In a message dated 11/18/03 2:16:17 PM Mountain Standard Time, juuso@iki.fi writes: >RulingNations@aol.com wrote: > >>12 TRAITS: >> >>SCOPE is the size and population of the society and its components >>RESOURCES is the wealth and knowledge available to a society >>DEVELOPMENT is what a society is capable of, its economy >>CONTROL is the measure of how much a society dominates its members >> >>AGGRESSION is the amount of violence in a society >>COMMUNALISM is the amount a society de-emphasizes individuality >>INNOVATION is the amount a society accepts changes and new ideas >>PRAGMATISM is the amount the practical is emphasized over the mystical >>PROVIDENCE is the amount of long-term thinking in a society >>TOLERATION is the amount a society accepts those outside itself >>TRACTABILITY measures how willing the population is to be ruled >>UNIFORMITY measures how much a society isn't divided internally > >You stated that the traits should have actual game-effects. I kind of >agree with that, but I think that the 8 traits above are more >descriptive in nature than with actual game effect. They are *good* >descriptive traits, but I can't really see their game effect, except in >some special situations. I mostly see these as target numbers for other society's actions. For example, to get an alliance or trade add society's Toleration; to get your society to adopt a new idea, add Innovation. Admittedly I'm not sure how to apply all of them, but they don't really have any overlaps either. >SCOPE, RESOURCES and CONTROL sound good, but DEVELOPMENT sounds like it >would belong to the 'skills' rather than 'traits'. Well, Development can certainly be combined with Resources. I prefer to split it out because I feel that Communication, Production, and Transportation (subs of Development) are distinctly different from Holdings, Infrastructure, and Knowledge (subs of Resources). Resources answers, "Can it be done?" Development answers, "How easy is it?" >Hmmm... in its stead I would propose STABILITY as measuring how fast >or slow the society changes its course. That's basically the idea of Innovation. >>A Society's skills are it's ability to _do_ things (as opposed to traits >>which are it's ability to _be_ things). > >Hmm... that's a nice division. > >>ARTS deals with non-practical, but often morale-building, matters >>BIOLOGY deals with living things (agronomy, medicine, etc.) >>MILITARY deals with combat and espionage >>PARANATURALISM deals with magic and mysticism >>MANUFACTURE deals with physical items (weapons, transportation, etc.) >>PSYCHOLOGY deals with people's minds (advertising, diplomacy, trade, etc.) > >I don't really like the terminology and/or the division to modern >subject areas for these. Well, we want areas that have similar breadth or utility, and a list of no more than 12 (top-level) items. Another scheme would be: ARTS, BUILD & DESIGN, GOVERNANCE, HUMANITIES, LABOR, MAGIC, NATURAL SCIENCES, PHYSICAL SCIENCES. >Why should e.g. agronomy and medicine be lumped into one category, when >they deal with entirely different matters (from pragmatic and >development perspective)? >>An example gift might be to give a society a navy in addition to its army. >> >>An example fault might be that a society does not have a technology >>that's considered standard. > >How about when a society want to build the navy, or obtains that technology >during the game? Ah well, as a game device in character building stage >faults and gifts work out nicely, but in IH, the "characters" tend to >remain around for a long time. It should be possible to use actions to obtain Glories in play. Jefferson http://www.picotech.net/~jeff_wilson63/rpg/ ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send mail to celandra-off@phoenyx.net.
