quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
Attention...

I should pay attention more to the UserName prompt. That was me btw...

quote: Original post by TechnoGoth
...hunger...
...temperature...

I really like both of those. In my obligatory side-game project as a progammer, I''m attempting to flesh out a Lovecraftian sort of tale, manifested as an interactive game. I''m doing my best to avoid hp and the "rpg" standard stats and equations, and I''ve found a number of interesting things to ponder, provided that my intended player is of the average investigator, professor etc profession. As it may entail a chapter in the arctic wastes I''ve found that hunger, sanity (as you''re not a hardened warrior most hostile, "alien" encounters tend to affect you, as well as loneliness etc), temperature, group interaction/status and perhaps managing your resources in how and when you plan to undertake certain parts of the game (you''re a small research team with limited funds in the 1920''s so everything comes at heavy expense). Granted I''m mostly rambling off of the top of my head and I''m more concerned with my research into the time period now, but I though I''d throw some of those ideas out. Cheers.

In NetHack, more often than not, you''d starve to death, or die trying to kill a monster to be able to eat it.

I think that hunger and thirst are good ideas - at least from a gamers point of view. I am a gamer, I do mean gamer in the sense of pencil and paper DnD style RPG''s. When I play PC RPG''s they rarely offer enough of the Role Playing aspect that attracted me to RPG''s in the first place.

At the moment my friend and I are developing a traditional RPG and should have it published within a year or two. We are in the middle of final design stage of the rule book- meaning all rules are complete now we are laying out the print version. The we will layout our first universe book... but at any rate I would suggest that you use Hunger and Thirst together, possibly combine it with fatigue.... but I would make fatigue and extension of Constitution-

When you are developing your character attributes you should first analyze the primary attributes you want available to your characters, both PC and NPC. Next think about what these attributes will affect. Here is an example. Constitution will affect : Stamina (Battle, Running, Healing, Health Points, Fatigue), Strength (weapons and equipment a character is able to carry, damage modifiers for hitting kicking and forged weapons, jumping, climbing), Intelligence (comprehension, memory, enigmas, skill capabilities) The list can go on.

After you have decided what attributes you want to have and how they will affect the actions/performance of your characters interactions within your world you need to take the next step. I believe it was mentioned in this forum already; TIME. How long dies it take to perform certain attribute specific tasks, how long until fatigue sets it and how long does food and water sustain the affects? If you implement too many people simulating attributes, there is no way you could effective game-play action intensive, strategic gaming. Think about this- your character is now depressed because you didn’t maintain their happiness- whoops! Now you character will not use their weapon to attack. Think of how the EA games SIMS behave when they are unhappy.

Anyway-

That’s all I have to say for now.

Jeff C

Hunger, thirst, fatigue, etc. are all good things to include in a game. Honestly, I can''t see why they aren''t stuck in there more often. In most cases it should be relatively easy to implement . . .
One thing I haven''t seen here is not exactly a new status, but more a bit of added realism. In most games, you get hit, you lose HP/hearts/LP/Life/whatever, and that''s it. But, if you think about it, getting hit in the face with an axe isn''t just going to hurt you. You''re gonna be disoriented, weaker, and slower, among other things. So why not have attacks injure more than just health?
Also, other ones I''m coming up with off the top of my head:
Angry/sad - well, why not? A few games have used these before (RAGE EXPLOSION!!!), but they''ve never been introduced really as an integral part of a game (except perhaps in Star Ocean, for the SNES, where anger could affect the ending to a degree).
Drugs - Well, yeah, done before, but usually they only affect one thing - slow you down, make you more powerful. I''d like to see more of the shrooms from Rise of the Triad. A drugged state that drastically alters the gameplay.

I like hunger and thirst as well, but within reason.

When I''m walking through farmland, or forests that clearly have fruit trees and streams, I expect my characters to be eating along the way. Rations are for dungeons or barren areas, not verdant lands.

I guess what I would want is for hunger and thirst not to be linear scales (for every hour since eating, hunger++), but to vary depending on terrain. In some areas, as long as you aren''t fighting/running/etc, hunger should decrease!

I don''t think that harms the realism. After all, no games that I''ve seen keep a meter for "need to use the bushes". It *could* be treated as an affliction (and might be nice if ill), but that''s not really something I want to need to consciously control...

quote: Original post by Merle
I like hunger and thirst as well, but within reason.

When I''m walking through farmland, or forests that clearly have fruit trees and streams, I expect my characters to be eating along the way. Rations are for dungeons or barren areas, not verdant lands.

I guess what I would want is for hunger and thirst not to be linear scales (for every hour since eating, hunger++), but to vary depending on terrain. In some areas, as long as you aren''t fighting/running/etc, hunger should decrease!

I don''t think that harms the realism. After all, no games that I''ve seen keep a meter for "need to use the bushes". It *could* be treated as an affliction (and might be nice if ill), but that''s not really something I want to need to consciously control...

uh huh.... Tell me how often does walking through a field or forest make you less hungry? That really comes more under the idea of foraging. Being able to gather supplies while in the wildrenss useful since you don''t need to rely on bringing all your food and water with you.

I hunger, thirst and fatigue would increase at rate proptional to your enviroment, actions and stats. Afterall running through the dessert in a parka, is going to make you thirster then say wearing a parka to dig in the snow.


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

I think one should be careful with implementing all of these extra ideas into an RPG. It''d probably enhance some of the role-playing aspects, no doubt about it. However, it can prove to be a big problem when you focus on balancing the gameplay and producing an experience (or several) for the player. For example, if the player can go at max 7 hours before getting hungry again after eating the best meal possible, and only has enough encumberance leeway to carry an extra hour of food, any quests longer then 8 hours would be impossible to finish.

Incidentally, hunger is what it feels like when your stomach has emptied. While its usually the case that extended periods of hunger can lead to death, I could make it a point to just eat a single saltine whenever my stomach pangs a bit and I assure I''ll of died without ever going hungry. About all Hunger does is distract me, same as pain does. So, its a design question about how malnurishment should kill a player, if it even should.

quote: Original post by TechnoGoth

quote: Original post by Merle
I guess what I would want is for hunger and thirst not to be linear scales (for every hour since eating, hunger++), but to vary depending on terrain. In some areas, as long as you aren''t fighting/running/etc, hunger should decrease!

uh huh.... Tell me how often does walking through a field or forest make you less hungry? That really comes more under the idea of foraging. Being able to gather supplies while in the wildrenss useful since you don''t need to rely on bringing all your food and water with you.

True, it is foraging... and I had left out my unconscious assumption that foraging was part of the model. (seems to me that if you have hunger, you should have foraging)

But I do think it makes sense to have automatic foraging, with results depending on the environment.

The attribute of searching is (usually) implemented as a background skill: the character "notices" things for the player. I would expect foraging to work the same way. True, you can explicitly forage (and search) with greater yield, but I feel it should generally be a background task.

quote: Original post by TechnoGoth
Afterall running through the dessert in a parka, is going to make you thirster then say wearing a parka to dig in the snow.

Not necessarily. If the dessert you''re running through is ice cream, then you''ll be thankful you have the parka, and I don''t see how you''d get thirstier then if you were digging in snow.