Bay 12 Games Forum

That art is like cocaine, But for eyes.

Because I know that they'll get down-voted and inspire others to come up with better plans than they would've without competition of course!

DAY 3,MAIN PARTY

Fracas dons the leather armor and grabs a hatchet while Darrek waits outside.

Spoirad orders his Shadow Imp to scout the surrounding area but it doesn't find anything.

Aesalam apologizes to Krunk and boils the rag bandages along with making a Gallon of Elf-Root tea.

Vera tries to smell how many vampires there are but can't sniff anything over the cheese, Suddenly a Loud Angry scream comes out of the cave! What does she do about it?

DAY 3, Boletus Amanita B. Muscaria Edulis

Oh great,just great, You barely escape from the Dwarven Brewing Chambers, Manage to successfully steal the finest equipment from a master Illusionist and now you've been captured by a pack of vampires. Needless to say your attempted Illusion magic didn't faze them and now your sitting tied hand and foot in the corner watching the Pack Leader eat delicious cheese just in front of your starving face. You can't take it and scream in utter Rage and are fairly sure that anybody within 5 miles would have heard that, The Pack Leader looks at you and smiles,"Hmm, I sure do wonder what the lungs of a creature able to scream so loudly look like, Let's find out shall we?" Your equipment is sitting in the corner of the cave and the Pack Leader pulls out a scary looking dagger, What do you do?

(OK, I'm a Lying Bilge Rat, Update Soon.)

I would agree with that philosophy as well.  Gods that are too powerful would change the nature of the game entirely, so players should absolutely have the ability to opt out.  A "Godly Intervention" parameter at world gen would be a great idea.

An sneakier approach to god powers would be to give gods influence over invisible realms, for example, a Farm God would increase the chance of good crops, or a Battle God would increase a dwarf's ability to dodge or strike, but they don't do anything on the scale of "Set has disemboweled thine enemies, bro" and the player is never told specifically when or if a god is influencing events.  All a player can do is build a Battle Church and pray to Battle God and hope it works.  And like gods in the real world, the dwarf gods are generally indifferent and only impact events on a whim. 

So if we talk numbers for a second, let's say a god's appeasedness level can go from -5 to 5.  A Battle God's effect is to increase the % chance a follower's attack will hit.  Regardless of appeasedness value, the Battle God will only grant this boon 5% of the time (Nat 20).  Appeasedness influences how good the boon is, let's say 10% increase per appeasedness level, so if the Battle God's appeasedness is 3, 1 in every 20 of Urist McBattlePriest's attacks will have a 30% increase in accuracy. 

Another mitigator could be that Gods are very specific about who or what they bless.  A Farm God might bless one particular farm plot, or a Battle God might bless one particular dwarf or one particular sword or shield.  Gods might also send figures like Hercules, Rama, Buddha, Jesus or Brynhild or items like the Ten Commandments, Holy Grail, Sword of Mars or Amulet of Yendor. 



Also, since we have Good and Evil biomes already, what about God-biomes or Holy Lands?  Each Holy Land would be different depending on the god that influenced it.  For example, a Fire God's Holy Land would have rivers and pools of magma, a Farm God's Holy Land would be teeming with wheat, rice and hemp, a Craft God's Holy Land would be full of fire clay, obsidian and rock crystal, and a Love God's Holy Land would be full of oysters, rabbits and rose petals.  Keep in mind, each God has two domains, so you'd really be getting something like a Fire-Love-God's Holy Land of magma and rabbits.  A god should also be extra aware of any dwarves that enter their holy land and maybe also extra powerful in the vicinity. 

Another thing that occurs to me is that gods should have personality generators just like dwarves do.  If you're a fan of mythology, you'll often see gods having very distinctive moods and ways of dealing with their problems.  Some gods might be extra indifferent, while others are nosy and try to intervene a lot, while others just smite dwarves out of boredom. 

Good Point, Perhaps there should be a parameter to determine how much Gods actually care about the world you've generated.

Burn and Pillage the nearest village/flammable substance!

"Why can't I come?"