TGTIWLTP: Race

Each race needs a normal default:
physiology
Philosophy
preferred class
preferred skill
preferred home
unique active
passive

SLSS
seven legged shit spitter
consumes anything inorganic, its metabolism is to radioactively decay the elements until lead is reached. The molten lead then dribbles out of its mouth and can be spat out. they are somewhat crablike and regenerate lost limbs, except the seventh leg. Their body is coated with organometallic coordination complexes. The side legs can be harvested for their colours. Each SLSS is a different colour and they can be bread together to get new colours. The tail-leg is bigger and worth more but does not regenerate and is used for breading.

Hamtaro
Small cute furry critters that like to play with small children and are adored by them. Their race specific gimmick is that they continuously struggle to control the beast within themselves. When the beast takes over they lose all inhibition and usually go on a destructive rampage. When they are happy relaxed and do good deeds the beast cannot surface. When they are sad/angry, stressed and evil the beast is relaxed. The beast is a bit like a bear, but with bigger claws. They have somewhat a split personality or guardian angles as it were. Based loosely on the concept or original sin, except that they can stay on the good side without too much effort. They are usually jovial and are kept as pets by the other races, they are very loyal to their owners. An evil overlord may keep some chained up and throw water on them to keep them unhappy, thus good guards.

Army (some other name? Tsung Tsu?)
What happens if your society exists solely to fight wars and there are generations of mercenaries before you? How could this be sustainable?
If they are purely destructive, eventually everybody else would want to wipe them out. (pre-emptive strikes)
If they are the ones leading conquest then they would need to administer the conquered territories and thus are nol onger warriors. (like the roman generals in Asterix)
If they are driven by a higher authority why would they submit to it. (mutinies would be easy)
A police force could function like this, they can follow their own moral compass and submit to an authorities that are weaker than them.
Since the goal is to succeed in combat anything that is not a threat can be passed over. (Appa from Kenichi was able to play with children even though he fought with murderous intent)
They seek a glorious death through honourable combat. and are the elite combat artists and tacticians.
They do not have separate towns, but other than that the hierarchy and function is similar to the system in Naruto.
But what do they look like?
Their indoctrination process means that any other race may be a part of theirs.

Nihilist
Usually have a nihilist belief. A bug like humanoid covered in a natural armour of black chitin. Looks like a space marine / Navy seal. They generally seek to destroy everything and make more nothing. The only things they are likely to create is explosions.

???
Trolls are supposed to have self-regenerative properties, if it has leprosy as well how can it function. Pain and consequences will no longer have meaning.
Since Trolls are normally dumb this race should be intelligent and clinical. Give them the third person past tense of scientific journals. Let them be a bit like the scientists of Hitler’s third Reich who experimented on the Jews. They are not mean or brutal they may be amoral though. If they get caught in a trap they would stick their foot in it again to see what happens. Tell one “Don’t touch that, its hot” the first thing they will do is pick it up to see how hot it is.

Photonic Cooperation
Based on the "Super intelligent shade of the colour Blue" from HHGTTG. An entity comprised of photons, usually of one energy level (colour) but any photon can join. They live together in a communistic habitat and create a hive mind. needs a critical mass of photons to act, photons of a different energy are rarely incorporated into the community but ones of the same energy usually are. Once a critical mas is reached the entity will split in two, halving its energy in the process. By unanimous agreement can convert mass into energy or vise-versa.
Thus each entity is a democracy, but entities themselves do not like each other. (i should describe it like the story of Clipsal, or ABB or Hoover. They all start off small, the succeed, engorge themselves on other smaller companies. Then eventually become to large to control and subdivide, selling of assets. Then remain at a reasonable size until they are consumed by the next big brand name.)


Squid
-from my short story
empaths
they can sense other creatures pain, the closer something is to death the more they know about it. living health creatures cannot be detected unless they are in line of sight. they are driven to comfort and heal all other features and will occasionally sacrifice their own life to save another. they are the reason that the oceans are full of life.

Gangly fellow
-Imp from my short story
a rigidly controlled society that regulates all consumption. pleasure is sacrificed for function. gruel is eaten because it is nutritious. A communistic society where the state owns all resources including people. Citizens are allowed free choice in what they would like to do. they are governed by an emperor and one of his children is expected to take over the throne from him, so the emperor will continue having children until one desires the throne. individuals are driven to succeed and overlap their  teachers. They run the Olympics and keep score of everything.

Vivid imagination
orks in warhammer 40K.
These are the summoners, they can summon any of the other creatures but the summons will die when they are no longer being maintained by the vivid imagination. they summon their equipment and clothes as well as minions.
To other people it looks like a pattern, a psychedelic pattern.

Purists
Untainted humans who specifically set out to preserve things as they used to be. They will not use any enhancements to their food or bodies. Other than that they use extremely advanced tech and medicine. This is the default race but cannot be played and you only ever hear rumors of their existence. Finding traces of them at archaeological digs.

Bones
Animated skeletons, magically held together by force of will. they may or may not be covered in flesh. Even they wont know about it until their flesh dies. They function entirely as though they still had their flesh on them and still require the same sustenance, but only out of habit not necessity. Generally Bones are exiled from their community and if they survive collect in multiracial communities of their own. Because of this they are generally very accepting and empathic to the downtrodden.
They cannot comprehend the passing of time, this is partially a defensive reflex to help them cope with a suddenly extended lifespan. As such they cannot plan for the future, they never borrow or lend items or money. they are very spontaneous. When travelling between places they only pack for a stroll, even if the destination is weeks away. If they meat somebody as a child then again as an adult they do not remember the child. their memory cannot be detailed it only remember the feelings and intents. So when changing levels in a dungeon the map is all forgotten when they leave it.

Metaphysical
Ordinarily inanimate objects that exist by themselves and are self sustaining or act with no outside input. They instantly recognise in each other what is wrong and will seek to help. The entities can range from a suit of armor to a printing press.
Generally they act in a similar pattern to the equipment that they appear to be. but they will avoid suicidal acts and will try to protect their operators. A little like ego items. When the playable race they do not use a host as such.
although I suppose if you were a sword you could form a symbiotic relationship with a trinitarian. then if she gets killed by a cyborg the cyborg would be the new host for the symbiotic relationship.

Interdimensional
Travels from A to C but never passes through B. Do not ever exist entirely in this plane. So things occasionally pass through them But they are extremely dense. If they relocate to the same location as another object and it is more dense than them the will be hurt and bounce back to where they were. If the port to something less dense than them it shifts out of the way as if they had just walked to it (like I walk through tall grass). They have no other means of movement, due to their weight but can interact with things that are within reach. If they did fully materialise their weight would send them to the center of the planet, crushing anything beneath them.
Octopus like creature?

Apolo / Primes
The first alien race to be discovered (according to every other race). a Compendium was created to record all the different alien lifeforms encountered by the human race (every race at one point thought that they were the true humans, nowadays nobody calls themselves that). Some time later though the Primes revealed that they were originally bread by humans who had sought isolation from the rest of humanity, in order to pursue tabo knowledge. From then on all alien life forms are considered to be of human origin.
They are 12 handed spider like crabs, hypothesized to originally been bred to perform maintenance on spacecraft. Each appendage ends in a crab claw. the main body is armoured to protect from extreme vacuum and cold. inside of the legs a symbiotic mould grows, providing energy from the sun for the host. The abdomen is of a rubbery consistency and expands/ shrinks depending on the external pressures.
They build metallic sky cities but small settlements can be found at the depth of the ocean too. They are the technicians and can repair any of the mechanical type races.
They have total control over things like warp gates, molecular printers and anti gravity. And are the only ones who do not see these things as ruins of an ancient race.

Buddhists - need a non religious name
they have expanded their mind enough to inherently sense other sentient beings. have a hive mind and are often hermits living in extreme environments, contemplating things. cross between a yeti and Koala, all have a big white beard.

Skink like geckos
Multi coloured rubbery gecko humanoids. they have no bones only cartilage. are spear fishers on the rocky cliffs of ocean  worlds. They can take a lot or punishment being constantly crushed between the surf and the cliff face. and can hold onto anything. Clothing is taboo because it usually results in drowning. Live a sustenance lifestyle of feast/famine. and are nomadic shifting the settlement along the coast whenever it looks like a settlement.

Scouts
Follow the motto "Be Prepared" Autonomatrons that use interchangeable parts to adapt to any situation. Overall format is humanoid. They have access to lots of ranged abilities and generally know all about their surroundings. They shun civilization though and are solitary creatures. Always hunting for new experiences to see if they are indeed properly prepared.

Victor
Creates mulch from vegetable matter. a simple creature. a scavenger, seeks out high concentrations of anything, weather it be a discarded sword of a felled tree and breaks down the object to a molecular level. they have 4 wheels but are organic, have a hard shell like a tortoise and a pair of spinning blades underneath. they can be captured and used an a source of power.

Cyborgs
Military type personal that are technologically grafted into their armor suits. Reproductive, life support and central processing is done by organic organs. They have close ties to the scouts.
They are the Evangelists of technology. the technophiles of this fantasy world. they also run the black market organ trade. and are good medics. they are even able to successfully perform brain transplants.

Dwarf Fortress Cats
Look like normal cats but can live in any environment. Preys on any other pests that survive. They can summon small children, spinsters or witches, who then do their bidding.

Holocaust Cockroaches
Beginning enemy. can be found anywhere of varying size.
Apparently they could survive a nuclear holocaust. build something around that fact.

Gulumps
sound they make when walking. mostly mussel, large, built like a brick outhouse. Head is recessed into body. the healer race. Uses magic a lot, so that they don't realise they are physically stronger than others. Their majic is in the from of nanobots. they get most of their sustenance from dirt, and meat.
These can be the pacifist race, they are incredibly powerful and have extreme healing arts but do not use their strength (except for carry capacity). they usually intimidate others into not fighting with them. although for the Gulumps this is accidental.

Jitter
to stop moving is to die. Radioactive beings, spindly. fast movements. Wasp wings but cannot fly, uses wings to cool down fusion reactions. the nuke DPS race.
But how is the default society formed?
What do they do for fun?

Shadows darkness
chronically shy. the quiet sneaky race that is scared of everything. they may make excellent thieves assassins or spies if you can catch one and convince it to work for you. they are obsessed with gems glass and other shiny things, making there homes within them. They are as large as the Gulumps, but skinny, and adrenaline can make them as strong. generally they make a living as the postmen/ milkman/ tooth faries/ santa clause. swiftly delivering parcels during the night.
They reside underground in small encampments, usually near cities.

Herbologists
based on the Chinese ancestor worship. they have access to all their dead family and the collective wisdom. as a reaction to this they are always rebellious teenagers. They have an intimate knowledge of plants and how to propagate them.
all their equipment is made from plants. houses/ clothes / tools. They are very agriculturally inclined, thus there is a severe conflict of interests when dealing with the symbiotic Apollo Primes. They want to help the moss but despise everything else about them.

*creeper
a mushroom that can move it approaches a living creatures that move through its territory and then explodes, releasing all of its spores. does not intentionally seek to kill. but this is how they breed. as they grow up though they are very social and search out other communities. they are very magical creatures and their body parts are sold on the black market as magical aides and cure-alls. they are the elite shamans and cast lots of buff/debuff spells. they will usually buff their comrades before exploding so that they do not die. or the spores do not get to travel around then there would be no point in releasing them.
If death is irrelevant then what in life is important?
Do all cultures have taboos? What happens if wearing clothes is more unseemly than being naked? How then could you protect yourself?

Trinitarians
form Fission/fusion communities. the only stable group size is 3. One is asleep while one stands guard and the last acts. Generally a third of the day is spent asleep. They have no concept of ownership and no word for mine. if something is not being guarded or used then it is free for anybody. they are very suspicious of everything, but can easily accept somebody from another race into their trinity. I suppose the government style would be communist.
Has no central nervous system thus it has several autonomous brains. acts based in instinct. highly impulsive. 3 bones instead on one in each appendage that act hydraulically to move. its flesh is tasty and highly nutritious, thus others can become addicted to eating them. Other races see them us uncivilised and barbaric. They are the elite fighters, and can be found gladiatorial arenas. they can be excellent sportsman and show really good teamwork. they are paranoid that they will be eaten by the other races, this is a valid fear.
These can be the starting race, initially it was two races then I realised one was a social group and the other was a physiology. So they were combined together then turned into a simple to play race.
Warm blooded, white meat, triceratops head with 3 horns and a beak, vegetarians, third eye than can see in the dark, furry, chaotic good. Passive abilities, high dodge, dying hardly effects performance. can actively meditate to increase regeneration and dodge while decreasing energy usage (food/water).
They do not get ill or age, thus the starting family remains constant, only with more graves for each avatar that dies in their forest.

Internet
Large destructive beings that have nearly been hunted to extinction. they love to feel powerful and terrorise small settlements. modeled on dragons but use the description of a leviathan from the bible. They are the schoolyard bullies of the world and want whatever everybody else wants. but they cannot use anything themselves and so they hoard it instead. They amass huge junk piles and are sometimes referred to as the garbage collectors.
This is supposed to be the unbalanced race, they will nearly always win.


Check again the meaning of life and create a race that defies each of those rules.

Most creatures have 5 senses (maybe more) what happens if one or more of these is missing?
Cannot smell / taste
No way to measure the intensity of the electromagnetic spectrum
Deaf as a post
Unfeeling (got this covered with the neo nazi troll scientists)

Need yet a race that epitomizes each of the primary class archetypes.
rouge - trinitarians
thief - internet dragons
fighter - Tsung
monk - geckos
paladin
healer - cuttlefish
caster - *creeper
technician - scout, Apollo Prime
tank - interdimensional
DPS - Jitter, they need rest afterwords
ranged - scouts
melee - cyborg, victor
Summoner - vivid imagination
pacifist - Gulump
farmer - herbologists

Mindless the Yeek archmage

mindless the yeek archmage

goal, unlock mindcrafters.

Generic skills
Converyance
    Probability Travel

Class
Arcane
water
    Freze (max this)
Temporal?


Wow this is easyer htan a temporal warden

wow level 8 and killed the ritch queen and I have only been playing for 3 days. this is heaps more effective than a temporal warden.

All done, losing intrest now also lost my password so I couldn't put this on the tome website.

Something Else the Yeek Chronomancer

Something Else the Yeek Chronomancer

Goals:
Unlock mineflayers
do the time portal quest again
no lag at level 20

I was considering a cursed to get the

bonus to exp, but this looked easier.

Build:

Generic skills:
Can I get anti-magic?
Chronomancy / Chronomancy
health
Heavy Armor

Class Skills:
Speed control looks good


Looks like I will need very divers stats

for those abilities.
STR
CON
WIL
MAG


Wow level 1 was hardto reach. I had to hug the stairs, so it saved everytime I
went to rest. Seems I need resistance to temporal damage and stuns to make propper use of stop and slow. so level 12 was far to early to take on subject Z. at least I know to expect him
next time. I couldnt run away from him let alone save the Yeek Wayist.

The Gathering 2011

Challenged me a little in the same vein as “Do androids Dream of electric sheep” then I started to draw parallels with my game and developing empathic communities. In the end though most of the studies were about how we can apply our beliefs to our everyday lives, same as last time. I drew the most value from the weekend merely from spending time with likeminded people.

Site

Do androids Dream of electric sheep

Do androids Dream of electric sheep

                All about empathy. Some people had none, they were called androids. Some people had empathy, they were called us. Then there were a few that could be exceptions to the rule. The book deals with what causes empathy and how it is shown through our actions. It also touched on the possibility that it is part of a subconscious hive mind present in all humans.

Conan the Barbarian

Conan the Barbarian

                The book is about subtlety. Sometimes it points out what is really meant, sometimes I knew it was insinuating  but didn’t know what. Subtlety was used to show the difference between the civilised and barbaric communities. Although the culture was the same across the board.

Dancing is like church

Dancing is like church

                I learn about dancing for an hour a week. If I do no other dancing then I gradually get better. But If I dance twice a week I learn more about it. If I dance with other people I learn how they dance and how we can dance together. When there is new music it takes a little extra thought to dance and I get a new perspective on the dance. It seems the more I dance outside of classes the better I get at dancing and the easier it is to learn.

Additionally when I started I turned up on time then left when it finished, returning home a little stiff and sore. Now I arrive early prepare by doing stretches and have a chat when it is all over. This makes the lessons themselves much more enjoyable.

TGTIWLTP: Multiplayer instances for a single player game.

I was trying to explain to Deo the differences between a multiplayer and single player game.
In a single player game you can pause the action and leave things turn based, which I am happy with. no hassle to fetch a coffee or go to the loo.
In a multiplayer game you need to deal with people being AFK and logging in/out.

Deo though that other players (human onse) would give quests to you despite the game being single player. That's cool I thought. Eventually we came up with the concept of multilayer instances. That is in your single player game you enter a Pub, the Pub is hosted on a server and lots of other player avatars are there. Thus you can interact wit them brag/give&receive quests/challenge people to a duel/ that sort of thing. Much the same was that Warhammer online deals with scenarios.
This would also require a mail system to handle trade and reward deliveries. While cool this would require as much work as the normal distribution skill checks I think.

The game that I would like to play: Finally getting started

So yeah, It looks like I may need a blog specifically for this to keep things tidy and sort out an index. But then again I may get bored with it for another few years after I have spell checked my race descriptions and posted that. But in summary:

This post, will tell you why I started to think how I would make a game if I could.

This post, fills in exactly what I was after and where I was coming from.

This post, is a quick plan on the start of the game.

The next thing is fill out some backstory and find somebody else to get started for me as it really is not likely that I will set about to learn how to program TOME, let alone start something from scratch in LINUX, but there you go anyway I have made the thin edge of the wedge.

TGTIWLTP: Bonuses from Items

Bonuses from Items

I think one list of bonuses will be simplest. They can then be applied directly to the character sheet. The different types of bonuses can be unlockable too. So that in version 1 there are no possible bonuses. Later in the game then when your items have enough sentimentality to receive a bonus only the bonuses that have been discovered can be applied.

Damage soak, of each type
Damage resistance of each type
Learning aid; increasing the learning rate of one scalar/proficiency.
Damage bonus fixed or %
Scalar nudge, shift a skill in one direction whilst equipped/held
Reputation bonus for equipment of that race/class/civilization (do I really want this though)
No strike that I have only seen it a few times and it did not add much. On the other hand Set items could be nifty. ie Dressed like a Trinitarian.
Normal disruption, Change the way the skill checks work.

TGTIWLTP: Normal distribution

Regarding items & Skill checks

Rather than having players continually searching for new better items like in Borderlands I’d like them to all be like the Angband ego artifacts that level up as they are used, slowly getting more magical and more powerful. The longer the avatar uses a weapon type the sharper and sturdier it becomes because the avatar looks after it. This maintenance is a part of the weapons skill.
Also the avatar becomes used to the weight and feel of the weapon and so grows sentimentally attached to it, after certain time periods they notice new places that magical gems can be placed to give the weapon special abilities, like firebrand.

Instead of every possible damage output being equally likely computers should be powerful enough to calculate a normal distribution for each weapon then randomly select one of the probabilities to calculate how much damage is done. I think this will be more interesting than the regular way.

The likelihood to hit is effected only by the skill with that weapon. The effectiveness of the attack is determined by the weapon. Attacks must penetrate the armor first. Let armor use the soak calculations. So a certain amount of the attack is soaked by the armor.
Likelihood to hit:
6σ - 2σ hurt myself
2 σ – σ not even close
σ - μ near miss (effect may trigger)
μ - σ success
σ - 2σ armor penetration
2σ - 6σ critical success + armor penetration
Standard deviations above and below these only give bonuses to learning the relevant skill. This normal distribution is based off 100% calculations. It is buffed by the skew for the relevant attack skill of the attacker. To hit is debuffed by the skill with that weapon of the defender as well as the defenders generic evasion skill. Thus entities with a really good dodge can get their attackers to hurt themselves.

Effectiveness of action:
Material quality changes the mean and stdev of the item. Speed it effected by the overall weight of all equipped equipment.

Item stats:
Material – effects quality
Weight – effects overall speed
Damage: Mean
Damage: Standard Deviation
Sentimental (increases over time, at milestones gives buffs)
Durability (decreases over time until item breaks)

TGTIWLTP: Implimentation

It looks like I need to be careful not to add too many complex features that make a game impossible to create. So the main points would be:
Probability functions
dynamic world (aka dwarf fortress)
unlocks (simple to start with, also allows easy upgrade)
information (no need for external theory crafting)
constructive (not exclusively, kill everything that moves)
degenerative health (cannot function at 100% when only 1HP remains)
Polish (simple graphics that move smoothly)
small (can play on older PCs)
free (open source, donations maybe)
single player
no elves, orks, trolls. mostly original classes. (Real animals allowed)
not locked into specific class stereotypes (practice results in progress)
communities (play both sides of the coin)
sentimentality ( to explain where artefacts come from)
realistic death (with consequences to the world)
realistic backpack (not using Judo while carrying 3 sets of plate mail armour)
Rogelike
barter system (some people want gems, some want milk)
scales & proficiency rather than level ups (real life is not digital)
That is all, probably too much actually.

Version 1 should have:
1 class (woodcutter)
1 race (trinitarian)
1 homestead (3 people)
1 skill (axe)
4 items: axe, wood, food, water
1 backpack (things always carried)
1 Loot sack (dropped when performing actions)
0 economy (free items from mum)
0 enemies
0 unlocks (they have not been made yet)
dynamic world (let graves be made for each death)
single map, no over world.
Probability functions (using axe on tree, woodcutting skill)
sentimentality (for axe, full development of this one item)
realistic death (no rez, but most things will leave you for dead rather than kill)
free
single player
Rogelike
Plot (available for thickening)
2 quests (fetch wood for fireplace, do not get eaten by wolves)

This should be sufficient to create a workable platform on which the rest of the game could be built.
After this everything else can be considered unlockable, ie wolves, clothes.
For me version 1 would be the hardest part of making a game. The theory and IP will take the longest and if the game ever starts getting made will probably be ongoing like minecraft. But thinking about what to add is easy "if you can cook a meal with words, I will promise you an ocean of butter" is an Arabic saying that I remember.
Version 2 will not nearly be so hard. I have been able to mod morrowind/puzzle quest/Red Alert #?/Fallout 3/titan quest/AOE1 without many hassles but in these games the framework was already there to develop new quests items, monsters, races, campaigns. From my uni programming days I know that it is a different kettle of fish altogether when you are starting from scratch.

In the meantime as this game is not made I will continue to roll a halfling thief who wields a battleaxe and is too nice to steal. Or maybe I will multiclass a necromancer healer.

I remember one rogelike that I really enjoyed playing except that it really only had 2 quests. I could see that the game went a lot further than that and that there were a lot of race/classes awaiting deployment but not enough to keep me playing. I decided to definitely come back to that variant in a year’s time. But now I have forgotten what it was called. The version one I have described here would probably keep me entertained for half an hour.
So I would probably keep it in alpha until there was an infinite dungeon that generates a new level each time the stairs are used. This will allow any character to play with the scalars and proficiencies without any plot interruptions, nice and simple hack and slash.
As far as enemies goes I suppose there needs to be a bank of unintelligent animals with which to populate the starting world.
I didn’t actually realise how complicated the resistance math was. There are a lot of extra things to consider. Then there are dozens of ways to alter the values. No wonder this iteration of tome (Tome4) had no spell casters in the beginning. The resistance buffs need to take into account a lot of different variables.
Then things need to be tested for balance, since I have a different damage calculation this may be not very easy. I am starting to see why nearly all RPGs use a d20 system.

Each race needs a normal default:
physiology
Preferred class
Preferred skill
Preferred home
Unique active
Passive
Preferred food

Each class needs:
starting location
guild (formal or informal)
pre learned skill
item + clothes

TGTIWLTP: Background

Background and reason for the game.

For my game I want to have no elves, I liked the Tolkien elves but it seems every fantasy setting has slightly different elves/ vampires / orks. I want my game to have as few preconceptions as possible. I have played too many games where you get to choose between 4 different races.
Humans
Humans with pointy ears.
Short humans
Short Fat humans

But why do games use this format? It is easy to identify with and understand we have a lot of preconceptions that fill in the gaps so a lot less effort is required to explain what they are and how they work.
The other purpose for a human base class is to use it to point out the differences in the stats. for example.
Humans +0 to all stats
Humans with pointy ears. +1 intelligence
Short humans +1 dexterity
Short fat humans +1 constitution

Then to balance the game the vanilla humans require less experience to advance or learn skills faster of have one extra miscellaneous perk.

After I played WAR for a while my ideal game became a MMO, I like the comradery and the teamwork required to complete tasks. It was also a lot easier to compare yourself with others and to learn from their play style. What I did not like about MMO's are the annoying people and the spam and the flippancy with which death is treated.
Then if it was a MMO could it still use top down rougelike graphics? or would it need to look "Pretty"
I like the idea of the massively single player online game, if all the other players interact in a similar world but you cannot directly interact with them then is would still be a single player environment but with some rather erratic NPC's. Possibly they can be used to develop the AI for the real NPCs.

Another thing that has started to annoy me about games is their destructiveness. It kind of made sense when I was a nobody who was searching a dungeon for the Amulet of Yendor but what is left to do once the great evil has been vanquished?
And what about the colony of ogres that you slew on the way. I am sure if there were woman and children ogres too the protagonist would surely be required to kill them too.

How better to breed empathy for these monsters than to roll one? This would also allow me to have a multitude of non human playable races.

What about classes? I really like playing as a thief but I was never interested in the actual thieving skills. Of the typical class archetypes the healer is the only one that would be remotely useful in a civilised peaceful society.

And that’s what I really wanted, a civilised peaceful society that the adventurers can return to an retire in once they have cleared out the dungeon that was threatening the town. Anybody from this society may be driven to protect it or leave on an adventure. and the adventurers may happen upon one of these small communities for trade. Then I thought if I want to play as the evil minion, why not also as the blacksmith who never wants to go on an adventure. But is happy to meet all the adventures that come to buy his stock. In this way players can be given a sandbox minigame with the only goal to produce amazing artefacts that are the envy of kings, or brigands. The minigame could take inspiration from Puzzle Quest, Sudoku or Battleships.

The next step then would be to allow players to give quests to each other, hopefully this would create a self-sustaining world. For example the blacksmith may run out of sapphires to complete the nifty sword and give an adventurer a quest to obtain sapphires. then when the sword is finished it might be stolen and deposited at the bottom of the local mine that has been overrun by monsters. then there will be a quest to retrieve it.

So I want original races in an original world. the world needs to be full or separate communities that can interact with each other. Both to compete and coexist with.


Not really after an angband variant. more of a JRPG but those graphics look complicated and angband was able to fit a lot of detail into very few colours.

Some of the influences:
Morrowind
Skill based levelups
craft your own equipment
Romancing saga 3
Proficiency based weapon skills
Plot
minigames
Breath of fire
ADOM
Graphics (yes I really do like the graphics in ADOM, there are no clipping issues or anything)
Appears simple but is complicated (easy to learn hard to master)
Satiation calculation
Slash'EM
Multitudes of races/classes/enemies
Angband variants (never played actual rouge or angband though)
Simple dungeons
Save the princess quests
Age of empires 1
Tactical battles
The civilisations each have a common identity
Civilisation 4
Civilisations again
Chrono trigger
Plot
The Sims 1
Multiple goals
Fatigue system
Minecraft
Simple design
Continual content addition
Dwarf Fortress
You can make a computer in game
The hitch hikers guide to the galaxy (text adventure)
Humour
Warhammer online: Age of Reckoning
Prestige within your groups of friends
Not power gaming
Eve online
Resource based dynamic world
Puzzle Quest
Different approach to battle
Mini games
Morrowind / Fallout 3
Good modding tools, pity you needed them for the games to run smoothly. I never had the game of the year editions.

Given that list what is it about computer games that I like? Why do I play them?
A sense of achievement.
As opposed to sweeping the floor which only stays clean for maybe an afternoon.
Learning and mastering a new skill.
Note that these skill are rarely exportable to anything other than other games. But yeah a big part of why I play games is the exploration of the skill sets required to complete the goals that the game defines (and finding where the boundaries are).
Playing games is like reading a book.
That is to say all the reasons I had for reading the magician or foundation series of books can also be attributed to why I played Baldur’s gate through more than once. So that would be: exploration, discovery, escapism, moral dilemmas, Learning about how to think; Humour; That sort of thing.
Competition/ comradery.
The whole look how impressive I am and we make a great team thing. “Was it hard? It was hard, FOR THE COMPUTER!”
Under the hood
I have not been doing this much lately but as an example I learnt how to use POV-ray to model light. Then after that I could see on movies why shots were taken from that angle and in game I always wondered where the spawned the “sun orb” Was is a point light source of an array of points? I like math/physics/chemistry and computer games show you all of these. It has been fun to watch the development of AI, some of it is pretty smart (wolves tracking you by scent in Unangband) but some is not (bots in LOL).
Habit
Ben doing it for years, it is easy to get a new game and sit down for a few hours, I have a nice rig that can play most of this years games. Continuing to play computer games just maintains the status quo. If I did something else I don’t know what it would be.

Classes / Ocupations / Role Profiles

Class archetypes
I do not like to be locked into a class, as often as not I want to use a particular combination of skills and all the rest of a class becomes useless. For example a berzerker that does not use two handed weapons. But if there are no classes then there is very little direction in how a character should progress. For example in mount and blade or vampire masquerade there is no indication of how good you need to be at a skill for it to be useful or whether it will be relevant in 10 levels time, this encourages players to be a jack of all trades and master of none. Either that or to put every point into a skill that they understand, to the exclusion of all else.

I think the way around this is to have players start as an apprentice to a master of the class that they have chosen, this NPC will provide all the resources to aid in levelling up the relevant skills and a few quests to reach milestones in that occupation. One of the quests would be to become better than your master. But not lock in obedience to this master or exclude any skill.
Thus you could pick up the starting equipment then go somewhere else.

Each occupation within the community should have a class associated with it. Furthering the idea that the Player does not need to solely kill things, they have to opportunity to fulfil any role in a community.

As far as building the game (and the first play through) the player would start be within a homestead. Start as a “Jack of all Trades”, with an adventurous spirit and then leave home. The larger settlements and the new classes within them would need to be discovered.

Paladin class is to be the unbalanced one that everybody complains is overpowered. They can buff their learning ability in any skill. They can heal, fight and with self-buffs can excel at any of the other crafts. They are the OP cheaters class. They have the delete spell that can uninstall the game.

Classes sorted by where they can be found, each community contains all the classes of the smaller communities.

Homestead (3NPCs Max)
farmer
miners
hunters
jack of all trades (farmhand)
housekeeper

Settlement
Butcher
baker
carpenter
Travelling merchant
merchant bodyguard
Publican
mage
tech
medic

Town
Armour smith
builder
carpenter
weapon smith
merchant
skinner
clothier
tool smith
undertaker
thief
guard
rumour monger (newspaper)

City
Guild leader
law enforcement
nobility
banker

Capital City
embassy
ruling party
standing army
spy

Adventurer
any other class can be randomly encountered in the wilderness
Paladin, the unbalanced class that can do anything.