Randomness

[oskar]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Hello

This is my first post here. As background, I'm not really developing a
roguelike, just experimenting with some ideas atm. The subject,
randomness, is rather huge, but I will try to be brief (thou I'm quite
sure I will fail).

What I mean with randomness is in the large scale sense of generating
the world. Not in the details or during game play. I see randomness as
a scale with two opposing poles. One pole being a totally random world
and the other pole being a static world. A static world would remain
exactly the same each time you play the game. Obviously, a random world
would have a greater replay value, but there has to be a limit. A
totally random world would be nothing but confusing.

My idea is to generate a world with much randomness in a fairly complex
structure. The original rogue had a very simple structure. Each level
contained 3x3 rooms/dead-ends of random size connected by corridors.
Each level had one staircase down to the next level. Monsters had
predetermined depth when they started and stopped appearing. The
interesting variability of games appeared mainly in what items you
found. (Please correct me if I'm wrong. I've not played rogue a lot.)

Later roguelikes contain more complex structure, but never take the
randomness very far. Is there a reason for this?

Adom, for instance, includes an overland map, multiple dungeons, towns,
multiple quests, etc, but the only thing that is random is the layout
of the dungeon levels. All this added complexity doesn't add any replay
value by using randomness. Replay value is instead created by giving
the player many pre-scripted options. Like what quests to choose, which
dungeons to visit, which ending to attempt, etc.

Say that you instead generate a random overland map with random
features. Randomly: Small islands or a single continent. Tropical,
temperate or desert. Random cities or villages. Random societies in the
world, (orcs, elves, humans, etc). Random dungeons of random style at
random locations. Random quests. A random selection of all possible
monsters that you will meet in the world (i.e. one game may contain
undeads, the next may not).

First, is this possible? I think so. Random quests would have to follow
some pre-programmed patterns, like "society A/member of society A needs
object B that is at the bottom of dungeon C".

Secondly, and more importantly, would this make an interesting game?
Would all the randomness make the world feel too artificial? Does the
player want to feel some familiarity between games? Will this make the
game lose identity?

One option would be to make the game world remain the same for more
than one game. Like an option at the start: "Start a new game in a new
world" "Start a new game in the last world". Maybe let some of the
options be settable by the player. ("I want the game to be set in a
northen climate during winter on a single continent with humans in war
with orcs.").

Any thoughts?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

I think by including some really involved townsfolk speech algorithms,
you could give some pretty good information to the player about the
random features. You'd probably need to look at Markov Chains, or some
kind of grammar algorithm with generic RL sentences such as "Filthy
_____s, nothing but freeloaders" and each game that could be effected
by what relations each country/race has with each other.

As for quests, you'll have to do a good job of monitoring character
levels for which dungeons to send a character to. In ADOM, the dungeon
levels may have been random, but the characteristics such as how
powerful you should be before entering was not (except for one
particular dungeon in the beginning). You'll also need to do a lot of
checking to ensure that everything is reachable and completable
otherwise you're just generating random fluff.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

In article <1123169072.782788.192680@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
Oskar <oskar.linde@gmail.com> wrote:
>Say that you instead generate a random overland map with random
>features. Randomly: Small islands or a single continent. Tropical,
>temperate or desert. Random cities or villages. Random societies in the
>world, (orcs, elves, humans, etc). Random dungeons of random style at
>random locations. Random quests. A random selection of all possible
>monsters that you will meet in the world (i.e. one game may contain
>undeads, the next may not).
>
>First, is this possible? I think so. Random quests would have to follow
>some pre-programmed patterns, like "society A/member of society A needs
>object B that is at the bottom of dungeon C".
>
>Secondly, and more importantly, would this make an interesting game?
>Would all the randomness make the world feel too artificial? Does the
>player want to feel some familiarity between games? Will this make the
>game lose identity?

In my opinion (and in order), maybe, yes, yes, and not necessarily. It
may be possible to generate a good random wilderness, but I have yet to
play a game that's managed to do so. I also like to have at least small
'islands' of familiar territory, such as Angband's town, Crawl's Temple
(and overall dungeon structure), and several of Nethack's levels.

You might want to check out recent versions of ZAngband, though (2.7.5);
they seem to be heading in a direction that sounds similar to what you
mention, though as yet on a smaller scale.

-Andrew ()

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Lauri Vallo wrote:
> Then you can add a base to make you feel more secure: a starting
> point, an item you start with, some way to control the randomness, or
> limiting the play area to a dungeon.
> That would make you feel that you have some generic mission to do in
> that place, even if it isn't told to you when you start, but you can
> think up a mission yourself.

This, too, could all be fairly relative. Maybe you have several
different starting point layouts to choose from, several different
potential starting weapons. Random adjectives help a lot here - "Trusty
Dagger" v. "Worn Dagger" etc. even if they give fairly similar attack
values (those shouldn't deviate too much)

> Random creatures in random places. It won't work as well as it could
> unless you give it a reason. Of course some chaos god could have
> thrown everything there, but that reason (which you might create
> yourself as a player) is a bit too shallow.

Actually, I plan on having several dungeons in my somewhat-vaporware
up-and-coming RL that will have random features such as different
monsters. The trick would be to devise a database that stores which
creatures might go well with creature a, creature b, etc. The other
alternative is to just have several lists of creatures to choose from -
every time you create a dungeon, randomly pick one of the lists, and
then randomly pick the creatures on the list. It helps if the list have
themes too, so you don't end up with Fierce Battle Kittens or Elven
Archers in the unholy crypt.

> Random quests might be simpler by letting everything have needs, and
> make the quests based on them.
>
> [I now ask myself "what are quests for?"]
>
> Quests mostly make the game more involving (and linear) in a game that
> tries to tell you an immersive story.
>
> Roguelikes are often about replayability, so they don't need quests.
> It can have something, like the above system, but it shouldn't feel
> like what is know as questing today.
> In roguelikes, start from something that works and expand on it. Don't
> just go adding everything that other games have, but do look at them
> for inspiration.
>
> >Secondly, and more importantly, would this make an interesting game?
> >Would all the randomness make the world feel too artificial?

Again, a lot of "checking" would need to be done, and a fairly
sophisticated randomization engine would need to be built. I think it
could be done to a degree that would make each experience as enjoyable
as any roguelike. You'd probably have to ease up on the difficulty,
because people have NO idea what to expect. You'll also have to give
people fairly good directions. I recommend using a nice overworld map
feature with really colorful marks for towns, caves, castles, and other
dungeon-esque locations.

The hardest part wouldn't necessarily be the quests or the items, but
probably the world map and maybe the quest details. The other, more
over-arching problem, is that if its done badly, its worse than if it
hadn't been as random at all.

> If you want a lasting roguelike, you need to hit in the middle. Enough
> randomness to make it replayable, and many (silent) missions and
> reasons that drive you to play. Then it needs to be consistent to be a
> believable mysterious world.
>
> A random world wouldn't hurt gameplay if you know that in each
> successive game you are playing a different person (mostly the case),
> or the gameworld you see is only a part of the whole (imaginary)
> gameworld.
> So it's all about making the world and the narrative fit together.
>
>
> >Does the
> >player want to feel some familiarity between games? Will this make the
> >game lose identity?

The game itself probably WOULD lose its identity, but as long as each
playthrough had enough of its own identity, which would be hard given
the random nature of almost everything. Im a strong advocate of
randomization, but there's some things that would probably be too
difficult to make random and still have an enjoyable gameplay
experience (such as overall plot - unless you don't care about your
game's plot, gameplay mechanics, and some important monster
characteristics - having variable HP, strength, defense, etc. is fine,
but having a zombie potentially use UberSpell A and wield Ultimate
Coolness Weapon B would be a tremendous disappointment).

> Those settings you mentioned, I am mostly against. If you can choose
> where to play you lose a lot of excitement in discovery, mystery.
> Some "gamist" things are nice to have, but most take away from the
> immersion. It's nice to get to choose your race, but you must feel
> that you are in a world that you didn't make yourself.
> A very general area setting would be fine, if there is some good
> reason. You could make up an explanation onto the stage where you
> choose your playing area, to make it softer.

I agree.

> (If you are some magic using historian who reads ancient books and
> transports to places in them (for whatever reason). It could be a side
> game in a roguelike. Each character that "ascends" the roguelike has
> time to write a book of places he visited. You should of course limit
> the ability so that it becomes interesting gameplay-wise.)

You just gave me a really great idea for a VaporWare RL. You are (tada)
a historian who reads ancient books, one book - the Libro de Tiempo y
Espacio or whatever you wish to call it (Book of Time & Space seems
nice... maybe replace the spanish with some latin or elvish, or
whatever) which, after reading, teleports your character to a random
alternate reality. Your goal after the first reading is to return home.

Every alternate reality could be small but fairly different, maybe have
0-2 towns, a dungeon or two, and maybe a few sidequests from some NPCs.
In every alternate reality, your most loathed possession - the book -
will tell you where the next portal is. Again, by making a list of
themed realities, you can ensure that each one "makes sense" so to
speak. The earlier ones could have a friendly town and an easy dungeon
like a small cave with some orcs in it, but later worlds might have the
town replaced with a haunted castle (if you kill a ghost, he becomes a
helpful shopkeeper!) and dungeons with uber-powerful monsters - maybe
just to set them on edge, occassionally give them another easy world.
The game ends when you return to your home, and hopefully get rid of
that book.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

On 4 Aug 2005 08:24:32 -0700, "Oskar" wrote:

>What I mean with randomness is in the large scale sense of generating
>the world. Not in the details or during game play. I see randomness as
>a scale with two opposing poles. One pole being a totally random world
>and the other pole being a static world. A static world would remain
>exactly the same each time you play the game. Obviously, a random world
>would have a greater replay value, but there has to be a limit. A
>totally random world would be nothing but confusing.

Random is just a different game.
Completely random would be a game that you play just for sightseeing,
exploration, humour, but it would need a huge world to keep you
interested.
Add a (random) scoring system to that and it's a little more lasting,
and quite interesting still.
Then you can add a base to make you feel more secure: a starting
point, an item you start with, some way to control the randomness, or
limiting the play area to a dungeon.
That would make you feel that you have some generic mission to do in
that place, even if it isn't told to you when you start, but you can
think up a mission yourself.

>Say that you instead generate a random overland map with random
>features. Randomly: Small islands or a single continent. Tropical,
>temperate or desert. Random cities or villages. Random societies in the
>world, (orcs, elves, humans, etc). Random dungeons of random style at
>random locations. Random quests. A random selection of all possible
>monsters that you will meet in the world (i.e. one game may contain
>undeads, the next may not).
>
>First, is this possible? I think so. Random quests would have to follow
>some pre-programmed patterns, like "society A/member of society A needs
>object B that is at the bottom of dungeon C".

Random creatures in random places. It won't work as well as it could
unless you give it a reason. Of course some chaos god could have
thrown everything there, but that reason (which you might create
yourself as a player) is a bit too shallow.

Alphaman's world was random in a larger scale, but still not too
random. You always had almost the same sort of setting. The problem
was that the creatures there didn't have personality.
I guess it's even worse if you take real world, or real fantasy
creatures and lump orcs, elves, drunkards, kittens and tentacled
monstrosities together.

Random quests might be simpler by letting everything have needs, and
make the quests based on them.

[I now ask myself "what are quests for?"]

Quests mostly make the game more involving (and linear) in a game that
tries to tell you an immersive story.

Roguelikes are often about replayability, so they don't need quests.
It can have something, like the above system, but it shouldn't feel
like what is know as questing today.
In roguelikes, start from something that works and expand on it. Don't
just go adding everything that other games have, but do look at them
for inspiration.

>Secondly, and more importantly, would this make an interesting game?
>Would all the randomness make the world feel too artificial?

If you want a lasting roguelike, you need to hit in the middle. Enough
randomness to make it replayable, and many (silent) missions and
reasons that drive you to play. Then it needs to be consistent to be a
believable mysterious world.

A random world wouldn't hurt gameplay if you know that in each
successive game you are playing a different person (mostly the case),
or the gameworld you see is only a part of the whole (imaginary)
gameworld.
So it's all about making the world and the narrative fit together.


>Does the
>player want to feel some familiarity between games? Will this make the
>game lose identity?

Familiarity comes very easily. Even having the same graphical
interface and ascii and items each playtime makes you feel comfy.

Removing those might go too far, but not necessarily. You can tie in
some good starting screen out of real game lore to make it reasonable
if you really wanted.

>One option would be to make the game world remain the same for more
>than one game. Like an option at the start: "Start a new game in a new
>world" "Start a new game in the last world". Maybe let some of the
>options be settable by the player. ("I want the game to be set in a
>northen climate during winter on a single continent with humans in war
>with orcs.").

Those settings you mentioned, I am mostly against. If you can choose
where to play you lose a lot of excitement in discovery, mystery.
Some "gamist" things are nice to have, but most take away from the
immersion. It's nice to get to choose your race, but you must feel
that you are in a world that you didn't make yourself.
A very general area setting would be fine, if there is some good
reason. You could make up an explanation onto the stage where you
choose your playing area, to make it softer.

(If you are some magic using historian who reads ancient books and
transports to places in them (for whatever reason). It could be a side
game in a roguelike. Each character that "ascends" the roguelike has
time to write a book of places he visited. You should of course limit
the ability so that it becomes interesting gameplay-wise.)













help

 

[oskar]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

> [...] I also like to have at least small
> 'islands' of familiar territory, such as Angband's town, Crawl's Temple
> (and overall dungeon structure), and several of Nethack's levels.

I'm thinking that the familiar regions could be things like "a city"
instead of "the city", "a crypt" instead of "the crypt", etc. Maybe you
always start in a village populated by your race. I.e. keep a strict
structure of what you let the game generate and how it should be
generated. Items and monsters would also be static and well defined.

 

[oskar]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Wildhalcyon wrote:
> Lauri Vallo wrote:
> > [I now ask myself "what are quests for?"]

> > Quests mostly make the game more involving (and linear) in a game that
> > tries to tell you an immersive story.

> > Roguelikes are often about replayability, so they don't need quests.
> > It can have something, like the above system, but it shouldn't feel
> > like what is know as questing today.

Interesting... Do you by this mean that (explicit) quests don't add
anything to the gameplay? Is the implicit continuous quest of
developing your character and finding items interesting enough?

> > If you want a lasting roguelike, you need to hit in the middle. Enough
> > randomness to make it replayable, and many (silent) missions and
> > reasons that drive you to play. Then it needs to be consistent to be a
> > believable mysterious world.

I agree. This discussion was started in an attempt to define that
"middle" point. Consistency and making a believable world is very
important.

> The hardest part wouldn't necessarily be the quests or the items, but
> probably the world map and maybe the quest details.

I think the opposite is true. Making interesting and logical quests is
probably much harder than making a world map.

> The other, more
> over-arching problem, is that if its done badly, its worse than if it
> hadn't been as random at all.

I think this is generally true. Hand made is always better than random.
It has just got a more limited replay value.

> The game itself probably WOULD lose its identity, but as long as each
> playthrough had enough of its own identity, which would be hard given
> the random nature of almost everything. Im a strong advocate of
> randomization, but there's some things that would probably be too
> difficult to make random and still have an enjoyable gameplay
> experience (such as overall plot - unless you don't care about your
> game's plot, gameplay mechanics, and some important monster
> characteristics - having variable HP, strength, defense, etc. is fine,
> but having a zombie potentially use UberSpell A and wield Ultimate
> Coolness Weapon B would be a tremendous disappointment).

I think it may even be possible to make a random overall plot by
strictly defining templates that the generator may use and combine.
This is in general the method I want to use. Define many templates that
the generator can choose from and combine. A template may consist of
smaller templates and define how they should be combined.

 

[oskar]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Brent Ritchie wrote:

> Firstly let me say this, I too have been working on and off with ideas
> like this. Though nothing has ever materialized from my work these are
> things that I have learned.
>
> 1. totally random overworlds are not feasible. Otherwise you would get a
> desert tile inbetween a forest and water tile. I have found that you must
> grow your worlds. Start with a blank map then randomly place tiles like
> plains, forest, water etc.. then you have to pass the map through a
> recursive function ie. Fractal, parabolic, even hyperbolic (parabolic and
> hyperbolic I have never tried.)

Several recursive or iterative random height field generators are
available that generate believable maps. You can start with one such.
Set a sea level to make ocean and lakes and simulate water flowing
giving erosion to generate rivers. Forests can then grow according to
rules (height over water, distance from water source, etc). I made one
such generator once for a game and it made very believable maps.

> 2. Random cities and towns are troublesome as well. After the world is
> created you have to place (What I call) settlers in places that you would
> find towns and cities naturally ie. on islands, near rivers and lakes, near
> but not in ice fields the list goes on. Then from there you can either
> randomly generate there size or you can pass each city through some sort of
> growing simulation (A few options here, Genetic is popular but you could
> also try neural, even experiment with sexual and asexual algorithms).

Interesting... No idea how you propose that a neural growing simulation
could work thou. Care to elaborate?

> 3. Random societies are interesting, I have never pondered that. I
> always planned on coming up with wich race is dominent based on where each
> town and city is located on creation. I suppose you could do a random
> placement of races based on where each city is after it's created.

Yes. It's often easier to "cheat" and generate things backwards.

> 4. Random dungeons is pretty easy lots of info on that. But if you were
> to do a different style of dungeon, you would have to have a few modifiers
> ie. Manmade (Rooms and tunnels, odd dead end), Monster dwelling (Large but
> shallow mazes, few dead ends), Natural cave (small and very deep many dead
> ends). The type of dungeon would be heavily influenced by where it is ie.
> Under a town would most likely be a manmade tunnel, Close to a town probably
> a monster hide out, middle of nowhere probably natural.

Yes, those are good ideas.

> 5. Random Quests are the holy grail. I have searched for close to 4
> years for a good solution, but none have poped up. I could probaly fill a
> book with all of my failed attempts. Oh well, I can elaborate further if you
> want.

I once read a master thesis on the generation of random quests for
crpgs. The author's conclusion was that it was impossible. Better to
generate tools to make it easy to specify and generate quests
manually...

> 6. Random Monsters, I think that the best way to go is create a wide
> selection of base monsters and augment them based on character level. This
> way you wouldn't get funny situations like having a level one character
> trying to fight some crazy "Apocalypse Dreadnaught". Instead the player
> could fight a "Furry Dreadbunny". A diabloesque naming convention for
> enemies and items would also be needed to break the monotony.

Never really thought about random monster generation. I guess you could
get something by defining societies like a "tribe" consisting of
professions like "warriors" "shamans" "a chieftain". Letting "tribes"
be formed by different races like "kobolds" "orcs" "goblins" "trolls"
"humans". Letting the races have different species, like "blackorcs",
"hill orcs" "cave orcs" . Giving quite a few combinations in total.

Letting the monster levels be dependent on the player level sounds like
a good idea, but it could feel strange with a world that adapted its
difficulty to your level all the time. Maybe quests could be used as a
director to send the player to parts of the world of suitable
difficulty.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Oskar wrote:
[...]
>
> My idea is to generate a world with much randomness in a fairly complex
> structure. The original rogue had a very simple structure. Each level
> contained 3x3 rooms/dead-ends of random size connected by corridors.
> Each level had one staircase down to the next level. Monsters had
> predetermined depth when they started and stopped appearing. The
> interesting variability of games appeared mainly in what items you
> found. (Please correct me if I'm wrong. I've not played rogue a lot.)
>
> Later roguelikes contain more complex structure, but never take the
> randomness very far. Is there a reason for this?

Rogue has enough randomness to offer replay value and no more; its
gameplay cannot be significantly improved by added randomness.
Randomly generating nine rectangular rooms with randomly placed
monsters from a level list might be simple and unrealistic, but it is
fun: the tactical situations are varied, exploration is a limited but
nontrivial task, every level is an adventurous trip from staircase to
staircase.

> Adom, for instance, includes an overland map, multiple dungeons, towns,
> multiple quests, etc, but the only thing that is random is the layout
> of the dungeon levels. All this added complexity doesn't add any replay
> value by using randomness. Replay value is instead created by giving
> the player many pre-scripted options. Like what quests to choose, which
> dungeons to visit, which ending to attempt, etc.

Realistic features require more randomization, applied in realistic
ways; otherwise they are counterproductive.
For example, when a Rogue player enters yet another rectangular room he
thinks how to best explore it and find the exit, while when a ToME
player enters the suburban den of thieves in yet another game he thinks
that it looks like a den of thieves, but they build the same rooms and
wait in the same position every time.
The den of thieves would be truly realistic if a smart level generator
created a plausible but novel one every game.
There is another kind of randomness: randomly omitting and selecting
content, for example replacing the den of thieves with a giant spider
lair or a band of forest brigands in the role of just out of town
low-level quest. A limited choice of quests, again, is worse that no
choice, both for realism (variety should be unlimited) and for player
anticipation: what are the thieves doing this time (open ended) vs
which of the three quests do I get (very restricted).

[...]
> Secondly, and more importantly, would this make an interesting game?

It depends. If the point is showing off the extraordinary depth and
coherence of the random world, it can be interesting; if the point is
adding a realistic setting to some interesting dungeon gameplay , every
variable element is one more thing that can go bad.

> Would all the randomness make the world feel too artificial? Does the
> player want to feel some familiarity between games? Will this make the
> game lose identity?

It depends on the identity, of course; and game identity depends on the
player. For example, I find the cycle of buying gear in town, going
down the dungeon, filling the backpack with valuables, going back to
town and selling stuff the familiar and characteristic trait of
Angband; I would feel more "at home" with different monsters or
dungeons than with a new store.
Other players are used to their preferred spells or items, other get
attached to cool or familiar monsters, and so on.

> One option would be to make the game world remain the same for more
> than one game. Like an option at the start: "Start a new game in a new
> world" "Start a new game in the last world". Maybe let some of the
> options be settable by the player. ("I want the game to be set in a
> northen climate during winter on a single continent with humans in war
> with orcs.").

This is more like having successive characters in the same game.

Lorenzo Gatti

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Oskar wrote:
> Brent Ritchie wrote:
> > 5. Random Quests are the holy grail. I have searched for close to 4
> > years for a good solution, but none have poped up. I could probaly fill a
> > book with all of my failed attempts. Oh well, I can elaborate further if you
> > want.
>
> I once read a master thesis on the generation of random quests for
> crpgs. The author's conclusion was that it was impossible. Better to
> generate tools to make it easy to specify and generate quests
> manually...

Any reference on this thesis?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

Oskar wrote:
> Brent Ritchie wrote:
> > 5. Random Quests are the holy grail. I have searched for close to 4
> > years for a good solution, but none have poped up. I could probaly fill a
> > book with all of my failed attempts. Oh well, I can elaborate further if you
> > want.
>
> I once read a master thesis on the generation of random quests for
> crpgs. The author's conclusion was that it was impossible. Better to
> generate tools to make it easy to specify and generate quests
> manually...

I think it depends on how far you want to define "random". If you mean
having the computer generate entirely new content for you, then I'll
agree that it's probably impossible using current technology. However,
as I think I've demonstrated with GearHead, using a markov chain to
link pre-scripted plot components can generate reasonably unpredictable
but dramatically acceptable quests.

- JH.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.development (More info?)

>> 6. Random Monsters, I think that the best way to go is create a wide
>> selection of base monsters and augment them based on character level. This
>> way you wouldn't get funny situations like having a level one character
>> trying to fight some crazy "Apocalypse Dreadnaught". Instead the player
>> could fight a "Furry Dreadbunny". A diabloesque naming convention for
>> enemies and items would also be needed to break the monotony.


>Never really thought about random monster generation. I guess you could
>get something by defining societies like a "tribe" consisting of
>professions like "warriors" "shamans" "a chieftain". Letting "tribes"
>be formed by different races like "kobolds" "orcs" "goblins" "trolls"
>"humans". Letting the races have different species, like "blackorcs",
>"hill orcs" "cave orcs" . Giving quite a few combinations in total.

(For a PnP game,) I've been thinking of designing creatures/characters
around a racial template. Each species would get one that described
what average is for that species. The templates themselves would
almost be like a character sheet. Later, characters/creatures would be
generated using the templates.

 

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Brent Ritchie wrote:
> 6. Random Monsters, I think that the best way to go is create a wide
> selection of base monsters and augment them based on character level. This
> way you wouldn't get funny situations like having a level one character
> trying to fight some crazy "Apocalypse Dreadnaught". Instead the player
> could fight a "Furry Dreadbunny". A diabloesque naming convention for
> enemies and items would also be needed to break the monotony.

The way I have been planning on doing my monsters is to have two sets:
natural animals (deer, goats, cows, birds, etc) which flavor the
wilderness regions, tend to be extremely flighty, and offer 0-pathetic
exp/kill, and then I have "dungeon" monsters, which include natural
creatures such as rats, wolves, and snakes, and also fantasy monsters
like orcs, dragons, and gelatinous blobs. Depending on the monster's
class, more difficult versions of the monster could earn modifiers away
from the plain vanilla version that would give it better properties,
equipment (if it possesses any), and attacks. For humanoid races like
orcs, they might have modifiers such as "Shaman" or "Zombie", while a
dragon might get modifiers such as "Blue" and "Unholy".

A level one character has a strong likelihood of encountering a
"snake", but a level 10 character might encounter a "fire snake" and a
level 20 character could encounter an "inferno snake"... still have to
work up a good list of adjectives, and Im not a big fan of suffixes.

 

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In article <1123211733.263582.122480@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, "Wildhalcyon" <wildhalcyon@hotmail.com> wrote:
>You just gave me a really great idea for a VaporWare RL. You are (tada)
>a historian who reads ancient books, one book - the Libro de Tiempo y
>Espacio or whatever you wish to call it (Book of Time & Space seems
>nice... maybe replace the spanish with some latin or elvish, or
>whatever) which, after reading, teleports your character to a random
>alternate reality. Your goal after the first reading is to return home.

MystRL!!!

Alan

 

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>>which, after reading, teleports your character to a random
>>alternate reality. Your goal after the first reading is to return
>>home.
>
> MystRL!!!

Kornel, are you reading this thread?

Filip

 

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At 5 Aug 2005 06:42:48 -0700,
Oskar wrote:

> Wildhalcyon wrote:
>> Lauri Vallo wrote:
>> > [I now ask myself "what are quests for?"]
>> > Quests mostly make the game more involving (and linear) in a game that
>> > tries to tell you an immersive story.
>> > Roguelikes are often about replayability, so they don't need quests.
>> > It can have something, like the above system, but it shouldn't feel
>> > like what is know as questing today.
> Interesting... Do you by this mean that (explicit) quests don't add
> anything to the gameplay? Is the implicit continuous quest of
> developing your character and finding items interesting enough?

It can be made interesting enough.

--
Radomir `The Sheep' Dopieralski @**@_
(`') 3 Grrr!
. . . ..v.vVvVVvVvv.v.. .