Under the Hood: Player knowledge

[Crazy Tuvok]

What is your take on a system wherein your knowledge of stat/perk/skills influence is at a bare minimum? So for example suppose you are trying to create a diplomatic character so you think: what might a diplomat need/excel? Intelligence, perception charisma etc. However you are not given any information that says (in or out of the game) : Diplomacy success is your Intelligence + Perception / Charisma x2 the die roll.
Note that all this stuff is going on, it is just not visible ever to the player.

Same with combat and weapons; if you want to use a two-handeed battleaxe and/or maximize damage you might emphasize strength and endurance, but you are not given info like : Two Handed Battlesaxe, damage: 2d10 + STR modifier, min strength to wield without penalty is 6, initiative -2. What you get instead is essentially this is one honkin battleaxe and your feedback would consist of how many times per turn your are hitting (gee I get two attacks per round with my shortsword but only 1 every other round with this battleaxe), how much damage you are doing, how winded or not you are getting etc. But other than knowing your strength equals x and is higher than x-1, how that modifies anything specifically is not known to the player.

I also would lilke your thoughts on damage indicators. What if there were not any. I know that Morrowind pre-patch had this as did the FPS Call of Cthulu and I think there may be something to it, despite the complaining that prompted Beth e.g to add an enemy damage indicator. Hits and misses would be indicated tho perhaps only visually or maybe with text but no more explicit than "hit" or "miss" as character in the world would know this. But how much damage being done and how many hitpoints a foe has is hidden.

For that matter you own hp would remain hidden to you (even on the character sheet or its analogue) and instead both in and out of combat you would know something like chararcter condition: healthy, wounded, badly wounded mortally wounded, bleeding out etc. I am thinking this may be adjudicated by player skill in medicine/healing in turn influenced by player experience, perception, intelligence etc.

Ok all of this is really early on and I am just curious as to the opinions on the concepts as implementation is another can of monkeys. I hope this post is clear because I am not sure it is in my own head.

 

[Dark Elf]

The only objection I could think of is how to deal with monsters that are resistant to one or several types of damage. Do you simply solve this by trial and error, rely upon players to know RPG conventions well enough to realise that maces are better than spears when fighting zombies or do you *gasp* put enough effort into implementing some awesome lore so that players might have to ask around a bit before they know what will bite on the minotaur they might encounter?

 

[Crazy Tuvok]

The only objection I could think of is how to deal with monsters that are resistant to one or several types of damage. Do you simply solve this by trial and error, rely upon players to know RPG conventions well enough to realise that maces are better than spears when fighting zombies or do you *gasp* put enough effort into implementing some awesome lore so that players might have to ask around a bit before they know what will bite on the minotaur they might encounter?

At this point the setting is a low-"magic" one so there are no plans to implement damage-immune foes, only damage-reduced ones. However weird fantasical beasties are less common than in say DnD so things like lore, rumors, talking with those who have fought them, experience etc will all be there to help the player prepare, if they are intrepid enough to exploit them. Of course rumors and lore can be wrong.

As far as RPG conventions, the hope is to avoid them and/or turn them on their ass. Emphasize "hope" because everyone fucking says this.

 

[Nog Robbin]

Some kind of damage indicator would be useful - be it blood on the character (proportionate to their injuries), or they way they moved etc. It's a helpful guide as to how you are doing, and whether you'd be better off beating a hasty retreat or trying to finish it off. In most games the damage bar is the only indicator that you are actually doing anything.

 

[JarlFrank]

I also would lilke your thoughts on damage indicators. What if there were not any. I know that Morrowind pre-patch had this as did the FPS Call of Cthulu and I think there may be something to it, despite the complaining that prompted Beth e.g to add an enemy damage indicator. Hits and misses would be indicated tho perhaps only visually or maybe with text but no more explicit than "hit" or "miss" as character in the world would know this. But how much damage being done and how many hitpoints a foe has is hidden.

For that matter you own hp would remain hidden to you (even on the character sheet or its analogue) and instead both in and out of combat you would know something like chararcter condition: healthy, wounded, badly wounded mortally wounded, bleeding out etc. I am thinking this may be adjudicated by player skill in medicine/healing in turn influenced by player experience, perception, intelligence etc.

Teudogar has this. If you're hit a few times, you get from the healthy down to the wounded status. More hits, you get badly wounded. Mount and Blade had it too. You can see how many damage you do to an enemy, but you never see how many HP he got. The indicator for that is a bloody texture. Still, you always knew your own HP though. Also, in the IE games the enemy's status was displayed as wounded/badly wounded/near death etc. instead of hitpoints. Still, you saw your own HPs. The only games where you don't see your own HPs [and which I know of] are Teudogar and Call of Duty 2.

 

[mirrorshades]

Sounds good, realistic. Unless it's on a computer, though, the GM will have a lot to keep track of. When I used to play p&p games (oh, maybe 15 or so years ago), I remember reading an article in Dragon Magazine about playing AD&D where the DM kept track of ALL the stats/numbers, just giving general descriptions to the players as to what was going on (not unlike you've described). Probably depends on the players too; some folks like to get all up in the stats, others may not care as much.

I also would lilke your thoughts on damage indicators. What if there were not any.
...

Hits and misses would be indicated tho perhaps only visually or maybe with text but no more explicit than "hit" or "miss" as character in the world would know this. But how much damage being done and how many hitpoints a foe has is hidden.

Hm... in this case, I would say you should give it more than just hit or miss. Realistically, the character should be able to tell whether he struck a glancing blow that was deflected by armor, or whether his battle axe got stuck in the enemy's neck. You could incorporate a few different levels of "hit", something like "light hit", "glancing blow", "hard hit", etc... Or if you don't want to do that, then give updates as to the condition of the enemy. I've seen this work well enough in MUDs -- you don't know the other guy's hitpoints, but you can tell by looking at them, "barely wounded", "lightly wounded", "seriously wounded", "almost dead", that kind of thing.

If you're chopping away at a monster with a sword, you should be able to tell how hard you hit, and you should be able to see some sort of results -- unless, as you mentioned, there is some sort of special resistance. In which case, it would be important to give that kind of feedback, too ("You don't seem to be damaging your foe.")

Doing away with the numbers means you really need to provide much more sensory detail for your player, so they can keep track of what's going on.

 

[Crazy Tuvok]

Some kind of damage indicator would be useful - be it blood on the character (proportionate to their injuries), or they way they moved etc. It's a helpful guide as to how you are doing, and whether you'd be better off beating a hasty retreat or trying to finish it off. In most games the damage bar is the only indicator that you are actually doing anything.

What if this feedback was textual? E,g, hovering mouse over foe and getting a text bubble that reads: "Looks severely wounded" or "He seems to be enjoying himself and may even be laughing at you".

Visually indicators I think are too open to (false) interpretation and don't grade well. How to tell if someone looks really bloodied up or just kind of bloodied up. And the difference between nearly dead and severely wounded visually may be too similar but make all the difference in terms of play and combat decision making.

 

[Nog Robbin]

Some kind of damage indicator would be useful - be it blood on the character (proportionate to their injuries), or they way they moved etc. It's a helpful guide as to how you are doing, and whether you'd be better off beating a hasty retreat or trying to finish it off. In most games the damage bar is the only indicator that you are actually doing anything.

What if this feedback was textual? E,g, hovering mouse over foe and getting a text bubble that reads: "Looks severely wounded" or "He seems to be enjoying himself and may even be laughing at you".

Visually indicators I think are too open to (false) interpretation and don't grade well. How to tell if someone looks really bloodied up or just kind of bloodied up. And the difference between nearly dead and severely wounded visually may be too similar but make all the difference in terms of play and combat decision making.

Textual indications would be ok too. Obviously work better in a turn based game than real time as you would have time to check the various antagonists states before making your move. Having visible floating bubbles indicating state in real time would probably look ugly and detract from imersion (or was that immershun?).

 

[JarlFrank]

Having visible floating bubbles indicating state in real time would probably look ugly and detract from imersion (or was that immershun?).

Depends on the game. In something like Bloodlines it would be immersion, in something like Oblivion it would be immershun.
Totally depends on the intention of the developer.

Still, visual indicators like blood/torn flesh and clothing/very munchy face/guts hanging out might not be very accurate, but they would make it even more interesting. Especially if you can get blood splashes on yourself when you hit an enemy and make him bleed [on you]. You'll never know whose blood that is on this guy's chest. Is it yours, his, or the blood of his companion whom you just munched down to hacked meat? Is he wounded or is he not? How strongly is he wounded? If you then also add other "effects" of being wounded, like seeing your enemy hold his side with his free hand, or the enemy limping a bit when walking, it would make the whole experience a lot more exciting. You never know how wounded your enemy is, but you can guess it by looking at his current state. Good graphics [like Dark Messiah if it's 3D, or some nice detailed 2D graphics] would help if you use such a system, so you can see all the details.

What's so good in this system? It's much more interesting if you do not know the exact status of your enemy, but can only guess it through different indicators. Combat will get more fun and exciting this way, and not like calculating "hmm I still need to do 6 damage to get that enemy down... my sword does 2 to 5 damage, so I have to hit at least twice to kill him."

 

[Surgey]

As far as weapons go, I prefer to know how much damage they do, or at least some fairly accurate indicator (like, whether the axe does more than the sword and by how much). Since some games tend to have the damages on things be fairly random, I prefer to know how they work. I mean, you'd never know unless you saw the damages that axes suck more than swords in D&D.

 

[Nog Robbin]

As far as weapons go, I prefer to know how much damage they do, or at least some fairly accurate indicator (like, whether the axe does more than the sword and by how much). Since some games tend to have the damages on things be fairly random, I prefer to know how they work. I mean, you'd never know unless you saw the damages that axes suck more than swords in D&D.

But surely by knowing you are merely playing the system to give yourself the best/most powerful character. So rather than roleplaying (for example) a barbarian brought up wielding axes or hammers, you elect to make him wield a sword as you know it does more damage. That's really just metagaming.
Obviously it is a game, and you want to do well, but it is also a roleplaying game, so you should be able to pick a role and stick to it without continually thinking whether or not it's the optimum character build.

 

[JarlFrank]

As far as weapons go, I prefer to know how much damage they do, or at least some fairly accurate indicator (like, whether the axe does more than the sword and by how much). Since some games tend to have the damages on things be fairly random, I prefer to know how they work. I mean, you'd never know unless you saw the damages that axes suck more than swords in D&D.

But surely by knowing you are merely playing the system to give yourself the best/most powerful character. So rather than roleplaying (for example) a barbarian brought up wielding axes or hammers, you elect to make him wield a sword as you know it does more damage. That's really just metagaming.
Obviously it is a game, and you want to do well, but it is also a roleplaying game, so you should be able to pick a role and stick to it without continually thinking whether or not it's the optimum character build.

What about giving each weapon category some different "effect", like swords are fast and the best thing to use if you want to parry enemy blows, axes are good to cleave through armor and generally do lots of damage, hammers and maces are the best against armor but do not inflict bleeding wounds, bows have the obvious bonus of range and killing people from somewhere where they won't find you, crossbows the same but better against armor and longer loading times, lances are slower and harder to use than other weapons but get a slight range bonus et cetera et cetera blah blah yada yada. So each weapon category will have some special properties which are logical and fit to the weapon. Then there are things like "bronze axe", "quality bronze axe" and "iron axe". Logically, iron is more durable and does more damage than bronze, and a quality axe should be better than a normal axe in general.
So, when you pick your weapon you'll know what the weapon class does, and different materials/forging qualities determine how this particular axe here compares to other axes.

Now, what about magical weapons? You should know that the thingie does additional damage to the enemy, shouldn't you? Sure. So describe the weapon in a way that indicates how it works. Like, "This sword looks very shiny and polished, and its blade got the color of lightning. It also seems that enemies struck by this blade get struck by lightning. Also, you feel a slight bit stronger when you hold this sword in your weaponhand." could describe a sword with +5 lightning damage and +2 strength when worn. Problem solved.

 

[Nog Robbin]

I think some of this goes back to the "should all weapons be equal" debate. My view is that they shouldn't. Obviously they will have some advantages and some disadvantages, and overall there wouldn't be a "best" weapon - but there may well be one that come out better over all. It doesn't mean you have to play it though.

With the magic I think only obvious things should be mentioned - I'm sure a visual for a shock could be used if a sword inflicted electric damage (likewise with burning). Making you stronger or faster may need to be reported to the player somehow if they would realistically feel it. As for enchantments I'm all for hiding them anyway - so unless you see an obviously magical effect you don't know an enchanted weapon from a plain one (unless you have an appropriate skill or spell to detect it and then work out how to activate it).

 

[JarlFrank]

With the magic I think only obvious things should be mentioned - I'm sure a visual for a shock could be used if a sword inflicted electric damage (likewise with burning). Making you stronger or faster may need to be reported to the player somehow if they would realistically feel it. As for enchantments I'm all for hiding them anyway - so unless you see an obviously magical effect you don't know an enchanted weapon from a plain one (unless you have an appropriate skill or spell to detect it and then work out how to activate it).

Yeah, the term "unidentified item" always seemed a bit dumb, especially since you couldn't use that item. If you do not know that it got magic effects, why do you know it is magical [and thus unidentified], well, except if it got some obvious signs like sparks/funny colors? And why the fuck can't you use it? I liked it how in Arcanum you could equip your unidentified items and just see what it does. If it was hexed, well... your fault.

 

[obediah]

Why not make exposing the stats an option? Some players find mechanics confusing or distracting, while others really enjoy min/maxing, and others still (including me) have seen so many developers go on and on about the complexity under the hood only to deliver a very simple game that this pitch sets of huge warning klaxons.

For me the problem with not exposing a complex system is that we're dealing with abstractions and every designers abstraction is different, which can make reaching your goal very frustrating. In real life, I don't have any stats or numbers to tell me how good of a lawyer or marksmen I am. But if I want to become either, the path is intuitive and clear, and progress is easily measured. A computer game is at best going to offer a few methods of self-evaluation, a far cry from the infinite number in real life.

 

[JarlFrank]

Why not make exposing the stats an option? Some players find mechanics confusing or distracting, while others really enjoy min/maxing, and others still (including me) have seen so many developers go on and on about the complexity under the hood only to deliver a very simple game that this pitch sets of huge warning klaxons.

For me the problem with not exposing a complex system is that we're dealing with abstractions and every designers abstraction is different, which can make reaching your goal very frustrating. In real life, I don't have any stats or numbers to tell me how good of a lawyer or marksmen I am. But if I want to become either, the path is intuitive and clear, and progress is easily measured. A computer game is at best going to offer a few methods of self-evaluation, a far cry from the infinite number in real life.

Maybe stats can be described not as "Strength. Gives you +2 damage per point, and +1 HP." but instead as "Strength. Makes your character stronger and healthier, so he can hit harder and also endure more hits." Or "Charisma. Makes your character more skilled in conversing with other people and convincing them of your opinion. People also like you more when you got a high charisma." instead of "Charisma. Gives you +2 on diplomacy skill checks per point, and +5 NPC reaction."

Both ways are descriptive and tell you what the stat does to your character. But one way just gives you the numbers, while the other one gives you a description of what the stat is good for, and what it affects.

 

[mirrorshades]

Textual indications would be ok too. Obviously work better in a turn based game than real time as you would have time to check the various antagonists states before making your move.

Hm... all this reminds me of the battles against the troll and the thief in Zork:

>kill troll with sword
A good slash, but it misses the troll by a mile.
The troll swings his axe, but it misses.

>kill troll with sword
The troll is disarmed by a subtle feint past his guard.
The troll, disarmed, cowers in terror, pleading for his life in the
guttural tongue of the trolls.

>kill troll with sword
The unarmed troll cannot defend himself: He dies.
Almost as soon as the troll breathes his last breath, a cloud of
sinister black fog envelops him, and when the fog lifts, the
carcass has disappeared.
Your sword is no longer glowing.

>diagnose
You are in perfect health.
You can be killed by a serious wound.

 

[Section8]

This is something that's been touched on before, in a fairly lengthy thread somewhere, so I'm not going to go to great lengths here, but the general gist of my opinion:

I'm quite enamoured by the idea of avoiding stats, if and only if they're replaced by something otherwise meaningful. Textual descriptors are good, colours are good. Synaesthic mind fuckery is something to be proud of. Like say, hallucinating square-winged bees whenever you experience pain.

 

[Surgey]

As far as weapons go, I prefer to know how much damage they do, or at least some fairly accurate indicator (like, whether the axe does more than the sword and by how much). Since some games tend to have the damages on things be fairly random, I prefer to know how they work. I mean, you'd never know unless you saw the damages that axes suck more than swords in D&D.

But surely by knowing you are merely playing the system to give yourself the best/most powerful character. So rather than roleplaying (for example) a barbarian brought up wielding axes or hammers, you elect to make him wield a sword as you know it does more damage. That's really just metagaming.
Obviously it is a game, and you want to do well, but it is also a roleplaying game, so you should be able to pick a role and stick to it without continually thinking whether or not it's the optimum character build.

Okay.... so what if my character concept is that he moves with the times and prefers to use the best weapons available? All I'm asking is really just a general jist of what a weapon does. I mean, maybe something such as "an axe can pierce armor well," would do, as long as it's not just flavor text.

 

[Nog Robbin]

As far as weapons go, I prefer to know how much damage they do, or at least some fairly accurate indicator (like, whether the axe does more than the sword and by how much). Since some games tend to have the damages on things be fairly random, I prefer to know how they work. I mean, you'd never know unless you saw the damages that axes suck more than swords in D&D.

But surely by knowing you are merely playing the system to give yourself the best/most powerful character. So rather than roleplaying (for example) a barbarian brought up wielding axes or hammers, you elect to make him wield a sword as you know it does more damage. That's really just metagaming.
Obviously it is a game, and you want to do well, but it is also a roleplaying game, so you should be able to pick a role and stick to it without continually thinking whether or not it's the optimum character build.

Okay.... so what if my character concept is that he moves with the times and prefers to use the best weapons available? All I'm asking is really just a general jist of what a weapon does. I mean, maybe something such as "an axe can pierce armor well," would do, as long as it's not just flavor text.

That sounds like a good compromise - stats and actual strengths of weapons (in numeric terms) are not used, and instead a flavour of what the weapon is good/bad at is given. In most cases it would be fairly generic and obvious (such as: dagger, easily conceable small blade which is good in close quarters for stabbing or slashing but generally weak against well armoured opponents unless they are disabled, or: two handed sword - long bladed weapon ideal for single combat and for parrying attacks, but needs open space to be wielded effectively; will allow sufficient force to cause some injury even to heavily armoured opponents.)