Another combat factor

David desJardins (desj@super.org)
Tue, 20 Sep 94 18:12:10 EDT

> Date: Tue, 20 Sep 1994 15:01:04 -700 (PDT)
> From: Patrick McLaughlin <pmcl@cts.com>
>
> THere's a difference between a combat system being unpredictable--which
> one does want--and being uncertain, which people usually want as well.
> It's nice to be able to forecast the likely results. It's also really
> nice, from a gaming point of view, to have there be a perceptible risk
> (not necessarily large) that things will go bad and somethign unpleasant
> will be the result.

I don't agree that most people want this, at least not if the unpleasant
outcome is so disastrous as in Olympia. If you send a large stack with
several nobles and an army that you have spent several turns building up
against a strong npc position on an island, for example, and there is a
1% chance that you get wiped out and your nobles captured and they all
get sick and die, then 99% of the time that slim chance isn't going to
matter, and that remaining 1% of the time I guarantee you that the
player it happens to won't think it is a "nice" feature of the game.

David desJardins


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