[MUD-Dev] Re: Administrative notes

[Marian Griffith]

On Mon 19 May, Orion Henry wrote:
> 	Well, that healer who sits in town all day, healing people,
> should get REALLY REALLY good at sitting in a town all day healing
> people.  When he encounters things he's unfamiliar with or has not
> had much experience dealing with, then he should be in trouble (the
> plague, major burns, etc...)

Which may be one of the reasons why the good people of the town award
this healer with more than she needs to survive. In the hope that she
will get better at healing so that when an emergency occurs they have
a competent healer about rather than one who knows how to deal with
the common minor wounds and diseases.

> But yes, he needs to get a wider
> range of experience to be an all encompassing good healer, but he
> should be darn good at whatever it is he does day in and day out.

Which is true not only for healers but for every job on a game
(and I like to think of the traditional classes as being jobs).
Fighters spend (or should do so anyway) much of their time at
"keeping their edge" at combat, and occasionally, when they
get the opportunity learn to counter different fighting styles.
The same is true for mages, who -need- to learn only so much as
to get themselves a roof over their head and a job that is paying
decently. After that they can spend some time increasing their
skills, by encountering different types of magick and learning
from them.
None of all this learning has any degree of risk in it. In fact
the reality is quite the opposite. One rarely learns things by
jumping in headfirst. One usually gets killed that way.

> Things that are way out of his league should not educate him as he
> doent have any knowledge there.  Things like "patch-and-set"
> opperations on broken fighters should only cease to be educational 
> when it becomes so routine that it can be done without thought.
> Otherwise there is room for imporvement.

Learning is done by two people, one teacher who already knows and
-explains- how it is done, and showing it at such a slow speed that
the other, the student, can repeat it. Once the trick is learned then
the student must -practice- it until she becomes proficient (and ready
to learn the next trick). And after that she must -excercise- it to
prevent the skill from becoming (too) rusty.

Nice opportunity for RP in that too, especially if you allow any
player to teach any other player. And restrict the success of the
teaching to the skill of the teacher, the ability to teach and the
ability of the student to learn. You could even have people learn
some fairly crucial skill pretty badly from a bad teacher and be
haunted by it the rest of their game-life without ever knowing it.

Marian
--
Yes - at last - You. I Choose you. Out of all the world,
out of all the seeking, I have found you, young sister of
my heart! You are mine and I am yours - and never again
will there be loneliness ...

Rolan Choosing Talia,
Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey