This file will try to sum up the ideas about PERFORMING songs.
Both single and in group. (with reservations of typos)
Here's an example how it _could_ look like, when a player plays a song:
>songs
You know the following songs:
The Hedgehog Can Never Be Buggered At All
The Streets Of Ankh-Morpork
Dwarfish Gold Song
The Ankh-Morporkian City Watch Song
(Question here is, what happens if two different people write two
different songs but happen to choose the same name for both?)
>play A Dwarfish Gold Song
Play A Dwarfish Gold Song on what?
>play A Dwarfish Gold Song on banjo
The Dwarfish Gold Song can't be played on a banjo.
>help A Dwarfish Gold Song
A Dwarfish Gold Song is fast and happy with a steady rhythm. It is
written for vocals and a bass horn. The composer was Hobbes.
(Maybe it could even mention whether it's popular or not.)
>play A Dwarfish Gold Song on bass horn
/* This is what the others see */
Hobbes begins to play a fast and happy song with a steady rhythm on
his bass horn, which sounds quite good.
(How it sounds is calculated by the musicians skills in music.theory
and the instrument skill used perhaps)
Hobbes sings: Gold Gold Gold Gold
Hobbes sings: Gold Gold Gold Gold
Hobbes sings: Gold Gold Gold Gold
Hobbes sings: Gold Gold Gold Gold
Hobbes plays a lovely solo on his guitar.
Hobbes sings: Gold Gold Gold Gold
Hobbes sings: Gold Gold Gold Gold
Hobbes sings: Gold Gold Gold Gold
Hobbes sings: Gold Gold Gold Gold
The song gets louder.
Hobbes sings: Gold Gold Gold Gold
Hobbes sings: Gold Gold Gold Gold
Hobbes sings: Gold Gold Gold Gold
Hobbes sings: Gold Gold Gold Gold
>solo a super solo on horn
Cant find "horn" to solo on.
>solo a super solo on bass horn
Hobbes solos a super solo on his bass horn.
Hobbes sings: Gold Gold Gold Gold
Hobbes sings: Gold Gold Gold Gold
Hobbes sings: Gold Gold Gold Gold
Hobbes sings: Gold Gold Gold Gold
Hobbes stops playing on his bass horn.
You feel inclined to give Hobbes 1 dollar for his fine performance.
(PKers should get put on the same system as NPCs, where they might
find themselves giving a dollar without choosing to :)
/* switch* /
You feel more experienced in your bass horn playing.
The messages can be printed in different colours so the song
and "music" gets seperated from other spam on the screen.
Preferably, "Hobbes sings:" can be in magenta or something likely.
The musician can also choose to just sing the song, then the lines
with the instrument (in this case the bass-horn) would be excluded.
See the COMPOSING bit for more info on that.
If you perform (busk) in a city room (outside?), there's a chance NPC's will
toss coins to you, depending on some factors: nigh/day, your skill in
the instrument played, the complexity of the song according to your
level, your skill in showmanship. Some streets should be better to busk
at, but I'm not sure how to solve that.
>Deutha: Well, the easiest thing is to probably make up a "buskability"
>index based on room size, typical NPC density (the number passed in the
>set_monster() call --- I assume cityrooms in other places still use
>that) and maybe some semi-periodic function using the coordinates to
>introduce a bit of variation. If you want to set the index to a
>particular value, say you want the junction of Baker Street and God
>Street to be a hot place to busk, the code could also check for a
>property on the room that overrides the generic algorithm.
If you enter the room while a player is playing it could say:
This is yet another of Ankh-Morpork's many back alleys. There is probably no
need for you to stay here for any longer than you would in any of the others.
It is a freezing cold autumn prime day with a steady wind and medium cloud
cover.
Deutha, Pinkfish and Hobbes are here.
You realise that Hobbes is playing a song.
Mistakes:
On every "turn" of the performance, there should be a chance that a mistake
is made. This would happen if the performer lacks the skill and/or tries
to play a song which is too difficult. Some examples:
Womble sings: Gold Gold Gold Gold!
Womble sings: Gold Gold Gold Gold!
Womble starts to sing, but appears to have forgotten the lyrics!
Or:
Aksu starts playing a difficult solo, but misses many notes and sounds
truly awful. The crowd boos!
Presumably, there will also be grades of mistake, such that a truly bad
one might even abort the song.
---------
Musicians could form teams under the current group system, and become
bands ->so if there is a FAME ratio (more on this later) lower level
musicians could still draw larger crowds.
The bands could be hired by players to perform on weddings, parties,
etc.
So how will it look like when a group (more than one person) performs
then? I think the easiest way to handle this that the musicians
must be in a team/group before they start (That is using the current
group system, or something likely).
Then they must perform the same song. If it isn't same for everyone,
they would either start playing different songs, or a check could
be made saying: Womble and Frog don't have the same song as you.
Then it can look something like this:
This is yet another of Ankh-Morpork's many back alleys. There is probably no
need for you to stay here for any longer than you would in any of the others.
It is a freezing cold autumn prime day with a steady wind and medium cloud
cover.
Deutha, Pinkfish, Skitso and Hobbes are here.
Hobbes says: Ok, lets do a song, you've re-composed the one I gave you
yesterday, right?
Deutha and Skitso nod.
>invite A Dwarfish Gold Song with group
Hobbes invites(?) Skitso, Deutha and Pinkfish to play a A Dwarfish
Gold Song.
(only the leader of the group may invite)
(Deutha see: Hobbes invites you, Skitso and Pinkfish to play A Dwarfish
Gold Song. Type "join in" to play, or "leave" to leave the group."
Pinkfish has been idle for 23 hours and 21 seconds.
>expell(?) pinkfish
Pinkfish leaves the Offler's Quartet group.
Deutha, Skitso has joined in to play A Dwarfish Gold Song.
>play A Dwarfish Gold Song with group
Deutha, Skitso and Hobbes begins to play a fast and happy song with
a steady rhythm on (Deutha sings) guitar and trumpet which sounds
quite good.
Deutha sings: Gold Gold Gold Gold
Deutha sings: Gold Gold Gold Gold
Deutha sings: Gold Gold Gold Gold
Deutha sings: Gold Gold Gold Gold
Skitso starts playing a difficult solo on his guitar, but misses
many notes and sounds truly awful.
Hobbes plays an excellent melody on his trumpet.
Deutha starts to sing, but appears to have forgotten the lyrics!
Deutha sings: Gold Gold Gold Gold
Deutha sings: Gold Gold Gold Gold
Deutha sings: Gold Gold Gold Gold
Skitso plays a nice chord sequence on his guitar.
Hobbes plays a terrific solo on his trumpet.
And so on...
Hobbes, Deutha and Skitso stops playing.
You feel inclined to give 3 dollars for the Offler's Quartet for their
fine performance.
Skitso says: Wow, I got a TM in instruments.guitar!
Hobbes and Deutha cheers enthusiastically.
Pinkfish says: hey, this is not fair, i was wombling in space! May I
join the group again?
========================================================================
What then, will determine how it "sounds" ?
Deutha: It'll need to be an average of some kind. I'd suggest what I
think is the harmonic mean, such that if the skills are S_1, S_2, S_3
and so forth up to S_N, the overall skill is:
/ [ 1 1 1 1 ]
S = N / [ --- + --- + --- + ... + --- ]
/ [ S_1 S_2 S_3 S_4 ]
This has the property that a really low skill tends to dominate,
pulling the average down. I'm assuming that the average ability
of a group of musicians is more heavily weighted by the ability of
the worst musician than would be the case for the usual mean.
