Re: [s-d] [s-b] Consultation

[Daniel Lepage <dplepage@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Dec 3, 2007, at 2:12 AM, Roger Hicks wrote:

> On Dec 2, 2007 11:15 AM, Daniel Lepage <dplepage@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> Therefore, I claim that the only reasonable choice is the first
>> extreme: we should assume that any game action not explicitly
>> permitted by the rules is forbidden, without needing any rule to tell
>> us this.
>>
> Or we could just use a little common sense. As reasonable thinking
> people, I suspect it would be easy for us to determine what should be
> regulated and what shouldn't be. Consider it an unwritten
> meta-guideline, but it only makes sense for the players of the game to
> act within the spirit of the rules on issues like this. There's plenty
> of other ways to run scams without having to resort to "I create 5000
> points for myself because I don't think it is regulated". We could
> squabble over this point for days (actually, I think we have), but in
> the end we all have to agree not to try and exploit this over and over
> again, otherwise I doubt we will have a very enjoyable time.

These things really need to be spelled out in the rules. Unwritten  
guidelines only last until new players join in. I've seen this recent  
argument and subsequent emergency happen several times before in this  
game, and every time it happened because most of the players who had  
argued about it last time had dropped out and the new players hadn't  
argued about it yet. If we could just get some of these big arguments  
written down in some form so that new players could go through the  
whole process on their own time, we wouldn't have to repeat all this  
every year or two.

To be perfectly honest, I find the whole argument rather boring, and  
I'd much rather be working on developing a playable game than arguing  
about the semantics of vague meta-gaming concepts.

Speaking of which, a subgame idea: A grid board, with objects on the  
spaces, and players move around, say once per nweek, taking actions  
with said objects.

Three principal selling points:
1) It's a partially cooperative game. The players would be divided  
into three teams, and various aspects of the Grid would encourage  
cooperation between the teams and within the teams, while other  
aspects would encourage competition between teams and between  
individuals within a team.

2) It's round-based: we define a 'starting map' for each round, which  
is an initial state of the grid, plus a list of 'goals'; when all the  
goals are completed, the round ends, and a new starting map is  
selected; the next round then begins.

3) It doesn't change suddenly. New objects, concepts, and abilities  
could be proposed, but unless special measures were needed, it  
wouldn't be possible to do anything with the new things until the Next  
Round (and then only if the starting map incorporates them). This  
means that everyone has a bit of time to consider what new things do  
before they get used, and gives anyone who might be trying to automate  
chunks of this a chance to code up objects before they need to handle  
them.
So, for example, we might do something like this... We define the  
following objects as Grid Objects:
Spawn Points (S): this is where players can put themselves on the Grid  
if they're not on it. Players can only spawn at these points.
Walls (W): this is just a space that can't be moved through.
Blocks (B): These are walls, except that a player can push one out of  
the way if the space behind the block is vacant.

Laser Death Trap (L): if a player enters one of these, e Dies and is  
removed from the Grid. If another object is pushed in, it gets  
destroyed.

Gold Coin (G): if a player moves into a square containing a coin, the  
coin moves to eir possession. When the round ends, each player gains 5  
points for every coin possessed by a member of eir team, and an  
additional 4 points for every coin e personally possesses.

With those objects, we make a map like this:
S - G B - B G - S
- W W - W - W W -
G W G G L G G W G
B - G - B - G - B
- W L B G B L W -
B - G - B - G - B
G W G G L G G W G
- W W - W - W W -
S - G B - B G - S

We define the following as the goal: the round ends when all Gold  
Coins have been collected.

Then the game for the round would be a race to get all the coins,  
pushing through the blocks to reach them before other players do. You  
want the members of your team to get all the coins; but you also want  
to get more coins than the rest of your teammates. By pushing players  
into Laser Traps, you can cause them to die (perhaps they lose a coin  
every time this happens). OTOH, it's also possible to get a situation  
where the only way to get a certain coin (and thus to end the Round)  
is to die and respawn at a different point. In such a case, each  
player would want somebody on their team other than emself to die and  
do this, so you'd have fights within teams to see who can force a  
member to go after the last coins first.
While all this was happening, we'd also be proposing new Grid Objects  
and potential levels with those objects, maybe using some of the  
objects from earlier levels as well.

-- 
Wonko

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