general follow-up

Robert Christopher Butchko (rcb@kaiwan.com)
Thu, 8 Sep 1994 15:33:21 -0700

Some random thoughts on issues buzzing around here:

1) The escape from battle thing:

Just as we have "Survive Fatal Wound" we can have "Discretion" (as in

"better part of valor") which would be either/both a Combat or Stealth

skill:

Discretion: 4 Weeks, No NPS

Learning when to cut an run, and being able to do it, is an

important part of every noble's education. With this skill, you

will abandon a combat when it appears you are likely to be taken

prisoner [or "when you have been taken prisoner", i.e. either

when 1) things are unquantifiably bad, 2) You have been targeted

3) You have been hit, 4) you have been taken prisoner] and you

will run for safe haven, dropping all of your troops and horses,

most of your gold, and none of your personal possessions. This

action takes three weeks to execute as you smuggle yourself to

Imperial City.

Discretion, once used, must be relearned.

Note that the time to get away can be increased so it destroys all

queued orders. It should not happen at a break point; as I understand

and feel the need, it is designed to save your noble when either your

own bloodthirst or another's iterative "attack" has put you in a bad

spot. (A good case should be made that it would _not_ work following

an attack _you_ initiated) I think most players would neglect this

skill as too-time consuming and costly for the return, but more con-

servative ones would embrace it.

What do you folks think?

-Chris Butchko

2) attitude meaning

-------- -------

hostile HOSTILE

neutral As if the other unit didn't exist

cooperative admit to building

friendly admit to stack and building

partner Defend and admit

ally Defend and join all combats, even if initiated

3) Old players in safe havens-

I don't think safe havens should be exit only. New players will

accidentally wander out and will sometimes need to run back to lick

their wounds. If there was a counter in the game, I would set it to

eject players from barter/etc in Imperial City after their faction

had 1 year's play. I like the idea of IC as B5, that is, a neutral

ground, so I would allow verteran players in, but they should not

participate in commerce. This would prevent new players from getting

caught up in the "promote" scam to abuse the list. (Maybe I'd make

all promoted characters irrelevant for priority determinations.)

I like Greg Lindahl's suggestion to make common tasks a shared

enterprise. It would decrease the abuse if it was 100/mages, and it

would make exploration and spreading-out more worthwhile. I would say,

however, that common should still be 7 days long no matter how little

it returned, and that you only get to do it once, NMHLIT.

I have two nobles who run around selling charms, if it matters...

Chris Butchko


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