Re: Re: Qualitytable

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_...>
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001 15:43:06 +0100 (BST)

> > Let's suppose I owe the game-world equivalent of four cows, and
> > let's suppose this is wealth 20 in HW. Let's suppose someone
> > fives me another 4 cows. All other things being equal, e.g. they
> > don't immediately starve through lack of pasture, etc, nor do they
> > start instantly compounding at an infeasible rate. What we left-
> > brain-crazed people are asking is, what would be a (necessarily
> > inexact, to be taken with a pinch of salt, or fudged around
> > entirely, etc, etc) _rule of thumb_ for what my new Wealth might
> > _plausibly_ be?
>
> Since thet aren't starving through lack of pasture not less than 20.
> Since no one has suggested that Wealth is exactly equivalent to no of
> Cows, not as much as 20W.

I agree, but that's a somewhat wide interval. Be no harm to tighten it a tad, even as a guideline.

> > Some of us are proposing a fairly simple such rule. Some of us are
> > proposing endlessly complex reasons why this couldn't, _nay
> > shouldn't_ be done.
>
> I'd have said some of us are proposing endlessly complex methods of
> attempting to calculate this while others are giving fairly simple
> reasons why this is a nonsensicle question, but I suppose it depends
> on which way you choose to approach it...

No, it doesn't. You answered the question readily (if hyper-vaguely) enough above -- in what sense can it reasonably be said to be nonsensical? And in what way are the proposed tables any more complex than the equally lengthy, and substantially broken, example costs from the rulebook?

> > Tell me, which is the more useful to the hapless Narrator puzzling
> > over the type of question I've asked?
>
> "How much phlostigen is consumed in burning Daughters of Darkness and
> Lost City of Eldorad at Convulsions?" Which would be more useful to
> the hapless scientist - a table of page to phlostigen ratio, or a
> statement of how combustion really works?

If I were playing the Steampunk RPG, I might be interested in some sort of usable account of phlostigen. As I'm playing a Gloranthan RPG, I really would be interested in a usable account of wealth in Gloranthan terms.

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