Aug 13 2003, 4:11 pm
In response to Zilal
|
|
Sariat
 |
Favors eh? What kind of Favors? I might be able to adapt something like to my game....
|
A revised set of notes I tossed on the brainstorm pile for Haven deals with a permanent death system that's not quite permanent.
That is, if your character dies, he or she becomes a spirit. As a spirit, you are bound to the place of your death. You can still perform many tasks as a spirit, but your existence is very lonely and very boring. If you log out, your spirit and your corpse will be saved; as your corpse decays, the chance of resurrecting you becomes shallower and shallower (Haven operates under the idea that someone who was killed will die again if their soul is brought back into a body that can't sustain life -- fortunately, they receive no penalty to their bonds to the Cosmic plane for failed resurrection attempts). I don't want to spoil the Ultra-Secret Premise of Haven, but suffice it to say that the death of the body means that the soul and the consciousness can no longer be sustained by the Cosmic Plane (i.e. the universe), and so they must shift to the Supercosmic Plane (i.e. Heaven, Hell, Mt. Olympus, etc.). It requires conscious effort on the part of the spirit to remain bound to the Cosmic Plane, usually to serve some sort of last purpose before departing for a new existence. If the soul decides to depart to that realm, then the body becomes a lifeless husk, and even attempts at magical resurrection will fail. However, if the soul remains at the site of its death, the body can be resurrected by the power of the gods or by powerful magic, and the soul will be reintegrated. If you die, your bond to the Cosmic Plane becomes more tenuous -- if your bonds to the Cosmic Plane are not repaired, then resurrection will mean nothing, because upon death, if you cannot avoid being pulled into the Ether, then your body will be a lifeless husk forever more. In Haven, there is life after death, but not in the traditional sense. If you depart to the Supercosmos, then you live in a different state of existence. It's not unheard of for Supercosmic beings to reincarnate themselves in the Cosmos, or assume power and even gain religious followers, but generally, most souls that land in the Supercosmos get consumed by more powerful entities. The Haven Seed has 3 R's -- Resurrection, Reincarnation, and Reanimation. Resurrection is the act of reattaching a wandering spirit back to its former body (or even to a different body!). It is excruciatingly painful, as all of the nerves of the body all get "stuck on" at time of death. When the brain is dead, none of the impulses are felt, but once the consciousness gets zapped back into it, WHAM!, the trauma will leave the victim comatose (better than dead, at least). Powerful magic can alleviate the trauma or negate it altogether. Reincarnation is the act of sending the soul into any new vessel lacking a soul, be it a human, a squirrel, or a worm. It is far from painful -- it is more akin to a bright flash and a sudden rush of stunning news -- but it is often undesireable, as only the most powerful of spellcasters are capable of guiding a soul into a specific body. Reanimation is the most heinous act of all -- it involves sending a spirit from your religious realm into a corpse, severing the bonds of the former spirit and casting it into the Supercosmos. The body never becomes a true vessel to the spirit, however, acting more as a puppet. "Heinous" is, however, a relative term: unlike traditional games, evil is in the eye of the beholder, and committing "heinous" deeds against those you consider "evil" is doing the world a great favour, in your opinion. Thus, "Good" and "Evil" alike reanimate the corpses of the other ethos to suit their own purposes. | |
I think that for Zilal, that was a real example...
Another idea would be one of them increadibly long quests. | |
I get the impression that the "gods" in that game might be actual players, perhaps moderators or administrators...
However, on a less, uh, mature note, I'd consider using something like a "Potion of Life" that's very hard to find, or very hard to make due to extremely rare ingredients. For every potion of life you drink, you'll be ressurected somewhere or another after you die. Whether that helps your items or not is up to the designer's descretion. | |
Wow, haven't seen you around in a while Lady Z. Welcome back :) And thanks for the info/suggestion, I'll definitely take that into consideration.
I'm currently looking at a system that would incorporate 'favors' as it were. Since my game is based on the war between 'heaven' and 'hell', your 'favors' and how you get them depend on who you worship. If you're aethiest, tough luck. The lords of the planes have no mercy for you. At the moment, you all start play as humans. I may add in more 'lesser' races later. There are some events in the game which will unlock the ability to play a half-angel or a half-demon. One of the things that may happen (based on prob(faith/10) ) is that when you die, you are offered the greater shell. You retain your current stats, modified by the racial adjustments, and loose any class you had at the time. Half-angels and half-demons are prohibited from PKing 'mortals'. They may only PK other elevated players. This is to prevent the more powerful elevated players from preying on the weaker mortals. Anyway, thanks everyone for the suggestions and criticism. I'm slowly working towards a model that I am pleased with and that I think others will enjoy playing. | |
You called my bluff.
No, it's disappointingly simple in GS. The favors (which are called "deeds" in the game) are always gotten through the expenditure of money or goods, but the way you get them varies from town to town. Some towns are more expensive than others, each town's method of getting deeds is a puzzle; from clues in the room description, I might realize I have to place an offering in the brazier, light it and pray. Due to the expensiveness or puzzle difficulty in some locations, players tend to leave town to get deeds elsewhere. Traveling can be inconvenient and/or expensive in itself... and as I mentioned, people just get lazy. So I had a longtime friend in the game lose his character recently because he let his deeds get down to 3, his town was invaded, he died a number of times before he was able to get more. Z | |
Spuzzum wrote:
(Haven operates under the idea that someone who was killed will die again if their soul is brought back into a body that can't sustain life -- fortunately, they receive no penalty to their bonds to the Cosmic plane for failed resurrection attempts) Does this mean that you have to heal the body before bringing the soul back to it? Since any death (Other then some sort of soul removal technique) would result in the corpse being unable to sustain life. Also on the topic of soul removal, would it be possible to remove the soul from a body, send it to your hell, then use the body as a zombie like puppet? It would be interesting to see an insanely powerful master of the dark arts enslaving his enemies, and having them attempt to fight their way out of hell and regain control of their cosmic form. | |
DarkView wrote:
Spuzzum wrote: Yep. Bodies must be healed first. Since it's pretty difficult to sustain a dead corpse, it requires pretty powerful magic, which is why it's a form of permadeath. Also on the topic of soul removal, would it be possible to remove the soul from a body, send it to your hell, then use the body as a zombie like puppet? Entirely possible, except there is no equivalent of a Hell. To the religions in Haven, Hell is just the other religions' Heavens. It'd be a combination of the Slay spell effect (which unbinds the soul (or the intellect in the case of soulless creatures) and leaves the body to slump to the ground) and the Reanimate spell effect (which was described earlier). Spirit servants from your realm don't actually enter the body -- they move the body and they respond to the wishes of the caster who allowed them control, very much like a zombie. That does raise an idea I never thought of, though -- I'm not sure why I never considered allowing a spellcaster to control a target body like a puppet with Telekinesis. It would be interesting to see an insanely powerful master of the dark arts enslaving his enemies, and having them attempt to fight their way out of hell and regain control of their cosmic form. When a soul is sent to the Supercosmos, and it doesn't get immediately slain by evil spirits (evil is in the eye of the beholder, remember), it can find the spirit that is controlling its form* and destroy it. * Since the spirit doesn't enter the body, it exists across both the Cosmos and Supercosmos. That's an extended way of saying "undead". | |