I got an odd question in the mail that I’ll back-up here:

In your “Dream MMO” how much information do you give the players? Do you give them the math behind the numbers? Do you give them all the numbers (leaving the math behind the numbers a simple exercise reverse engineering)? Can you show them NONE of the numbers? What different levels would you define to group the different styles of showing numbers? What’s the benefits & drawback of these levels? Which ones are more viable?

I always intented the “ruleset” of my dream mmorpg as a pen&paper ruleset. So rules that could be managed by human player in a normal play session and simple dice rolls.

All the “logic” of the game is supposed to be “readable”. So full disclosure of the mechanics, but not only. It’s not just about revealing them, but also designing them so that they can be understood and used easily.

That was one of the basic goals behind the “dream mmorpg”.

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Beside many reasons (that I explained partially in a post with a similar title), there’s also the fact of the “genre”. RPG are fun also because rules are fun on their own. It’s fun discussing them, it’s fun learning them. They “belong” to a world as much as the content itself. An RPG is also the tomes you had to read. Reading the rules of a pen&paper game was an integral part of the experience that I want recuperated in a mmorpg.

As it’s fun personalizing the avatar, it’s also “fun” having detailed character sheets with many statistics. So, even the rules, are a part of the play. And it’s a good practice to let the players in contact with them. Use them and enjoy them. While also keeping the game design and the maintenance of the code (in particular in large projects) much more viable.

“No math in games” is a general principle that I believe could do wonders. Keeping things simple and intuitive.