RPG monster rant

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21 comments, last by tebriel 23 years, 8 months ago
Warning: May be considered politically incorrect to evil-monster-activists How many games out there in which you go out, kill some baddies (trolls or orcs or whatever), and then loot all this gold and other HUMANOID type stuff from them?? Does that make any sense? I mean, I could understand if a monster or two kill some human and grab his/her stuff, but every single one of them?? Last I checked, monsters get massacred by humans/players/etc in games by the dozens. They usually suck, basically... how could they pull off aquiring all this gold and stuff? And anyway, do how often to you actually see lizard-men or orcs running around markets spending their gold on supplies? They probably have a barter economy, at best (probably a survival of the fittest economy in many cases). As an alternative for players to get some kind of monetary reward for killing something inherently evil, why not use something else? For example, a player is attacked by a few orcs and defeats them. Instead of looting gold off of them every time (maybe once in awhile they could have human stuff), how about having the player get scalps to trade in at the nearest city for a reward? Or, maybe they get something to sell to a mage for a spell component.... whatever. Isn''t that better? =========================================== As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. -Albert Einstein
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I like your thinking... that is going straight to the pool room... er.. ah... document I mean

I would also like it to be possible for the player to kill the <insert monster here> and take their weapon (the one that they are using) and their armour. This would also be for the moster to take the players weapon and armour (and use them) as well as weapons or armour that are just lying around. It would be cool if you just got killed by an orc and went back to finish the job, only to find that the prick was now using your stuff against you... ... it would make you think twice about dying then eh?

Just my $(2*rant/100)

-Chris Bennett ("Insanity" of Dwarfsoft)

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For an interesting twist on the "does the monster armour fit me" problem that will come up if you do this idea right, what about disease? Most monster races are not known for their excessive personal hygiene, and most of them are highly resistant to disease. Humans aren''t quite as resistant.
Now imagine the result of an orc wearing a particularly good set of plate mail for 3 months, non-stop, and then you come along, kill it, and put the armour on (including the padding underneath, without which the armour is impossible to wear).
Imagine the lice, ticks, worms, rot, moss, fungus, mice, living in that thing after all that time...
Now,
> Are you SURE you REALLY want to put the orc''s armor on?


Give me one more medicated peaceful moment.
~ (V)^|) |<é!t|-| ~
ERROR: Your beta-version of Life1.0 has expired. Please upgrade to the full version. All important social functions will be disabled from now on.
It's only funny 'till someone gets hurt.And then it's just hilarious.Unless it's you.
quote:Original post by MadKeithV

For an interesting twist on the "does the monster armour fit me" problem that will come up if you do this idea right, what about disease? Most monster races are not known for their excessive personal hygiene, and most of them are highly resistant to disease. Humans aren''t quite as resistant.
Now imagine the result of an orc wearing a particularly good set of plate mail for 3 months, non-stop, and then you come along, kill it, and put the armour on (including the padding underneath, without which the armour is impossible to wear).
Imagine the lice, ticks, worms, rot, moss, fungus, mice, living in that thing after all that time...
Now,
> Are you SURE you REALLY want to put the orc''s armor on?


I think that you are also forgetting that the player wears their armour for how many game months without EVER TAKING IT OFF (something I hope to remedy ). I think that you have made a rather funky point. So it goes in the doc aswell (maybe I am just desperate for more words )

Hehe... I can just see a player running around wondering why they keep getting sick and then realise that they can actually WASH THE ARMOUR... LOL! How funny would it be to die in battle due to gangrene or some other fungal infection

-Chris Bennett ("Insanity" of Dwarfsoft)

Check our site:
http://www.crosswinds.net/~dwarfsoft/
Check out our NPC AI Mailing List :
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made due to popular demand here at GDNet :)
quote:
Here lies The Great Paladin Sir Whackalot,
who, after a great campaign of slaying the hordes of goblins, dragons, orcs and gnomes, died ''cause he forgot to bring soap to the dungeon.


*grin*

Now you''ll have little stands in dungeons with goblins selling soap


Give me one more medicated peaceful moment.
~ (V)^|) |<é!t|-| ~
ERROR: Your beta-version of Life1.0 has expired. Please upgrade to the full version. All important social functions will be disabled from now on.
It's only funny 'till someone gets hurt.And then it's just hilarious.Unless it's you.
I would like to shamelessly plug the end goblin genocide thread, nearly 400 replies, and now back on topic!

You are so right. If goblins or other monsters have money, it means they also have an economy. That means a language and a culture. That means (by defaul) that they cannot be 100% evil.

If I have goblins with money in a game, I will make them carry bone carved money that is uselss to human''s. I like the headhunter sclaping suggestion above, but you will have to make clear the inhumanity and visciousness of skinning the pelt from a creature you could theoretically have discussed philosophy with two minutes earlier.

Bottom line, the player should have a reason to do it every time they kill a monster. It can be arbitrary (my guy just likes to kill stuff...) but It should never be forced upon the player by the engine. I must go eat now...
======"The unexamined life is not worth living."-Socrates"Question everything. Especially Landfish."-Matt
Well here''s a difficult question. Will games slowly become more and more realistic because we keep haslling out idea''s that don''t fit in with the normal way of life?

I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!
I kinda hope that at least some games do get more realistic. I don''t really mind mundane, realistic tasks in a game as long as they''re not repetitive.

In UO, mining for a real-life hour for some gold is just plain repetitive and boring. I don''t mind having to do mundane tasks occasionally like washing armor as long as it''s not something takes a lot of real-life time. I think it can add to the immersion in the world.

"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." --William Blake

"The road of excess also just ends up making me tired because I'm too lazy" --Nazrix
Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself. "Just don't look at the hole." -- Unspoken_Magi
UO... that's one of the games that made me think of this goofy problem. UO is a good example of a game that's tried to get a little -too- realistic in some categories.

Of course in other categories a little more realism wouldn't hurt either (how many "pet dragons" are there going around now? dumb...)

I KNEW that goblin thread was going to come up here.... I knew it. Ahh, to heck with them. I agree that there shouldn't be totally mindless non-stop killing of evil creatures like in many games out there, but the player needs SOMETHING to do that involves some kind of combat once in awhile. The trick is, to give the combat some kind of meaning or reason.

===========================================
As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.

-Albert Einstein

Edited by - Tebriel on August 12, 2000 9:37:55 PM
I keep hearing bad thing after bad thing about UO but then people keep saying its great. I''ve even read statements by the people that made it which depicted a poorly developed game. I''m completely confused now. It must be another one of those -satisfy the enthusiast - projects.

I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!

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