tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post5423977782251773929..comments2023-10-14T03:58:59.333-06:00Comments on The Tao of D&D: Enough With The RPG CrapAlexis Smolenskhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10539170107563075967noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post-62444893977679502882011-10-14T06:37:52.460-06:002011-10-14T06:37:52.460-06:00no i haven't read your online campaign i will ...no i haven't read your online campaign i will have to take a look at it. <br /><br />i am interested in the other people that think like you tho in how they think the game is going your way. do they have a blog or web page or anything that i could read their thoughts ? i don't know of any other person that shares your vision. could you point me in the right direction ?<br /><br />Problem with people like you, Kenwolf, is you think that 'majority' means jack shit in designing anything.<br /><br />i never said that. in all the places i post i have never said that. i said i didn't agree with the way you think the game is headed.Kenwolfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03448885434379398919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post-89809951514621573982011-10-13T23:54:30.468-06:002011-10-13T23:54:30.468-06:00Kenwolf,
Maybe you haven't seen my online cam...Kenwolf,<br /><br />Maybe you haven't seen my online campaign ... doesn't move with complexity at all, just moves. Gun analogy, remember?<br /><br />Problem with people like you, Kenwolf, is you think that 'majority' means jack shit in designing anything.<br /><br />The game is going this way because I, and people like me, are going to drag all you simpletons with us.<br /><br />And you won't even know.Alexis Smolenskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10539170107563075967noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post-3996232104542157872011-10-13T20:57:06.639-06:002011-10-13T20:57:06.639-06:00i think you might have your work cut out for you i...i think you might have your work cut out for you in bringing the effects of weather into your game as detailed as you would like it to be. once you start getting very specific about how the weather is affecting people, then you also will have to figure out how it is gonna be affecting all their belongings also.<br /><br /> from the short time that i have been following your blog i see that your not one to half ass things at all. you ether try to do it right or not at all. <br /><br />i will agree with you that i think you are alone in this kind of detail and how you do your game. i have never read anyone that gets into the detail that you do. <br /><br />do you ever think that you might at some point make your game too complex ? from what i read it sounds like your game is very complex, does it play as complex as it sounds in your blog posts ?<br /><br />i do disagree with you tho in how you think the future of the game is going. i think it is how you think the game should go. i don't see a lot of people that agree with you on that direction tho.Kenwolfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03448885434379398919noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post-1032792977311195682011-10-13T19:45:30.078-06:002011-10-13T19:45:30.078-06:00Sharon,
Others may not appreciate that sort of th...Sharon,<br /><br />Others may not appreciate that sort of thing, but I seriously thought that whole paragraph about horses <i>was really, really cool!</i><br /><br />I am intimately connected to someone who trains horses for a living, and she would also think it was fantastic.Alexis Smolenskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10539170107563075967noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post-69870198258816654012011-10-13T19:09:54.924-06:002011-10-13T19:09:54.924-06:00Below are some links which might help. The idea is...Below are some links which might help. The idea is simple: use all the existing and currently running forecast data maps running across our Earth as your data base.<br /><br />If you can correlate certain areas of your world to certain cities/regions of Earth, then you can let scientific entities like the National Weather Service do the crunching of data. You just establish how 'real time' you want Earth and your world to be in synchronization. Your world will always lag behind such notetaking, but this is useful: You'll have notes on what the weather <i>will</i> be in your game world, making predictive spells or instincts more robust in game.<br /><br />In terms of time spent, your best research will be finding the closest correspondences in the globe to areas of your game world and just... watch the weather forecasts for the raw data. Using the real stuff will get you temperature, pressure, cloud cover, etc.<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_weather_prediction" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_weather_prediction</a><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prognostic_chart" rel="nofollow">Prognostic Chart</a><br /><a href="http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/" rel="nofollow">Climate Prediction Center</a><br /><a href="http://www.oar.noaa.gov/weather/t_modeling.html" rel="nofollow">Weather Models</a>scottszhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10327316054801308727noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post-5518544366580766592011-10-13T18:47:20.889-06:002011-10-13T18:47:20.889-06:00I understand your point on this one. I get lambast...I understand your point on this one. I get lambasted by my husband all the time for working the details to death. I don't choose to throw as much time at the problem as you do, I'd rather get on with playing, in most cases, but there are a few pet projects I'm working on that are a lot of fun for me.<br /><br />Ultimately my tables won't be quite as critical to the player. Unless the players are as horse crazy as me, they really won't care that their horse is homozygous for dun and cream and will always have a dun and cream dilute baby (unless they find out that a region might pay high prices for this color because it's rare). They likewise won't care that their horse is a carrier of overo and shouldn't be bred to other overos unless they want a dead foal 25 or 50% of the time (which can cause problems if you agree to put your horse up to stud. People don't like getting dead foals, and will want either a refund, or free re-breeding of their mare). They might care that their horse is over at the knee, which makes him prone to stumbling, and downhill to boot, meaning he's too heavy on his forehand to jump effectively, and even more likely to break a front leg in a gallop. They might not care, but I care very much for these details, because I'm passionate about the subject.<br /><br />Your passion for statistics is absolutely staggering. The necessary complexity to represent reality in your tables is more than a little awe-inspiring for me. I'm not a patient person at all, and I really love that you're sharing a lot of your tables, because I love high levels of reality in my gaming. I may not use your tables exactly, but they certainly provide a more than adequate jumping off point to try develop something similar, but on a different subject.Keiran Colehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17001106731332971318noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post-56211772386044963562011-10-13T17:57:12.883-06:002011-10-13T17:57:12.883-06:00Maybe the problem is disassociation with the weath...Maybe the problem is disassociation with the weather. Modern westerners live in comfort compared to people of other ages (and places). Our homes are heated and cooled as are our vehicles, most of us work and in equally comfortable environments.<br /><br />How do you explain to someone what it's like to sit huddled around a tiny fire on a snowy mountainside, smudging your food more than cooking it, listening to the wind miles away drawing closer knowing it's going to go from bitterly cold to painful in a few moments? <br /><br />Someone has to be able to understand that and describe it to someone else to make it fit and be meaningful in an RPG session.JDJarvishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07691101939920824546noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post-54203959611423827692011-10-13T15:29:55.094-06:002011-10-13T15:29:55.094-06:00Thoughts:
Rime and freezing rain and ice storms i...Thoughts:<br /><br />Rime and freezing rain and ice storms in particular will take even more temperature modeling- they're "edge cases" right around freezing (and unpleasant, possibly dangerous, and great for gaming.) <br /><br />You'll definitely need a computer to manage a weather system of the detail you want.<br /><br />Can characters buy this <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barometer#Water-based_barometers" rel="nofollow">piece of fancy new technology</a>? <br /><br />Once you get this done, you'll be able to run some FANTASTIC waterborne adventures....Erichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07649420272387984400noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post-49776089471102109812011-10-13T13:07:40.527-06:002011-10-13T13:07:40.527-06:00That's a better argument, but I'm not sure...That's a better argument, but I'm not sure it's a priority. While yes, these things you point out as issues are worth managing, at present the real task is defining more aspects to the weather than that it's 'hot' or 'cold.' As Tom pointed out yesterday - something I had already given consideration to - the Caliph's daughter is going to do better with the heat than Erinson. And in either case, how much heat is 'heat'? 21 degrees? 22? Shouldn't it not be a sharp dividing line?<br /><br />I never got into Battletech, but a heat track is a good idea. And maybe some day I'll implement it. When I have a more exact idea of where the starting point is for 'heat.'<br /><br />Something I've tried to do a dozen times is to establish fixed effects for the temperature range from -70 to +140 (the full range of Earth's climate). All attempts ultimately failed due to their own weight. The pistol was complicated enough, only it required three men and a mule to pull the trigger. It's an accounting issue - nothing wrong with the system itself, it just takes too long in the game to account for it day by day.<br /><br />Some kind of controlled computer simulation might help manage that ...<br /><br />But I digress. In any case, it isn't just temperature. It's what happens to the surface of things when a drizzle produces rime. It's making a system to give reliable, but fluctuating wind speeds (something unbelievably hard) that mesh with the other climate factors. It's managing all the factors together to produce a good game.Alexis Smolenskhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10539170107563075967noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3871409676946408069.post-85175018154158797392011-10-13T12:51:16.785-06:002011-10-13T12:51:16.785-06:00I *thought* your complaint boiled down to "in...I *thought* your complaint boiled down to "insufficiently granular."<br /><br />"If I roll a table that says 'rain'" Hey, I did expressly say to disregard that stupid random weather table. <br /><br />You've got a hard task: it's one thing to model and provide effects for the actual climate and weather conditions. However, to do this RIGHT, you need to also model the microclimate for each character between their clothes and their skin- that's the temperature and humidity they're actually dealing with. Exert yourself and you warm up, but then you sweat and it goes back down but your humidity goes up. If you don't take your hat off when resting after hiking in the snow, you can sweat enough to soak through some of your clothes, reducing their effectiveness. <br /><br />Food matters too- a big slug of cold water or a popsicle is immensely restorative when overheated. If you haven't eaten in a day or two, you won't have the energy to move fast enough to stay warm sometimes. <br /><br />Really, the hard problem here is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physiology" rel="nofollow">physiological</a> not meteorological.<br /><br />(Reminds me of playing Battletech- your heat track is going to go up fast fighting hard in full plate in the sun....)Erichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07649420272387984400noreply@blogger.com