Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Urlance Woolsbane]

Currently, randomized creatures are impossible to create, via raws alone. Understandably, Toady wishes to cross this bridge when he comes to it.

That said, there is a simple change to the raws that would work as a nice prelude to more complex or convenient randomization, without upsetting anything.

The APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION tag allows for the inputting of arguments, allowing for variability with a single variation. If the arguments could be randomized, so could the creatures. I imagine the syntax could work like this:

Code: [Select]

[APPLY_CREATURE_VARIATION:MENDELSSOHN:1;2;3:YES:blue;black;red:NOFEAR|NOPAIN;NOTHOUGHT;CRAZED]
Where a group of semicolons indicates a set of equally possible choices for an argument.

This implementation would of course be somewhat clumsy, but it would open up a lot of possibilities, without the need for recourse to hackery, thus allowing for greater ease of use, and of distribution.

[Dirst]

I think this is a good idea, but could be more easily handled by using the TL_COLOR_MODIFIER syntax for a weighted random attribute.

For a stand-alone tag, this is straightforward:

[RANDOM_TAG:NOTHOUGHT:5:CRAZED:2:NOPAIN:1]

Add a NONE option to make no effective tag at all, and you're set.  I can see this being restricted to the set of tags that can be manipulated with syndromes, since it requires individual-level tracking.


For an argument inside a tag, the syntax isn't immediately obvious.  It needs either declaring the number of choices at the head of the list, or nesting brackets.  Something like

[APP_MOD_NOUN:RANDOM:3:hair:3:fur:1:wool:1:SINGULAR]
[APP_MOD_NOUN:[hair:3:fur:1:wool:1]:SINGULAR]

The problem isn't storing the data at an individual level, it's parsing it when needed for descriptions or combat or whatnot.