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[Bricks]

Yeah, Oblivion was very silly after your first real character.

In regards to reputation as a thief...  There could be intermediaries or alternate identities to handle this sort of thing.  Imagine playing a skinny broker who is the go-between for a legendary thief and the clients - except you ARE the thief!

[Granite26]

Yeah, Oblivion was very silly after your first real character.

In regards to reputation as a thief...  There could be intermediaries or alternate identities to handle this sort of thing.  Imagine playing a skinny broker who is the go-between for a legendary thief and the clients - except you ARE the thief!

That's the thing... just cheat a little bit and up the chance that a person will mention valuable stuff to the thief (as opposed to mentioning the orcs to the warrior)

[Ghoulz]

Hey look. Its a game called Dwarf Fortress which, unlike all other RPG games, seems to revolve around realism.

I'm going to do everything I can to make sure it turns into a standard RPG game. Once I find a game I stick to it, even if it is completely out of my ballpark and I probably shouldn't be playing it in the first place.

[Capntastic]

The core message of this thread is 'NPCs should treat you different depending on your reputation" which makes sense.

It's when the assertion edges into "The game should use 'invisible hand' styled brooming to change events to suit the player." that I have to disagree.

It's much more amazing when things in DF happen "because the game is programmed to have things happen realistically" rather than "oh, of course the NPCs chose me to kill the bandit leader; I have high axe skill!"

[Neonivek]

Well I am sure Dwarf Fortress will fudge things for you.

Though adding in what Capntastic said it needs to be more subtle and organic.

In the "oh, of course the NPCs chose me to kill the bandit leader; I have high axe skill" example, perhaps the player developed a reputation for being particularly great at combat because people watch him training (in which people would need to see you train)

[Vester]

It would be cool if carrying around, for example a Cyclops' head a Cyclopes head a Cyclopses head the head of a Cyclops while walking around town would cause people to regard you as some sort of monster-slayer. It would be even cooler if you didn't do said slaying yourself, essentially giving you a false reputation.

[Neonivek]

It would probably get you the reputation of being a bit mentally unstable.

Though a Cyclops Skull is perfect! Much less disease

[Granite26]

I don't know if you've noticed, but real life is boring, and it's one of the staples of heroic fiction that interesting things happen to people who're at the center of a story.  A straight up reality simulator isn't going to cut it, unless you expect quest givers (right now the mayor, in the future, anybody with a problem) to try offing those quests on every random person that walks into town, or players to roam from town to town talking to every random person on the odds that they'll know something interesting.

[Neonivek]

try offing those quests on every random person that walks into town

They have those in real life. They are known as Wanted Posters

Though that is something. Before you become famos people may not even give you quests they just tell you what is wrong with the world or tell you about problems that they are offering to everyone.

Later when you build a reputation they will go straight up to you and ask for your aid even if your at the other side of the world.

[Granite26]

Though that is something. Before you become famos people may not even give you quests they just tell you what is wrong with the world or tell you about problems that they are offering to everyone.

Would it be a problem to weight what they complain about towards what you're likely to do?

I think everyone is missing the point that a city would need to have hundreds of quests (using quest losely here, anything from working as a barmaid to picking flowers to stuff to steal to killing villains), and sorting through them all is boring.

[Neonivek]

You don't need to sort through them as they arn't all written on some list somewhere.

They are demonstrated through your relationship with the people in those cities. There are likely 5 generalised quests max (Bandit, Criminal, Megabeast, Semi-megabeast, and Enemy Nations)

[Taal]

I'm with Capntastic.
Not with his ideas, but with the fact that this whole thread is the opposite of what Toady has in mind.

NPC's will have their own lives, they will live out those lives with day to day jobs, chores, wants and needs and when need be will ask other NPC's to help with there wants and needs, they will react to the NPC's around them and interesting things will happen within these parameters.

What, I gather, wont happen and what toady doesn't want from what he has said, is pre-set story lines, at any level. The game wont realise you got mugged by a certain mugger, and then set up an instance so that you will meet him and he will kill himself. The game will allow NPC's to do illeagal acts, the game will allow two acquainted NPC's to recognise each other, the game will give NPC's options in response to the situations they procedurally meet.

These procedural instances, points of interest, events are in no way scripted, an NPC will get mugged and a million times nothing will come of it, a few times something might but none of it will be pre-determined and for all intents and purposes the Player is just another NPC.

Why? Making one story line is relatively easy, while procedurally generating a world detailed enough for procedural events to be allowed to occur is hard, However, making a number of story lines which play out in a procedurally built world that are varied enough to not become predictable is damn near impossible, and a fate system like Ive seen suggested in this thread, where the game will pick up on possible story lines, and spawn things for them to play out in a procedural environment is ludicrous, not just the when A and B is met, but what your asking, an over arching system of storylines which is different 100% of the time.

Fate should never be assumed to be at work when Chaos would explain it. Fate should never be used when Chaos will supply it. Chaos within parameters is a powerful force, and is how we and everything around us has come to be with all the infinate possibilies, story lines, and events that happen in our lives. Why restrict that with a fate system when the game already runs chaotically, procedurally.

[Granite26]

You don't need to sort through them as they arn't all written on some list somewhere.

They are demonstrated through your relationship with the people in those cities. There are likely 5 generalised quests max (Bandit, Criminal, Megabeast, Semi-megabeast, and Enemy Nations)

What about fetch and delivery, skill and job usage?  (Build a house, heal a sick child, deliver a letter, etc).

Say you want to play a character that travels from town to town healing sick people.  The sick characters should be more prevelant.

I'm with Capntastic.
Not with his ideas, but with the fact that this whole thread is the opposite of what Toady has in mind.

You're also with him over not reading the thread before responding.  Nothing that's been suggested has anything to do with managing storylines or creating plot. 

[Rowanas]

I like the idea that people will ask you for things if you're famous for it. It makes sense, it happens IRL and it would make finding things to do easier. Of course if you're bad at things, or you've gained a false black mark people aren't going to ask you to kill cyclopes anytime soon. Failing at a simple chore would make people think you are incompetent, especially if it's the first thing they've ever asked you to do, or if you have no reputation for it.

On the "good at things, therefore, quest" nonsense...
A wandering healer that happens to slay a lot of wolves while traveling is only going to be well known for healing unless he makes a point of telling people about all the wolves. Your wandering healer with relatively low healing skill and legendary wrestler skill would be told to stay indoors when bandits came but might charge outside and reveal his prowess in front of the whole town, earning him a reputation as more of a fighter than a doctor.

[Grendus]

I like the idea that people will ask you for things if you're famous for it. It makes sense, it happens IRL and it would make finding things to do easier. Of course if you're bad at things, or you've gained a false black mark people aren't going to ask you to kill cyclopes anytime soon. Failing at a simple chore would make people think you are incompetent, especially if it's the first thing they've ever asked you to do, or if you have no reputation for it.

On the "good at things, therefore, quest" nonsense...
A wandering healer that happens to slay a lot of wolves while traveling is only going to be well known for healing unless he makes a point of telling people about all the wolves. Your wandering healer with relatively low healing skill and legendary wrestler skill would be told to stay indoors when bandits came but might charge outside and reveal his prowess in front of the whole town, earning him a reputation as more of a fighter than a doctor.

I like this concept. I think the problem we're seeing is a clash of vision. One group wants the game to be epic, even if it involves 'fudging' the realistic aspect of it. The other wants the game to be realistic, even if it involves lessening the epic aspect of it. Ideally, and what I think Toady is aiming for, the world would be realistic in that nothing would be scripted and would simply be procedurally generated, but the worlds would be diverse enough that any player with enough skill could forge an epic story from their adventures.

That said, many of the concepts explored here about fame are very good. A village won't know you're a legendary warrior (though they may assume you're a soldier or mercenary if you arrive with bristling muscles, scars, and a full set of battle-scarred weapons and armor), however if you singlehandedly dispatch a goblin ambush and save one of the villagers, you would gain some fame among the townsfolk. If you gained even greater fame, say by driving off a semi-megabeast, you might hear tales of yourself in taverns or be offered jobs. This wouldn't be scripted as an event as much as a behavior. Taal said it, the events outlined in some of Toady's arcs would be the result of NPC's weighing their options as opposed to scripted events.