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[EuchreJack]

I always like games that portray adventurers as ax-crazy psychopaths rather than paragons of virtue.

[mainiac]

Will one death trigger mass panic and more deaths?

[RedHookTyler]

There is an inherent feedback loop there (each successive incapacitation increases the chance of a party wipe), but we have some plans for how to address it.  And we also don't want to design out that feedback loop completely because it's a real-world mechanic! If the soldier on your left and the soldier on your right both panic, there's more pressure on you!  Overall, our philosophy is that "Bad things happen. Really bad things tend to be partially or wholly your fault."

--Tyler

[nenjin]

I'll dig a system where low morale increases the likelihood of "badness" but doesn't completely dictate it.

Sort of like in X-COM though, managing deleterious effects too well actually makes for a kind of boring game. So I hope there is an unavoidable degree of risk involved. (Ex. A party member with 100% morale still has a small chance to lose his shit, like 5% or something.)

[LeoLeonardoIII]

D&D (1974) has a morale system that's not too inventive compared to other war-games but was lost in later editions: there are circumstances that force a morale check and when one happens you have a base morale score with modifiers based on what's going on around you. There are levels of morale status, so you can go from Regular to Disorganized to Routed. Rest can recover your morale. But if, for example, you rout, and someone else nearby needs to make a morale check for another reason, the fact that you're routing makes them more likely to fail.

Similarly, in reality people have emotional reactions to seeing and hearing other people's emotional reactions. If someone screams in fear you are more likely to feel fear.

You could think of morale as simply bravery - the control over the human flight mechanism.

Based on that, each person could have a dozen "insanities" with varying severity levels, and a basic resistance to insanity as another stat. Psychological stress reduces your resistance. Specific psychological stress increases your insanity score in the related insanity.

Example:

Confined Spaces [6]
Darkness [3]
Water [1]
Vermin [2]

Stability: {4}

When you encounter a confined space, you roll d6 + [6] - {4}. The intensity of your freakout is higher if the result is higher. You can see how much easier it is for this character to deal with water (d6 + [1] - {4}). But if a monster came at you out of the water, your Water score would go up. If you got hit by a fear spell your Stability would go down.

That would mean every character has every insanity, even if it's a

• . Characters could conquer their fears or succumb to them, making future rolls easier or harder.

BTW, do you guys have a psychologist on your team?

[EuchreJack]

There is an inherent feedback loop there (each successive incapacitation increases the chance of a party wipe), but we have some plans for how to address it.  And we also don't want to design out that feedback loop completely because it's a real-world mechanic! If the soldier on your left and the soldier on your right both panic, there's more pressure on you!  Overall, our philosophy is that "Bad things happen. Really bad things tend to be partially or wholly your fault."

--Tyler

Well, in X-Com, troops could respond to their teammates dying by either fleeing, freezing, or going berserk.  The first two were always bad, whereas going berserk could sometimes save the soldier's life (they shot randomly, so sometime they killed their teammates, but sometimes they killed lots of enemies in one round).

I'd suggest moral boosting items, like booze and drugs, that adventurers can get addicted to.  After all, there must be a reason adventurers are always found in the pub, right?

Adventurers might also respond to creatures that kill their teammates in later encounters by either being so scared they automatically run away, freeze up, or go berserk and can't flee.  One rat kills your teammate -> Kill all rats!

[nenjin]

I'd suggest moral boosting items, like booze and drugs, that adventurers can get addicted to.  After all, there must be a reason adventurers are always found in the pub, right?

That was already mentioned once somewhere else; basically they develop a trait for heavy drinking, so when they have booze on them they'll drink to overcome their fears but get progressively more drunken along the way, giving you a choice to let them indulge their habit for safety's sake....or not letting them indulge for safety's sake. I probably got that a little wrong, but it's the gist of it, drinking to deal with cowardice.

[EuchreJack]

I'd suggest moral boosting items, like booze and drugs, that adventurers can get addicted to.  After all, there must be a reason adventurers are always found in the pub, right?

That was already mentioned once somewhere else; basically they develop a trait for heavy drinking, so when they have booze on them they'll drink to overcome their fears but get progressively more drunken along the way, giving you a choice to let them indulge their habit for safety's sake....or not letting them indulge for safety's sake. I probably got that a little wrong, but it's the gist of it, drinking to deal with cowardice.

I read that, I just suggesting a way to force adventurers to drink, but I guess this game is less hands-on that that, which is fine.

[nenjin]

Oh yeah, I see what you mean. Maybe down-time not in a party helps them recover. Options for characters not on runs would be cool too. I'd definitely appreciate some out of dungeon "team manager" aspects to do at the guild, beyond moving gear around and spending some experience or ability points.

So while thinking about the game a few more questions occurred to me.

It seems like you'll build up heroes while the game breaks them down, meaning a lot of new blood is going to come into the guild.

How much will you have to invest time into these characters to get them "up to speed?" Will everyone come in at level 1, and need to be equipped and run through easier missions so they don't get wtfsplattered immediately?

Which cuts to question #2: what's the whole structure of this thing as far as doing "runs." Do you click the "Go" button and a dungeon is generated for you, applicable to your party's overall level? Is there like a "Floor 1, Floor 2, Floor 3" structure where you can pick what floor you want to run against, allowing you to (as above) level up FNG's in relative "safety"? Or is it a straight progression through floors, each one when beaten can't be returned to, as you slowly work you way down to the end boss. (Meaning new heroes would probably have to be pretty awesome right out of the box to keep up......)

I'm really hoping to here there's a random or procedural component to map design (being that you like roguelikes, it would seem a must). If the game is sufficiently hilarious and difficult enough to tell stories about, about your one-eyed, one-armed schizophrenic Crusader with a drinking problem, I'd want an open-ended way to play that, especially with persistent characters.

[RedHookChris]

Hey All -

Thought i'd jump back in with some comments!

Out of Dungeon/Town/Between-Runs is an important part of the game, and more meaningful than just reorganizing your inventory and buying new abilities.  I can't get into specifics here, other than to say that the Town itself is a persistet measure of progress and investing in it will allow you fasttrack/incubate new characters so they can be brought up to speed more quickly.  We don't want you to feel like a new recruit is just another grind.  That being said:  you can train a man up, you can give him the best weapons & armor available, but if he's untested, he's still an FNG when the proverbial hits the fan.

Runs themselves are framed as quests.  You'll consult a map/list of available quests, and decide which you want to attempt.  From there, you'll select your party, provision them, and hit 'GO'.  Some quests are common, and may pop up regularly, but some, like rare loot, only appear infrequently, and you'll want your A team for those!

And there will definitely be a procedural component.  No memorizing the dungeon layouts for an easy win!

I'm out of town for the Thanksgiving weekend, so this is likely my last post until mid next week.  Thank you guys so much again for your interest in the game, and for the invitation to chat with you on the forum.  Tyler and I really appreciate the support and enthusiasm!

[Shakerag]

ptw

[Chattox]

Sooo, any rough estimate on when I can throw money at you?

[nenjin]

http://mashthosebuttons.com/2013/11/a-talk-with-darkest-dungeons-chris-bourassa/

Just a bit of news as the Red Hook guys talk to other media outlets about the game. I'm on the mailing list yet I didn't see mention of some of these blurbs.

Not a ton of new details, but there's a bit more flesh around their ideas that wasn't necessarily expressed here.

Man, next year cannot come soon enough. This game needs to get made!

[ukulele]

Looks really interesting! And as always its a pleasure to have the devs here in the forums!

[Mephansteras]

Sooo, any rough estimate on when I can throw money at you?

According to the article that was just posted, it sounds like they'll be doing a kickstarter early next year.

So backing this.