Early CRPGs, for some arcane reason, used to begin with the player having to randomly generate scores in attributes such as strength, dexterity, and intelligence. Well, those were the early days, and we didn’t know any better. Except that it still goes on. Look at this quotation from a recent RPG:
“By using the plus and minus keys next to each trait on the menu, you can take points away from some traits and add them to others to get the balance you want. If you really don’t like the hand you’ve been dealt, you can click REROLL to get a different set of values for the various traits.”
—The Baldur’s Gate Official Strategy Guide
“If you really don’t like the hand you’ve been dealt….” Or, to put it another way: “If you have to be a pain and can’t just go along with what you got first time….” But, each time you “reroll,” you get a new set of random attributes, which may be higher overall than the first set. Assuming the attribute values make any difference at all to the game, you’re going to want them as high as possible, aren’t you? If you’re patient enough, maybe you should keep “rerolling” until every attribute comes up with a value of 18. (The range is from 3 to 18, for another arcane reason we don’t need to go into here.)
And why don’t you keep “rerolling” for hours, until you have the perfect character? Because you bought this product to play a role-playing adventure, not to watch strings of numbers changing. This has been set up merely as an endurance test. When you finally get bored and frustrated enough, you’ll accept your attribute scores and get on with the game.
As an example of player/gameplay balance, it’s not quite in the Stone Age.
ZA Game Architecture and Design: A New Edition Andrew Rollings Dave Morris
To ja może przypomnę, że w owych czasach AD&D2ed losowało się postacie, a nie generowało w oparciu o pulę punktów. My mieliśmy swoje sposoby, by jakoś równoważyć bohaterów między sobą (np. zaczynaliśmy brać pod uwagę rzuty po uzyskaniu pierwszej min. 15 na 4k6 – wynik jednej kostki się odrzucało).
Takie to były czasy…
I takie było ich przeniesienie w przestrzeń komputerową 🙂
