Random gods revisited

[dpeg]

This is a call for help with randomised gods.

Basic idea
Let's add gods which are randomly generated, which includes name, powers, piety gain, conduct. Just trying to design these, there are some obstacles:

• Random gods should be moderately balanced. Some tolerance is fine: if a random god is a little stronger than we'd accept for a temple god, that's okay because such a god is not well studied. Conversely, if some random gods are a little weaker than they should be, that may still make them fun, even if challenging.
• Random gods should be fun! It's impossible to gain full concensus on what this means, so here is my take on this point: as usual, shun tedious activities; favour few, strong powers over many, small ones; have at least one power/conduct that stands out -- wackiness was always fine for our gods, and is even more fine for random gods.
• Random gods should be practicable code-wise. We need a variety of powers etc., so (unlike standard gods) ideas which can be more easily coded are rated higher. Note that "easy to code" does not clash with "ingenious" or "wacky", it is just another constraint during design.

Discussion
The idea is not new, it is old. If you are curious, you can read

• a recent forum thread, and
• the wiki page, including the subpages about piety rules and powers.

Existing work
Coldpie has started the rng-gods trunk branch which already contains the framework for random god powers. It is based on the miniature template, which lists powers in a tabulated fashion. The selection is done with an eye towards variety and coding simplicity.

Coldpie will have little or no time for Crawl coding in the future, so I am calling for help! If you like the concept, want to work on a Crawl feature, know your way about git (or are willing to learn it) and can code in C++, have a look at the branch and the wiki pages. As usual in Crawl development, coders are invited/allowed/expected (pick your favourite) to chime in with design. There is absolutely no time pressure, and there are some natural concrete chunks to be addressed next: For example, coding some actual god powers (the framework is there, thanks to Coldpie!), and here it is completely okay to start with re-flavoured in-game effects like Acid Storm. Another natural step is to extend Coldpie's setup to include piety rules where again, we should definitely start with existing piety rules (gain piety for kills, lose piety over time etc. -- all of these we want anyway). In a completely different (and self-contained) direction, you could code (or even think about, as nothing is there yet) a name generator.

I believe that random gods can compete in coolness with portal vaults: They will come up in the shallow dungeon (so that they have a chance to compete with the temple gods). They have to potential to provide countless stories and a new direction of Crawl background. And they will enrich the games of new/inexperienced players and veterans.

If you want to help, please send me a forum message or contact me on the ##crawl-dev IRC channel.
If you want to discuss the virtues of random gods, or brainstorm powers, this can also go in here.

[battaile]

Holy fuck this would be awesome.

edit:
X-Code would work as far as an IDE right?

[galehar]

X-Code would work as far as an IDE right?

Who knows? Try it and tell us
But please, discuss it in the coding forum and let's keep the topic about whacky random gods.

[Bim]

yesyesyesyesyesyesyes. I think this would be a huge and very awesome step forward in crawl development, and, instead of having people just posting new god ideas which are really difficult to put into practise, a random god idea would mean that everyone is satisfied. Also, It's worth thinking of the 'God of hunting/artificers/ice/stealth' and all the other 'class gods' which have come up in the past.

Although I haven't got any firm thoughts, I do have a few ideas which fit around the subject:

-I think it's vitally important that the gods manage to stick to coherent theme. Obviously this is the plan, but one of the great things about crawl is that the gods have flavour (I wish they had more). Things like 'Partake of my vision, partake of my curse'/'Let it all end in hellfire' are absolutely fantastic (and my inner nerd goes YES! PARTAKE!! YES!! YES!!!HELLFIRE!!) and I'd hate to see that lost in a muddle of random gods who were just a string of random mechanics and phrases, this could be done well with a sort of parenting selection though so if the god's first trait is a boost to accuracy with bows, his second trait will be passive repel missiles, third would be lower mulch rate ect. (obviously not an actual idea, just for demonstration)

-branch themed gods (I know this has been suggested a lot) currently we only have Jiyva (and beogh), and I feel it's a strong mechanic, even if their powers were some what randomised. I feel having randomised branch gods would add a lot to the exploration of branches, rather than just being 'xp and some loot', this would be especially powerful (although balance wise maybe a bit iffy) if you could neutralise a good portion of the branches denizens by converting to the branch god.

-Piety gain really stumps me, I can't think of any ideas for piety gain which don't involve the ones we have now and aren't grindy/gamey. A god of poison could obviously give piety for poisoning, but that seems a bit grindy for me, as does too abstract mechanics...not that much of a problem though, kills=piety are fine for the most part, with a few tweaks.

-Also, it'd be interesting to think about how many altars/random gods are suitable for each play through and if they replace the standard gods. Obviously you don't want too many, but I feel that you definitely need more than 3 (and to be spread about between levels 1-10, possibly in the temple as well) for it not to be just a case of checking if the random god is better than the set gods.

I CANNE WAIT CAPT'N!

[battaile]

X-Code would work as far as an IDE right?

Who knows? Try it and tell us
But please, discuss it in the coding forum and let's keep the topic about whacky random gods.

Sorry for the enormous derail, thanks for not being a dick about it.

[dpeg]

Battaile: Please don't be grumpy! Galehar just meant that discussion of IDEs is fine, but the place to do so is the coding forum. Your question in this thread is fine, just report about how it goes or any problems with X-Code in Coding.

Bim: Random gods cannot to compete in theme with the standard gods but the current design tries to make sure that they hold together reasonably well. But it could just happen that you get powers which are not related, like "You can steal items from shops." and "You can call forth Acid Storms." Perhaps good points of comparisons are Wanderers and randomly generated spellbooks: some theme, but of course less than those of pre-made backgrounds and spellbooks.
There is no plan whatsoever to abandon the standard gods; randomly generated gods would be just an addition. Their frequency remains to be decided but that will be very easy to tweak using vault CHANCEs.
For piety gain mechanics look through the wiki page and the old forum thread. There are many things which could be done...
By the way, Lugonu is also the deity of a branch.

[mumra]

X-Code would work as far as an IDE right?

Without going further off-topic than needed there is an open Mantis ticket relating to Xcode:
https://crawl.develz.org/mantis/view.php?id=6049

You can't compile with Xcode, but you could certainly use it as an editor. It's still possible to compile using other methods. If anyone with any knowledge of Xcode wants to try and update/fix the project files at some point that would be really good! Anyway, please direct further questions about Xcode or Mac compilation to that ticket or a new thread.

[Bim]

I see what you mean about wanderers and random spell books, but I feel that the random gods need to be slightly more thematic, otherwise worshipping them is pretty much like just getting a set of (slightly different to usual) beneficial mutations. Not to say that they would need to stick to a theme as rigidly as the current gods (and as you say, they're certainly not going to compete) but a few constraints to make them coherent so that you'd be able to tell roughly what you're going to get (for instance, you know from kiku's description that he's going to be about death/necromancy) would be good.

A few abilities I've thought of (sorry if some aren't actually feasible) :
- teleport randomly to around plus/minus 4 levels of your current dungeon level (so it might jump you back to level 11 or forward to level 14, this could be a good last ditch power, but might be too powerful).
- intrinsic repel missiles/deflect missiles (might be too strong, but may be good for a hunter style god)
- reroll a randart (always suggested...)
- Summon a shop (could have extremely high costs and a chance that it might be something useless)
- Frenzy a monster (I don't feel this is used enough and could be an interesting god mechanic)
- tukima's dance on everything (well, not everything, it could vary a lot) in LOS.
- permanent allies, similar to beogh but of a different race (this would be good for building into a theme, so for instance a god that gives poison cloud could also give snakes).
- a passwall type charm to let you sort of continuously walk through walls (still of only 1-3 thickness - I feel that Earth magic is a bit unrepresented)

(also, sorry for forgetting about you lugonu!)

[Kintak]

Randomly generated gods is a great idea that really belongs in DCSS. I agree that unless they are a god of chaos they should follow some sort of theme, and the player should be able to get a decent grasp of the type of things they offer by their altar description (as mentioned by Bim).

That said, on the implementation side of things, would it be possible to have a large list of god abilities/passives/gifts and tag each entry with what themes it falls under? Most entries should be able to either be active or passive, and could be separately tagged for each.
For example: Controlled blink. Obviously each spell school could have a themed god. Controlled blink could easily be a high-piety active ability for a god of translocations. However, controlled blink is also an escape spell, so an escape-themed god could also offer it. Taken further, a god focusing on protection could invoke controlled blink automatically during high-tension at a lower piety level.
So for the effect if blink, it could be tagged as such: <If active:> [piety 5] translocations, escape; <If passive:> [piety 3] translocations, escape, protection
As such, gods with the theme of translocations or escape could "roll" both the active and passive forms, and gods with the theme of protection could roll just the passive one.

[dpeg]

Kintak, Bim: Did you have a look at the wiki pages I linked? There, tags are used for three purposes: make something (power, piety rule, conduct) exclude another thing; make something enforce some other thing; make the choice of one thing more likely to trigger another thing. The very start of this page explains the usage of such tags, and the examples (scroll down to "Trademark powers") feature some of them. That's the best I could come up with to prevent obvious clashes (gameplay and flavour) and to introduce themes (the forced or more likely tags).

Bim: Saying what you're about understanding the god is important -- this is why the design comes with a "trademark" power. These are supposed to be so strong to make up a lot of theme, and to be so strong that just by mentioning a player has an idea whether the god might be useful to the current character or not. The other part about for "explaining the god in a few sentences" comes from "few effects".

Bim: On your list of propoals (compare this page):
- level teleport as an emergency power: can probably be done more thematically (e.g. teleport to altar)
- intrinsic repel/deflect missiles is on the list already
- summon shop: perhaps as "higher chance for shop generation" and "summon bazaar"
- frenzy monster would make a nice ally power
- "tukima's dance on everything": miniature at least has "animate book"
- walk continuously through walls: probably not worth the coding effort for a random god

Thanks for input!

Later edit: Bim, I don't think that a random god would be just an additional set of mutations, even if the powers/piety rules/etc. were as incoherent as possible. The reason is that you have to gain piety somehow which may easily depend on/affect your character's build (barring the standard rules of "gain piety for kills" and "gain piety for exploration"). The same goes for conducts.
As I see it, a god is a great, thematic way to change the rule set of the game. Random gods will provide new rule sets, too. Their drawbacks: less polished theme, less stress on balance. Their advantages: randomness (yes, I think that's a virtue on its own); access to stranger effects (unsuitable for standard gods).

[adozu]

i'd like a god with an invocable reflection effect like the shield one. it's a fun and occasionally useful effect, it's just not worth having on your shield usually.

[Kintak]

Ah I see what you mean now. I didn't really grasp your usage of tags before.
I do like the idea of trademark powers and the list you have going. I'll try to throw in a few more, but I can't speak for how codeable or balanced they are.

Blood magic - 25-100% (grows with piety) of the player's MP is converted to HP and 25-100% of the mana cost of a spell is applied to HP instead of MP. Anything that restores MP has 25-100% applied to HP instead.
Probably hard to code, but I like this idea because it would allow for and even reward adaptation into some very unconventional battlemages. I imagine a troll stumbling across a god with this power and training into magic to make use of his high HP/regen and ability to eat everything. I suspect that the effects may need some sort of cost tweaking to keep balanced, such as MP to HP restoration being reduced (or maybe increased) or mana costs being increased by a percentage or flat number.

Trusty steed - Upon joining or reaching a certain piety, the player acquires a friendly donkey. It has a reasonable hitpoint pool that grows with the player's level, does not alert/wake up monsters, is fast enough to keep up with the player even while hasted, and can be recalled at no cost, but cannot be told to stay and wait. It can be used as a mobile item storage with 52 slots and no encumbrance limit. The player can also toggle if they want to push (trample) the donkey or change places with it. If the donkey is killed, the player takes a large piety loss, but can resummon it (and all the items it's holding) with an ability that has a gold cost relative to what it was holding.
I'm sure this one seems daunting to code, but perhaps the pick up/drop code can be used. I hope that it would be something fun that offers some utility to very low-strength caster and stabber characters. The shout/orders menu could house the new take/give/toggle commands.

Transubstantiation - The player is granted an invocation that transforms a corpse into a random potion. The likelihood the potion is good increases with piety and invocations.
Should be easy to code since Fulsome Distillation used to exist. Just a fun power where you gamble corpses for potentially powerful potions. Should probably be exclusive to random religions that gain piety through corpse sacrifice.

[dpeg]

Added the following to the wiki page (with some modifications in a few cases):
summon bazaar, higher chance for shops, frenzy ally, blood magic, transsubstantiation.

[Bomanz]

Intrinsic identify or chance to identify might be cool.

[Bim]

Dpeg: Thanks for making the wiki page clearer, I understand what you're getting at now.
I like the idea of transubstantiation! That could easily fit a 'blood' theme along with blood magic and something like pain mirror.

Bomanz: Ash is already very close to giving that, although I don't know what the thoughts are on reusing god powers (the same for PM)? I guess it wouldn't harm to start off with, but maybe to leave the 'trade mark' abilities out (like enslave soul, transfer xp, berserk and so on).


edit: Sorry, just saw that you already put about sig powers on the main wiki page!

[dpeg]

Copying from already existing features is alright, in my opinion. For example, the current list has Imprison which is a Zin ability but it would not be okay to take Sanctuary, as that is Zin's signature ability. Similarly, taking some pages out of Ashenzari's book is alright: the list has (a weaker form of) monster detection, and Bomanz' identification would certainly also work (I'll add it to the wiki page once more ideas come in). Other examples of what I'd be willing to take for random gods: Tomb (card effect), storms (reflavoured spells), turn monster into foo (reflavoured Jiyva power).

Bim: You can edit the wiki pages just fine! For example, if you think there are enough targets for a //Blood// tag, just add them. If you're not completely sure, make a comment at the bottom about which powers you'd give //Blood//, and others can comment or simply do it.

[BountyHunterSAx]

Throwing out poorly-hashed out ideas. Bolded are the ones I actually thought sounded pretty cool.

Set: "Lord of pestilence"
----------------------
Associated possible benefits:
* All kinds of Rats, basic and trapdoor spiders, vampire mosquitos, swamp drakes, Bog bodies, basic mummies, guardian mummies, ghouls, death drakes, swamp dragons, and other "pestilential" creatures are neutral/allied (piety chance of the latter) to you.
* "Death's touch": rN+++, rot immunity, torment immunity. (Perhaps in that order as piety grows)
* regen-Pois. You can still be poisoned, but this *heals* you for the associated amount of poison damage rather than hurt you.
* "The drought-bringer": Nausea immunity, sustenance +/++/+++
* "Scent of death" Miasma clouds follow in your wake (like fire-elementals' fire clouds)

* "Bolt of Rotting": Invocation-strength poewr that hurls a bolt of draining, terminating in a 3x3 cloud of miasma (like mephitic cloud). [Higher piety cost]

Conducts:
* Cannot heal self or others via curing/heal wounds/heal wounds wand/Elixir etc. Regen and poison-quaffing are OK. Piety loss ONLY (not penance!)

Piety gain:
* Sacrificing curative/healing things. Including potions of curing, heal wounds (higher piety). And restore abilities, remove curse scrolls (lesser piety gain).
* Slaying "heal-capable" creatures including Orc priests, sant roka, most angels, etc.
* Rotting an enemy has a 1/10 chance of gaining piety. Note: rotting them at all, repeated rots don't grant bonus piety, so no point farming a single target.



More generic:

Benefits:
* Decreased LOS x1, x2, x3 (max at ***** piety).
* Arcane Specialist: May not have memorized spells that total more than 4/5 different skill sets. Gain significant spellpower-bonus. So, for example, mephitic cloud + poison arrow is no problem. Mephitic cloud + Necromutation would be *okay* at max piety. Necromutation + firestorm + iron shot, again no problem at max piety. But try to add haste/cblink into that list? BAM: restricted.

Conducts:
* Cannot pick up gold.
* Cannot use scrolls/pots (wands, rods, are okay) A particularly harsh conduct, IMO; but it *is* manageable. Maybe associate it with piety loss so it's less forced?

[caleb]

Wouldn't adding these random gods, assuming some were slightly more powerful than the usuals, to the shallow levels encourage start scumming?

[dpeg]

caleb: Assuming no altars to random gods on D:1 (as it the case for temple gods), and 1/4 chance for one random god altar in the range D:2-9, I don't think that scumming is worthwhile. It's like saying "players can scum for a ring of power and a ring of wizardry on D:1" -- sure they can, but the chances are too low to make this matter.
We cannot stop players from doing bizarre things, and potentially even enjoying themselves while doing so. We can try to reduce temptation of sane players. Rerolling a character on turn 1 because of non-maximal HP -- trivial to do, hence tempting. Exploring a whole dungeon level (or even more in the case of random gods) -- actual investment, not tempting, hence not a concern.

[Numerology]

Mimicry - not sure how easy or hard this would be to code (likely hard), but perhaps the ability to mimic a special ability or spell used on you?

Going further, perhaps a random major trait that favors shapeshifting or transmutation in some fashion - perhaps this depends on other random god traits (perhaps depending on the Trade Mark trait), but allows you to assume a given form suitable to other powers the god might provide (for a very simple example, Acid Storm god also provides Spider Form as a special ability?).. you could make Shapeshifting a trademark trait that evolves based on some other parameters, too, I suppose.

Another one - you could just call it 'weaponbless' or something for short hand, but perhaps like Storms, you can do a TSO/Logunu-style weapon upgrade at full piety with brands and effects randomized or depending on other parameters? (i.e a god with Element=Electric/Lightning as a randomized theme would let you bless a weapon at full piety to make it better and also have the electrocution brand)

[dpeg]

Numerology:

Mimicking effects that get thrown at you is interesting but probably indeed quite some work, because of special casing. On the other hand, if restricted to a simple list (spells, say), then it might be feasible!

I don't understand your shapechanging mechanic very well. It would certainly be nice to have a piety mechanic around forms (this is not so easy to pull off nicely with a standard god but for a random god it might be just fine).

Weaponbless: that's a very good one, and we can allow some more bizarre combinations (not just plain egos).

[khalil]

Mimicry - not sure how easy or hard this would be to code (likely hard), but perhaps the ability to mimic a special ability or spell used on you?

Going further, perhaps a random major trait that favors shapeshifting or transmutation in some fashion - perhaps this depends on other random god traits (perhaps depending on the Trade Mark trait), but allows you to assume a given form suitable to other powers the god might provide (for a very simple example, Acid Storm god also provides Spider Form as a special ability?).. you could make Shapeshifting a trademark trait that evolves based on some other parameters, too, I suppose.

Another one - you could just call it 'weaponbless' or something for short hand, but perhaps like Storms, you can do a TSO/Logunu-style weapon upgrade at full piety with brands and effects randomized or depending on other parameters? (i.e a god with Element=Electric/Lightning as a randomized theme would let you bless a weapon at full piety to make it better and also have the electrocution brand)

What about gods of fire or posion? Would they give the default brands, or would there be some kind of improved model? A whip of venom isn't exactly worth getting to max peity for.

[Numerology]

My shapeshifting mechanic would be one of two things:

1. A trademark trait, so that the random god is all about it.. if this is true, then you need to have the game check or roll for a theme for the shapeshifting. The god would grant powers based on that theme that change your form appropriate to suit it (in a very loose example: a random fire themed god would give you the ability to turn in to a fire elemental of varying strength and duration depending on piety)

2. If it is not a trademark trait, the shapeshifting mechanic could simply be a possible minor power for random gods that decides its effects (aka, what forms it grants) based on the other powers 'around it' (likely the trademark power) in the randomized god. Once again, a good example would be - if the trademark power provided is Acid Storm, the minor shapeshifting power should be something related to acid.

I hope that makes more sense.

[Fergy]

What about only creating semi-random gods? I mean, take the existing list of gods, and semi-randomize the bonuses they provide.

[adozu]

that would kind of turn every god into a foul spawn of nemelex and jyvia. xom finds it hilarious but some players like to have a few things they can count on in the randomness of the dungeon.

[dpeg]

khalil: Regarding gods with fire/poison tag and the weaponbless power: as I indicate in a reply right above yours, we are free to "allow some more bizarre combinations (not just plain egos)". Rather timid versions would be Freeze, rC+ or Freeze, rF+ (both make sense thematically). More extravagant brands would be Noisy or, even cooler, Singing, for a god (unrelated to an elemental tag). As you can see, there is no problem with power.
By the way, I like your enthusiasm but was it really necessary to quote all eight lines of Numerology's posting when your one liner only refers to the last paragraph? (Question is rhetorical; please try to snip in the future -- your comments will gain weight from doing so!)

Fergy: No. In addition to what adozu said, we are trying to create something in a direction completely different to the fine-tuned and carefully designed standard gods. The random gods will be a lot rougher, but they'll also be limited and at times provide something unusual. This is where the appeal comes from.

Added identification and weapon blessing to the wiki page.

[TwilightPhoenix]

What about a Sticky Flame and a Strong Poison brand "unique" to the random gods that give them out?

[dpeg]

TwilightPhoenix: Good stuff! No idea if you actually looked at this page, but I suggest egos like Acid, Singing, Devastator and Wyrmbane-style (with dragons replaced by whatever your god hates; that's a tag). Your ideas fit just as well!

[prozacelf]

Egos for Confusion and Paralysis could be interesting too, especially if they were more likely to penetrate/ignore MR at 6* Piety.

[dpeg]

Prozacelf: Hm, now that you say it seems obvious: we can incorporate all the cool egos from as random god weapon blessing powers, and if they work well, upgrade them to ordinary egos

Okay, here's a quick list of potential egos (all of them risque, so really only intended for random gods):
* chance for enslaving enemy by attacking ("allow your weapon to forcefully bond enemies into service")
* turn into funny foo, like fungus, or hog ("allow your weapon to turn targets into hogs")
* make a temporary, allied clone of the enemy (stolen from Brogue)

[nicolae]

Prozacelf: Hm, now that you say it seems obvious: we can incorporate all the cool egos from as random god weapon blessing powers, and if they work well, upgrade them to ordinary egos

Okay, here's a quick list of potential egos (all of them risque, so really only intended for random gods):
* chance for enslaving enemy by attacking ("allow your weapon to forcefully bond enemies into service")
* turn into funny foo, like fungus, or hog ("allow your weapon to turn targets into hogs")
* make a temporary, allied clone of the enemy (stolen from Brogue)

* blasts the target and what's standing behind it with a bolt of magic, similar to Brogue spears effectwise but without your weapon actually hitting the second monster. ("allow your weapon to emit blasts of magical force")
* phasing weapon, passes through armor but is difficult to hit with, ignores some % of AC but has a to-hit penalty ("allow your weapon to pass through solid objects")
* a weapon such that, if you miss an enemy with it, and if your next move is to attack that enemy again, the attack takes less time (0.1 less or so), cumulatively, so if you keep whiffing against a monster eventually you get down to, say, 0.3
* a few months back I had I dream involving a brand that did more damage the more gold you had

[Lasty]

Re: weaponbless, keep in mind that the brands don't necessarily need to be ****** gifts. If the brand is weaker (just poison, for example), it could be gifted at 2 or 3 stars instead; that allows for more scaling of granted brand powers.

[prozacelf]

Dpeg: I was using confusion and paralysis as short-hand for all of the status-effect egos, but for weapon blessing, I personally would prefer it if things like fungus/hog/clone remained as only god-given (maybe artifact) powers.

If confuse/paralyze/enslave were to be made "normal" brands, then any god association might be cooler if they were linked to piety level (just brainstorming here).

[Kintak]

Ego brainstorming:
* attacks cause static discharge; rElec.
* attacks while berserk have higher accuracy and steal life (same as vamp brand), while not berserk you take some damage when attacking.
* "sighing" brand: adds nothing but regular *sigh* messages to the event log. Any scroll of enchant weapon upgrades it to "singing". (don't kill me)

[mattlistener]

Random gods could take a page from the new Vehumet and gift spells of a particular school directly to memorization.

Recognizing that Vehumet's scope includes non-Conjuration spells like Airstrike and Shatter, the random god's spell-list could also be bolstered thematically, such as including Invisibility in a Charm-granting god's list, or Sticky Flame in a Hex-granting god's list. Otherwise the lists may be too short (and hence deterministic) for a divine-gift mechanic.

[mattlistener]

Thought for how to assemble a random god's features:

Assign a substantial set of descriptors to each of the god-powers in the random pool. eg for the power "attacks while berserk have higher accuracy and steal life" the keywords could be something like "enhancement, berserk, attack, risky, evil, angry, HP".

To create a random god, choose one or two descriptors, and then draw powers from the pool of powers that match. Instant themishness!

[dpeg]

mattlistener: Good stuff! Regarding the theme, it's not quite as simple because, for example, your approach does not avoid clashes between powers (theme or gameplay contradictions). But I like the idea of being generous with adjectives that convey "style", like your "risky", "evil", "angry". That would supplement the TAGS of the proposal very well.
(Also yes to spell gifts!)

[Sandman25]

I know it somewhat duplicates Ash but there might be a god who is able to replace Axe skill 16 with Polearms skill 16 AND at the same time replace current weapon with Polearms of corresponding power. I mean to get a Bardiche you would have to wear Executioer's Axe at the time of activating the ability. It would allow to easily adapt to good finds. You could switch between Cleave, Reaching, anti-Hydra, stabbing weapons as needed provided the piety cost should not be too high.

[mumra]

I think this kind of tagging could be quite a flexible solution. Perhaps to avoid the sort of clashes dpeg is talking about we can look at how a similar thing is handled in vault maps: something like the uniq_* tags. For instance if there is a power that changes form we can tag it with uniq_form so no other form powers are picked. Another option would be not_* tags - i.e. fire powers can be tagged with not_ice to denote that they're incompatible. (Although, a "god of fire and ice" could actually be a theme that would work...)

[dpeg]

mumra: not_* tags are already in; my examples list !allies, for example. Unique tags is a great idea, I'll add it right away to the list! For the record, as I think not everyone who comments patiently reads the wiki pages, here is the list of tags currently on the wiki:

Allies, Caster, Books, Stealth, Earth, and with fewer examples:
Acid, Air, Fire, Ice, Poison, Hates X, Loves X where X is a genus (e.g. Dragon, Humanoid, Unique) or flag (e.g. Fleeing, Casting).

And here is a list of how I think those tags can be used on powers or piety rules:

  Code:

>power   Force use of the /power. E.g. gaining piety from the no-buying conduct would have >shoplift.
!tag     Cannot use this tag! E.g. gaining piety from sacrificing books would have !caster.
tag      Higher chance to get powers with this tag. E.g. Passwall would get Stealth or Earth tags.
&tag     Unique use! E.g. only one branding power for weapons.


[Bim]

I love the idea of genus hating gods! "All hail Xakanath, the molten scourge!"
Also, in terms of adding theme (and I know this is a bit far fetched/getting ahead of ourselves), would it be possible to have composite alters? I mean, I don't quite know how the tile systems work, but might it be possible to split the tile into a head, body and base piece and put them together depending on some of the tags?
So for instance Xakanath might love dragons/grant dragon breath, award bonus piety for killing earth/statue type creatures, and give access to earth spells. Could the god have an altar with a rock base, a fiery middle bit and a dragons head?

Obviously this could stretch to three tiles, and even though it might look a bit grandiose, it could be justified that as it's the only altar for the god, it's a bit bigger.

[mumra]

I do like the idea of constructing a random likeness of the god or at least something along those lines. The game already has this for pan lords except they are just random and not based on any theme. This would require a lot of artwork to have enough variation for all the tags/themes.

For the benefit of console players the description can be generated too: "This altar depicts the likeness of [god] with the body of a dragon, the tail of a lion, and the head of an insect."

dpeg: that tags system looks pretty good by the way!

[prozacelf]

I like it. I know my opinion doesn't matter a damn, but I do like it. My main concern is that the altars should in some way represent the gods--Bim hit on this, but I agree. I guess a generic altar could be posited for the random gods, but I would like to see a selection of altars in tiles for random gods.

[Bim]

It would need a heck of a lot of artwork to pull off well (pretty much one for each major tag). I suppose some could be reused from monsters (as in, just cut the heads off draconians) and colour it differently.

To add to the tagging system and also help tiles/flavour, should each God have a base 'element'? By this I don't mean just elemental elements, but say yred and kiku are 'death', sif and veh are 'magic', eviy and TSO are holy, ect. This could cut down on the tiles somewhat, as it could just be a 'evil/holy/magic/elemental' base and then many different tops depending on what the god 'is'.

This would also create a bit more flavour, so you could have 'Terianai, Death god of the insects' which would be an evil base and a spiders head without having to select from all the different powers/tags?

[roctavian]

One thing you will never have to worry about with Crawl is "who is going to do the tile"

[dpeg]

Thanks for all the comments! Please remember that this is still a call for help! If you think you can fill some of the gaps with code, please contact me. By now, I think there is enough of a vision to get a crude version of the random gods going, and it'd be awesome to see them slowly come to life. (And indeed, I cannot code well enough, so this is not just laziness on my part.)

Regarding themes: As mentioned here and on the wiki, everything about the gods (powers, conduct, piety rules) will have TAGS, ideally several of them. I cannot see at this point whether it'll be feasible, but perhaps any random god can restrict to two selected tags (i.e. every power etc. has one tag or the other). Then you could do exactly what Bim suggested with "insect god of death". Note that this is similar to how random spellbooks are named, only that with random gods we are free to create the tag pool ourselves.

[Marbit]

Just for fun I made a program in C++ that generates silly random gods. They are intentionally silly because, at the moment I've not included a way to select themes, the gods that are produced are sometimes very stupid but here I leave you some good draws.

  Code:

Oraray is the crazy god of mathematics and failure.
He appreciates when you offer creature bodies as a sacrifice and offer scrolls as a sacrifice.
It annoys him when you use teleportation and improve your spellcasting.

If you follow him he will:
-allow you to paralyze your enemies
-allow you to blink at will
-make you immune to poison
-occasionally protect you from deadly damage

  Code:

Eneney is the feeble god of meat and alcohol.
He appreciates when you study fire magic and offer weapons as a sacrifice.
It annoys him when you attack rats and consume rotten meat.

If you follow him he will:
-allow you to cast mass polymorph
-give you faster magic regeneration
-occasionally give you scrolls
-protect you from deadly wounds by draining your attributes 

  Code:

Origor is the half mad god of politicians and worms.
He appreciates when you destroy statues and study translocations.
It annoys him when you buy items at shops and attack worms.

If you follow him he will:
-torment your enemies at your request
-animate all skeletons on your way
-allow you to polymorph your enemies
-occasionally give you potions

I'm trying to improve the code... it is NOT dungeon crawl code. I just learn C++ a few days ago and crawl is still daunting for me to program but it is a way to make a "skeleton" of a program or a simulation of how random gods should look like and to tweak the details. My code is quite large, redundant and silly but if anyone is interested I can post it (it would also help me quite a lot if someone could correct it).

[Frelus]

Brainstorming:
An ability that makes a three tile wall (orthogonal to the line between you and the point where you cast it) that reflects any missile (up to a certain strength, maybe) that is fired at it.
The ability to make a mirror image of an enemy (Like that one Unique whose name I forgot)
Mass sticks to snakes/ weapons to snakes (with stronger snakes, high piety cost, uses even metal weapons)
Larvae god, lets you make larvae from corpses that are somehow (letting them feed on other corpses?) evolved into bigger ones.
To the sticks to snakes idea: Expanding that, higher piety in that set may give you the ability to merge snakes into hydrae.
Hunter god: Strict only ammo gifts, brands a ranged weapon at max piety, gives larger chance to recover ammo, bonus to ranged combat skills, some invokable portal ammunition skill.
God of stealth set: Gives piety for sacrificing big 2H weapons and being near monsters without being noticed, the invokable abilites to confuse enemies and to drop "smoke-bombs". Invokable ability to silence one enemy.
Elemental Gods: Piety for diverging XP to the skill, piety for killing enemies with that element, grants spellbooks of that element in order of power. Bonus to elemental cast chance, think Vehumet Conjuration bonus.
Just some brainstorming, take ideas you like, as I cannot code

[Carabas]

Some ideas I had:

Randomly gifting Manuals, or having an ability like the new Vehumet, where you'll get a period of time to choose to 'begin studying' a particular skill. If you choose to study, you can't turn the studying off until the effect is done.

A god based on particular items, kind of like nemelex, could be fun:
When you convert, you get a lantern of shadows, and time spent wielding it is how you gain piety.
A god of wands and rods, forbids casting but gifts evokable items (perhaps including equippable items, like amulets of rage or boots of flying) and gives piety every time you evoke an item

[khalil]

One thing I realized about tags:
There's three types of gods in crawl, reinforcement, diversity, and other. Reinforcement gods are those like Vehumet, who reward you for spellcasting with more spellcasting. Diversity gods are those like Malkheb who give melee fighers conjuration and summoning. Other is gods like Xom who don't really fit anywhere. In adition to the theme tags, we could also have tags relating to the purpose. For example, gaining mp when you kill a monster would be tagged with reinforcement_casting, whereas the ability to summon monsters using invocations instead of spellcasting would be tagged diversity_fighting.
Just felt like shareing this.
I really wish I had the ability to help with the coding, but my previous misadventures with crawl's code indicate that I'm probably not capable of something this complex.