Ogres and trolls following Beogh?


Although the central place for design discussion is ##crawl-dev on freenode, some may find it helpful to discuss requests and suggestions here first.

Slime Squisher

Posts: 369

Joined: Saturday, 3rd September 2011, 18:22

Post Tuesday, 19th June 2012, 02:59

Ogres and trolls following Beogh?

Just curious what the general consensus on this was. They are always hanging out in orc together, and I figure an ogre or troll might worship beogh after seeing the powers he grants first hand with all the orc priests everywhere. Would an orc follow the chosen one of Beogh if it were an ogre though? Orcs seem to respect strength, so I don't really see why not. I guess this is pretty minor, but might add a bit of flavor to the game.
User avatar

Dungeon Master

Posts: 4031

Joined: Thursday, 16th December 2010, 20:37

Location: France

Post Tuesday, 19th June 2012, 10:52

Re: Ogres and trolls following Beogh?

Beogh is the god of orcs. Hanging out in the Orcish Mines doesn't turn ogres and trolls into orcs. Changing Beogh from the "God of orcs" to the "God of folks who live in the Orcish Mines" doesn't add to the flavour at all.
<+Grunt> You dereference an invalid pointer! Ouch! That really hurt! The game dies...
User avatar

Abyss Ambulator

Posts: 1189

Joined: Friday, 28th January 2011, 21:45

Post Tuesday, 19th June 2012, 14:19

Re: Ogres and trolls following Beogh?

For all we know, the ogres and trolls in the mines could simply be slaves to the orcs.
The best strategy most frequently overlooked by new players for surviving: not starting a fight to begin with.
User avatar

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 5832

Joined: Thursday, 10th February 2011, 18:30

Post Tuesday, 19th June 2012, 15:12

Re: Ogres and trolls following Beogh?

galehar wrote:Beogh is the god of orcs. Hanging out in the Orcish Mines doesn't turn ogres and trolls into orcs. Changing Beogh from the "God of orcs" to the "God of folks who live in the Orcish Mines" doesn't add to the flavour at all.


Make it a god of the deviant races, have him favour orcs, have piety gain reduced for Ogres and Trolls, and only allow Ogres and Trolls to charm their own kind (hence, the groups of trolls or Ogre Magi-led teams we see in later depths).
Also no orcish item benefits for Ogres/Trolls.

Just tossing it out there to see if it can be made to work, rather than dismissing it wholecloth.
"Be aware that a lot of people on this forum, such as mageykun and XuaXua, have a habit of making things up." - minmay a.k.a. duvessa
Did I make a lame complaint? Check for Bingo!
Totally gracious CSDC Season 2 Division 4 Champeen!

Dungeon Master

Posts: 3618

Joined: Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 12:43

Post Tuesday, 19th June 2012, 15:43

Re: Ogres and trolls following Beogh?

This suggestion came up immediately when I put Beogh on the table. (For those who like history: I read somewhere, perhaps on Usenet, a passing note about BOG, standing for Brent's Orc God. This got me thinking and then I fleshed out Beogh's basics together with Erik: i.e. the follower mechanic.)

There are two sides to this: Beogh's audience is small, and some people want to enlarge it by allowing sentient denizens of Orc. However, that somehow takes away from Beogh's background -- the god is extremely racist to the point that communication with other gods is impossible: everything non-orc is rubbish to him. Also, I quite like the idea that a member of the same species, but different, becomes the Chosen One (Hill Orc vs Cave Orcs) -- does it sound familiar?

That said, if Beogh's audience has to be widened (I am sure it has to), I'd follow minmay's proposal: anyone can follow Beogh, and under his guidance, you become better and better until at ****** you're a proper orc.
User avatar

Barkeep

Posts: 4435

Joined: Tuesday, 11th January 2011, 12:28

Post Tuesday, 19th June 2012, 15:50

Re: Ogres and trolls following Beogh?

dpeg wrote:That said, if Beogh's audience has to be widened (I am sure it has to)

Do you mean "I am not sure it has to"?
I am not a very good player. My mouth is a foul pit of LIES. KNOW THIS.

Dungeon Master

Posts: 3618

Joined: Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 12:43

Post Tuesday, 19th June 2012, 16:05

Re: Ogres and trolls following Beogh?

nvjack: Oh, yes. Thanks! Shouldn't reply when tired.

For that, you get another anecdote: When I suggested walking on water as high piety passive ability, it was meat as a joke -- I didn't expect that one to pass through the devteam. But then everyone liked it, and it got in :)

I don't think all branches should have a god (we added Jiyva, Lugonu, Beogh) but it is so tempting to think about a spider god. (Also an old idea: there's an ancient commentary about "Josh's Spider god".)

. . . must . . . stop . . . thinking . . . about . . . gods
User avatar

Barkeep

Posts: 4435

Joined: Tuesday, 11th January 2011, 12:28

Post Tuesday, 19th June 2012, 16:34

Re: Ogres and trolls following Beogh?

minmay wrote:This would be pretty useful if Beogh ever becomes more than a challenge condition.

Beogh is more than a challenge condition. He's also fun. Not every god needs to be Makhleb-powerful.
I am not a very good player. My mouth is a foul pit of LIES. KNOW THIS.

Swamp Slogger

Posts: 159

Joined: Friday, 25th March 2011, 04:05

Post Tuesday, 19th June 2012, 19:35

Re: Ogres and trolls following Beogh?

njvack wrote:
minmay wrote:This would be pretty useful if Beogh ever becomes more than a challenge condition.

Beogh is more than a challenge condition. He's also fun. Not every god needs to be Makhleb-powerful.

I find he's more fun in concept than in practice. In the end his gimmicks are either passive(use orc gear, be good orc) or obnoxious and limited(orc armies get very annoying and quickly become sub par).

I've always felt a "holy guard" ability at max piety would help. Promotes one orc follower to an orc knight with a holy weapon. You can only have one and a very large piety cost.

As for the topic itself i'm not sure why you WOULD want to go beogh on ogre or troll. If he's not a challenge condition before he will be when his armor and weapon bonuses don't apply.

dd

Shoals Surfer

Posts: 295

Joined: Sunday, 3rd June 2012, 20:05

Post Tuesday, 19th June 2012, 19:55

Re: Ogres and trolls following Beogh?

I've always thought of Ogres as a subspecies of Orcs, or at least belonging to the same genus or family...

Trolls, not so much though.

Dungeon Master

Posts: 3618

Joined: Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 12:43

Post Tuesday, 19th June 2012, 20:11

Re: Ogres and trolls following Beogh?

Eji1700: Yes, the shepherding can be a nuisance. However, I have read reports of Crawl freshmen players who loved the flavour so much it drew them into the game. A particular moving story was by a veteran on SomethingAwful who got his wife to play, and he recounted how the orc warrior (or whatever it was) kept rushing to fight the dragon killing our hero, almost in time. She immediately fired up another one, named after that warrior :)

Blades Runner

Posts: 546

Joined: Monday, 20th December 2010, 14:25

Post Tuesday, 19th June 2012, 20:23

Re: Ogres and trolls following Beogh?

A good minion management interface would help Beogh a lot. Specifically, it would be nice to dismiss and to easily equip/unequip orc minions. But I suppose it would be a lot of work. As for dismissal flavor, I think blood sacrifice would be awesome.

Beoph followers evolving into orcs sounds fun. Perhaps they could have much slower piety growth (since Beogh doesn't really like them) in return for gaining saprovore status at high piety.... Yea, not a good trade but yay racist orc-god.

Tartarus Sorceror

Posts: 1888

Joined: Saturday, 9th July 2011, 20:57

Post Tuesday, 19th June 2012, 20:25

Re: Ogres and trolls following Beogh?

dpeg wrote:I don't think all branches should have a god (we added Jiyva, Lugonu, Beogh) but it is so tempting to think about a spider god. (Also an old idea: there's an ancient commentary about "Josh's Spider god".)

. . . must . . . stop . . . thinking . . . about . . . gods


I think it's basically impossible to stop thinking about gods once you've been bitten by the god bug. I've been thinking about various spider gods ever since I saw you mention it in another thread a couple months ago...

Dungeon Master

Posts: 3618

Joined: Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 12:43

Post Tuesday, 19th June 2012, 20:30

Re: Ogres and trolls following Beogh?

smock wrote:A good minion management interface would help Beogh a lot. Specifically, it would be nice to dismiss and to easily equip/unequip orc minions. But I suppose it would be a lot of work.


That's a completely natural desire but I think that way does not lie a more fun game. Imagine cruising the dungeon with your three trusty orc warlords and you encounter an orb of fire. You could retreat and swap their gear, so they have (more) rF. Would you if you could?

It is one thing that players can optimise their own kit: if you swap your rings tactically, that's okay (though it is not so cool if it is ideal behaviour to change rings between explore and travel activities). But we certainly don't want that for minions: one inventory is enough! This is why I always lobbied against a (g)ive command. Perhaps something can be done, though: what if you could hand your orc an item, but only once for this type? They got it from the Ober-orc, after all, it's blessed, sacred and full of holy orc spirit -- they'd never dare to remove it. Needless to say, they'd also use it, regardless of what they before. (So it's also a limited (t)ake command.) That way, you'd have some control over their gear but there's no place for micromanagement tedium.
Last edited by dpeg on Tuesday, 19th June 2012, 20:38, edited 1 time in total.

For this message the author dpeg has received thanks:
smock

Dungeon Master

Posts: 3618

Joined: Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 12:43

Post Tuesday, 19th June 2012, 20:32

Re: Ogres and trolls following Beogh?

nicolae wrote:
dpeg wrote:I don't think all branches should have a god (we added Jiyva, Lugonu, Beogh) but it is so tempting to think about a spider god. (Also an old idea: there's an ancient commentary about "Josh's Spider god".)

. . . must . . . stop . . . thinking . . . about . . . gods


I think it's basically impossible to stop thinking about gods once you've been bitten by the god bug. I've been thinking about various spider gods ever since I saw you mention it in another thread a couple months ago...


I know, I know. I subscribe to all the gods! If you want, we can bounce ideas for a spider god. Send me a mail (not via the forum, an actual email). There's certainly enough content to get a cool spider god going, both in terms of flavour and mechanics. It doesn't have to be strong, of course: who would not love to take the orb as an eternal spider?

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 3163

Joined: Friday, 6th January 2012, 18:45

Post Tuesday, 19th June 2012, 20:36

Re: Ogres and trolls following Beogh?

I've seen proposals in the devwiki to allow some types of minions to follow players between floors, with various ideas about how to accomplish that. Not requiring the player to gather their entire horde each time they want to go to another floor would help a lot.

I agree with dpeg about manually equipping followers. It would get very fiddly.
User avatar

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 5832

Joined: Thursday, 10th February 2011, 18:30

Post Tuesday, 19th June 2012, 21:47

Re: Ogres and trolls following Beogh?

Was the stash depth searching thing revised? Last I recall it was still up in the air (currently Orcs only check the first X items in a stack for something to swap with and ignore the rest).
"Be aware that a lot of people on this forum, such as mageykun and XuaXua, have a habit of making things up." - minmay a.k.a. duvessa
Did I make a lame complaint? Check for Bingo!
Totally gracious CSDC Season 2 Division 4 Champeen!
User avatar

Barkeep

Posts: 4435

Joined: Tuesday, 11th January 2011, 12:28

Post Tuesday, 19th June 2012, 21:54

Re: Ogres and trolls following Beogh?

dpeg wrote:However, I have read reports of Crawl freshmen players who loved the flavour so much it drew them into the game.

This is me (well, not the deceased wife bit). Beogh throws a bone to the RPG-lovers out there :D
I am not a very good player. My mouth is a foul pit of LIES. KNOW THIS.

Tartarus Sorceror

Posts: 1888

Joined: Saturday, 9th July 2011, 20:57

Post Tuesday, 19th June 2012, 22:45

Re: Ogres and trolls following Beogh?

dpeg wrote:I know, I know. I subscribe to all the gods! If you want, we can bounce ideas for a spider god. Send me a mail (not via the forum, an actual email). There's certainly enough content to get a cool spider god going, both in terms of flavour and mechanics. It doesn't have to be strong, of course: who would not love to take the orb as an eternal spider?


*pulls out gigantic stack of folders with a manic look in his eye* so you wanna hear about god ideas huh

Most of my spider god thoughts have been about what's the best theme -- whether all the mechanics should just be directly spider related, or if there should be a larger theme as well, like a spider god of terror, or a spider god who weaves fate, that sort of thing. What's your email?
User avatar

Dungeon Master

Posts: 4031

Joined: Thursday, 16th December 2010, 20:37

Location: France

Post Wednesday, 20th June 2012, 11:11

Re: Ogres and trolls following Beogh?

XuaXua wrote:Was the stash depth searching thing revised? Last I recall it was still up in the air (currently Orcs only check the first X items in a stack for something to swap with and ignore the rest).

No. It's not as simple as it sounds, because the monster has to evaluate all items in the stack and pick the best. Otherwise, it might pick the first sword, then change it again the next turn for something better deeper in the stack.
<+Grunt> You dereference an invalid pointer! Ouch! That really hurt! The game dies...

Dungeon Master

Posts: 3618

Joined: Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 12:43

Post Wednesday, 20th June 2012, 11:15

Re: Ogres and trolls following Beogh?

nicolae wrote:
dpeg wrote:I know, I know. I subscribe to all the gods! If you want, we can bounce ideas for a spider god. Send me a mail (not via the forum, an actual email). There's certainly enough content to get a cool spider god going, both in terms of flavour and mechanics. It doesn't have to be strong, of course: who would not love to take the orb as an eternal spider?


*pulls out gigantic stack of folders with a manic look in his eye* so you wanna hear about god ideas huh


Mine is larger.

Send a short mail to crawlpoll@gmail.com.
User avatar

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 5832

Joined: Thursday, 10th February 2011, 18:30

Post Wednesday, 20th June 2012, 14:26

Re: Ogres and trolls following Beogh?

galehar wrote:
XuaXua wrote:Was the stash depth searching thing revised? Last I recall it was still up in the air (currently Orcs only check the first X items in a stack for something to swap with and ignore the rest).

No. It's not as simple as it sounds, because the monster has to evaluate all items in the stack and pick the best. Otherwise, it might pick the first sword, then change it again the next turn for something better deeper in the stack.


Right because he keeps handling them all.
How does a monster determine the "best"?
Does he have a weapon type preference?
Skills?
Or is it "this adds the most damage/accuracy combination to my attacks, as I've determined by wielding it"?
"Be aware that a lot of people on this forum, such as mageykun and XuaXua, have a habit of making things up." - minmay a.k.a. duvessa
Did I make a lame complaint? Check for Bingo!
Totally gracious CSDC Season 2 Division 4 Champeen!
User avatar

Dungeon Master

Posts: 4031

Joined: Thursday, 16th December 2010, 20:37

Location: France

Post Wednesday, 20th June 2012, 15:01

Re: Ogres and trolls following Beogh?

XuaXua wrote:How does a monster determine the "best"?
Does he have a weapon type preference?
Skills?
Or is it "this adds the most damage/accuracy combination to my attacks, as I've determined by wielding it"?

Highest damage. They don't have weapon preference, appart from signature weapons (ie: Sigmund's scythe). Monsters don't have skills. Tie are resolved with shopping value, racial match doubles the value.
But currently, the code only allows the monster to compare its weapon to another one on the floor. It can't compare several weapons on the floor. It's doable of course, but not trivial.
<+Grunt> You dereference an invalid pointer! Ouch! That really hurt! The game dies...

Swamp Slogger

Posts: 159

Joined: Friday, 25th March 2011, 04:05

Post Saturday, 23rd June 2012, 04:28

Re: Ogres and trolls following Beogh?

dpeg wrote:Eji1700: Yes, the shepherding can be a nuisance. However, I have read reports of Crawl freshmen players who loved the flavour so much it drew them into the game. A particular moving story was by a veteran on SomethingAwful who got his wife to play, and he recounted how the orc warrior (or whatever it was) kept rushing to fight the dragon killing our hero, almost in time. She immediately fired up another one, named after that warrior :)

Yes, but keeping that flavor isn't hard. We already have it. Ideally changing minion mechanics would be nice, but I'd gladly settle for a method of at least having a little more control over their progress. I can think of plenty of simple suggestions for this that would give your orc suicide squad a little more "oompf" and keep them a bit more relevant into late game(not sure when they need the buff though because I suck. Personally they started seeming underwhelming come d20ish).

I think one of the biggest problems for me both flavor and gameplay wise is here i am, the fabled orc messiah, and in the end this apparently means my god loves me and hates my minions. Looking at it skill by skill-

Protection from harm- I believe only applies to you.
Orc gear bonuses- Again i believe only you.
Smite- Is smite.
Gain followers/bless followers- Basically the main reason ANYONE plays beogh. Lets you get followers and RANDOMLY lets them get bonuses when they/you kill things. You should ideally be killing things because XP loss actually matters here. You won't be able to rely on your cannon fodder army forever like a real summoner.
Recall/reinforcements- Call them back to you and get more when they've all been wiped out and you no longer gain orcs.
Walk on water- cute.

My issue with this is it's all centered around you. I don't see why we can't have either 1. A way to upgrade one specific orc for a small or large piety cost. Something like designate apostle or missionary or whatever. This gives just a tiny bit more control over the hoard and opens up another avenue to balance the power of the god into late game.
2. Crowd buffs. Flavor wise i don't get why there isn't some piety cost that'll mass buff your orcs. Various group enchantments(that could get better depending on the size of your hoard) could actually help them stay a threat into late game. Mass protection from magic, or maybe a giant zerk frenzy with a downside, or hell even a mass heal, all with piety costs could add a little more to the "Die for me my minions" gameplay. Heck you could combine them all into one with better bonuses depending on how many allied orcs you have.

Topic inspired me to play beogh again, few small thoughts-
Praying really should sacrifice all orc corpses on the screen. Having to sort through piles of junk in mines is tedious.
I reallllllly dislike how piety even works for beogh sometimes. I was almost attempting to kill my own orcs so i could get my piety back to allowing me to gain followers before i did the orc mines. Whats even stranger is the ONLY piety cost is smite. The biggest hinderance in the game so far to me casting smite? How much I HATE having to waste time waiting for orcs to catch up if i drop below recall piety level. This seems backwards and unfun.
Finally died on d21. Only ever had one warlord and one sorcerer, but lost because tiles totally bugged out. All my orcs kept changing into armor and weapon sprites so I couldn't tell where my warlord or sorc were in battle.
Last edited by Eji1700 on Saturday, 23rd June 2012, 07:55, edited 1 time in total.

For this message the author Eji1700 has received thanks:
sardonica

Snake Sneak

Posts: 99

Joined: Monday, 28th May 2012, 21:47

Post Saturday, 23rd June 2012, 07:17

Re: Ogres and trolls following Beogh?

TwilightPhoenix wrote:For all we know, the ogres and trolls in the mines could simply be slaves to the orcs.

Just popping in to say that this would be believable if upon seeing the player an Ogre had a chance of yelling something like "Now's my chance!" or "Freedom!" and turning neutral and rushing for a staircase maybe 1/70 times. (Could increase this chance without the neutral during the Ogre ending, sort of like all the slaves got together for an organized breakout when you arrive instead.)

Halls Hopper

Posts: 86

Joined: Friday, 1st April 2011, 23:44

Post Friday, 29th June 2012, 17:58

Re: Ogres and trolls following Beogh?

God of brutes.

Dungeon Master

Posts: 3618

Joined: Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 12:43

Post Friday, 29th June 2012, 19:21

Re: Ogres and trolls following Beogh?

Not going all gender and diversity on you, but I believe a "god of orcs" is a lot more interesting than a "god of brutes" on the strength of that stereotype (orcs = brutes) alone. That's completely independent from the advantage of having a god tailor made to the species (Hill orc vs Cave orc etc.)
User avatar

Snake Sneak

Posts: 96

Joined: Thursday, 17th May 2012, 09:09

Post Friday, 3rd August 2012, 09:01

Re: Ogres and trolls following Beogh?

dpeg wrote:nvjack: Oh, yes. Thanks! Shouldn't reply when tired.

I don't think all branches should have a god (we added Jiyva, Lugonu, Beogh) but it is so tempting to think about a spider god. (Also an old idea: there's an ancient commentary about "Josh's Spider god".)

. . . must . . . stop . . . thinking . . . about . . . gods


Ooh! visions of Lolth and Menzoberranzan! Could do some interesting and nasty things with a spider god! Drideresque mutations, infesting corpses with eggs... i'm a confirmed arachnophobe and even i like the idea...

I love the pantheon - to my mind it's one of the aspects of the game which really makes it feel like a well fleshed fantasy setting. I quite like the idea of Beogh allowing ogres (and possibly goblins etc?) to worship him - but as subservient beings tolerated simply because the species have been living alongside one another for so long. I've always seen orcs (admittedly the more cliched tolkein orcs) as similar to Beowulf's Grendel - a parallel evolution of the human race but fallen to troglodyte depravity or something.

Return to Game Design Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 27 guests

cron
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group.
Designed by ST Software for PTF.