This reminds me of a
post I made ?before I was on the dev team.
It is probably one of the reasons I am on the dev team?
However I really am split on this and it is one of the core, (role-play Vs. Game play) things in a game of this type.
How do people verify a lie, how do people know if a monster can beat them???
Some creatures at first glance should seem scary as hell?they would hardly be so if they conned as a insignificant gnat to you. there are creatures that have a bark that is much worse then their bite.
On choosing a partner?I?m also split on the best way to do this?resume/title/reputation might be something. Allowing people to see another?s stats, makes me feel like there is something very wrong.
I have a small problem having players know the stat of their own characters, allowing people to show others their stats makes this a pure hack and slash.
Hack and Slash?there is a term for you non-role-playing types :-)
People who know the term?well knowing the challenge rating of something and how good something is leads to this.
People who don?t?when a role playing game is reduced to number crunching?you are hack and slashing, I don?t care if it is having your character make a quilt or killing kobolds. Hack and slash is when you reduce and challenge/confrontation to number crunching.
Venge, and everyone else, I know that in the end everything on a computer is reduced to 101010. But I feel it is our job to create an environment where the player can escape that reality.
With computers doing the number crunching, we can to a large degree get rid of much of the numbers?I know we can?t get rid of all the numbers (this was discussed a while ago)
But to give a real life experience?about 12 years ago while at a Rural School in South America?me and my class where walking back from a demonstration on Plowing techniques?and as most teen age boys do when unsupervised and surrounded by hand size clumps of dirt, we stated a dirt rock fight while we slowly made our way back to class. And as I was reaching for my next dirt rock I noticed a coiling up right in front of me?I put my foot on it.
Now about 3 seconds later I knew this was a stupid idea?while I had really sturdy steal toe work boots, I?d have to jump away eventually, plus me and the snake where on a mound of loose dirt, my time was short?worst of all is we verified the snake was poisonous, it was a Coral Snake, and being a 15 min run from the school and about a 20 min drive to the nearest hospital?my personal life expectancy had suddenly become very short.
However two of the 30 kids in my class made some good side money selling pelts and skins. And while they where the only voices of calm among a bunch of panicking kids, I personally had transcended to that stoic silence some people get when they are pretty sure the out come will not be favorable.
Well the end result was two kids too off their pants and we wrapped my lower legs with a thick layer of protection?and then I prepared to jump?all the other kids waited for my count?and stoned the poor snake to death.
The two skinners in the class where a bit pissed that we thrashed the snake, and I had a big bruise from where a stray rock hit me?I was happy with the result.
Point of all this: Well knowledge is power, those two kids formulated a plan based on luck and knowledge, as well as personal experience. I was an outdoorsy type at the time, but I never encountered that snake before?and I was pretty sure that it was a false Coral, (thinking real Corals didn?t live in those parts) if I had not had the opinion of two people I felt knew more then me on the subject I would have probably have done something stupid.
Now in a game, how do we give this knowledge to the character, how do we impart life experience to the character?
I think we can do it with a very good faction/reputation/allegiance/acquired knowledge system. Is that realistic?not sure, should it be accurate?no. But a character with a ton of charisma and the right talk should be able to get a low mental stat individual to think he is a healer, when in reality he is a rogue looking to score the next big Loot run.
But this also comes down to the type of game we want to have.
As some of you know, I can go for either one, but if we are going for the best RPG to date?this is one area I strongly feel we should not allow exact information.
We should allow people to lie about how good they are, and what they have done. But we should also allow people to verify some things quickly.
I suggest a skill?Bullshit detector :-) that helps compare things?but that is just a suggestion. If we want a Real Con system we can have one, but a Con system that is cross referenced with character knowledge would be more up my ally, and being able to see the Stats of other characters is a total invasion?Like looking at another persons character sheet during a role playing competition.
Anyway those are my thoughts on the subject :-)