Print

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

[voliol]

From an earlier answer, regarding the spheres:

Quote from: Fieari
How do you intend to make procedurally generated magic become "thematic"?  Most fantasy works organize their magic around one or more themes, each theme having all magic working similarly.  For example, some split magic into elements, or into schools.  Brandon Sanderson is famous for particularly intricate magic systems... such as all magic requiring the user to ingest and "burn" metal inside their stomachs to cast spells.  All fantasy magics that are more than fairytales have SOME organization to their magic.

I presume spheres would be involved.  Will the RAWs have to expand to have lists of ways the spheres can influence magic?  I know the myths will direct how magic works... but coherence is important!  If a fire spirit is the source of magic in the world, how will the game know to make fire always part of the cost, or the effect, of the magic?

golemgunk and Shonai_Dweller mentioned using the creation myths for thematic consistency, and that's the starting principle we're going to work with.  In the prototype, the spheres are linked to creators and creation methods and these are passed down the tree of causation; when a magic system is needed, magical effects attached to the proper spheres are preferred.  It works pretty well on a very basic level.  And we'll likely end up doing quite a bit more along those lines, criss-crossing the system with various conceptual linkages until it's vaguely good enough.  Post-creation-myth actions can also be attached to spheres (or intermediate structures/concepts), so that, for instance, some grand betrayal in early historical world-gen can spawn a new magic system themed around deceptive effects.

There's a danger of being too on the nose sometimes, if you always go with the most obvious sphere, and we can try to leaven everything with some purely random elements, or have some higher-order procedural conceptual symbols that link together spheres more esoterically, something that can survive exposition but also give some more variability, e.g. the same way "fiery" can link up to "passionate" in some languages, and perhaps be linked to some canonical event or character.

Non-spherical rules can also arise from creation; if the universe begins with a primordial chaos of salt, and some creator turns salt into fire and water as a first step, then that universe's systems can respect 'salt' as the sort of basic element, with fire and water having a secondary but important status, and this can become a foundation for various generated systems.  These have the fault of being somewhat random or rigid depending on the amount of guidance in their generation, but enough of these together should increase the variety a great deal, and pull the game away from "oh, there's a Fire God magic system again."  Rules defining what life is and what happens during death, dreams, etc., can also interlink in non-spherical ways that enrich the systems, and we've discussed in the past using invisible personalities/'souls' to model half-living magical forces in ways that can link up with divination and miscasts in ways that go beyond tables and dice.

I'm hopeful things won't feel utterly mushy or random, nor too rigidly obedient to obvious connections, but it remains to be seen what we can actually pull off.

[Buttery_Mess]

A couple more questions;


What if you want to raise a dismembered corpse as a lieutenant? Can you raise an intelligent undead from both a severed head and its headless body? Would they share a soul or have two separate new souls, or is this just not possible?

For that matter, could you raise your own severed hand, for instance, as an intelligent undead? If your original body was then decapitated, could your severed hand then raise your body and head? This is assuming that the raised parts retain knowledge of life and death.

Is there already a mechanism in place for different bodies sharing a soul, and if not, do you plan to implement it? Either in the short term, or as part of Myth and Magic, do you intend to implement a mechanism whereby souls can be copied or cloned, so that they retain the original's memories and personality but thereafter grow and change as individuals?

[Shonai_Dweller]

I forget if it was asked before, but if you play your adventurer as a villain and indulge in bribary, kidnapping and general intimidation, what happens on retire? Does the adventurer revert to whatever their standard values and goals were (and therefore possibly quit being villainous altogether), or will they remember that they have a gang and carry on being bad, possibly even expanding their networks?

Is it possible to end up having to track down your ex-adventurers and will they start leaving evidence all over the place for you to follow? Or is the system not going to be that robust just yet?

[Buttery_Mess]

Sorry to pester but

Will we be able to use physical coercion and fear in lieu of intimidation checks? Such as, say, breaking fingers, or slaughtering all their mates in front of them? Does reputation count in intimidation checks? What about physical size and brawniness?

[ZM5]

Will adventurers get a negative reputation for accosting people too much with intimidation for no reason?

On that subject, will villains and their agents also get suspicious if they catch wind of the player questioning people around town?

[Untrustedlife]

A couple more questions;


What if you want to raise a dismembered corpse as a lieutenant? Can you raise an intelligent undead from both a severed head and its headless body? Would they share a soul or have two separate new souls, or is this just not possible?

For that matter, could you raise your own severed hand, for instance, as an intelligent undead? If your original body was then decapitated, could your severed hand then raise your body and head? This is assuming that the raised parts retain knowledge of life and death.

Is there already a mechanism in place for different bodies sharing a soul, and if not, do you plan to implement it? Either in the short term, or as part of Myth and Magic, do you intend to implement a mechanism whereby souls can be copied or cloned, so that they retain the original's memories and personality but thereafter grow and change as individuals?

Undead don't have the "souls", so yes you can raise your own hand and such. And yes you can raise both the head and body of someone.
They dont have souls so they dont have skills and such aswell if i recall.

Mist zombies still have souls though, as do vampires.

[PlumpHelmetMan]

Wait, what are "mist zombies"? Or was that a typo?

[Untrustedlife]

Wait, what are "mist zombies"? Or was that a typo?

Thralls created by evil mist. You havent seen them/become one in adventur emode?

Basically theres evil mist in some evil biomes, its called husking mist, it turns anything it touches into a mist zombie. The names are generated.
https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Undead

[PlumpHelmetMan]

Oh yeah, I did know about those. I've just never differentiated enough between them and necromancer zombies to give them a separate name.

[Untrustedlife]

Oh yeah, I did know about those. I've just never differentiated enough between them and necromancer zombies to give them a separate name.

Like i said, they maintain their souls and get crazy combat buffs and dont have the "hitpoints" (If you hit necromancer zombie enough they just die after enough force has been applied) And so mist zombies are much more tough and also you can become one in adventure mode so they are pretty awesome. 

[Shonai_Dweller]

A couple more questions;


What if you want to raise a dismembered corpse as a lieutenant? Can you raise an intelligent undead from both a severed head and its headless body? Would they share a soul or have two separate new souls, or is this just not possible?

For that matter, could you raise your own severed hand, for instance, as an intelligent undead? If your original body was then decapitated, could your severed hand then raise your body and head? This is assuming that the raised parts retain knowledge of life and death.

Is there already a mechanism in place for different bodies sharing a soul, and if not, do you plan to implement it? Either in the short term, or as part of Myth and Magic, do you intend to implement a mechanism whereby souls can be copied or cloned, so that they retain the original's memories and personality but thereafter grow and change as individuals?

Undead don't have the "souls", so yes you can raise your own hand and such. And yes you can raise both the head and body of someone.
They dont have souls so they dont have skills and such aswell if i recall.

Mist zombies still have souls though, as do vampires.

I think this question is about how the soul works with the new intelligent undead lieutenants. They retain part of their previous identity so presumably some of their skills and part of(?) their soul.

[Untrustedlife]

A couple more questions;


What if you want to raise a dismembered corpse as a lieutenant? Can you raise an intelligent undead from both a severed head and its headless body? Would they share a soul or have two separate new souls, or is this just not possible?

For that matter, could you raise your own severed hand, for instance, as an intelligent undead? If your original body was then decapitated, could your severed hand then raise your body and head? This is assuming that the raised parts retain knowledge of life and death.

Is there already a mechanism in place for different bodies sharing a soul, and if not, do you plan to implement it? Either in the short term, or as part of Myth and Magic, do you intend to implement a mechanism whereby souls can be copied or cloned, so that they retain the original's memories and personality but thereafter grow and change as individuals?

Undead don't have the "souls", so yes you can raise your own hand and such. And yes you can raise both the head and body of someone.
They dont have souls so they dont have skills and such aswell if i recall.

Mist zombies still have souls though, as do vampires.

I think this question is about how the soul works with the new intelligent undead lieutenants. They retain part of their previous identity so presumably some of their skills and part of(?) their soul.

Ahh i misread that then, i thought they were talking about the current version. But now i see they say "Intelligent Undead" which is one of the new night creature types. Woops.

He said something about a soul generation interaction. So maybe they would both get their own soul in that case. But thats just a guess.

[Shonai_Dweller]

Another question about alliances, as I realised the second part of my question on them back in May wasn't clarified (answer focused on who people would form alliances against).

Which civs will form alliances with each other? And, for modding reference, how is this determined? Does it take into account Babysnatcher/Item_Thief tags, current states of war, ethics?
I play with a mod which uses these tags to divide up the many different civs in my world so would be nice to know who's likely to be teaming up when the zombie apocalypse strikes.

[Broms]

A question about these "accounts" historical figures and mercenary groups and the like have now. Are there any plans to incorporate those into fortress mode? If so, would there be an option to "pay coin" to a mercenary company to assassinate or capture someone?

[PlumpHelmetMan]

Another question about alliances, as I realised the second part of my question on them back in May wasn't clarified (answer focused on who people would form alliances against).

Which civs will form alliances with each other? And, for modding reference, how is this determined? Does it take into account Babysnatcher/Item_Thief tags, current states of war, ethics?
I play with a mod which uses these tags to divide up the many different civs in my world so would be nice to know who's likely to be teaming up when the zombie apocalypse strikes.

Pretty sure the original devlog from way back in the day mentioned "required killing of neutrals" as an alliance deal-breaker, at least as I remember it.