10 Mar, 2010, Deimos wrote in the 21st comment:
Votes: 0
David Haley said:
A race, in nearly all cases, is a collection of properties, not a set of behaviors.

I know you qualified this by saying "in nearly all cases", but I just wanted to point out how easily you could be wrong. Someone may want "Djinn" (a race) to be the only thing in their game that can grant player wishes. Wish granting behavior can then be logically tied to Djinn, and Djinn is no longer just a set of properties. I'm not saying it has to be, or even that it should. On the contrary, it would be just as easy to have Djinn and WishGranter prototypes that you could add to a Creature. Race is really abstract in a MUD context, and it's not right or wrong to implement it in any given way. The reason I started the thread in the first place was to gain insights into these other ways, and I'm glad I did, as prototyping is the system I'll most likely end up going with.
10 Mar, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 22nd comment:
Votes: 0
shasarak said:
When Bruce Banner becomes The Hulk, you don't necessarily want him to be a weak Hulk simply because Banner is weak - it is precisely the contrast between the two states which makes the scenario interesting. Similarly, a weak person affected by lycanthropy shouldn't necessarily become a werewolf that is too weak to kill anybody; what makes lycanthropy interesting is a weak human becoming transformed into a powerful, lethal predator.

It's hard to make any comparisons with the Hulk, because he's unique, but IMO it would make sense for him to be even stronger if Bruce Banner worked out.

I'd also apply the same reasoning to werewolves - a good example is the Werewolf WoD tabletop game, where human have stats in the range 1-5, and most people have 2 in all stats. Werewolves get +4 strength, meaning that the weakest possible werewolf (in wolfman form) is the same strength as the strongest human in the world. But if the strongest human were to become a werewolf, his strength would far outstrip the first werewolf.

deimos said:
I know you qualified this by saying "in nearly all cases", but I just wanted to point out how easily you could be wrong. Someone may want "Djinn" (a race) to be the only thing in their game that can grant player wishes. Wish granting behavior can then be logically tied to Djinn, and Djinn is no longer just a set of properties.

From a design perspective I think it would still make a lot of sense not to tie the wish-granting behavior to the Djinn - otherwise, should you later wish to give other races that same ability (perhaps Djinn subraces, or special one-off mobs, or even half-Djinn) you'd need to rewrite code to do it.
10 Mar, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 23rd comment:
Votes: 0
Perhaps I should have said that in sane designs, the race is a collection of properties. Of course, any property whatsoever can always be treated as a behavior, but to put it simply it would often be somewhat stupid to do so. :tongue: While it seems somewhat silly to get into an argument about what is "right" or "wrong", it seems pretty clear that some approaches have advantages over others, and in order to justify abandoning those advantages one should provide fairly clear advantages in turn.

Even in this case, we start with Djinn, then we get DesertDjinn and MountainDjinn, oh wait and then there's the HillDjinn and his buddy the CaveDjinn, oh oh and there's also their cousins the Efreet and the BottleGenie, and we pretty rapidly see that one approach locks us in, making for rather silly workarounds, whereas another makes it far easier to do this sort of stuff.
10 Mar, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 24th comment:
Votes: 0
My previous post was in reply to Deimos, if that wasn't clear.

KaVir said:
It's hard to make any comparisons with the Hulk, because he's unique, but IMO it would make sense for him to be even stronger if Bruce Banner worked out.

I'd also apply the same reasoning to werewolves - a good example is the Werewolf WoD tabletop game, where human have stats in the range 1-5, and most people have 2 in all stats. Werewolves get +4 strength, meaning that the weakest possible werewolf (in wolfman form) is the same strength as the strongest human in the world. But if the strongest human were to become a werewolf, his strength would far outstrip the first werewolf.

Without agreeing or disagreeing with your statement, I think that these issues are purely thematic and not exactly an objective truth about all possible forms of shape-shifting.
10 Mar, 2010, Deimos wrote in the 25th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
From a design perspective I think it would still make a lot of sense not to tie the wish-granting behavior to the Djinn - otherwise, should you later wish to give other races that same ability (perhaps Djinn subraces, or special one-off mobs, or even half-Djinn) you'd need to rewrite code to do it.

Djinn subraces would inherit from Djinn, and thus have that behavior as well. In your other examples, if they applied to a particular game, or if the designer thought they may apply in the future then I will agree with you. I, personally, want to keep my design as open and flexible as possible, which is why this thread has prompted me to restructure some things.

David Haley said:
Even in this case, we start with Djinn, then we get DesertDjinn and MountainDjinn, oh wait and then there's the HillDjinn and his buddy the CaveDjinn, oh oh and there's also their cousins the Efreet and the BottleGenie, and we pretty rapidly see that one approach locks us in, making for rather silly workarounds, whereas another makes it far easier to do this sort of stuff.

As I mentioned to KaVir, all of these Djinns would be subclasses of Djinn, inheriting the wish granting behavior.

This is getting off-topic, though, so I'll leave it at that and let's get back to the "how" and leave the "why" to the philosophers :wink:
10 Mar, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 26th comment:
Votes: 0
Well, this isn't just a philosophical question. What if you have undead Djinn, which inherit from several properties, or Efreeti, which aren't Djinni and thus wouldn't inherit from it? In the undead case, you end up in Ye Olde Crosse Producte problem again, which is nasty, and in the latter case, well, it becomes clear that granting wishes is separate anyhow.

The 'why' and 'how' aren't really so separate when the reason for the 'why' is that it will make the 'how' easier. (Incidentally I don't really think we were discussing 'why' as a philosophical question, other than to say 'why not' to adopt a certain approach.)

But if you want to talk strictly pragmatics, then it would be useful for you to say why it's better to have the wish-granting behavior be a class and not a property composable with other properties. You said "oh sure, we can do it this way though". But you didn't say why it should be done that way. We've presented you with several reasons why it shouldn't be done that way. Heck, even you said that it would be just as easy to use the component approach, so the argument isn't related to complexity.
10 Mar, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 27th comment:
Votes: 0
David Haley said:
Without agreeing or disagreeing with your statement, I think that these issues are purely thematic and not exactly an objective truth about all possible forms of shape-shifting.

I'm just arguing my personal preference. I know some systems work differently (for example the polymorph spell in D&D, where the shapechanger gains the physical stats of the new form), but I favour the idea of stat modifiers for different forms. This can still allow you to turn Conan into a weak frog (although he'll be much stronger than most other frogs), but it lets you retain the relative value of the different stats. If you play a werewolf, then your physical stats will be devalued if they're replaced while you're in wolf or wolfman form - if you spend most of your time in those forms, you might as well put your stat points into something else.
10 Mar, 2010, Deimos wrote in the 28th comment:
Votes: 0
@David Haley:
I'm not one of those people who says "I'll leave it at that" and then doesn't leave it at that, sorry to disappoint :grin:
10 Mar, 2010, shasarak wrote in the 29th comment:
Votes: 0
deimos said:
Someone may want "Djinn" (a race) to be the only thing in their game that can grant player wishes. Wish granting behavior can then be logically tied to Djinn, and Djinn is no longer just a set of properties. I'm not saying it has to be, or even that it should. On the contrary, it would be just as easy to have Djinn and WishGranter prototypes that you could add to a Creature. Race is really abstract in a MUD context, and it's not right or wrong to implement it in any given way. The reason I started the thread in the first place was to gain insights into these other ways, and I'm glad I did, as prototyping is the system I'll most likely end up going with.

Under what circumstances is it actually preferable to wrap up wish-granting behaviour into the Djinn race class? I can't see that you could ever possibly gain anything by doing that, and you certainly lose flexibility - if you every do change your mind about Djinn being the only wish-granters then you've made extra work for yourself by encapsulating things badly the first time round.
10 Mar, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 30th comment:
Votes: 0
deimos said:
@David Haley:
I'm not one of those people who says "I'll leave it at that" and then doesn't leave it at that, sorry to disappoint :grin:

You asked to get back to the 'how'. I asked you what that meant and tried to do that. If you're interested in discussing the 'how', then discuss the 'how'. Don't say you want to get back to it and then dismiss attempts to do so; that's a little rude, IMHO. If you feel that my comments did not address the 'how', it would be polite to say why not. In fact, I asked you a very direct pragmatic question (the same question Shasarak just posed) that you somewhat flippantly ignored. What exactly is it that you want to talk about?
11 Mar, 2010, Tyche wrote in the 31st comment:
Votes: 0
Runter said:
Tyche said:
object $human
parents $creature;
endobject

object $orc
parents $creature;
endobject

object $half_orc
parents $human, $orc;
endobject


I was interested in the assumptions that were going to be made.

Note the diamond inheritance!

A completely different sort…
object $half_orc1
parents $orc, $human;
endobject

And this…
object $half_orc2
parents $undead, $orc, $human;
endobject

Wikipedia says that Inheritance is static and MI is bad.
*shrug* go figure.
11 Mar, 2010, Deimos wrote in the 32nd comment:
Votes: 0
While trying to decide whether to associate attributes with bodies or souls (I think there are excellent points supporting both methods), I had an idea that I wanted to run by you guys. What if only physical attributes tied to the body, and the others tied to the soul? In other words, things like strength, agility, speed, and the like would be tied to whatever body you're in at the time, whereas intelligence, focus, wisdom, etc. might be tied to your soul. Depending on what exactly the attributes are used for in a particular game, I think this could make for a pretty interesting compromise. What do you think?
11 Mar, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 33rd comment:
Votes: 0
Deimos said:
What do you think?

That's exactly how D&D works, as I mentioned in post #27, where I also went on to describe why I don't like it.
11 Mar, 2010, Deimos wrote in the 34th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
That's exactly how D&D works, as I mentioned in post #27, where I also went on to describe why I don't like it.

Hmm, well I've never played D&D before *ducks* and I must have missed that post, but after reading it now, it seems like you don't like it because of issues that could very easily be resolved. Using your particular example (playing a werewolf), there's no reason why you couldn't save the player's wolf-form body as well as the human-form body. You'd essentially be training the physical attributes of 2 bodies and non-physical attributes of 1 soul, as opposed to the traditional training of 1 body/soul combination.

Edit: Of course, if you had something like a shapeshifter race, this would be a very bad approach either way you look at it.
11 Mar, 2010, shasarak wrote in the 35th comment:
Votes: 0
Deimos said:
KaVir said:
That's exactly how D&D works, as I mentioned in post #27, where I also went on to describe why I don't like it.

Hmm, well I've never played D&D before *ducks* and I must have missed that post, but after reading it now, it seems like you don't like it because of issues that could very easily be resolved. Using your particular example (playing a werewolf), there's no reason why you couldn't save the player's wolf-form body as well as the human-form body. You'd essentially be training the physical attributes of 2 bodies and non-physical attributes of 1 soul, as opposed to the traditional training of 1 body/soul combination.

Edit: Of course, if you had something like a shapeshifter race, this would be a very bad approach either way you look at it.

So if you get polymorphed into half a dozen different forms one after the other, with the possibility of returning to any of those forms at any time, do you track each one separately? Do you track the fact that strength gained while morphed into an ogre should have a carried-over impact when subsequently morphed into a hill giant?

If you want a system like KaVir's then you really do have to think in terms not of switching a mind from one body to another, but of the samebody dynamically changing species. The attributes of the species then act as modifiers to the body's stats rather than as a source of absolute values. So, for example, if a human body is considered to have a strength scaler of 1, a hill giant body might have a scaler of 2, and an elf body a scaler of 0.8. Thus, when a human shape-shifts into a hill giant, his strength doubles. If he morphs into an elf, his strength falls to 0.8 times its human level, and so on.

Now, whether or not you do want a system like KaVir's is a whole other question! I can see where he's coming from, but I think this is something that could very easily be argued either way. Thematic considerations are likely to push you one way or the other. If you ask, should a very strong human produce a very strong werewolf, or should the strength of the werewolf be independent of the character's strength when in human form? then I really don't think there is a definitive answer to that. KaVir thinks the answer should be yes; I have no difficulty with him feeling that way; but I would equally well have no difficulty with anyone wishing to disagree. It just depends on how you think lycanthropy ought to operate. It might even make sense to have it work one way for certain transformations and a different way for others: for a human becoming a vampire, the vampire's strength might be dependent on the strength of the living human; but for a human magically polymorphed into a dragon, different rules might apply. It's very much up to you!

Deimos said:
While trying to decide whether to associate attributes with bodies or souls (I think there are excellent points supporting both methods), I had an idea that I wanted to run by you guys. What if only physical attributes tied to the body, and the others tied to the soul? In other words, things like strength, agility, speed, and the like would be tied to whatever body you're in at the time, whereas intelligence, focus, wisdom, etc. might be tied to your soul. Depending on what exactly the attributes are used for in a particular game, I think this could make for a pretty interesting compromise. What do you think?

In cases where you actually are fairly unambiguously moving a mind from one body to another (such as when the spirit of an evil mage temporarily possesses his victim), then you need to ask questions like the above. Again, I don't think there is any firm answer, though. As with so many questions, you really need to decide what outcome you want, and then adjust thematic considerations and game mechanics to achieve it; you're always letting yourself in for a world of hurt if you decide on the mechanics and then worry about the implications of your decision.

There really isn't any real-life, common sense analogue to this, because in real life people can't actually move their minds from one body to another! So you can argue this pretty much any way you like. You could argue that something like intelligence is purely connected to the mind/soul, and that an evil mastermind remains a mastermind even when possessing the body of an idiot; but you could equally well argue that intelligence is a property of the brain rather than the mind, and that the evil mastermind's ability to solve complex problems will be limited by the brainpower of the host he is currently occupying. If intelligence is also the stat that you use to determine how great your magical energy reserves are then that, again, could be associated with the soul (if magical energy is an entirely mystical phenomenon) or with the body (if magical energy is in some sense linked to the body's physical or chemical energy reserves). You could also argue about whether knowledge (such as knowledge of spells or certain skills) is held in the mind or in the brain - should a possessing spirit have access to the memories of its host? - and whether (say) skill at sword-fighting is a property of the mind, or if it's more about muscle-memory.

Basically, decide what you want to do, then justify it. :smile:
11 Mar, 2010, Deimos wrote in the 36th comment:
Votes: 0
shasarak said:
So if you get polymorphed into half a dozen different forms one after the other, with the possibility of returning to any of those forms at any time, do you track each one separately? Do you track the fact that strength gained while morphed into an ogre should have a carried-over impact when subsequently morphed into a hill giant?

If by "gained" you mean "trained", then I would say that such situations aren't applicable, since I probably wouldn't allow training of a physical attribute while in a body that isn't your own. In the werewolf example, you would actually "own" 2 bodies, both of which would be saved/loaded. Like I said, though, if you wanted to allow for a playable shapeshifter race that could morph into more than a small handful of forms, it would be extremely impractical to use a system like this.

shasarak said:
If you want a system like KaVir's then you really do have to think in terms not of switching a mind from one body to another, but of the samebody dynamically changing species. The attributes of the species then act as modifiers to the body's stats rather than as a source of absolute values. So, for example, if a human body is considered to have a strength scaler of 1, a hill giant body might have a scaler of 2, and an elf body a scaler of 0.8. Thus, when a human shape-shifts into a hill giant, his strength doubles. If he morphs into an elf, his strength falls to 0.8 times its human level, and so on.

That's how I'm currently modeling my system. Races will just have sets of attribute modifiers. What I'm trying to decide is whether the base values for these modifiers to modify should -all- be part of the Soul class (which I presume is what KaVir is suggesting), or if base physical values should be part of the Creature class (which compositions the Soul).

shasarak said:
Now, whether or not you do want a system like KaVir's is a whole other question! I can see where he's coming from, but I think this is something that could very easily be argued either way. Thematic considerations are likely to push you one way or the other. If you ask, should a very strong human produce a very strong werewolf, or should the strength of the werewolf be independent of the character's strength when in human form? then I really don't think there is a definitive answer to that. KaVir thinks the answer should be yes; I have no difficulty with him feeling that way; but I would equally well have no difficulty with anyone wishing to disagree. It just depends on how you think lycanthropy ought to operate. It might even make sense to have it work one way for certain transformations and a different way for others: for a human becoming a vampire, the vampire's strength might be dependent on the strength of the living human; but for a human magically polymorphed into a dragon, different rules might apply. It's very much up to you!

I can also see both sides of it, but I thought maybe a system that merged the two might be cool, as well. Using your example with my proposed system, a strong human might not make a stronger werewolf than a weak human, but an intelligent human would make a more intelligent werewolf than a stupid human. The non-physical attributes would follow your soul around, but not the physical ones.

shasarak said:
You could also argue about whether knowledge (such as knowledge of spells or certain skills) is held in the mind or in the brain - should a possessing spirit have access to the memories of its host? - and whether (say) skill at sword-fighting is a property of the mind, or if it's more about muscle-memory.

Wow, that's a great point that I hadn't thought about before. IMO, I'd probably attribute proficiency in skills to some combination of the two, because a concept like "sword fighting" is vague, at best. Does it represent your knowledge of sword-fighting techniques, or does it represent your ability to put that knowledge to use in reality? I say both. How to implement that duality is a whole other brainstorm, though.
11 Mar, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 37th comment:
Votes: 0
shasarak said:
You could also argue about whether knowledge (such as knowledge of spells or certain skills) is held in the mind or in the brain - should a possessing spirit have access to the memories of its host? - and whether (say) skill at sword-fighting is a property of the mind, or if it's more about muscle-memory.

Of course, what is called "muscle memory" isn't necessarily only a property of the muscles themselves, but more of a near-subconscious reaction due to intensive, long-term repetitive training.

I'll sit here in amusement that it was said that philosophical discussions are unwelcome and yet here we are going on about the mind-body duality and where experience and training lives.
11 Mar, 2010, KaVir wrote in the 38th comment:
Votes: 0
Deimos said:
Hmm, well I've never played D&D before *ducks* and I must have missed that post, but after reading it now, it seems like you don't like it because of issues that could very easily be resolved. Using your particular example (playing a werewolf), there's no reason why you couldn't save the player's wolf-form body as well as the human-form body. You'd essentially be training the physical attributes of 2 bodies and non-physical attributes of 1 soul, as opposed to the traditional training of 1 body/soul combination.

I was envisioning the standard approach to stats, where players can distribute their stat points during character creation. The issue there is that the werewolf could put all his stat points into mental stats and leave his physical stats at minimum, then spend all his time shapechanged into wolfman form.

A system where each form needs to be trained separately runs into other problems. As Shasarak pointed out, you could end up having to track multiple forms. Each form would also add an advancement overhead to the character, further encouraging the werewolf to just stick to one form.

shasarak said:
If you want a system like KaVir's then you really do have to think in terms not of switching a mind from one body to another, but of the same body dynamically changing species. The attributes of the species then act as modifiers to the body's stats rather than as a source of absolute values. So, for example, if a human body is considered to have a strength scaler of 1, a hill giant body might have a scaler of 2, and an elf body a scaler of 0.8. Thus, when a human shape-shifts into a hill giant, his strength doubles. If he morphs into an elf, his strength falls to 0.8 times its human level, and so on.

Actually I'm not so fond of that, either, as it distorts the relative value of stats. I agree that it's probably more realistic (and you could even display the stats in the same numeric range regardless of race, so that stat X is always the same relative to your current race), but from a balance perspective I prefer something more linear.

shasarak said:
If you ask, should a very strong human produce a very strong werewolf, or should the strength of the werewolf be independent of the character's strength when in human form? then I really don't think there is a definitive answer to that. KaVir thinks the answer should be yes

Just to clarify, I'm not saying that either approach is "wrong", but having seen both in action I personally prefer shapechanging to modify physical stats rather than replace them. I've already mentioned that I prefer this for gameplay reasons, but cosmetics also play a part of it (which is why I also base the appearance of a wolf on its human form).
11 Mar, 2010, David Haley wrote in the 39th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
Just to clarify, I'm not saying that either approach is "wrong", but having seen both in action I personally prefer shapechanging to modify physical stats rather than replace them. I've already mentioned that I prefer this for gameplay reasons, but cosmetics also play a part of it (which is why I also base the appearance of a wolf on its human form).

A lot of what you're saying makes some sense to me for relatively minor changes in appearance. I don't view a human getting bigger and turning into a wolf-man as a major shape change (in a fantasy world etc.) so fine, it makes sense that the human's attributes, appearance etc. would matter. But if a human is turning into something completely different, like a dragon, or even an actual animal (as opposed to the anthropomorphised version) it becomes far less clear that a human's attributes/appearance would really matter at all.
11 Mar, 2010, Deimos wrote in the 40th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
I was envisioning the standard approach to stats, where players can distribute their stat points during character creation. The issue there is that the werewolf could put all his stat points into mental stats and leave his physical stats at minimum, then spend all his time shapechanged into wolfman form.

He'd just be a smarter/weaker (more balanced) wolfman than his friend who put all his stat points into physical stats and spends all his time shapechanged into a wolfman. I don't really see an issue with that trade-off. It's just player preference.

KaVir said:
Each form would also add an advancement overhead to the character, further encouraging the werewolf to just stick to one form.

True, but that could be mitigated pretty easily with advancement cost tampering. This is already done in many games where, say, a class has 10 skills which are all relatively expensive, but another class has 50 skills that are all very cheap. Both classes end up with the same overhead, even with the rather large differential.
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