Random gods revisited


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

Dungeon Master

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Post Friday, 26th April 2013, 22:30

Re: Random gods revisited

Piety using lantern of shadows sounds ... interesting. Clearly out of the question for any standard god, but perhaps okay for a random god. I like it!

khalil: I have something like purpose flags: these are the "emergency", "strategical" etc. labels. When starting to think about how to make randomised gods, I wondered if the audience should be a parameter ("a god for non-Conj casters" etc.) but I shied away from it. First, this is exactly the opposite of how we design standard gods (they should have appeal across playing styles). Second, I believe the gods we get the other (current proposal) way have the potential to be more wacky, hence interesting. (Power is not so much a concern, as that's in the numbers.)

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Post Saturday, 27th April 2013, 20:30

Re: Random gods revisited

dpeg wrote: First, this is exactly the opposite of how we design standard gods (they should have appeal across playing styles).

I really can't think of any non-caster that Veh would appeal to, or any caster that would use Trog. The powers they grant compliment a specific playstyle. (Veh: cast explody spells at things, Trog: run up and hit things.)
Plus, if you just use themed tags, you might end up with something like this:
Hypothetical god of death (Hgod for short):
Hgod gives piety when you kill things with ranged weapons. (Tag, killing)
Hgod gives you MP when you kill things. (Tag, killing)
Hgod enhances your melee skills. (Tag, killing)
They all have the same tag, but the benefits are all over the place. If you make use of the MP and melee to make a gish charicter, than your peity gain will be slow due to not killing things with bows. If you use spells and arrows to kill things than all that melee enhancement is going to waste. If you use ranged weapons and melee you won't benefit from the mp on kill and would probably get better use from Malkheb's hp on kill. If you use all three than your skills will be spread out too much and you'll end up being bad at everything.

Shoals Surfer

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Post Sunday, 28th April 2013, 00:50

Re: Random gods revisited

I don't think this is gonna work too well, i feel like gods are there to fill gaps your build doesn't fill or stuff you couldn't deal with just searching through dungeon. Personally I don't see this working.
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Pandemonium Purger

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Post Sunday, 28th April 2013, 03:01

Re: Random gods revisited

siprus wrote:I don't think this is gonna work too well, i feel like gods are there to fill gaps your build doesn't fill or stuff you couldn't deal with just searching through dungeon. Personally I don't see this working.


Oh. The merit of this idea has been judged fair by internet user siprus. stop all development immediately, it doesn't seem like its gonna work very well. We should probably stop. In fact, I didn't even start. I didn't think it was gonna work too well. Lets all think about it now. Does this really have a chance of working? I don't think, honestly, so. In all practicality, we're probably wasting everyone's time by keeping the thread open. Everyone should just be honest with themselves and think, is this going to work? And when you think about that, you really come to the conclusion that no, it just isn't gonna work, so why even try? Just delete the code, delete the thread, and delete your face, because this idea is okay but it just isn't going to work. :arrow: :ugeek: :ugeek:
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Post Sunday, 28th April 2013, 11:33

Re: Random gods revisited

minmay: Vehumet is certainly a very narrow god, and I doubt the proposal would fly if it came up right now. On the other hand, casting and melee are two archetypical Crawl builds, so having special deities for these is bearable. I've been playing new Vehumet a lot, and I think the god has become a little more interesting (and certainly more fun to play!).
Of course, it is no coincident that the newer additions are broader in appeal and more skew to character types (Ashenzari, Cheibriados, Jiyva, Lugonu). Fedhas was intended as helping all forms of ranged combat in an indirect way (nothing about damage or ammunition, for example).

twelve: No need for sniding sarcasm. It's not clear at all whether random gods will work in the end (perhaps they'll be too crude, no matter how hard we try), and even if they work for some or most of us, there'll definitely players who don't use them at all. siprus' comment is completely polite in tone (it wouldn't keep me from designing random gods, of course).

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Post Monday, 29th April 2013, 06:01

Re: Random gods revisited

Just imagine removing the flavor/theme from stock gods and breaking them down into mechanics.

Kiku likes it when you kill things. Kiku grants you: Food on demand, weak minions on demand, bonus to a particular spell school, spells from that school, partial resistance to 1 damage type, an ability that uses that damage type and a 1 time strategic weapon enhancement.

Zin likes it when you explore and kill evil things. Zin dislikes it when you eat chunks or use poison or have gold. Zin protects you from mutation, grants you some fidly and slow ranged magic abilities, an ability that protects you from status effects, a powerful single target disabler and a powerful emergency spell.

I think a random generator could produce things like that. Random Gods may lack a coherent theme but they should be pretty decent collections of costs and benefits. The best can have flavor added and be canonized as temple gods :D

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Post Monday, 29th April 2013, 15:10

Re: Random gods revisited

Frelus wrote:Hunter god


As a hunter god ability, how about removing the need for ammo / ammo management: the player fires unlimited "spirit" arrows, which are basically unbranded, and can toggle god abilities to add brands in exchange for piety.

Lair Larrikin

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Post Tuesday, 7th May 2013, 09:28

Re: Random gods revisited

I really like this idea and I hope it can make it into the game at some point. Progressing through the game following a god you couldn't plan for would be very cool.

Name: Rain of Toads
Description: Drop a number of temporary toads (rising with piety) on and around a targeted area. Could be neutrals early and allies with higher piety.
Use: Active
Tags: Allies, Nature/Earth
Labels: Tactical, Emergency

Name: [Elemental God]'s Wrath (probably some other noun since wrath in crawl implies something else, maybe Fury)
Description: Occasionally strike/hammer/smite an enemy with elemental damage. Chance and/or damage increasing with piety.
Use: Passive
Tags: Elemental(?)

Name: Siren's Song
Description: Draw all enemies in a certain radius closer. Higher piety could have a reverse disjunction effect and blink enemies to you.
Use: Active
Tags: Melee(?)
Labels: Tactical

(I think this one was mentioned, but now I couldn't find it)
Name: Incite
Description: Frenzy an enemy, Smite targeted frenzy needle basically.
Use: Active
Labels: Tactical

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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Thursday, 9th May 2013, 06:25

Re: Random gods revisited

God of thieves.

0*) Steals potions on melee hit.
1*) Chance to break/steal weapon (including wands) on melee hit - passive. The chance increases with piety
2*) EV is increased if adjacent to doors - passive. The boost increases with piety. (Thieves use the door to block weapon/missiles/beams)
3*) Stealth is greatly increased - active and expensive to avoid spamming.
4*) All needles automatically hit - active and expensive. If it is OP, then a boost to Throwing, active and not that expensive.
5*) All missiles are stolen on melee hit - passive
6*) a) Monsters in LoS lose 50%-100% of missiles - active.
b) Evoking Silence - active.
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Snake Sneak

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Post Thursday, 9th May 2013, 12:28

Re: Random gods revisited

dpeg wrote:twelve: No need for sniding sarcasm.


But that's his Thing!

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Post Sunday, 2nd June 2013, 09:57

Re: Random gods revisited

A good soul came up with a name generator for random gods. Of course, Crawl already has a name generator but it's already used for randarts, Pan lords and scrolls. Furthermore, we want a random god name generator that can take strings as input so that player names can be appropriately garbled, even if player gods are far, far in the future.

Anyway, here are some examples:

Scrambled names -- can you figure out the original names?
Spoiler: show
  Code:
Olerach
Adaf Dhem Shas
Strogonak
Musanif
Ledelymnure
Ny Loveli
Edpig
Gmundis
Suecq Ajanje
Shanzi Are
Zogy Amaszogg
Rygot
Iptillec
Renygo
Abu Kidghukaaq
Eheleb Xoxemn
Eraunkem
Moxy
Ghebo
Deich Brosia
Kebolity
Fyagerul
Khlabem
Sem Lypupho

Ten random names using the vocals "a e i o u" in any order and 2-5 random consonant groups:
Spoiler: show
  Code:
Aski Ewoju
Ozesmiuwa
Edupha Oi
Oenijagu
Ullaspiskegno
Sutas Eoxi
Akirughoste
Fapiwuwloe
Ejacufoiz
Abuloigen

Ten random examples using 2-5 random vocals, and consonants chosen afterwards:
Spoiler: show
  Code:
Uskopf
Atheolaysh
Eehuivi
Tatasa
Ihidore
Yliluju
Oschogni
Ilile Uko
Ihyso Ida
Qoska

Ten random examples using 2-5 random consonant groups, and vocals chosen afterwards:
Spoiler: show
  Code:
Ybwets
Ijysch
Biun
Dradoks
Wlamnevygnyst
Jytsymach
Thubysp Ksuj
Schuluzijet
Dowuwurug
Ksitiw
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Abyss Ambulator

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Post Sunday, 2nd June 2013, 19:36

Re: Random gods revisited

I'm totally calling him Strogonak from here on out. I never would have realized most of those were scrambled names if I were to just see them in-game however.
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Post Monday, 3rd June 2013, 05:50

Re: Random gods revisited

I had olerach as 'cholera'. No wonder Erolcha's contaminated.
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Abyss Ambulator

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Post Monday, 3rd June 2013, 11:21

Re: Random gods revisited

Two quick thoughts:
1. Why do people hate on Vehumet when Sif Muna exists? Vehumet is interesting to me because it lets me get a melee character into spellcasting, and finding an early altar might completely change how I was going to play the game. Sif Muna doesn't even let you join unless you are a spellcaster.

2. The idea of random gods feels unpleasant to me in general because I've always liked that Crawl's randomness is more randomness of opportunity then of power. For example, finding a good broad axe early is a very good random bonus, or early shouting mutation a bad random malus, but as you play you WILL find a decent axe at some point, if you want it, and you WILL have the opportunity to remove mutations in some way. I don't like the idea that different players will have different access to things over the course of an entire game.

That being said, variability is always something to strive for. What about making the randomized gods "quest gods?" Each of them would have a conduct requirement, a bonus/ability, and a goal. Once that goal is reached, you receive a secondary bonus, and cease following that god.

Sloppy example: Testa the hunter
Likes when you butcher corpses.
Gives a speed boast when chasing fleeing enemies.
Gives a big stack of branded ammo once you've killed 50 different enemy types.
Three wins: Gargoyle Earth Elementalist of Ash, Ogre Fighter of Ru, Deep Dwarf Fighter of Makhleb (0.16 bugbuild :( )
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Snake Sneak

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Post Monday, 3rd June 2013, 12:34

Re: Random gods revisited

dpeg wrote:
Spoiler: show
  Code:
Aski Ewoju
Ozesmiuwa
Edupha Oi
Oenijagu
Ullaspiskegno
Sutas Eoxi
Akirughoste
Fapiwuwloe
Ejacufoiz
Abuloigen



"Ejacufoiz"

nice.

Lair Larrikin

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Post Tuesday, 4th June 2013, 04:16

Re: Random gods revisited

You know, I was thinking, what if we semi-merge this idea with the demigod idea?

It's been talked about before.

Basically, as your piety rises, you'd gain god abilities pooled from one of these randomly generated god. Of course, the source of which wont be stated as such, instead it'll make a flavor reference to the demigods divine heritage.

Random god abilities could actually make demigods interesting. (although the current change that's being talked about is interesting too, but pretty boring gameplay-wise.)

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Post Tuesday, 4th June 2013, 04:49

Re: Random gods revisited

RNG_god wrote:You know, I was thinking, what if we semi-merge this idea with the demigod idea?

It's been talked about before.

Basically, as your piety rises, you'd gain god abilities pooled from one of these randomly generated god. Of course, the source of which wont be stated as such, instead it'll make a flavor reference to the demigods divine heritage.

Random god abilities could actually make demigods interesting. (although the current change that's being talked about is interesting too, but pretty boring gameplay-wise.)

or we could keep demigods interesting instead of making them all worship a god

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Post Tuesday, 4th June 2013, 17:18

Re: Random gods revisited

crate wrote:or we could keep demigods interesting instead of making them all worship a god


But... they aren't interesting.

Dungeon Master

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Post Tuesday, 4th June 2013, 17:52

Re: Random gods revisited

The idea of Demigods gaining god-like abilities has been suggested many many times and there is a reason that idea has never even been entertained. Demigods are supposed to not have god abilities available to them, they have god-like stats to make up for this. The work-in-progress changes simply provide some extra opportunities for good loot and a bit of XP, and a bit of extra written fluff which apparently some people think will somehow destroy the species forever. (There isn't a "new god" as minmay seems to think, it is just that some distant surface-dwellers whom you never directly interact with are treating you as a god, and this understandably riles the established pantheon a little.)

Demigods certainly are already very good gameplay-wise and anyone who thinks otherwise has probably just never given them a chance. Hopefully the addition of new content would help dispel that myth in any case.

Anyway why are we even talking about Demigods again, they're not even anything to do with this thread.

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Post Thursday, 6th June 2013, 17:09

Re: Random gods revisited

This is the first topic that's made me feel like it's worth registering an account to contribute to :)

If powers (and conducts, appreciates etc) are going to have multiple tags, surely it would be a good idea to, instead of matching a single tag to existing tags, weight the generation by how many tags are shared? Also, it'd probably be a good idea to generate them in a random order - so your piety gain conditions are sometimes chosen on the basis of what powers you have, and vice versa. Or go back and sometimes regenerate the earlier ones to fit in better, like with Pan Lords.

If the god's Theme is chosen from these tags, do all their powers have to be in line with the tag?

Say you're generating a god and the theme is Corpses. So far you've got

Piety gain: sacrifice corpses

Piety 1: You gain +1 AC when wearing armour made from a living thing (leather, animal skin, troll/dragonhide) tagged: Corpse, Defence
Piety 2: You can turn corpses into walls of blood and bone (immobile non-attacking temporary allied monster) tagged: Corpse, Necromancy, Defence, Wall
Piety 3: You gain +1 AC when standing on a corpse tagged: Corpse, Defence [side note: I can see a lot of design space for powers "You get {benefit} while {condition}" where condition is something that the god approves of and benefit is something they might grant]

It'd then seem to make sense you could generate a Defence power that's "out of theme" but fits with the other powers, like

Piety 4: Your armour impedes you less (EV penalty decreased by 1) tagged: Defence, Light Armour

It might then make sense to describe the god as "god of corpses and defence" when generating his blurb - maybe if there are more than 3(?) "bits" of the god sharing a tag it gets mentioned as a secondary aspect.

Basically: if you generate a bunch of stuff that fits a secondary theme, should the generator then pick up on that and run with it? (Obviously not in the minimal implementation, but for later on). I've got a few more thoughts about other bits, but I'll leave them for later.

Dungeon Master

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Post Thursday, 6th June 2013, 21:25

Re: Random gods revisited

fortyCakes: Welcome! Thanks for coming here and contributing :)

fortyCakes wrote:If powers (and conducts, appreciates etc) are going to have multiple tags, surely it would be a good idea to, instead of matching a single tag to existing tags, weight the generation by how many tags are shared? Also, it'd probably be a good idea to generate them in a random order - so your piety gain conditions are sometimes chosen on the basis of what powers you have, and vice versa. Or go back and sometimes regenerate the earlier ones to fit in better, like with Pan Lords.

This is certainly an option. It depends on how many tags we're able to sensibly hand out (and also how in/flexible we want to be with tag associations). Just looking through the list of powers, there surely are some odd ones. Perhaps there should be several modes of god building, and "use two tags" is just one of them.

fortyCakes wrote:If the god's Theme is chosen from these tags, do all their powers have to be in line with the tag?

In that spirit, this would be one god build, but there should be others.

Snipping your "Corpses & Defence" example. Yes, such a thing could work.

fortyCakes wrote:Basically: if you generate a bunch of stuff that fits a secondary theme, should the generator then pick up on that and run with it? (Obviously not in the minimal implementation, but for later on). I've got a few more thoughts about other bits, but I'll leave them for later.

Sure. The first theme (or tag) should come from major conduct (if any) and/or signature power. It is fine to have some powers that are independent of the chosen theme (in fact, "goes well with anything" could be a tag on its own).

You seem to have new and interesting ideas for the random gods. For example, your god powers are certainly not mentioned anywhere on the wiki. You can keep discussing things here, although in the end all good content should migrate to the wiki. (I like random gods enough that I'll do that if need be.) You can also discuss right in the wiki, or take it to email. Whatever makes is easiest for you to keep going. Thanks again!

Dungeon Dilettante

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Post Tuesday, 11th June 2013, 14:52

Re: Random gods revisited

Added a couple of them to the wiki. I was going to add another but I'm not sure if this is strong enough to be a Trademark Power or not -

Armoured Mage (passive, Piety-scaled, Caster) It is easier for you to cast spells in armour. Mechanically, mitigates some points of EV penalty in the spell failure calculation with the amount mitigated based on Piety. Might go well with gaining piety when you miscast a spell. ("... supports the casting of spells in armour")

For an even stronger version you could have Lightened Armour which mitigates points of the EV penalty everywhere it's used but that seems like it'd break things I probably haven't thought of.

Dungeon Master

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Post Tuesday, 11th June 2013, 21:27

Re: Random gods revisited

40cupcakes: This ability (easier casting in armour) sounds good but I'd rather not make it a trademark power, as it's (strong but) passive. It would make a fine secondary power, of course.

Mines Malingerer

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Post Tuesday, 11th June 2013, 22:06

Re: Random gods revisited

Brainstorming:

Could be an optional branch (like bazaar)... Weird Temple full of strange random gods.

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Post Tuesday, 25th June 2013, 07:51

Re: Random gods revisited

You've drawn in another first-time poster with this idea. Just what I needed, another drain on my time. I hope you're proud of yourself. :x

Moving to actually addressing the matter at hand, here are a few ideas that I think might be interesting:

Empowered by <Foo>: A divine power which gradually scales, beginning with resistance to fire, cold, acid, whatever, and scaling through immunity to the point where it actually heals you. Appropriate tags might include Defence and the subject of the power.

Deflect Blows: This could be implemented as a constant passive ability, but I think it would work better as a short-duration buff. It could perhaps be combined with other appropriate buffs. Whenever a melee attack misses you, there is a chance (dependant on Invocations or Piety, perhaps) that it will be redirected towards an adjacent enemy. The original attacker can never be struck by their own attacks (although the kraken's tentacles could strike one another - tell me that's not an awesome mental image). Appropriate tags might include Defence, Martial Skill, War and Offence.

Rising Fury: Each time you hit with an attack in melee, your next attack deals more damage but is less accurate. This ability resets when you miss. Appropriate tags might include Offence, Emotion and War. In the same vein, one could have a Growing Calm ability which improves accuracy and reduces damage on a miss, for which appropriate tags might include Offence, Martial Skill, Contemplation and War.

Conversion Ritual: Allows you to convert any altar to an altar of your god. Invites the wrath of the altar's original owner, and requires at least one good reason to use it - gifts only granted at altars, granting piety for doing this, etc. Appropriate tags could include Greed and Diplomacy.

<Deity> appreciates contemplation of divine mysteries over mortal arts: You can funnel skill xp to your deity in exchange for piety. This strikes me as very tricky to balance, but might be doable. Appropriate tags might include Contemplation, Learning and Faith.

<Deity> deprecates waste of resources: Reduces piety when you zap a wand or read a scroll without effect. Hard to think of appropriate tags for this one - maybe Economy?

<Deity> encourages the spread of his worship: Requires Conversion Ritual. Whenever you convert an altar, gain some piety. Appropriate tags could include Greed and Diplomacy.

Finally, a little criticism regarding the random name generator, or more specifically how it transforms input strings. While anagrams are all well and good, to suit the flavour of player gods I would rather have a slightly more complicated name generator. In essence, my idea would be that each character has some number of possible 'degenerations' - for example, an 'r' can become an 'l', or an 'e', or simply disappear altogether. By putting some proportion of characters in the name through this 'degeneration' process, you can arrive at names reminiscent of the original - but distorted, as though shrouded by legend. I'll try to knock together a simple example of what I mean some time in the next few days, though my C++ is rusty at best.

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Post Tuesday, 25th June 2013, 15:45

Re: Random gods revisited

Some *really* good ideas Randomentity - I think all of them fit and I can't see any major balancing issues.
2012 Winner of fewest proposed ideas implemented by devs.

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Post Tuesday, 25th June 2013, 16:04

Re: Random gods revisited

While I like most of the new ideas, getting piety on converting altars would make the Ecunumical Temple a giant box of free piety.

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Post Tuesday, 25th June 2013, 16:38

Re: Random gods revisited

Given that the temple is its own branch, it wouldn't be difficult to exclude it from any sort of desecration.
You hear a collective boom, "Begone foul interloper!"

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Post Tuesday, 25th June 2013, 16:55

Re: Random gods revisited

khalil wrote:While I like most of the new ideas, getting piety on converting altars would make the Ecunumical Temple a giant box of free piety.

If you consider "incurring the wrath of every god" as free then sure.

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Post Tuesday, 25th June 2013, 17:31

Re: Random gods revisited

WalkerBoh wrote:
khalil wrote:While I like most of the new ideas, getting piety on converting altars would make the Ecunumical Temple a giant box of free piety.

If you consider "incurring the wrath of every god" as free then sure.

A mummy with that could just destroy one altar, wait out the wrath in the Temple, destroy the next altar...
Nothing is lost but time, and a mummy has all the time in the world.

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Post Tuesday, 25th June 2013, 18:06

Re: Random gods revisited

For most gods piety decays over time. So you want to get a piety boost that then decays while you wait off the wrath? Good plan.
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Post Tuesday, 25th June 2013, 18:30

Re: Random gods revisited

RandomEntity wrote:Finally, a little criticism regarding the random name generator, or more specifically how it transforms input strings. While anagrams are all well and good, to suit the flavour of player gods I would rather have a slightly more complicated name generator. In essence, my idea would be that each character has some number of possible 'degenerations' - for example, an 'r' can become an 'l', or an 'e', or simply disappear altogether. By putting some proportion of characters in the name through this 'degeneration' process, you can arrive at names reminiscent of the original - but distorted, as though shrouded by legend. I'll try to knock together a simple example of what I mean some time in the next few days, though my C++ is rusty at best.

Funny you should mention that because that was my initial plan when cranking out the generator. Then I realized that the anagrams (and they're not strictly anagrams but may lose or gain letters) are different enough that it's hard to match the name to the original player (which will only come into play if the Demigod overhaul ever gets finished), but the way I see it that should remain possible. I'm not entirely sure how to solve that dilemma, possibly by having a chance of either using homophone replacements (maybe coupled with a minor rearrangement), or scrambling the name.
As for the "degenerations", they should definitely cover combinations, too: 'th' could become 't' or 'd' or 'dh', 'o' might be changed to, among others, 'oo', 'u', 'ou', 'au' or even 'eau', and something like 'sl' could end up being 'zl' or 'shl' or even 'schl'.
Please report bugs to Crawl's bug tracker, and leave feedback on the development wiki. Thank you!

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Post Tuesday, 25th June 2013, 18:39

Re: Random gods revisited

jpeg wrote:(which will only come into play if the Demigod overhaul ever gets finished)


Don't worry, it's making steady progress. I keep getting distracted by random sideprojects but in fact some of these have created code that help Demigods too ;)

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Post Wednesday, 26th June 2013, 01:03

Re: Random gods revisited

jpeg wrote:Funny you should mention that because that was my initial plan when cranking out the generator. Then I realized that the anagrams (and they're not strictly anagrams but may lose or gain letters) are different enough that it's hard to match the name to the original player (which will only come into play if the Demigod overhaul ever gets finished), but the way I see it that should remain possible. I'm not entirely sure how to solve that dilemma, possibly by having a chance of either using homophone replacements (maybe coupled with a minor rearrangement), or scrambling the name.
As for the "degenerations", they should definitely cover combinations, too: 'th' could become 't' or 'd' or 'dh', 'o' might be changed to, among others, 'oo', 'u', 'ou', 'au' or even 'eau', and something like 'sl' could end up being 'zl' or 'shl' or even 'schl'.


Well, it's good to know that fools don't differ, at any rate. :)
And I specifically avoided mentioning combinations of letters because I volunteered to throw together a version of it and any sort of exhaustive accounting of multi-letter phonemes would be rather more work than I'm inclined to tackle. :oops:
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Post Thursday, 27th June 2013, 16:31

Re: Random gods revisited

For anyone in favor of random gods, I ask you to tell me something. Tell me the name of every randart you can remember. Tell me the name of that one { conservation, hunger, int+1 } amulet which made the game so much more interesting.

That's right, you don't remember any of them.

Random soup is never going to be as interesting as a well-designed unrand. Random soup will always be seen as the sum of its parts. Those parts may be really interesting in themselves, but together they will not form any intelligent synergy.

Random generation has its place, and that place is to prevent monotony. Is the current pantheon really monotonous and boring enough to warrant the implementation of random gods? It seems like a question which should be answered.

(with that said, I'm not really against this idea, just worried)
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Temple Termagant

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Post Friday, 28th June 2013, 03:38

Re: Random gods revisited

I think the big difference between randarts and the proposed random gods is that randarts are generated haphazardly, with no rhyme nor reason. Random gods, by contrast, would be generated according to themes, which will hopefully give them more interest and a feeling of better depth.

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Post Friday, 28th June 2013, 09:17

Re: Random gods revisited

pubby wrote:For anyone in favor of random gods, I ask you to tell me something. Tell me the name of every randart you can remember. Tell me the name of that one { conservation, hunger, int+1 } amulet which made the game so much more interesting.

That's right, you don't remember any of them.

Random soup is never going to be as interesting as a well-designed unrand. Random soup will always be seen as the sum of its parts. Those parts may be really interesting in themselves, but together they will not form any intelligent synergy...


I completely disagree I'm afraid, but only because these aren't really 'Random' gods. They're more just themed gods, with a lot of variation and (hopefully) some intelligent synergy. I think when these get implemented they'll probably require a lot of taming to iron out any weirdness, and you are right that if they were completely random they would be terrible, but with a good tag hierarchy (which has been proposed) these should work well and not be like randarts which are, as RandomEntity said, completely haphazard and with only the weakest of themes (which are mainly made just by a few restrictions on item type enchantments).
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Post Saturday, 24th August 2013, 00:15

Re: Random gods revisited

This is an amazing idea that I hope to see implemented as soon as possible. To that end I volunteer myself for doing any associated sprite-work that may be needed.

I figured that since the gods are random, the altars should be random too. With that in mind I suggest that the sprites be constructed from a multitude of randomly chosen parts that reflect the god's characteristics. As a demo I've made a set of 9 altars, representing an alignment grid, as well as several icons representing the god's domain. The current (unfinished) sprite sheet allows for 108 different combinations. The thing is, I don't really know how the current system is set up and what the possible domains are, so if one of the developers of this system can tell me exactly what's needed it would be totally awesome. I'm also not 100% sure how many layers one of these things should have. I've currently got 2 going, but if I make differently colored bases and/or overlays, we can get a lot more possible combinations since these things work multiplicatively off of each other. Or maybe this was a bad idea to begin with and we should do something else entirely.
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Post Saturday, 24th August 2013, 01:03

Re: Random gods revisited

Team Impy: Oh, wonderful! Many thanks! The idea is absolutely awesome. At this point, I don't think you can do much more, although it will be cool if some
icons could link to the tags used to build these gods. Check the wiki page. There will definitely be tags like Stealth, Books, Fire and so on. (The colour/shape of the altar itself should probably reflect the most important property of the god, but I cannot say at this point how to describe this.) Your posting was a very nice surprise!

A general warning: Everyone who's into this, please don't hold your breath. But I really love the concept and will try to keep it up.

pubby: I see what you mean but perhaps you're worried because of the misnomer. These gods would better be called "procedurally generated gods" rather than "random gods" but of course we can't have that. It is undoubtedly true that even if we get them to work, they'll be rougher than any standard god (lack of proper backstory, less coherent theme, less gameplay synergy). On the other hand, I don't worry about playability (power is certainly not a problem) and we can fill them with otherwise inappropriate content. In other words, they could be really cool. Just imagine someone asking: " didn't find a god yet and there's this altar to Gryfzifuxi on D:4. The description says [blurb]. Should I go for it?" and then someone replies about his experiences with Gryfzifuxi and so on. There is potential for gameplay and storytelling from a completely different angle!

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Post Saturday, 24th August 2013, 11:56

Re: Random gods revisited

pubby wrote:That's right, you don't remember any of them.

I remember "stroozyun", I liked the sound of it, and I've seen it quite long ago, but still remember it.
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Post Saturday, 24th August 2013, 15:53

Re: Random gods revisited

Random Gods would be amazing.
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Post Saturday, 24th August 2013, 19:09

Re: Random gods revisited

I see what you mean but perhaps you're worried because of the misnomer. These gods would better be called "procedurally generated gods" rather than "random gods" but of course we can't have that.

I understood what it meant.

and then someone replies about his experiences with Gryfzifuxi and so on

You mean random gods would exist across multiple games? I don't understand this.

There is potential for gameplay and storytelling from a completely different angle!

I don't see how random generation has anything to do with this, as any new god we add will change up the game dramatically.

Amnesiac wrote:I remember "stroozyun"

I thought you had amnesia.
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Post Saturday, 24th August 2013, 19:21

Re: Random gods revisited

pubby wrote:any new god we add will change up the game dramatically.

If fact I think it might make a bit of a mess of the game, I'm not so sure it's such a good idea to add random gods. Some random gods might get you a combination of strongest abilities and it would be unfair to other players who seek competition
pubby wrote:I thought you had amnesia.

this just proves how memorable it is
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Post Saturday, 24th August 2013, 19:40

Re: Random gods revisited

pubby wrote:For anyone in favor of random gods, I ask you to tell me something. Tell me the name of every randart you can remember. Tell me the name of that one { conservation, hunger, int+1 } amulet which made the game so much more interesting.


My first win (as a DDNe) I had a randart falchion of holy wrath named "Wiwkaur", which was my main weapon for a big chunk of the game, and a swap for the rest of it. Also, who can forget THE GIAGGOSTUONO?

That said, most of them I don't remember. But a weapon is less prominent in your game than a god, and the design for procgods has them sticking around for more than one game, so there is the opportunity for reinforcement.

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Post Saturday, 24th August 2013, 23:16

Re: Random gods revisited

Amnesiac wrote:
pubby wrote:any new god we add will change up the game dramatically.

If fact I think it might make a bit of a mess of the game, I'm not so sure it's such a good idea to add random gods. Some random gods might get you a combination of strongest abilities and it would be unfair to other players who seek competition

I don't understand how this is any different to the existing random elements of Crawl. Crawl has random variation, and some games will be easier than others. In my opinion, this shouldn't be considered as an argument against adding more random elements.

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Post Saturday, 24th August 2013, 23:30

Re: Random gods revisited

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Made altar sprites for a good chunk of tags listed in the wiki. The hate/love tags are probably the hardest to deal with, so I've tried to circumvent some of the problems by lumping monsters into groups under umbrella terms. Gods that love orcs or elves would both use the same sprite sets, as would gods that love snakes or snails. So far I've come up with 9 categories that should cover just about every monster in the game:
demons: all demonic creatures, basically anything with a pentagram icon under it.
celestials: all angelic or divine creatures
animals: all animals (slugs, snails, felids and octopodes included)
insects: all bugs and arachnids
undead: all undead
humanoids: all mostly human-like enemies with the exception of draconians (nagas and merfolk included)
dragons: all draconians, drakes and dragons
abominations: anything that does not fit into the above categories and is not an animated construct or a plant.

The two noteworthy categories that are missing are constructs and plants, which I didn't make tiles for due to their niche nature; gods that don't want you to harm statues should probably be carefully designed as opposed to randomly generated. I also haven't attempted to make anything for the "hates X" tags just yet.
Currently each tag has one altar associated with it and at least 2 icons; so a god that has "loves centaurs", and "poison" as its tags will have 8 possible altar appearance combinations, meaning that even gods with similar domains are unlikely to end up having to share the same altar.
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