[CF-Devel] Item Damage idea

[Kevin R. Bulgrien]

On Monday 02 September 2002 04:00, I wrote:

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      The game modelling being described here is very complex.  Complexity is
     
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      not always a good thing...  Sometimes its nice for the player to actually
     
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      be able to intuitively understand what is going on.  If an idea has merit,
     
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      I'd suggest starting with a simple implementation instead of going all out.
     
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      This may be a bad example, but take a simple item like "bracers".  I don't
     
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      know how many games I've played where the docs have to do some
     
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      verbal dance around why bracers sometimes seem to help AC and
     
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      sometimes not.  The explanation,  I understand, has to do with a complex
     
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      D&D rule that is kept around for whatever reasons.  I'm not a rabid D&D
     
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      type person who wants to know all the rules, and that's why I play games
     
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      like Crossfire...  If I was a complexity freak, I'd probably not do games
     
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      like Crossfire.  So, back to the point... bracers bug the crap out of me. 
     
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      I don't always want to take the time to research how things work.  I'd like
     
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      it to basically make sense and be somewhat obvious what is going on...
     
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      Bracer complexity is nothing compared to zone damage rules and other
     
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      ideas being discussed here.  I see a scenario developing that results in
     
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      a game I may not want to play... a reality simulation and not a fantasy.
     
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      I would rather trust my ability to decide whether my cool magical stuff
     
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      will give me reasonable odds for surviving a challenging fight as-is,
     
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      and not realize that all my protection will rot away under my feet
     
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      according to some rocket-science that will be hard to simulate
     
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      in the heat of gaming.
     
     
To try to counter a possibility for misunderstanding... I recognize that some
of he Crossfire battle modelling is pretty complex...  The formulae for 
damage, etc. are hairy - to say the least...  Nevertheless, one does not 
have to grasp the complexity of the formula in order to have a vague idea
about what is going to happen if I use an identified dagger, poleaxe, or
what-have-you...

Sometimes complexity is necessarily good...  but I think that it might be
said that this kind is often hidden from  the player, and made to model
something that is quite obviously intuitive to a human player.  Apparant
randomness can be frustrating.  Take acid damage...  It can be said that
maybe the best reason to wear bracers is that they are help "mute the
annoying randomness" by taking acid damage first...  I think muting of
randomness by adding a particular piece of armor makes the game
more pleasant (though it pains me tremendously when accumulated
acid damage takes my bracers of magical power +5  down to -5... 8-O ).

I accentuated my example of bracers to make a point...  At some level,
one must be able to accept things like this, and just play the game to
see if it is really a significant issue when you consider the whole
model.  For bracers, its not that big of a deal.  Wear the best ones
you have - trust that the developer of the D&D rules knew what he
was doing from experiences during gaming.  If the game play feels
ok, then you choose to keep playing the game and not shelve it.