The Tavern

Something to add flavor like some of the other gods along the lines of, "You join the rest of your ancestors..."

"You die... You are welcome with laughs as your ancestors tap you in the back, while pointing to the next unfortunate worshipper".

There are too many of these already. The only one that makes sense is Fedhas', the others should really be removed.

I agree that printing one brief flavour line after the game has already ended is unacceptable

welcome... death! is critical to crawl's flavour and cannot be removed

These messages are spoilers about what happens after death, and need to be removed. People are supposed to learn that only by dying themselves.

Everything but "You die" is flavour over content and full proof that the devs lost it.

Cool it on the roasting you guys, minmay is vulnerable to fire!

uh, guys, there's nothing wrong with death quotes. They aren't flavor over content. They're just flavor.

they're clutter that makes the game's flavour worse instead of better

I'm not sure that would work for Hep, but when they institute Janethose, the God of Constant Complaining that would be a good death quote.

Good show.

They appear when you die. What the hell are they cluttering? You don't exactly need to read status messages at that point. Anyone who wants to know anything useful about their recent demise should be studying the morgue file anyway.

the argument for including death lines is that it helps crawl's "flavour" or narrative. it is definitely possible to clutter that narrative with irrelevant, inconsistent, or unfitting details

for example, "Are you sure you want to commit suicide" was changed to "Are you sure you want to abandon this character" because it didn't fit the context, Norris' surfboard was removed for being too modern of an invention, and a reference to rape was removed from a spellbook description because it was out of place in crawl. none of these changes affect gameplay but they were still made because they improve the game by making its world more tight and consistent

in my opinion the death lines other than maybe fedhas' and gozag's (which reflect what naturally happens to corpses created under the god) don't contribute to the game's flavour, they dilute it



every time I suggest something specifically to improve flavour I'm told that I'm trying to "remove flavour" which doesn't even make sense. I guess if you ever suggest that gameplay might be more important than bad jokes people will remember you as someone who hates all flavour in crawl and wants to destroy it, and project that onto every suggestion you make in the future

gozag's is actually relevant if you are playing a felid

wait what

If you have a link or know a lot about it could you please PM me as I'm curious what you're talking about when you say rape. Anyway, a rape reference is obviously out of place anywhere in this game, so let's not compare other flavor to that.

Norris having a surfboard seems like personal preference, but since crawl is supposed to be a little more serious than hack, I can understand why you would want that removed. However, interesting things like spell descriptions (many of which were taken out) and death quotes completely fit this game.

I normally play Gozag so I'm used to seeing Gozag's. What are some of the death quotes for more common gods?

huh

Wow that is ... not well written.

Absolutely! When including things for flavor reasons, it's very important that they be short, straightforward, and thematically appropriate -- no bad jokes, objectionable material, etc. They should only occur occasionally, and not get in the way of gameplay.

For instance, maybe a player who worships one of the handful of gods strongly associated with death or corpses could receive one short, matter-of-fact line from that god when he or she dies.

yeah, i absolutely agree with minmay on the principle that adding death lines to gods could be clutter. (i don't see any particular reason to add one to hep, for example, unless someone actually comes up with a really good one). but when i looked through the current lines, they almost all seemed good to me?

exception: the kiku line for undead ("welcome... oblivion!") is lame, and i may remove it.

also i guess probably the nem death message should be removed, since it hasn't made sense in a long time.

how could you remove the rainbow sparkles on death, the one true link crawl has to its dead gay legacy

So the thing about gods in Crawl is that, while they have detailed descriptions, their personalities are almost completely ambiguous (except for Xom, Gozag, and Jiyva, who speak a lot as jokes, so let's just ignore those gods in this context). They are not assigned visual appearances, and they speak very rarely. That means that if they ever do speak, it should feel like a special occasion, since it reveals a piece of the mysterious personality. Most communication with the god is abstracted away with messages like "Elyvilon forgives your inadvertent unholy act, just this once," without stating how Elyvilon communicated that forgiveness.
The current occasions where they do so, that I can think of, are:
- "You shall pay for your transgression, mortal!" when penance without abandonment occurs. This one is good for practical reasons; getting penance should be as hard to miss as possible.
- Good gods saying "Farewell. Go and [aid the meek/vanquish evil/enforce order] with [other god]." when you convert to another good god. According to a comment, this is supposed to be "Some feedback that piety moved over." Which is weird, since that's...not an obvious interpretation of the text at all, and your piety is shown on the main screen now anyway. It is good feedback that you won't get wrath effects from the god you abandoned, but that should also be communicated when you renounce your good religion in any context (except deserting to an evil/chaotic god, obviously). Overall, I think this message is out of place. Other messages for changing religions are "Trog welcomes you (back)!" "Trog does not appreciate desertion!" "You have lost your religion!" No speech involved, even though the occasions are if anything more momentous.
- Good gods complaining when you join an evil/chaotic god after leaving them. There needs to be feedback that you'll get wrath effects, so that practical concern overrides any questionable flavour.
- The message "How dare you come in such a loathsome form!" should you happen to try to worship a good god while in shadow/lich form, Yred while in statue form, or Zin while transformed at all. You only see this message if you are specifically trying to see this message, so whatever. I do, however, wonder why exactly the good gods consider shadow form loathsome, since it is neither undead, demonic, nor evil.
- The lines you get when you reload a game while worshipping a god. I am not fond of these, especially they are awfully close to breaking the 4th wall (how can the gods tell when you saved and loaded? Are they aware they are in a game?). The demands like "Kill them all!" are especially bad in terms of betraying too much of the god's personality. One like "I know many secrets..." is better, though I'm still not convinced it's better than nothing.
- Beogh speaks when you destroy an orcish idol, although his exact words are not given unless you are an orc. Again, you have to specifically seek this out, and Beogh has little ambiguity left, so I don't care much.
- "Use this gift wisely!" upon using a one-time ability. I am fine with this one, since it's the most special occasion that can occur with Crawl gods.
- Kiku and Pakellas' death messages. I guess Pakellas is supposed to be another talkative god like Gozag? The Kiku one really bothers me, because it assigns so much purpose to Kiku worship that wasn't there otherwise (the nature of worship, and what exactly it implies regarding ownership of your body/soul, is otherwise ambiguous in Crawl). I think Yred's is even worse for the same reason; it doesn't involve actual speech, but necessarily implies that you signed over your remains to Yred at the altar, and in turn suggests a place of origin for Yred's ally gifts, something that was much better left ambiguous IMO.
- Some gimmicky altar vaults. I don't feel like getting into those.

tl;dr I imagine sif muna as my perfect nerdy waifu, don't tread on my fantasies with your canon

"no flavour is good flavour because it's ~ambiguous~"

Bingo! Filler can compete with or drive out flavor instead of enhancing it. Poop has flavor.

The Fedhas death quote actually doesn't make sense. Fedhas appreciates when corpses decompose, not when living things die. You may even die to orb of destruction or disintegration, which would ensure that you wouldn't leave a corpse.

Xom has the best death quotes. Chei could say "Take it easy." when you die, lel

A plank of wood is too modern for crawl? What a trunk wearing surfer is doing in the freaking dark age?

I had always interpreted the message when you reloaded the game as a helpful reminder as to which good you were worshiping, so you didn't unmindfully break conduct (that is harder to do accidentally now, not impossible, but harder)

Jeez I can't tell if you guys are serious or not sometimes. I just thought it was fitting for a god all about ancestors to give a line that you end up joining them after you die horribly.

this forum is too serious for its own good tbh

I can't believe that someone exists who thinks Gods in crawl shouldn't have a message when you return to a saved game, because it's "breaking the fourth wall". Come on, dude.

As far as I'm concerned the god death messages are all cute and fun, and every god should have one. They don't interfere with anything because they happen after gameplay has ended, and no matter what they are, they're more flavorful than just "you died".

Perhaps there should be an option to skip them as well.

Maybe one to skip the inventory display too and just take you directly to the new game screen.

You can already mute any messages you like in your rcfile, as far as I know.