🚀 go-pugleaf

bshsiung@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Bernard Hsiung) writes:
>
>It suddenly occurs to me that my prior difficulty with the seven levels was
>that the words you used weren't intuitively clear to me.  

Yes, this needs work.  Let's hammer it out.  A few of us looking at a
thesaurus ought to be able to choose some good words.

You rightly point out that Average is a counterproductive word, because,
yes, these values mean the same thing for everyone in a given situation.
It might take an Adequate amount of Strength to bust down a door, or it
might take a Goodly amount of Strength, but an Average amount doesn't
make sense.

I think we should avoid words of absolute limits, though: no Best or
Worst.  I also have trouble with Competant - it sounds too close to Good
to me.

How about:

Terrible
Poor
Mediocre
Adequate  (or Passable?)
Good
Great
Super (or Awesome?)

?

>The biggest problem with treating qualities in this way is that, while it works
>well for human beings (who have abilities that we all have a general feel for),
>it tends to fall apart if we want to do things with creatures that have mostly
>superhuman or subhuman abilities since we start pushing the result envelope.

True, true - any suggestions on how to get around this?

>If you can get better than "Best" (or "Super"), you might want to consider
>being able to do worse than "Worst"/"Terrible" just for symmetry...

Okay.

>>I like the concept of relating things to words.
>
>I like it too, but you have to be a little careful about what the words say,
>what the mechanics say, and what you want to say...

Yep.  That's why I want to hammer out terminology at this point.

>I'll try to get the "Hurt"/"Very Hurt" guidelines written, but again, I warn
>that they're not going to appear anytime soon.  Can you give me an idea of how
>I'm not getting across what I was trying to say in my previous attempts?
>
Let me reread it and think on it.  Maybe it just needs a minor tweak,
something as easy as changing the word Average above . . .

-- 
  - Steffan O'Sullivan		         sos@oz.plymouth.edu