Lets talk for a moment about OROBOROPOLIS. I want to set a few things straight. And I'll throw out a disclaimer that things can change; the system is nowhere near done and more exists as a bunch of ideas and half made systems with various goals. But I figured it's best to at least explain those ideas.
1. The game isn't a simple infinite dungeon generator for you to flail at and never make any real progress in. I alluded to this with the talk of "killing the heart" but I realize thats very vague. The Name "OROBOROPOLIS" came from a generating system I was using, which was originally intended to be infinite, but I realized it wasn't terribly interesting as a main game. Fine for the Deep infirmary, but not for the focus of a system. The intent with the game that bears the old generator's name is to create a dungeon by hand. One of my inspirations for this was this interpretation of a tokyo railway map:
Visible at a higher definition
HereThe city of the damned is not just a liveless structure, it is a living thing. And the goal of the game is to kill it. It's not an easy task, and you might never succeed, but there is an end goal to work towards.
2. Part of the goal of killing this lovecraftian thing is to inhabit it. In other words, this isn't just "raid dungeon" this is "Invade dungeon, set up base camps, even fortified areas, hell, maybe even towns if you can manage it". And this can have multiple positive effects. The most obvious being that you wouldn't have to restart from the entrance everytime, new players could "Spawn" at a forward base and existing players wouldn't have to delve through the same infested hives every time, struggling to make it back to their previous deepest point. If I get a crafting system going (which I'd like to do, I've been wanting to do a crafting system in a game for a while now. I have a lot of love for the crafting in Hellmoo, so a big ass system like that would be just wonderful) then these settlements could gather materials from the area passively. They could generate new goods to buy as well, stuff related to the area they're in. They could also provide an interesting chance for a more defensive role. Xcom base defense anyone?
3. I want the actual "active" party of players to be MUCH more limited than they are now. Like, 5 people, 7 at most. And that is for a number of good reasons
- I can actually focus on doing more turns, more quickly, and with better descriptions.
- I can create a system with more depth because I won't go insane trying to do stuff across 50 characters. See perplexicon.
- I won't be spending 2 hours or more a day doing posts and slowly burning out to the point of not wanting to do anything anymore.
- Things won't be so much of an indomitable cluster fuck. Probably.
But I would like to have the players that aren't part of that currently active group doing SOMETHING. I don't like the idea of a straight waitlist. It's not engaging and half the time people don't seem to come back, meaning half the slots are duds. Maybe something like what I was talking about with the mostly player run on ship stuff? I dunno. But I also don't want to spend a lot of time on it; as I said, I want my effort and time going towards the main game.
4. In relation to that, I'd like a more fair way to choose people being signed up to be part of the active group. Probably a lottery using the names of everyone who signs up in a 48 hour period. Something like that. Because I don't want to have a team of brain deads. Thats another thing we'll need. Doom counter on brain deads. Miss too many turns without letting us know you'll be gone? Character is eliminated. Or at least shoved into a small room and locked away for the time being.
5. I've said that character advancement was doomed; ie that you would eventually succumb as you fought the forces of evil and fall to that evil. The current Idea I have related to that is connected to a particular stat: Faith. Now, in the system I'm thinking of, you'll gain levels in skills related to weapons when you uses them. Ie, you might have level 2 long sword skill or level 5 unarmed skill. Instead of giving you some numerical bonus, these levels will grant you abilities. Such as an unarmed player may gain the ability "Flicker" which allows them to unleash a single lighting fast blow that covers a much larger distance than seems possible, striking enemies at a decent range. These abilities, along with magic, probably, drain your faith. And faith is an important thing. It's not just some pool stat; your faith is vital for remaining untainted. Think of it kind of like sanity in a lovecraft setting. When you get low on faith, enemies will be more prone to target you, and if you completely run out, you gain a point of corruption. That means that some part of your body becomes corrupted. This is both good and bad. It's bad because it pushes you one step closer to completely turning, and once you get the first bit, it becomes easier to get others. It's good because it brings with it unique abilities related to that part. And it's not just using abilities, you can lose faith in all kinds of ways, and gain it back in others. But you will almost inevitably reach a point where you are forced to choose between maintaining your faith or losing a teammate, or possibly dying yourself. And once you start on the road to corruption, the city will do everything in its power to see you further along it. So yeah, you have a chance of living a long time, but such survivors will more than likely be rare indeed.
It's getting late and I have a dentist appointment and a heck of a lot of studying to do tomorrow, so I'm gonna wrap this up for now. I'll talk more about my ideas for combat mechanics tomorrow.
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Topic: Einsteinian Roulette: OOC and NEW PLAYER INFO (Read 2545805 times)