Print

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

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

The problem is that as the world gets more detailed and self-affecting, retroactive changes become more kludgy and difficult. And the world will certainly get more detailed.

[Ekaton]

The problem is that as the world gets more detailed and self-affecting, retroactive changes become more kludgy and difficult. And the world will certainly get more detailed.

Well, to think of it, I agree that retroactive placing could pose a lot of difficulties, but what I wanted to avoid is to be constrained by the existing parents when creating the new character. Parents do have their own traits and appearance, which really should be hereditary, but I guess that in many cases at least it is preferable to retroactive adding. Well, perhaps fantasy genetics with god meddling could result in a different character being born than should be by virtue of genetics alone.

[NW_Kohaku]

Broadly speaking, everything I said in the other thread on making your own character up would apply here.  I would endorse the sort of chosen upbringing with randomized narrative elements model.

As for retroactive placement, I don't see a problem, as, like I said in the other thread, as the world becomes more complicated, there will be more and more abstracted elements in worldgen which creates more and more Schrodinger's Gun situations. There are a few dozen historicals that are actually tracked in a city that has a population of thousands.  You can simply search for a house no adventurer has ever visited, even in a well-travelled city, and say that your adventurer happened to be born there. If an adventurer happened to actually visit every house, then your parents happened to be out of town at the time the adventurer visited, or are recent immigrants that came by just after the adventurer left.

[Untrustedlife]

Broadly speaking, everything I said in the other thread on making your own character up would apply here.  I would endorse the sort of chosen upbringing with randomized narrative elements model.

As for retroactive placement, I don't see a problem, as, like I said in the other thread, as the world becomes more complicated, there will be more and more abstracted elements in worldgen which creates more and more Schrodinger's Gun situations. There are a few dozen historicals that are actually tracked in a city that has a population of thousands.  You can simply search for a house no adventurer has ever visited, even in a well-travelled city, and say that your adventurer happened to be born there. If an adventurer happened to actually visit every house, then your parents happened to be out of town at the time the adventurer visited, or are recent immigrants that came by just after the adventurer left.

You just have to be very careful when you do these things to prevent inconsistencies. As has been lamented about before.

I'm kind of  a simulationist myself, so retconning just leaves a bad taste in my mouth in these kinds of games.

[Untrustedlife]

The problem is that as the world gets more detailed and self-affecting, retroactive changes become more kludgy and difficult. And the world will certainly get more detailed.

This is the kind of thing i'm worried about.

The whole "infinite hole" scenario I explained.

[NW_Kohaku]

You just have to be very careful when you do these things to prevent inconsistencies. As has been lamented about before.

I'm kind of  a simulationist myself, so retconning just leaves a bad taste in my mouth in these kinds of games.

What retcon?

If I told you that in a town you've never been to, or whose phonebook you have never looked into, there happens to be a man named Joe Smith, and when you look, he's there, did I retcon anything?

The point I'm making is that the game is full of places the player has never looked, and you just need to say they come from one of those places.  If the player has somehow managed to look in every single possible tile of the entire gameworld, then all you need is the capacity for populations to shift around so that they would have to be literally omniscient to categorically prove something had changed.

Keep in mind, 99% of the game's citizens are not saved, they are generated from thin air as you walk by.  This is how the game has to exist, since it cannot simulate everyone. 

Even if you want to home in entirely upon royals, keep in mind that the whole royal family need not be tracked historically.  A great-grandson of a monarch in a non-inheriting branch of the royal dynasty may well be non-historical, and therefore, be a Schrodinger's Gun to fire however the player wishes. 

That said, yes, this presumes you draw from the population pool, not the historicals.  Historicals should be static, so assuming the role of a dwarf from a retired fortress, or the king, or some existing adventurer with an existing kill list means not being able to make major changes to the character, but when you're picking from the population pool, you get to have full control.

[Cormack]

But why must the player play an existing character in case of historicals? I really like the idea that OP suggested - that the PC can smoothly replace an existing character with a convincing backstory.

Let's say we want to play as a king. We should be able to have a choice - an existing person or a new one. If a new one, then we are replacing the one that already is in the game with PC, and the old king dies/is banished/abdicates. That way Player can have the character he wants and the world stays realistic.

[Untrustedlife]

You just have to be very careful when you do these things to prevent inconsistencies. As has been lamented about before.

I'm kind of  a simulationist myself, so retconning just leaves a bad taste in my mouth in these kinds of games.

What retcon?

If I told you that in a town you've never been to, or whose phonebook you have never looked into, there happens to be a man named Joe Smith, and when you look, he's there, did I retcon anything?

The point I'm making is that the game is full of places the player has never looked, and you just need to say they come from one of those places.  If the player has somehow managed to look in every single possible tile of the entire gameworld, then all you need is the capacity for populations to shift around so that they would have to be literally omniscient to categorically prove something had changed.

Keep in mind, 99% of the game's citizens are not saved, they are generated from thin air as you walk by.  This is how the game has to exist, since it cannot simulate everyone. 

Even if you want to home in entirely upon royals, keep in mind that the whole royal family need not be tracked historically.  A great-grandson of a monarch in a non-inheriting branch of the royal dynasty may well be non-historical, and therefore, be a Schrodinger's Gun to fire however the player wishes. 

That said, yes, this presumes you draw from the population pool, not the historicals.  Historicals should be static, so assuming the role of a dwarf from a retired fortress, or the king, or some existing adventurer with an existing kill list means not being able to make major changes to the character, but when you're picking from the population pool, you get to have full control.

I am aware they are pulled from "thin air" but they aren't actually completely pulled from thin air, each site tracks for example the amount of people in it who are carpenters so it isn't entirely out of thin air yes the hist fig itself is pulled out of thin air when you introduce yourself but that data on that character is dependent on the data the site/civilization holds, including genetic data, the amount of people who are of specific professions and their cultural values. it relies on the sites data, the sites data also relies on the number of people of specific profession for, for example trade goods (all trade goods in each site are saved in a list, and tracked numerically, as toady has stated) , in my example it was carpenters so suddenly adding a new carpenter changes those numbers, it changes the trade goods, it has this far reaching effect you don't think of. Which is why I said that you need to be careful.

And this is the truth.

[Cormack]

But if you only replace the carpenter with a new carpenter, then everything stays the same, doesn't it?

[Untrustedlife]

But if you only replace the carpenter with a new carpenter, then everything stays the same, doesn't it?

In that very specific case, yes, nothing would change.

In fact you could just draw that carpenter directly from the population pool generate a hist fig for him and be fine.

The issues happen when players try to do something that changes a towns demographics or their nobles.

I mean replacing noble by saying they died is fine I suppose, but it is rather strange. I mean, lets say they had no enemies and apparnetly no heirs (note succession happens now so thes epositions would normally get inherited by that hist figs historical children if they had them) , and they just randomly got murdered the player would see that in legends mode and be like what? That makes no sense. You might as well say "player wanted to be a noble so we killed him and all his heirs for no reason" That is not simulation that is...well..broken. And now because of that the world has fundamentally changed.

[Cormack]

But if he would die of sudden illness, that would make sense in every case. Anyone can die of illness.

You can say that player is kinda like god there - he controls many things and essentially creates the world.

[Untrustedlife]

But if he would die of sudden illness, that would make sense in every case. Anyone can die of illness.

You can say that player is kinda like god there - he controls many things and essentially creates the world.

Yep, him and every single one of his heirs died the same day of the same illness that they didn't contract, they just died instantly, that makes sense /sarcasm.


I suppose it depends on how you want to play dwarf fortress, you could add like a world param option that says "yes I want to break the simulation so i can be a noble" I suppose.

Not my cup of tea but I guess you guys like that for some reason.

[Ekaton]

The medieval times which are quite closely corresponding to the DF timeline, were not pleasant at all. People could die of illness, killed by a random ruffian, killed when their carriage fell of a cliff, children could drown in a gutter, spoiled food was quite common in taverns and serious poisoning could be uncurable. I can see no reason why even a whole family couldn't be poisoned by a jealous servant, other noble, die in a tragic fire or fall off a said cliff together. That is, unless of course, you want to carefully track the number of poisoners, arsonists and dangerous cliffs.

In any case, I can see that you are not a fan of my idea. Fair enough and may I say, perfectly understandable. You like realism and consistency. I respect that. But at the same time, note that this will not ruin your game. Nobody will force you to use that option. And if others would like to use it, would it bother you that much? I think that the game should customizable in many ways and this is one of them. If you want to start as a historical figure so that you will not break the hardcore realism of the world - that's fine, but if you want to meddle a bit so that you can play as the character you want - that's fine too in my book.

No need to argue about anything, really, if you can play your way and others can play it their way. Not only in this case but in any other. That's healthy.

[NW_Kohaku]

And this is the truth.

Odd that you feel the need to assure me that you weren't just lying the whole time. 

I am aware they are pulled from "thin air" but they aren't actually completely pulled from thin air, each site tracks for example the amount of people in it who are carpenters so it isn't entirely out of thin air yes the hist fig itself is pulled out of thin air when you introduce yourself but that data on that character is dependent on the data the site/civilization holds, including genetic data, the amount of people who are of specific professions and their cultural values. it relies on the sites data, the sites data also relies on the number of people of specific profession for, for example trade goods (all trade goods in each site are saved in a list, and tracked numerically, as toady has stated) , in my example it was carpenters so suddenly adding a new carpenter changes those numbers, it changes the trade goods, it has this far reaching effect you don't think of. Which is why I said that you need to be careful.

Again, there's no problem with this happening unless literally every non-historic carpenter is dead.

Even IF every carpenter is dead, however, shouldn't, logically, someone maybe try taking up carpentry because there's a vacuum in the market to fill? Maybe your parents took up carpentry in your city's time of need.

Also, what's with the demand that kings die?  Again, there's little need to do that unless you have a demand for starting out as a king that's an absolutely different person from the current king, which is an edge case that need not be tied intrinsically to the suggestion as a whole.

In fact, I think this concept of backfilling, rather than retconning, plays well with the concept of random events in a character biography.  If you start in a village with a monster rampage, that can be incorporated into your character biography.  Maybe you could choose, maybe there could be a random chance to have the monster kill your parents, and you grow up in some sort of Conan-style revenge quest.

[Untrustedlife]

And this is the truth.

Odd that you feel the need to assure me that you weren't just lying the whole time. 

haha, I have no idea why I felt the need to say that.

In fact, I think this concept of backfilling, rather than retconning, plays well with the concept of random events in a character biography.  If you start in a village with a monster rampage, that can be incorporated into your character biography.  Maybe you could choose, maybe there could be a random chance to have the monster kill your parents, and you grow up in some sort of Conan-style revenge quest.

I suppose this would work if you pulled from the entity populations that the creature killed and turned them into hist figs. But what if it didn't kill any entity populations in that town that it could take from? Then it didn't actually kill anyone in the simulation and then you have to retcon that, that creates an inconsistency and these inconsistencies would then keep building up over time. until eventually after like 20 adventurers your legends mode is filled to the brim with inconsistencies.

I mean if you backfill/retcon thoroughly enough or just have systems in place to prevent these kind of weird things from happening then you wouldnt run into these issues.. but Its still rather strange.