BOTWAWKI Revised Thread

[bestshot9]

1. Was the section of the first page “Lessons of the Wasteland” useful to you? Was it a source of valuable information or a complete waste of space? - It was helpful, I already figured on some of the stuff, but I do believe it was a useful section for helping prevent stupid orders, for the most part.

2. Similarly, did the Monsters of the Wasteland section serve any valuable purpose to you? - Yes, it was entertaining, but from a gameplay point of view, not really, since I had already played the games and knew most of the monsters. The twinbear was awesome, though.

3. As I have frequently stated here and elsewhere, the setup for this NES, and the updating process was focused on using RNG far more than any prior NES I’ve moderated. This was part of a system of random results based on limited influence of other modifiers, and then the actual writing in the updates being the actual “in character” justification of the results the RNG provided. Do you believe this is a worthwhile system and superior to a moderator such as myself simply deciding the most likely/interesting outcome of a player’s actions by fiat? - Yes, this system helps a lot, makes things more open to chance, which in the wasteland, chance is all you can hope for sometimes, right?

4. Though we only caught a glimpse of what I had planned before I moved on, what is your thoughts on a multi-turn spanning plot such as the Master’s Army? - It would have been a helluva lot of fun.

5. What motivated you to make the decisions which led to the creation of your faction? Were you more driven by the effects of the various traits, or by the potential for story? - Story, but not so much me writing stories as how the story would unfold in the updates and such. Was hoping to spread Christianity through the south east as well as eventually having one awesome showdown between King Drummond and the Outcasts.

6. Is there any other room for improvement beyond what you may have already discussed above? - I don't know, it seemed pretty good. You were pretty flexible in allowing player creativity and such (like when I blew up Acada to kill the raiders) so that was cool. The outpost system seemed pretty good, too, not too hard to establish new outposts, but it was fun having to make sure to take care of them and such. I'd definitely keep that in a later game.

 

[Northen Wolf]

3. Don't get me wrong - fiat is great, but RNG is useful when you can't decide between a number of equally appropriate/interesting outcomes.

When I was rolling for NWolfNES then casualties and success of battle depended highly on rolls. Of course an army of 100 could not stand large chance against army of 1000, but if they roll 6, they could inflict significant damage (200-300 troops vs 10-30 casualties) and maybe hinder/slower enemy movements.

 

[SKILORD]

I think that the RNG/fiat debate has to be separated between combat and noncombat applications. For noncombat application I don't see a significant difference, random numbers can fill in some spaces, but in the end outside of combat there will always be some degree of fiat involved.

I would hesitate to use fiat for combat calculations. For NPC's (including random, pokemon style walking in the grass fighting random small groups who lack the political organization to be formal NPC's) vs Players some discretion is obviously acceptable to give an edge to players (although players must still be able to face setbacks, hence the random numbers), but between two player factions it makes it much easier to manage combat in a balanced fashion.

OTOH some might say that it takes a lot of variables out of play (geography, strategy, the weather, etc.) that have had, in human history, a large impact on combat outcomes. Fiat can encompass any of these variables that it wants, it's fiat.

 

[GamezRule]

I would probably try the next one.