For many years I was a player of a MUD, and I was very interested about how the actual formulas worked. I even took about 600 ticks' worth of mana regen to figure out how mana regen worked, as well as over 1000 rounds of combat to figure out how often the attacks come out. This is true of pretty much any game I've played. Diablo 2 for instance, when it first came out, I was one of the people who worked on trying to figure out the formulas that Blizzard used for various things, and thus mathematically deduce the best strategy.

Of course, back when I was a player on the MUD, the Immortals wouldn't tell me what the formulas were -- just said to read the helpfile, for example, or test it out. And Blizzard never gave out formulas, leaving us to figure out it out by testing and/or by cracking the .mpq files to find the values. Of course, this led to more sophisticated ways of encryption, which leads to more sophisticated methods of decryption, ad nauseam.

As a player, I resented this thing about hiding how things worked. Age of Empires made a big impact on me because I asked in a forum about how the formula for trading worked, and one of them gave me the formula straight up. That really encouraged me to play, to know that its creators are freely willing to discuss the formulas. Similarly, I still play Blizzard's Starcraft, partly because it's fun, but also partly because I didn't burn myself out of the game trying to figure out the formulas -- they gave all the values and explained all the game mechanics that I needed to know.

Now however I am an Immortal on a MUD, particularly working with and modelling how combat works, and how various spells affect combat. My job basically is to translate the code into Excel simulations, usually with a pretty graph that helps to visualize what's happening as the variables change. I also recommend various formulas, based on how the head Implementors want things to be affected by other things. Now being on "this side" of a game though, I now also have a natural aversion to telling players specifics of a code. The formulas, once decided on and playtested, are easy to copy, and they represent much more than simply numbers and mathematical operators -- they represent what we understand about what makes a good game work, about balance, fairness, and good strategy.

Yet now, having been on both sides, I wonder: How much should a game's creators reveal about the inner workings of that game? Reveal too much and your competitors copy your formulas, especially if your mud is popular. Yet reveal too little and your players waste time just figuring things out, rather than coming up with interesting and new strategies. So where do you draw the line in terms of reveal how the game mechanics work?

For that matter I might as well as start with us: For us, we will generally reveal what factors matter, as well as the direction they matter (i.e. makes it better or worse); we do not reveal by exactly how much however, nor which formulas we use. But I'm curious as to how other people view the formulas they work with in making a good game.

Back in the days of tabletop games, hoarding the formulas simply was not an option. I think knowing the formulas is necessary to feel that you have not somehow been cheated into playing a character that is badly mis-designed. We all know the games are modeled on SOMETHING, and we all want our fair crack at designing our characters to most closely resemble in mathematical fact what we concieved about them in the fiction of the world.

You'd be just shocked at all the different permutations and computations used for all these things. One mud I worked on for a little bit I was looking up the hardness scales for rocks and such and we were trying to figure out how those things would translate to weapons damaging one another and armor in combat. Some people can just never get enough of this stuff!!!

But, for my money, yes I tend to want to know all the math, and understand, even though you have worked hard on getting all those formulas, it is as likely as not that the next person to come along won't like them for this and that reason and will start up their own research for new formulas! So you are not so much risking "losing" your formulas as you are publicising how yours work to attract people who like your design style.

My 2 cents...

This is a question to the RPers out there that read this:

Do you think it "breaks" RP to offer this kind of information on a game that is supposed to be RP encouraged (or whatever the buzz word is for this week)?  I am trying to decide this question, as well as a few others (like offering a command to toggle on/off #'s in prompts and in the "score" screen).  But I am worried it might work against encouraging people to RP and FORGET about the #'s.

Any thoughts?

Hey,

I guess it really depends on the environment you're trying to create, and the sort of player you'd like to cater to.

The system I've designed over on my own project is completely numberless, at least from a player's perspective. Everything is based on prose descriptions and prompts, from skill levels to the wounds-based representation of combat damage we use.

Our combat system is also quite brutal - just like in real life, a single good shot with a longsword when you aren't properly outfitted can pretty much spell the end of your character. This, of course, raises a few interesting issues.

When you hide the workings of the mechanics from your players, the price you pay is that the system has fewer eyes able to review it, and hence has a correspondingly higher chance of containing some flaws. While I've got a lot of faith in my own sense of judgment, and in that of the other staffers I run a lot of these changes by, and although I can honestly say I'm quite happy with the way our system has turned out, I'm sure that if we allowed our players to see all the underpinnings and accepted their feedback it would be even more balanced than it already is.

This is probably where the sort of player you're looking to cater to comes in. Personally, the few times I've played the game with a mortal PC and engaged in combat, I found my adrenaline level through the roof. Permadeath, combined with the fact that one lucky shot on either side could spell the end, tends to create that sort of a rush. The system is balanced to the point where such "lucky shots" between opponents with significantly differing levels of skill are quite rare, but just like real life, they do in fact happen - a weak, cowardly goblin with a rusty shortsword just might get in a lucky jab, slip between the overlapping plates on a knight's coat, and cause serious damage.

On the other hand, if your average player is looking more for maxing out a character mathematically, exploring all the different strategic avenues of combat, and in general is focused more on the code than on the sense of immersion and roleplay, I have a feeling that giving them access to the mathematical underpinnings would be the more productive route to take.

Just some ramblings. Hope they help.


Cheers,
T.

It's all about powergaming.

One school of thought says that, if you give your players all the figures, they will work out how to arrange their characters so that they are the most effective against whatever your mud throws at them.

Another school of thought is that, if you don't give your players all the figures, they'll work them out and then do the above.

The best solution, I believe, is to provide enough choice and complexity to your mud that it can't be powergamed, or that powergaming has a lesser impact. The challenge is making such a game fun, as well.

I have to agree with Kasta that it's a double edged sword issue and bites both ways if swung. Mu*s should be about options and choices that a player takes to create or develop their own unique personality, not about number crunching to be the best.

We find hiding the formulas is the best policy because it challenges even the most talented techno-mudding power leveler to figure it out, and when they do we might change it with impunity. Maximum flexibility is a good rule in all things I think and leads to fewer whines when change is predictable. If I disclosed how good or bad a race or class was in comparison to others, few would ever choose the 'challenged' race or class because of human nature wanting to be the best in a competitive world. I actually tease some and toss monkey wrenches into their hard earned formulas just to mess with a few heads.

Keep your inner workings a secret, let the curious test and re-test, let the lesser mortals work out their own shortcomings. Either way, they have 'fun,' you earn their presence in your world and it's a win/win situation.

Surely that depends on the type of mud in question? Because on the mud I currently run, it is indeed all about "number crunching to be the best". And for a pure PK mud which focuses on player skill and strategy, I consider it a perfectly viable approach.

I agree with KaVir, coming from the opposite end of the spectrum. The question was posed to RPers (as opposed to non-RPers), and I fall into that category.

I have some experience with both types of games (RP and non-RP, or more specifically, RP-Intensive and RP "allowed") .

In the game that "encourage" RP, numbers were visible, and you could tell just by looking at a person whether or not you could beat them in a PK war. If they were holding a vultite sword, then they were at least level 10. If they cast a certain spell, then they were at least level 30. The game was very plainly level based. If you wanted to find out if the weapon you had was enchanted to +35, there were methods to do this.

By knowing all these things about weapons and combat and being able to see damage numbers and such, it took all the mystery out of the game. You knew you didn't have to fear that really well-played wizard who proclaimed himself the Emporer of the Isle, because you knew you were 20 levels above him and could kick his butt. You knew that no matter how "important" this or that character was in a plotline, your little newbie could take him out because YOU had the ultimate broadsword of deth and destruktion. You didn't have to worry about RPing your character as significant, because you knew that your doomslayer would do all the work for you - because you knew its stats.

You also know that if you create a new character, because you can't stand Lord Fussbunny and want to lop his head off, that you need to place your stats in a certain order, with nothing less than a 90 for this or that attribute, roll up a specific race and "profession," and power-hunt your way up to level 31. Give yourself three weeks and Lord Fussbunny's a goner because you know that his stats suck and he insists on wearing +10 robes instead of +0 brig, which EVERYONE knows has a higher +damage factor even though it isn't the +10.

If you are trying to immerse yourself in serious RP, the numbers (in my opinion) just get in the way. I don't like seeing them in combat with mobs, I don't like seeing them on items, or skill "ranks" or levels, I don't like seeing them much at all, except to measure my own character's overall health. HPs, fatigue, that kind of thing. I don't wanna know about anyone else's numbers either.

In a game where acquiring "phat lewt" is a good thing, or where the whole point of the game is to be the best in combat - then I can see how numbers would be very important. But in a game where the point is to RP, and getting loot and getting into combat is only one small optional part of RPing, I don't think the numbers can help at all.

Not the original question - it was a later poster who brought up displaying numbers in RP muds.

To be honest it sounds the problem there was more related to the level system than the revealing of numbers; even if you'd hidden the level, the same conclusions could have been reached with little extra effort.

I dislike seeing numbers in combat as well, regardless of whether or not it's an RP mud. The same applies (to a lesser extent) to showing other peoples numbers. But as others have said it's really a personal thing - I know some people who dislike even showing HP and suchlike, prefering to just give a description of injuries.

However providing the stats for equipment can be very useful if you're trying to provide an element of strategy (something which RP muds can also benefit from). This doesn't have to be just about big magical powers - it could be things like encumbrance, weapon reach, reload speeds, swing times, protection percentages verses different damage types, etc. I also like to display tables with available combat techniques, and I think it would be just too overwhelming to provide the player with descriptions of each of the 1000+ fighting techniques.

I suppose if your combat system is very basic, it wouldn't really matter that much.

Numbers numbers numbers... Little pains in the arse.

Okay, first, I'd like to say that both approaches work in different circumstances (which, hopefully, everyone's already gleaned from the ramblings before my own). A lot of it comes down to the effect you want to achieve...

Strategy can be achieved both ways. With numbers and formulae, you can get a lot of precision, and very clear conceptualizations of what's going on, what's the best bet, etc... Without numbers, but with a fairly logical system, you can get a similar long term effect, emphasizing instead creative thinking over numerical effects (rather than emphasizing that weapon x does y damage, emphasize that weapon x sets things on fire too, and weapon z makes them really cold, etc).

RP-encouraged/enforced can be achieved both ways. With numbers, people can more easily control where they're going, character-wise, and thus end up more along the lines of what they want to RP, with more of what they want in terms of character development (for example, one could avoid such wonderful mishaps as reading a book, thinking it would improve intelligence, and instead finding yourself stronger than King Kong). Without numbers, and, in this case, definitely without formulae, you increase immersion and, if you enforce roleplay closely enough, can dramatically cut down on hack'n'slash tendencies ("Hey, running the giants for the thirty-eighth time, trying to max experience gain, even though they're your guild's allies? Smite.")

Etc...

It really comes down to a) what you like, b) what your players like, and c) what your target players like. You can make things work either way.

First a short history on myself: I started online gaming, both MUD and RTS about 8 years ago. The RTS was Age of Empires and its later generations. What I loved most about the Age games was the documentation and formulas already worked out on the Shai'tan clan website and the Mr Fixit Online website. I later was even an online multiplayer beta tester for the Star Wars Battlegrounds RTS. This information I was able to get online helped me develop my skills more rapidly than I would have been able to on my own otherwise. I am a very busy person as many are and when faced with time issues some things suffer and spending hundreds of hours playtesting in scenarios to develop strategies just to get a minor edge is not a wise choice. So, I would say fairly that without their help I would never have played enough to get as good as I was/am, I would have become bored with the game and moved on. As it was I got good, then better then faster and eventually could hang with some of the top RTS gamers that have graced the gaming Zone over the years. Now in the same time frame I was struggling on a MUD with a theme I was familiar with, but it had terrible help files. If it were not for the massive number of newbie helpers I would have dumped them on day one. Later on I left them for my current MUD after they had 2 pwipes in 6 months.

Short version of advice:

If your MUD has more emphasis on RP, give the players as much help as is possible so they can spend more time in character and less chopping up mobiles (or players) to get what they need. Keep in mind to hold back just enough information so that it cannot be duplicated easily.

If your mud is more Hack'n'Slash/PK oriented then your secrets will have to be more closely guarded. Since the strength of your MUD depends more on code and less on live persons and charisma, you have more to lose and easier ways to lose them. I would still suggest giving as much help as possible, and well documented, easy to understand help files. Just make sure that the information you give out does not contain any specifics that can be easily translated into another MUD.

When in doubt, err on the side of the players. Without happy MUDders we are all screwed anyways.

Do you think chess would be more fun if the players didn't know how many points each piece was worth, or how the pieces moved? If, instead of playing it the way it's played now, they had a GM nearby, to whom they would issue commands such as "I want to attack the white army with my horsey" - then the GM would handle the actions outside of the players view, and give feedback such as "your horsey is charging across the battle field when suddenly a bishop jumps out from behind a tree, and beats him to death".

I think this is an excellent analogy, tell them how they can use what is in the game and let them build their own strategies.  If your game is well enough balanced, varied strategies will produce similar results.  

For example, I once used a Drow Cleric, not exactly what you would call the best of fighting classes, as a formidable PKer.  Rather than go for how much damage my player could cause, I used the strategy of protecting my character with every protection spell under the sun and had the ability heal myself, my aim was to wear the other player down.  Not your typical type of PKer but it was reasonably successful.  This mud gave you all the stats of everything, most people of course opted to make "powerful" characters, I thought I'd try something a little different and surprised quite a few people by taking down some of the so-called "powerful" characters.

I think the same can be said for RP muds, give players the option to use the formulas if they want.  If the mud is well balanced, I don't think it will matter.

i love pking with clerics =) the problem is the other people tend to get bored.

As for the chess anology... I guess it depends. Some things the player has to know to form a good strategy, yes. Chess isn't a very complex game, it's all a matter of how you are able to move the pieces (Since all the pieces are equal in strength when they meet eachother), and from then on, it's up to you to figure out how to use them.

In muds, you have formulas for damage, defense and everything... If I knew a Flameshield does exactly 10% of damage to the person who hit me, and that the Master Troll did on average 100 damage per hit, meaning it would hit him 10 damage per turn... Plus I know that it has 500 HP, and I do 40 damage on average per turn, and I could calculate that:

I could heal myself, without using any special attacks, and I'll only have to survive for 10 combat rounds.

Once I come to that conclusion, every time I kill that master troll, it's gonna be the same thing. I'll know exactly how much I need to do, it'll get extremely repetitive, and I'll just get bored of killing him!

Sooner or later, I'll get bored of every mob in the game, even the toughest ones, cause I'll have the most perfect strategy to use against them and I'll only use that.


Doing it against players, however, is something else, cause they're dynamic... well, that is, unless you're fighting a player who uses the same system as you and just uses the same perfect strategy all the time.

Yes you do have formulas for everything, you could figure this out even if you weren't given the formulas if you were so inclined, (I think someone has already mentioned this). So if that is your style of play then whether you have the formula or not won't matter, sooner or later you'll calculate it anyways. Not giving out the formulas will only prolong the inevitable. Adding a randomizing code might slow the process even more, but again sooner or later someone will figure out that formula too if they really want to. It depends on the style of player I guess.

And that's why people get bored of certain muds and move on to find new ones.

When there's no more room for advancement, and you begin doing the same things, you start understanding how everything works.. that's why you see everyone looking for 'new spells and skills', or skillless/leveless, or basically just different stuff that they don't fully understand yet.

coincides perfectly with this one.  I think this guy that spent 1400 hours trying to figure out the formulas was just not smart.  Why would you waste that much time *working* when it is supposed to be fun.  I will never understand the mentality of the power gamer.

You don't understand. That is fun to some people. I can remember many days of my youth spent with graph paper mapping out dungeons in my favorite crawlers so I could find out where the secrets, enemies, deathtraps and everything was. Similarly, figuring out what makes these games tick is a great joy to some people, myself included, not just power gamers. Actually using what you've learned to form viable, off-the-wall strategies is quite rewarding and reason enough for me to give players all formulas used in my game.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and quite a few people in that thread are jackasses for thinking their definition of fun applies to everyone else.

No, your figuring out the formulas is not what makes the game repetitive. It's either that the master troll will always do the same thing under the same circumstances, or that there are no other variables to make combat interesting that skewer your play. To extend the chess analogy to which you replied, of course chess is going to be boring if you take only a single part of it and base your decisions around that one part: While the actual slaying of the bishop isn't particularly enjoyable, this slaying in relation to the overall strategy is what makes the game fun. Of course if you're playing a mud called "Troll Hunter 2004" and slaying trolls is predictable and repetitive, then I think the designers have quite a problem on their hands.

This is one of the player types that I cater to when designing a game; a higher order of the Explorer archetype, ones that like to explore the game rather than the world.

One of my fondest moments in my mud coding career occurred after I had added some rudimentary gemology to the mud. I had given a class of players* the ability to mine gems in addition to other ores, and to "cut" them. These gems could then be attached to player-made equipment to enhance them in some way. Very Diablo, yes.

My release of this change was essentially "There's a bunch of gems you can do stuff with. Have fun!"

One player in particular began cataloguing these new gems and their properties in earnest. Indeed, she had found fifteen of the sixteen gem types out there. Then, something unexpected happened. She had practiced gemcutting (and had increased the ability through repeated use) to such a degree that a part of my code kicked in, producing a "perfectly" cut gem instead of a "carefully" cut gem, changing its properties significantly. This, as the game-explorer type, pleased her greatly as she had not exhausted this new feature at all! The ensuing statement "Wow!" pleased me, as the designer of the system, even more greatly.

In an earlier post, I gave a choice of two schools of thought, both of which ultimately lead to the same conclusion. In this post I wish to make the point that these are not fixed philosophies. It is perfectly fine to give away formulae, as long as they work as expected. If you're "85% good" at something, then you'd better succeed 85% of the time. Anything else just doesn't make sense. It's equally possible to make the discovery of the system part of the game itself, however.

Kas.

*the supplier class. A player generally had two classes - one combatitive and one professional. A supplier was responsible for extracting and refining resources to be used in player-made equipment.

I'm posting from the perspective of a biased "RP-elitist" type who doesn't like the numbers mostly because I don't have the patience to figure them out, let alone the desire to try. So please consider the source while you read this <grin>

If everyone has the formulae, then everyone will know that the encrypted massive buldoodie flamberge is "the" best possible weapon to use in combat against the most types of critters in the game. And so everyone who hunts, will want the encrypted massive buldoodie flamberge. No one will experiment to figure out what suits their character best, no one will care that it's this hideous shade of green that clashes with their red and silver uniform.

If everyone knows *exactly* what it takes to be -the- most armored, -the- most agile, -the- most powerful, then everyone will do whatever the criteria is given in ordered to get it. You won't have people "being stuck" with a lousy stamina roll but a really awesome strength roll. You won't have people spending oodles of coins on what -looks- to be a massive damage protecting magickal resistant pair of flying boots, because everyone already knows they're crap and the REAL massively damage protecting magickal resistant pair of flying boots are actually disguised as a pair of pink linen slippers.

If the players are informed by the staff of the game what is what, in which order, to what extent, with which stats, why would anyone bother trying to discover it on their own?

And the people who -do- want to discover it on their own would be hurt by those who already know this stuff, because if they happen to pick up the "vorpal pebble of deth and destrukshun," the "powergamers" will be on their back to PK them and the player will stand there wondering why in the world anyone would want to kill them over a tiny little pebble.

I don't see how knowing numbers can -help- in an RPI kind of game, and I can see how it could possibly -hurt.- And so in my opinion, it just doesn't seem to belong in an RPI.

In a hack-n-slash maybe it's different. I wouldn't know since I don't play them. But in a game that is advertised as a RP game, a pay-for-play in fact, it's the numbers that appear to have caused so many serious RPers to leave and find their gaming enjoyment elsewhere over the past several years.

And it's that "knowing the numbers" that has led to that game's tweaking and re-tweaking and re-tweaking skills and classes to the point where they couldn't go back to the basics even if they wanted to, the system became completely broken, and they had to roll out a whole new version of the game.

In an RPI, that is true, though it is somewhat different in less intensive environments, it's not neccessarily the case. I've seen muds where RP seems only to occur after characters max (for better or worse). For those people who like this style, I imagine formulae would help them get the style of maxed character they want, and allow them to thusly RP the character they want to RP.

However, yes, I object to formulae, or even numbers, in systems I develop. The basic theory, for me, goes as follows: You shouldn't need them. If all the factors that should be involved are (and that's your goal, of course), then players should be able to attack problems intuitively. Further, the difference between sword A and sword B, one of which is slightly better, if unintuitive (such as similar but slightly different swords), is also small, and thus negligible.

Or so the theory goes.

I think this represents a design flaw rather than a hide-the-numbers vs. show-the-numbers issue. If all your players (at least within certain class or character type groupings) are trying to collect the same identical kit, then there's probably a real lack of variety in your game's high-end gear.

Unless the game only attracts number-crunching minmaxxers, the players who care about that sort of thing will care, whether the numbers are hidden or not. Just like the players who really obsess about the tiniest variations in armor/weapon performance, will figure out those variations (right down to being able to substitute fairly accurate numerical representations of that performance) even if they never get to see the numbers or formulas involved.

Again, I would argue that this is more indicative of basic design flaws, rather than a matter of whether the players are cognizant of the numbers involved or not. If you want to prevent this sort of character mega-maxxing, it will take more than just hiding the numbers. Hiding the numbers may drive away a certain type player that feels more comfortable being spoon-fed those numbers, but if your game allows players to follow a certain formula to uber-mortaldom, its a hands-down guarantee that they will do it with or without the numbers laid out before them. Most will not even have to figure things out for themselves because they will only need to look at how their fellow power gamers are kitted up.

Well, granted, if you want the power of some items to be a secret, probably you shouldn't just hand out the numbers to them. On the other hand, again your clever, number-obsessed players will figure out soon enough that none of the game's l33t mastorz of doom ever seem to be interested in those massive damage protecting magickal resistant pair of flying boots and will conclude that they must in fact be crap.

I guess the theme I'm harping here is that there really is no hiding the numbers from the players. The may not know the actual numerical values involved, but the ones who care will certainly figure out relative values quickly enough and then pass on those values to their fellow players who are as number obsessed but perhaps a bit less inclined to figure everything out for themselves.

They probably wouldn't. So, if such discovery is meant to be an important part of gameplay, maybe it is worth hiding the numbers, keeping in mind that you will always have some players who have an absolutely freakish talent for figuring these things out and that they are unlikely to keep such knowledge to themselves for long.

I think most RPIs are designed on the assumption that their players aren't (or shouldn't be) interested in numbers. At the same time, I somewhat suspect that number hiding is just another one of those things like OOC channels and no color text, that is a standard in many RPIs simply because it is a standard in many RPIs, not because its presence would actually harm the RPI environment. Indeed, one could make an argument that an advantage to allowing players to, say, see the numerical values for their stats is that these values would then be very obviously OOC. My own experience has been that in RP enforced settings, less rp-conscientious players are much more likely to make an ostensibly IC statement like "I have a very high agility" than they would something like "My agility score is 9." In the first case, the very fact that they are given an english interpretation of the stat in question will lead some to conclude that it is an appropriate IC reference even when it might not be.

I just have to comment on the "I have a high agility" thing..

That is no more IC than saying "Only 20 more pages of my manual before I can train again!"

or (when referring to netlag)

"Oh this weather is horrible."

People don't "have agility" it's not a "thing" that a person possesses. It's a quantitative attribute. Everyone -has- agility. Some people are less agile than others, some more, but unless you're catatonic, your limbs can be moved (whether by your own muscles or someone else moving them for you).

"I am very agile" would express it ICly. "I have a high agility" is just..silly.

And if people are more likely to express it that way, rather than using the numbers given to them, why bother giving them the numbers at all? Why not just have in your "stats" : You are very agile.

or

Your agility is about average. Or.. You are not very agile. Or.. Your agility is absolutely incredible.

Give them a PHRASE they can RP off of, rather than a number they have to hide when making up some explanation of their abilities/weaknesses.

I agree completely.  My point is that sometimes when players are given their stats in english they may interpret this to be a permissible IC reference to their in-game talents and abilities, when in fact such a reference may not be appropriate at all.

Still, you have a potential situation in which stats could be referred to inappropriately.  For example, say you have an agility attribute that breaks down as follows:

1-4: You are extremely clumsy.
5-8: You are a bit of a klutz.
9-12: You aren't exceptionally agile, but then again, you aren't tripping over your own feet either.
13-16: You are very agile.
17-20: You are freakishly agile.

Unless you have some sort of rule in place like "There will never be any IC references made to your character's abilities whatsoever" you will inevitably get situations like this:

Foo says, "I really should take up knife fighting, after all I'm freakishly agile."
Larry says, "Really? I'm just very agile.  I'm freakishly strong though."

In this case the english has just become a substitute for numerical values and would sound just as inappropriate in an RP enforced setting.  True, if Foo knows he has an agility of 18, he may still find some way to discuss this inappropriately IC, but unless he's really dense, he knows he can't just say, "I really should take up knife fighting, after all I have an 18 agility."

Ideally, in an RP setting most players will know that you just don't talk about your character's abilities in certain ways (basically in any way that sounds like you could be describing a game piece).  I just question what seems to be the assumption among many administrators of RP-enforced games that hiding the numbers actually contributes to the RP environment.  I don't really know if the situation described above is common or significant enough to make any case that hiding numbers is detrimental in any way (and I doubt it is), but I do suspect that you could give players of RPIs their stats in purely numerical form without it detracting from anyone's ability to immerse themselves in the game.

The main argument against this would probably be that showing the numbers in some way places more importance on the numbers and perhaps gives the players more of an impression that the game is about numbers.  My response to this would be that if numbers ARE important in a game, a significant portion of your playerbase will play with an eye to number improvement whether or not that is the stated (or even acceptable) goal of the game and whether or not they are allowed to see the exact numbers involved.

I think the only real argument for hiding numbers in RP enforced games (particularly RPIs) is simply because so many players now have an expectation that that is how it is done.  But in such a case, you aren't really improving the RP environment so much as simply offering a feature set that caters to the expectations of players that are generally drawn to that sort of environment.

What you are describing is a poor implementation. The appropriate action should be to fix the problem, not hide the symptom. And as has already been pointed out, hiding the numbers won't even hide the symptom, it'll just make it less obvious.

Once again, this is a case of a poor implementation; the problem is with having a "best weapon" - revealing that fact openly just makes the symptoms more obvious.

On the other hand, if you give the players all of the details and yet they all choose different stats and equipment, you'll know that you've done a good job of balancing the mud. And personally I would consider this the obvious choice for any mud still in the testing phase, as it makes life so much easier for playtesters. For a completed mud, it would really depend on the preferences of the implementor/s. There are arguments against revealing the inner workings (just as there are arguments for), but concealing poor implementations is not one that I would consider valid.

<Edited in order to correct some grammar.>

Just like several people who have posted here, I don't care about a lot of game numbers by themselves. But I do think that there is a burden - again, as was pointed out - to present the world in a useful fashion in the absence of numbers. Moreover, I think that this removes something significant from a player's knowledge. After all, the reason mathematics is useful in the real world is because the real world has mathematic underpinnings.

If I pick up a baseball, I may not know that if I exert X newtons of force directly upward, it will ascend Y meters, but I have an *instinctive* knowledge that if I throw it with this much force, I can make it go that high. Likewise, a game I sometimes play when walking around involves judging when I will pass somebody based on our respective velocities. I'm not always exactly right, but - like all people, I think - I have an intuitive understanding of how things interact because I have prior experience.

So I think my twenty-five year old character ought to have a similar ability. This is a person who has, depending on his history, seen many different things. He can't say that a longsword does 3 more damage per hit than a dagger, but he *can* say that a longsword, in most cases, will be more dangerous than a dagger - and considerably more dangerous than bare fists. The problem is chiefly one of language, which was brought up earlier.

When I say that the sword is "considerably" more dangerous than bare fists, exactly what does that mean? To what specific degree? The sword is probably also "considerably" more dangerous than a oak club, but I would venture that the oak club is more dangerous than bare fists, too. In the real world I can't see numerical values, but I don't have to rely on linguistic aptitude, either. If I, as the player, know quantitatively that a longsword does base X damage, a club base X-1, and fists base X-3, my character can portray that qualitatively in a far more effective fashion than if I am simply told "sword: excellent damage, club: good damage, fists: poor damage."

To accurately portray something that is, I think, largely intuitive, is at best difficult, and at worst, linguistically cumbersome. It seems far simpler to reveal the numbers pertaining to such matters than to fall back onto, as Atyreus mentions, the standard of disguising them. As a result, when my character says that his sword is more deadly than his fists, it is an IC inability to assign specific values (just as I could not, in real life, tell someone that the my claymore does 20 damage) rather than an OOC ignorance of the game world.

A sword is only dangerous when someone is using it. A sword sitting in a weapon rack poses no threat whatsoever. If I have never used a sword before, have no skill in using it, no understanding of the proper grip, stance, or muscles involved in usinng it or even experience picking it up, how could I possibly "intuitively" know anything other than the fact that it's big and sharp? Or sure - bigger and sharper than my fist.

However, if I'm a martial artist, or a big burly beefy brawling buxom babe, WTF would I need with a sword? Make all those fancy swinging motions you want, but I'm gonna punch you so hard in the gut that you puke for a week, and then I'll sell that shiny sword you dropped and trade it for a pretty silk gown.

The point of this? Take a look at everything I just wrote. Tell me where the numbers are. Tell me what numbers have to do with any of it.

The only thing that would happen if you introudce numbers to a scenario like that, is that it would confuse matters, and possibly convince that big burly beefy brawling buxom babe that she should use swords instead of her fists, even though it makes much more sense for her to use her fists.

If the code supports the kind of scenario in the first two paragraphs, then there is absolutely no need whatsoever for numberical displays to the player, and they'd just become a distraction.