
Votes: 0
Cratylus said:
It takes a highly trained athlete years of practice to be able to accurately predict the trajectory of an object flying at him well enough to smack it 1/3 of the time…and that's an object traveling at 132fps.

Yes, from 60 feet away. But how often do you think they could hit the ball if they were to stand 90 feet away from the pitcher? What about 120 feet away?

A decent paintball gun has an effective range of around 150 feet (0.5 seconds to react), which is the equivalent of a baseball player standing 66 feet away from the pitcher. That same gun might have a maximum range of around 300 feet (1 second to react), the equivalent of the baseball player standing 132 feet away from the pitcher.

Of course blocking/deflecting the arrow isn't the same as catching it, but once you're able to predict when it hits it then becomes a case of practicing closing your hand before the arrow reaches you. I imagine intentionally catching an arrow would be far more difficult than deflecting it, and in practice would tend to happen more by freak accident than intent (eg you get a grip on it while trying to knock it aside).

Now I'm wondering whether I should add arrow catching to my mud…

tphegley said:
If you have spells in your mud then you aren't really going for realism anyways.

If you want any sort of internal consistency, then you'll want your game world to be realistic with the scope defined by your theme. Just because you have spells and dragons, it doesn't mean you should also add killer bananas, giant marshmellow swords and mutant vindaloo beasts.

elanthis said:
The velocity an arrow travels at would shear the flesh off your hand even if you DID manage to get your hand grasped around the arrow shaft. I believe an average medieval longbow would fire the arrow at a speed of almost 800 feet/second.

They'd be lucky to reach a quarter of that speed. 195 feet per second is considered good for a modern heavy longbow. A medieval longbow firing heavy grain shafts would have been slower than that, I would guess around 140-150 fps.
11 Mar, 2009, elanthis wrote in the 27th comment:
Votes: 0
Hmm, might've been confusing it with meters/second then.
11 Mar, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 28th comment:
Votes: 0
800 meters per second would be about 2400 feet per second…! And 800 feet is still ~266 meters per second…
11 Mar, 2009, tphegley wrote in the 29th comment:
Votes: 0
Quote
Longbows were difficult to master because the force required to deliver an arrow through the improving armour of medieval Europe was very high by modern standards. Although the draw weight of a typical English longbow is disputed, it was at least 360 N (80 lbf) and possibly more than 650 N (143 lbf) with some high-end estimates at 900N (202 lbf). Considerable practice was required to produce the swift and effective combat shooting required. Skeletons of longbow archers are recognizably deformed, with enlarged left arms and often bone spurs on left wrists, left shoulders and right fingers.

The effects of a powerful bow on contemporary armour are illustrated by this 12th century account by Gerald of Wales:

… In the war against the Welsh, one of the men of arms was struck by an arrow shot at him by a Welshman. It went right through his thigh, high up, where it was protected inside and outside the leg by his iron cuirasses, and then through the skirt of his leather tunic; next it penetrated that part of the saddle which is called the alva or seat; and finally it lodged in his horse, driving so deep that it killed the animal.


The above is taken from the English_longbow wikipedia. The bold is my emphasis in that the bows back then were almost double/triple the power then today's bows. That article is very interesting and makes me realize how powerful bows actually were.

Cratylus said:
If you want any sort of internal consistency, then you'll want your game world to be realistic with the scope defined by your theme. Just because you have spells and dragons, it doesn't mean you should also add killer bananas, giant marshmellow swords and mutant vindaloo beasts.


Quite true, but if you have spells and dragons then it clearly is make believe. No, I won't have killer bananas, but it would be much more reasonable to have someone that could catch an arrow, although would have to be very dextrous, in the scope of the theme. I wasn't really arguing the point, but just stating that if the world is fantastical then fantastical things can happen.
11 Mar, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 30th comment:
Votes: 0
IMO it doesn't follow at all that people can do fantastic things just because you happen to have strange creatures wandering around. Even if you consider magic to be some kind of very fancy manipulation of the environment (i.e. some kind of physics-based thing) you would still need to be manipulating that power in order to do things you normally couldn't.

Also re: the English longbow, something to think about is that they probably used their bows day in and day out. It would be more interesting to compare to the skeleton of a modern day competitive archer rather than somebody who uses the bow only occasionally. (I don't know enough about modern/medieval bows to say anything definitive on the subject…)
11 Mar, 2009, Skol wrote in the 31st comment:
Votes: 0
I think arrow catching could be sweet in a game that used ranged combat like that.
But, probably have to figure a few things.

I would ask:
Do you have different kinds of bows?
Different kinds of arrows?
Does your game use coordinate range, or some method to factor distance?
Any other factors that might help, maybe camouflaged arrows, silent shot, silence spell on archer, invis archer…
If you use more 'rom' rooms (as mine does) with a generic 'distance' assumed per room, at 1 room, maybe 1% chance, 2 rooms more, 5 rooms maybe it's up to 30% (assuming perfect at the skill). Then factor in bow strength/range, a weak bow that has to lob the arrow would be far easier than one that could put it there 'on a frozen rope' heh.

Anyway, sounds fun! Let me know what you go with, I've got ranged arrows/bolts/weapons etc in my game and would love to compare notes.

Have you looked at 'impact' from weapons possible tossing people out the other exit? (Picture big spear, chucked by ogre, hits kender… heh, sorry I know that's morbid ;p).
11 Mar, 2009, tphegley wrote in the 32nd comment:
Votes: 0
David Haley said:
IMO it doesn't follow at all that people can do fantastic things just because you happen to have strange creatures wandering around. Even if you consider magic to be some kind of very fancy manipulation of the environment (i.e. some kind of physics-based thing) you would still need to be manipulating that power in order to do things you normally couldn't.


Maybe I'm missing the point here, but I think we are comparing apples and oranges. My opinion is that a text game is fantasy (it is a game) and that fantasy things can happen, you CAN have wierd creatures, you CAN have someone catching an arrow (again, someone very dextrous and has maybe studied the art?). But you can put whatever you want into a game that goes with the realism level of the game (that you decide). It is you to choose really. Our opinions are just different.
11 Mar, 2009, tphegley wrote in the 33rd comment:
Votes: 0
Skol said:
I think arrow catching could be sweet in a game that used ranged combat like that.
But, probably have to figure a few things.

I would ask:
Do you have different kinds of bows?
Different kinds of arrows?
Does your game use coordinate range, or some method to factor distance?
Any other factors that might help, maybe camouflaged arrows, silent shot, silence spell on archer, invis archer…
If you use more 'rom' rooms (as mine does) with a generic 'distance' assumed per room, at 1 room, maybe 1% chance, 2 rooms more, 5 rooms maybe it's up to 30% (assuming perfect at the skill). Then factor in bow strength/range, a weak bow that has to lob the arrow would be far easier than one that could put it there 'on a frozen rope' heh.

Anyway, sounds fun! Let me know what you go with, I've got ranged arrows/bolts/weapons etc in my game and would love to compare notes.

Have you looked at 'impact' from weapons possible tossing people out the other exit? (Picture big spear, chucked by ogre, hits kender… heh, sorry I know that's morbid ;p).


Those are all actually really cool questions/ideas. I'll have to think of those.

What I am thinking of currently doing is putting timers on notching, drawing, aiming, and firing so that a ranger could start a fight off with a strong blow by arrow and then if he hit the target, the target would become untangled/snared (if he was in the first place) and start hunting the Ranger. I will probably make it so that a ranger has very little chance of hitting a death con (over 10 levels on our game) and the Ranger strength and type of bow and quality of arrow will probably be a factor in how hard it hits.
11 Mar, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 34th comment:
Votes: 0
I wasn't trying to argue that such things shouldn't happen in a fantasy game; I was arguing the case that the existence of dragons doesn't make catching arrows more or less realistic. This is of course orthogonal to what should be put into a game for gameplay value – I just don't believe it holds at all that having dragons makes lots of things automatically believable. In other words, they are separate decisions, and picking the one doesn't mean you have to or even have reason to pick the other.
11 Mar, 2009, tphegley wrote in the 35th comment:
Votes: 0
David Haley said:
I wasn't trying to argue that such things shouldn't happen in a fantasy game; I was arguing the case that the existence of dragons doesn't make catching arrows more or less realistic. This is of course orthogonal to what should be put into a game for gameplay value – I just don't believe it holds at all that having dragons makes lots of things automatically believable. In other words, they are separate decisions, and picking the one doesn't mean you have to or even have reason to pick the other.


Well, right. Just because you have something, you don't have to have another, but if you DO have that other then it's more believable I think. If you can catch an arrow then you don't really have to have dragons in your game, but if that's what you want, then the player takes that as believable since it is 'in the game'. You can do whatever you want with a game, it's fantasy, and if a player plays the game then they take that as fact in the game world, whether you have one without the other or not. It's all imaginary anyways.

My point was that if you already have people shooting fireballs from their hands(which is extraordinary) then there is a possibility of some other extraordinary thing to happen. IE Catching an arrow is extraordinary, it is out of the ordinary. It's not to say that they go hand in hand, but it is more believable that it can happen since you already have extraordinary things happening.
11 Mar, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 36th comment:
Votes: 0
tphegley said:
You can do whatever you want with a game, it's fantasy, and if a player plays the game then they take that as fact in the game world, whether you have one without the other or not. It's all imaginary anyways.

No, I have to really disagree with this. Having internally consistent physics is very important to some people. That doesn't mean that nothing weird can happen, but it does mean that things have to be consistent.

For example, it's not terribly consistent to have every player equipped with never-ending flasks of water, and yet for the world to have water shortages. A single such flask would suffice to maintain an entire village, or even city if you can figure out the logistics of distribution.

This comes up a lot, really. If you have some fictional world, like Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, LotR, whatever, people adapt to the "rules" of that universe. But then if the authors try to pull a fast one, some people get fairly upset.

It's interesting to note that in the Star Wars books, hyperspace travel actually takes time, whereas in the movies people pop around. The books are much more believable in this respect, because it wouldn't be consistent to have a world in which people can instantly move around the universe, and yet otherwise have an economy not so different from ours. (Think about how different our world would be if objects and armies could be moved instantly!) But the movie is more "for fun", and so they don't really concern themselves with this kind of thing. But on the other hand, the movie also doesn't portray much of the world. And when they do, they tend to shoot themselves in the foot. When they try to explain the Force using some kind of biological explanation, they break the disbelief for a lot of people: if you just accepted it as something very special, and all of sudden somebody tries to explain it to you in real-world physics and biological terms, you start trying to contextualize it in what you already know/believe/etc. – and then you fail, because it just doesn't make sense.

Basically, just because something is fiction doesn't give full license to do whatever you want and keep it believable. If Gandalf could blast hordes of orcs with a single wave of his staff, and do this regularly, why would there even be a war of armies in the first place? People can suspend disbelief and accept a new physics, but that doesn't excuse this new world from consistency. Of course, you can suspend disbelief to the point of accepting basically everything, which is sometimes a good thing for games. But such a game should never pretend to be working in any kind of believable framework. It's ok for something to be unbelievable and still be fun, but it's somewhat irritating to have somebody present a world that makes no sense and yet take it very seriously as a plausible place.

</ramble>
(And yes, this is slightly off-topic, and yes, this is about more than just bows and arrows, and yes, it is something of a pet peeve :tongue:)
11 Mar, 2009, tphegley wrote in the 37th comment:
Votes: 0
DavidHaley said:
No, I have to really disagree with this. Having internally consistent physics is very important to some people. That doesn't mean that nothing weird can happen, but it does mean that things have to be consistent.


I do agree that things need to be consistent, but fantastical things can still happen if the author so chooses.

I understand what you're saying (midichlorians, or whatever they were called, was a stupid idea) but I think you aren't quite understanding my opinion of it. Your opinion isn't fact and I'm not taking it as fact, nor am I taking mine as fact.

If you have a fantastical world then fantastical things can happen. That's as broad as I can state it. It's fantasy. Anything can happen in fantasy, whether or not you choose to add those extra elements is up to the creator of the game/book/movie. When creating a game, you bring certain elements to the game that people take as fact since it is happening. Yes, if you change the 'laws' mid-game/mid-movie then people who take things too seriously will get upset, but the whole idea of fantasy is to have fantasy things happening (If there is no fantasy in a fantasy game/book then it is not fantasy). The force cannot exist (at least not that we know of :cool:) in the role that it played in Star Wars. But we believe it to be 'law' in the books/movies however it is described/used. As much as I dislike how they described the midichloriens in Star Wars, I have to take that as fact since that is the direction that they are going and if I want to continue to enjoy the star wars series then I take it as is. Why get upset over it?

I think by now we are just agreeing to disagree and aren't really proving anything other then you have your opinion and I have mine.
11 Mar, 2009, David Haley wrote in the 38th comment:
Votes: 0
I think we're actually saying the same thing insofar as saying that an author can do "anything" in fantasy. My point is just that people shouldn't make appeals to realism, either w.r.t. real world realism or game world realism, when talking about a world in which they've already stated there are no internal rules. As soon as you state rules, you need to follow them (or break them mid-game and turn off people who care about consistency).

I think where we disagree is that you don't really care about internal consistency, but I do. I wasn't trying to tell you (or anyone) that they had to care. But I am positing as fact (not opinion) that it's not appropriate to make any kind of reference to any kind of realism if they aren't trying to create/maintain internal consistency. In particular, real world facts are irrelevant if the game world rules are completely different to begin with. I was also positing as fact that accepting dragons is orthogonal to accepting that people can catch arrows – I believe that we agreed on that point, unless I misunderstood your response.
11 Mar, 2009, tphegley wrote in the 39th comment:
Votes: 0
What were we talking about again? :tongue: Just kidding.

DavidHaley said:
But I am positing as fact (not opinion) that it's not appropriate to make any kind of reference to any kind of realism if they aren't trying to create/maintain internal consistency. In particular, real world facts are irrelevant if the game world rules are completely different to begin with.



I think every game is based on realism but then carry off into their own realism (catered to that game). As a matter of fact, I do care about consistancy of the laws, but my argument was that with fantasy anything can happen and that it's up to the author to determine what he believes to add to the realism (and internal consistancy) of his game. He still has real world facts and physics, but there are other dimensions to them that he has created.

DavidHaley said:
I was also positing as fact that accepting dragons is orthogonal to accepting that people can catch arrows – I believe that we agreed on that point, unless I misunderstood your response.


Yes, in a fantasy world, anything can happen. Whether it should or not in real world doesn't matter because it's fantasy. And this has pretty much been my whole argument I've talked about in all my responses.

When I play a game, I get immersed into that world and everything involved. It's a game and you just believe what you are given in that game, whether or not the 'laws' of that game are realistic or fantastical, I'll believe it in the context of that game since after all…it is a game. I won't get bent out of shape if this dude can fly and no one else can't just because. It's a game and you conform to the laws of that game when you play it.
11 Mar, 2009, Tyche wrote in the 40th comment:
Votes: 0
David Haley said:
Basically, just because something is fiction doesn't give full license to do whatever you want and keep it believable. If Gandalf could blast hordes of orcs with a single wave of his staff, and do this regularly, why would there even be a war of armies in the first place? People can suspend disbelief and accept a new physics, but that doesn't excuse this new world from consistency. Of course, you can suspend disbelief to the point of accepting basically everything, which is sometimes a good thing for games. But such a game should never pretend to be working in any kind of believable framework. It's ok for something to be unbelievable and still be fun, but it's somewhat irritating to have somebody present a world that makes no sense and yet take it very seriously as a plausible place.


"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?" :-)
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