I'm trying to come up with a greater diversity of attributes and afflications to include in RPGs. I want things thats will have constant effects and have to be maintened. All in an effort to make the characters seem more real. They also have to be transparent enough so that the player doesn't feel bogged down by them. So far I've come up with. Hungery - Hunger would lower a characters efficancy and high levels reduce physical stats. High levels of hunger can result in perment reduction in physical stats and even death. Eating relives hunger. Thirst - Lowers a characters efficany and at high level can lead to death. Drinking relives thirst. Fatigue - Reduces physical and mental stats and high levels can result in loss of consiousness. Sleeping relives fatigue. Diseased - There are verity of disease that have long term effects, some can be threated lessing or eliminating the symptoms if threated in time. What are some other that people can think of? ----------------------------------------------------- Writer, Programer, Cook, I'm a Jack of all Trades Current Design project Chaos Factor Design Document [edited by - TechnoGoth on December 14, 2003 1:14:31 PM]

I''m not going to offer any new ones, but I would personally hate to have to deal with hunger or thirst as separate issues (or even issues at all). If you really have to have them dealt with, I''d lump them in with fatigue and presume that when you stop to sleep, you also have a good meal. What do they really add to the proceedings?

TBH you can just go through a D&D rulebook and pick out a whole range of effects if you want to.

I know sanity and its derivatives have been introduced to a few gaming systems, though this would obviously lend itself more to the horror-esque genres.

how about Pain?


About hunger and thirst, to be honest I really do not think they add much to a game. Hunger was in the Exile/Avernum games and that wasn''t a bad idea really. All you had to do was make sure that you had enough food with you on your travels, if you didn''t you''d take HP damage.

But in most games, you can assume that the character puts aside enough money and enough inventory space and enough time automatically. If you plan to have your character have difficulties finding enough of (any one of) these three resources, then maybe it will be worth taking care of.

It also depends on how realistic you want to be, does food make you less hungry or does it work as a healing potion?


Some thoughts...

How bout sets of stats for every major area of the body. Arms and legs could have 4 each. Speed, Strength, Stamina and Size. Your chest could have stats like a cardiovascular rating, strength (upper body), spirit (similar to charisma), hunger and thirst, fatigue, and the diseases. The head would have attributes like intelligence, wisdom, sanity, and disorders an curses. Karma could also be a stat where it changes based on evil and good quests the player has done.
With each limb having stats to it, you can determine if the character can hold a 2 handed sword in one hand because that one arm is strong enough. Strength from the chest area of the body should give bonuses to the arms the higher it gets because arm strength usually relies on your chest for alot of help. Lets say a player wants to kick a door in? Test his leg strength. With size stats on each limb you know the length of the characters arms and legs. You don''t even have to use a number. A value like large, medium and small could work. Different character classes could be limited to different sizes. Armours and weapons come in all variations to suit different sizes of people. Now your player has to chose the right size fit when shopping for armour. Some special armours and weapons may only be suitable for the extra large or the extra small.

How about sense of humour.

There should be more stats that are effect by the way you. Therefore actions can efect the story of your game.

a few good points. I think the main thing is no to think effects in terms of HP changes. Since I don't really have HP in the game. Instead there is Life Points, which are diffent in the fact that everything in the game has 100 Life Points. They represent the characters life. Injuries reduce this with 0 meaning death. Also a characters effectiveness drops in proportion to their LP. So at 10 LP your character is battered an bruised and performs task at only 10% of their normal ability.

As far as hunger goes, I don't plan on having something as plain as causing the character to lose LP since that adds nothing to the games. Instead I was think along the lines of high hunger would reduce your physical stats, and if you go for long periods with high hunger that reduction could become perment.

So if normally your endurance is 5 and your hunger is 90 your current endurance might only by 3. If you kept your hunger at the level for a long period of time say a week, your Endurance would drop to 3 and your current endurance would drop to 1. And if you kept your hunger that high for another week your character would die.

Eating would reduce hunger and not restore LP. LP can't be restored by taking any sort of magic leaf, or potion. Instead it requires either medical treament or time and rest.

I just thought of another, what about temperature?
To stop those people from running around in the artic wearing nothing but a loin cloth.

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



[edited by - TechnoGoth on December 15, 2003 9:17:51 AM]

What about some of the more unusual poisons? I mean, besides POISONED and DRUNK, come up with some different types of poisoned types to account for both Cyanide and a basic food poisoning. See, I figure with the stronger poisons, they''d degrade your LP, but something like eating some bad meat would just give the same effect as having lost some LP, but once you vomit, you''d return back to a natural LP.

Techno, I like the complicated (not super complicated, but off of multiple numbers).

People generally hate to have to think about hunger. Its something we developers think is cool and realistic, but it can be a chore.

Dont get me wrong though. We''re going to have it affect our game as well. And I definitely think that adding time as an element makes it more sophisticated. Good thoughts.



Alfred Norris, VoodooFusion Studios
Team Lead - CONFLICT: Omega
www.conflictomega.com

Attention could be an attribute. High attention values give you bonuses for detecting traps, hidden doors and compartments, etc. Also gives you a bonus when checking for surprize. High attention allows the character to memorize spells with less fatigue.

Additional afflictions:
too cold - from cold-based attacks or ambient problems when travelling in cold climates without proper gear

too hot- from heat-based attacks or ambient problems while travelling in how climates with excessive garments

low oxygen- from smoke-based attacks or certain subterrainian zones

allergies- hyper-sensitivity to various items or environments. Perhaps character can obtain certain potions to treat that in preparation for an expedition or something