Slime Squisher
Posts: 365
Joined: Monday, 7th January 2013, 08:22
Background idea: Archaeologist (Playable offline)
Unrands are fun. Unfortunately, they tend to come at a point in the game where you already have a build going. I've been experimenting locally with a "unrandart draft" game mode, where you decide a species and a background after an unrand is randomly assigned to you, and I've had a lot of fun with it, so I've been wondering if a similar concept could fit the crawl philosophy; a way to build a run around an early unrandart instead of making it fit into a strategy already underway.
Background: Archaeologist
Archaeologists enter the dungeon interested not only in the Orb of Zot, but in unlocking the secrets of an ancient relic by obtaining knowledge from the dungeon.
Starts with mediocre items and stats, 2x Scroll of Identify, 2x Scroll of Magic Mapping. 1x Dusty Tome and 1x Ancient Crate.
The dusty tome and ancient crate are the key pieces of the background. They don't do anything by themselves. At XL 3, the dusty tome reveals itself as manual of some skill. It could be a Long Blades manual, Armour manual, a particular spellcasting school, etc. You get prompted with a message along the lines of "Studying this manual might be the key to unlocking the crate".
If/when you finish the manual, you will become able to open the crate, and get an unrandart related to the manual skill. Armour pieces if you had an armour manual, robes/staves for spellcasting, etc. Anything goes as long as the unrandart can be equipped by your species. Some connections can be more interesting like a manual of Stealth leading into the Boots of the Assassin, for example.
Why organize things this way? I think the bait-and-switch method of unlocking the initial unrandart can give rise to very fun situations. Unlocking the skill type at XL3 is important to prevent start scumming, and once there you're faced with an interesting decision. Being given a M&F manual as a deep elf, for example, would give you the chance to play a very unusual build with the promise of an early unrandart as an incentive.
I think it's cool to use this method of unlocking the crate to force a sunken cost situation, where you're pushed towards making an unrand work no matter how silly/unrelated to your species choice it is. Of course, you could have the background line up perfectly with the species and be gifted an Axes manual and Frostbite as a minotaur, but it wouldn't be a significant power spike comparing with having found it randomly.
Thoughts?
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