Inmate2993:
I should point out that just being hungry doesn''t mean a whole lot. Its only when hunger get high does it become an issue. The human body can go for long periods without eating or only eating small amounts. So if the player doesn''t mind the drop in performance their character could go a week or two after eating a good meal. If we assume a standard field ration could satisfy a normal persons hunger for 8 hours.

Okay for aguments sake we will bring in numbers, afterall it will be handled by an algorithim. So a normal character at normal exerition accumlates 1 hunger point an hour. A field ration restores 8 points of hunger, a feast 25 and an apple 1. Also lets say a performance loss doesn''t occur until 12 hunger is reached and at 168 hunger death occurs. So if the charater sets out with 0 hunger and an apple then there not going to die for a while.

Merle:
I don''t think foraging should be automatic because it really isn''t. If you want to forage you have to spend time to search and gather/hunt for food and supplies. It just not a simple as noticing that there is an apple tree over there. You have to take time to stop and gather apples. Or taking time to hunt and catch a rabbit. Afterall depending on the characters skill and environment it could take several hours to find food and water.

Although I agree that some aspects of eating and drinking should be automated. For instance if you make camp to rest for the night. The player can safely assume that character eats and drinks if they need to before sleeping. As well possibly allowing an adjustable automation to eating and drinking that the player can set. So that if the player wants there character to eat every 8 hours while traveling the character will provided they have food. As well a little message could pop up saying that the character went to eat but ran out of food.

That brings me to another idea and that is weight. What about including that in a game? A characters wieght would change based on how much the eat, how often, average hunger level and activity. So if the characters eats alot and never lets hunger get more then a couple of points. Then that character would start to put on weight. Or lose wieght in the opposite case.

weight could then apply bonus or penalites to activites based on the activity. for instance agility based test could recieve a bonus for have low weight and a penalty for high weight. While a Strength based test would have the opposite modifers.


bishop_pass:
If you don''t understand then I suggest you try running through a field of chocolate icecream. Then try digging in the snow you''ll notice a diffrence.


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Writer, Programer, Cook, I''m a Jack of all Trades
Current Design project
Chaos Factor Design Document

quote:Original post by TechnoGoth
That brings me to another idea and that is weight. What about including that in a game? A characters wieght would change based on how much the eat, how often, average hunger level and activity. So if the characters eats alot and never lets hunger get more then a couple of points. Then that character would start to put on weight. Or lose wieght in the opposite case.

I think players would have a lot of fun with that, especially in a multiplayer environment.

quote:
bishop_pass:
If you don''t understand then I suggest you try running through a field of chocolate icecream. Then try digging in the snow you''ll notice a diffrence.

I never could find that hidden level... **grin**

Give the player a seperate bag from their inventory bag? its seperated into different types of food. Grains, meats, veggies, fruits. Those 4 sound like a good enough combination. For each section you could set a ration guage. Turn it up if you want your character eating more of one thing more often, turn it down if you want less of it less often. All that is required is that you buy or find the food often enough to keep it filled for rationing. The meat section could go bad after time, so holding onto alot would be a bad idea. If you did want to hold alot you could use salts and spices to prolong the life of it. Fruits would go bad to over time. This would encourage the player to only take what he''s going to eat. Rotten food in your bag only serves to spoil the rest of the food in the bag. For fluids players could carry cantenes, filling them with wines, water, holy water, nectars, milk (can spoil), or whatever they want to put in their cantene at that time.
A simple dietary system that determines what types of food eaten how often affect different attributes of the character. Making this area of a game to complex would shoo players away. Keeping it simple with a simple face would add a neat aspect to the game. It shouldn''t be something the player would have to worry about to much, mostly kept automatic if possible. Yet for the players that know how to use the system effectively and do, it could mean the difference between who has the better level 22 character

Generally speaking, I consider things like hunger, thirst and fatigue to be data tracks or statistics as opposed to attributes. To me, attribute has the connotation of a capability. It indicates the capacity to do or affect something consciously. In programming terms, attributes would be classes with methods. However, hunger, thirst and fatigue are merely states of an object, they do not provide functionality on external objects nor are they under voluntary control. Under this definition, I would also place Comeliness, or Physical Beauty under the definition of a statistic since it does not fall under voluntary control (hygiene not withstanding!!) to affect things (in effect, it''s always "on"). However, seduction or charisma are voluntary means to sway people''s disposition towards you...the former being a skill, the latter being an inborn attribute. Health is another attribute that I would probably label as a stastic since we can not consciously make ourselves healthier, nor can will away physical damage. However, Willpower is something we can consciously control, and while it can''t prevent physical trauma, it can diminish pain or shock or enable one to forego ill effects of hunger or thirst for longer periods. I think classifying characteristics by whether they have a conscious voluntary functionality, or whether they are mere state descriptions or unconscious effectors of some sort of behavior (Comeliness or Health for example) is useful.

However this point aside, I think it''s a worthwhile idea to keep track of these things. Encumberance in particular is an oft neglected statistic and prone to abuse by PC''s. Hunger, thirst and fatigue can all act to diminish a PC''s performance as well as potentially make physical damage more life-threatening as well as make them more susceptible to other forms of damage (illness or poison for example).

I also think that damage itself should be greatly modified as the hit point system is a nearly 30yr old roleplaying concept that should have seen it''s last days decades ago.

Here''s a post from rpg.net I made in reference to doing damage:
In my own system I''m cooking up, damage is handled by 4 seperate tracks: structural damage, shock, neurological, and trauma....all affected by different hit locations. Structural damage are things like broken bones, pulled muscles, or other physically impairing damage. For example, even if a guy is on PCP and feels no pain...if you break his leg, he ain''t going anywhere very fast. Shock is the measurement of accumulated damage that can cause a person to...well, go into shock. Neurological (or pain) damage is a catch-all for pain, being stunned, or going unconscious. It basically measures how impaired a character is in further actions (if you''re in a lot of pain or are dazed...then any actions you do will take a penalty). Trauma is a measure of life threatening damage all at once. Taking a bullet to the torso will inflict massive trauma. Getting your neck slit will inflict little trauma (but massive shock and neurological "stunning" so that you''ll die pretty quickly and not be able to do much other than clutch your throat).

These are the things hit point systems in and of themselves can not answer. For a detailed damage system that can account for all these things, I think a structural damage capacity, neurological, shock and trauma damage track must be included. For example, if I strike at your head with a knife at the back of your head, I''m probably going to give you a really nasty scalp laceration....somewhat painful, very bloody, but probably not life threatening (unless you''re REALLY strong and could crack my skull too). Now, take a blackjack instead or brass knuckles, and rap me on the back of the head with the same amount of force. More than likely I''m unconscious or extremely dazed (though ironically, not in a lot of pain...until I wake up anyways).

Now you could simulate this with a rule like, "black jacks do special damage...roll your Constitution at half level to avoid going unconscious". But then you''ll have to make up rules like this everytime you come across some kind of variation of damage. Another example is joint locks. Joint locks can be extremely painful (the pain damage track) but inflict no long term damage whatsoever. Or they can also be applied in such a way that they cause structural damage by breaking bones, tendons or ligaments...but not causing any undue trauma or shock. Or a joint lock COULD cause lethal damage...by breaking a neck or through certain cavity presses causing internal bleeding.

In turn, this means weapons must be categorized by what kind of damage they inflict. Another issue is how armor affects characters, and what kinds of weapons are affected by different kinds of armor. For example, chainmail isn''t good against impaling weapons, and unless the armor has rigid joints, no armor will protect a character from certain joint breaks (even if you''re in platemail, if I throw you while in a wrist lock, I can break your wrist, elbow or shoulder...your armor won''t protect you, unless it''s some kind of powered armor).

Ugh. I''m reminded of the game Dark Cloud for PS2. It had an option for Thirst which really turned me off of the game. When you ran out of hydration, you started losing life. In essence, it was a constantly-depleting health bar. You needed to buy bottles to store the water(unless you managed to find a spring on every dungeon level[not likely]), and keep refilling it. Of course, you could also get enough money to buy a couple bottles, but that was a waste of money-- and a waste of inventory.

If they made me go through that much trouble to get something to drink, I thought, then why didn''t they just add in a Bladder Gauge(I mean, I had to drink something every five minutes, seriously...)? If it drained, I''d pee myself, and be too embarrassed to fight enemies.

And why stop there? How about a Sexual Frustration Gauge? How about one for Boredom? Sunlight Deprivation? Chewing Tobacco Addiction??

If you''re going to add more stats to add to "character depth", please consider how much extra "character maintenance" a player is going to have to waste time on.

Although...

Having a meter for drug addiction would be cool. If a player decided to take an illicit drug for stat enhancement, add a gauge for addiction that makes the player lethargic and cranky if it depletes. And, of course, each subsequent time he takes the drug, he has to pay twice as much to get the desired effect(a "Tolerance Gauge", if you will).


B. Bradley: The number 2 mind

www.numbermind.com(coming soon)

Heh, Sexual Fustration guage. Sounds like the leisure suit larry MMORPG.

Anyone remember the early Ultima games where you have a food counter that would decrease every few turns? And the it would run out, and you would die.

A hunger gauge should definatly not be implemented as something that decreases health after its empty. Like someone pointed out, this is just an ever decreasing extension of your health bar then. As hunger gets low, it should affect performance. Stamina won''t build back up fast. Strength and other attributes will get temporary hunger penalties on it. Characters should take a performance hit, not a hit off their health bar. It should also be something that a player should remember to keep an eye on, but not be something that needs tending every 30 seconds. Once rations are set then it should be all automatic from there. Food in the world should be plentiful in most cases, unless you''re stranding the player in a desert for one level.

Another stat that could be introduced is something that coincides with reflexes. You could say that belongs to dexterity or agility, but thats only an abstraction. What if there was a reflex stat. Higher it was then the better chance you have of blocking or countering. As you get it even higher, characters could start getting a better chance at critical counters. But no matter how high the stat gets, chance of blocking should never get to 100% or above. Maxed out it should hover around 70-75. Reflex stat could also affect the speed at which you find your target. Lets say it was a game with guns involved. If you had high reflexis you could pick off 3 distant targets better than someone with low reflexis. Another thing is if your character trips and falls, or is knocked down.. the reflex stat increases the chance in which you could roll out of the fall, or something similar. If your life is getting near mortal danger and you have a high reflex, your character could automaticly run away a few steps.