Influencing the world by brandishing inventory items... Most powerful, world changing stuff you get in a game, you simply use. Stone of Power? Kill Foozle with it. Antimatter Bomb of Woe? Drop it on the Alliance home planet and you''re done. What about other responses, and the rules for them? This almost ties in bishop_pass''s post on annotated objects, but I''m more interested in specific game or inventory items a player could hold, and rules for how the game world would respond. DANGEROUS / POWERFUL WEAPONS - Players could extort using them ("1 million dollars!" ). - Players could dictate actions via threat - Some factions in the world might try to suck up to you; buy you off, or bribe you - Players could also bluff (pretend to have a powerful weapon) - The main determinant of world response would be: A) How capable the player was in carrying out the threat B) Personality of the world parties ("never negotiate; negotiate and buy time; capitulate") It seems to me that in a game where the player was playing at being meglomaniacal, more deterministic AI would be appropriate. We''d want to know the typical range of responses a given country / community would have, so that we could plan for those contingencies. Thoughts? Other items and world responses? This idea is a bit off-beat, so I''ll resist posting more until I can gauge response. -------------------- Just waiting for the mothership...

Do you remember the Bullfrog game Syndicate? You played a squad of assassins who would wander around the city looking for the next target. You had all kinds of weapons (shotguns, chainguns, rocket launchers) and as long as you kept them under your trench coat, you were ok. As soon as you whipped out a weapon, the normal citizens ran away screaming and the cops ran towards you and opened fire.

Perhaps that''s not the same scale you''re talking about though. If the syndicate agents could wander around the board with a portable nuclear device, the reaction *should* be different.

Take care,
Bill

An interesting ''object'' you might ''carry'' could be a person or group of people... ie hostages.

Obviously you can use your hostage as leverage for whatever demands you feel like making - provided the people you are making the demands from actually care about the hostage.