Proposal: improve consistency of naming/alignments

[Bim]

Admittedly there is another thread on TSO and shapeshifters, but I thought I'd start this topic as it goes broader (although started with playing lots of TSO).
I've found it a bit of a pain that food restrictions/evil classification seem a bit off, both flavour wise and gameplay wise. I feel that putting a few of the earlier monsters into the demon category would help make TSO more viable early game (although he/monster gen may need tweaking), and changing some of the chunk drops would just help flavour wise as they seem to be picked pretty much at random.

For instance,
Eyes (especially eyes of draining) aren't considered demonic/evil and don't add to piety, although they seem pretty evil/have 'evil' attacks.
Unseen horrors aren't considered evil/demonic, and they even have horror in their name.
Hounds and wolves drop clean chunks, whereas war dogs drop contaminated.

I realise there is probably some need to keep a ratio of contaminated/non-evil beings about, and that most of these changes don't have massive tactical impact, but it does seem strange that monsters which, if you heard their name/saw their tile, you'd say 'yup, that sounds evil' aren't classed as such.

[khalil]

Unseen horrors aren't evil?
The way they act makes me think otherwise.
Grumble mumble death of paper cuts grumble.

[some12fat2move]

Eyes (especially eyes of draining) aren't considered demonic/evil and don't add to piety, although they seem pretty evil/have 'evil' attacks.
Unseen horrors aren't considered evil/demonic, and they even have horror in their name.

I don't get how floating eyeballs and invisible things are evil. Sure they're probably scary, so are giant spiders, but that doesn't make them evil.

Hounds and wolves drop clean chunks, whereas war dogs drop contaminated.

You have a good point there. If any one was to be contaminated I'd expect it to be wolves (being wild as opposed to hound and war dog which are more domesticated-sounding).

[XuaXua]

Names are names are names.

Just because someone calls it a Warg doesn't mean it isn't just a big mutated wolf that orcs raise.

Someone didn't see it, so he called it an Unseen Horror. It's possibly just a naturally invisible animal that attacks you, like that flying white snake one.

[khalil]

Eyes (especially eyes of draining) aren't considered demonic/evil and don't add to piety, although they seem pretty evil/have 'evil' attacks.
Unseen horrors aren't considered evil/demonic, and they even have horror in their name.

I don't get how floating eyeballs and invisible things are evil. Sure they're probably scary, so are giant spiders, but that doesn't make them evil.

The unseen horrors are gigantic tentacle beasts according to tiles. How can a Eldritch abomination right out of a lovecraft novel not be evil?
As far as the eyes go, I don't care either way.

[Jeremiah]

Giant tentacle beasts aren't necessarily evil - eg krakens and many of the new Abyss monsters. It seems they have to actually have the word "tentacled" in their name to be evil - eg tentacled monstrosity and tentacled starspawn.

[khalil]

Giant tentacle beasts aren't necessarily evil - eg krakens and many of the new Abyss monsters. It seems they have to actually have the word "tentacled" in their name to be evil - eg tentacled monstrosity and tentacled starspawn.

Isn't the Abyss, and thus everything in it evil?

[mumra]

Isn't the Abyss, and thus everything in it evil?

Chaos by definition isn't good or evil, it's just chaos.

[khalil]

Isn't the Abyss, and thus everything in it evil?

Chaos by definition isn't good or evil, it's just chaos.

Point. However, Lunogu is an enemy of TSO, so they still should give peity.

[nicolae]

Isn't the Abyss, and thus everything in it evil?

Chaos by definition isn't good or evil, it's just chaos.

Point. However, Lunogu is an enemy of TSO, so they still should give peity.

Lugonu is evil because of their philosophy of "do lots of murders and overthrow the pantheon of gods", not because of the realm they rule over.

[khalil]

Since when do those monsters belong to Lugonu? (answer: since never)

He runs the abyss, doesn't he?

[khalil]

So when something banishes you, that makes you a worshiper of Lugonu?

If you're in hell, does that make you a demon?
No.
That doesn't make the demons less evil.

[galehar]

You're not making any sense. Abyss' theme is chaos not evil.
To the OP, being horrific doesn't make unseen horror evil. Just like being ugly doesn't make someone mean. Same for eyes, I don't see why the should be evil. TSO not liking draining doesn't make every monster with draining attacks evil.
Also, your thread title is terrible.

[Bim]

My thread title is terrible, sorry about that.

I get why normal eyes could be non-evil, but the shining eyes seem pretty evil in giving you mutations, as do eyes of draining (. As far as Abyss is concerned, most things in the Abyss are demons and as they're all 'evil' not chaotic (no matter what the realm/lug's theme is), so you could class it as an 'evil place'

I realise it can be classed as all semantics, but there seem to be some strange (and needlessly confusing) differences. If nothing else, I do feel the dog/chunk problem needs addressing, as it just seems odd. The same with some of the snakes.

[Fizzle]

Every God considers "good" what they like, and "evil" what they don't like. To force "consistency" on this seems rather futile... or to quote the wiki:

In the final analysis, it seems that Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup is the story of a peaceful, multi-cultural and multi-species society falling victim to a single adventurer's avarice and quest for glory. By the time the worshiper of Zin has waded through the rivers of blood he must spill in order to claim the Orb, it is more than a little difficult to distinguish him from a devotee of Makhleb.

edit:

the shining eyes seem pretty evil in giving you mutations

That's how the poor thing defends itself. You dive into the Slime Pits to slaughter their king and steal his treasures.. and looking at you to shuffle your genes you is all the poor thing can do to help avoid the catastrophy

[Grimm]

Also, your thread title is terrible.

There have been some bad ones lately. I am going to start editing GDD titles for clarity.

[twelwe]

i agree with erevything he is saying about the names. if you look, it is all there. that her unique Jessica is nothing like jessica alba,. who if a movie star and actress/model and not a wizard woman. also harold is my friend, i know the guy, no way, no way its him. my friend boris is dead but he didnt come back to life so he is the loser here. donald isn't anything like donald trump if you look at the tile, everything else s the same, speech & every thing. and dont let me tell you about the gods, i am athiest.............so yeh my vote is what he says

[Bim]

Thank you twelwe for that interesting post.

I'm not starting the Skald/snapping turtle argument again - it's less about names than trying for some semblance of consistency for thematic and flavour reasons. This is a fantasy game, and usually, fantasy names/characteristics relate to the alignment/disposition of a creature (horror = evil, bad mutations = evil). I'm not saying that crawl MUST stay within the boundaries of the usual tropes, but as it pretty much does for everything else, it looks more like an oversight (for instance not getting piety for horrors) than an actual dev choice.

As far as dogs/snakes and contamination goes, it just seems a bit random and needless.