Skill names

[smock]

I love Crawl for it's flavor. Not all skill names are very flavorful. Anyone have a brainstorm on this?

[Maces & Flails -> Maces. (The dire flail seems to be a D&D creation and should be changed to something better in Crawl. Spiked flails at least existed. Anyway, Crawl has 3 flails, 9 clubs/maces, and between 1 and 3 whips.)
Unarmed Combat -> Martial Arts (yes a few martial arts involve weapons but still...)
Armour -> Armours (to parallel shields and axes)
Traps & Doors -> Searching
Fire Magic -> ???
Ice Magic -> ???
Air Magic -> Aeromancy
Earth Magic -> Thaumaturgy
Poison Magic -> Venomancy

[TGW]

UC: Why? Unarmed combat is an accurate description, "martial arts" is vague.
Armours: That makes no sense. One says "I wield axes" and "I wear shields." One never says "I wear armours."
Earth: "Thaumaturgy" doesn't have anything in particular to do with earth.
Poison: Please don't add more -mancy.

[mageykun]

What TGW said. Clarity and brevity is preferable to flavor on the m screen.

[danr]

Sounds like a dead end, but to fill in your question marks, fire and ice would/could be pyromancy and cryomancy.

[smock]

UC: Why? Unarmed combat is an accurate description, "martial arts" is vague.
Armours: That makes no sense. One says "I wield axes" and "I wear shields." One never says "I wear armours."
Earth: "Thaumaturgy" doesn't have anything in particular to do with earth.
Poison: Please don't add more -mancy.

UC sounds military to me. Martial arts sounds more, I dunno, fantastical. Sometimes vague word are more evocative, as I think martial arts are more evocative than unarmed combat. If Crawl originally had "MA" instead of UC, I doubt anyone would think UC would be more appropriate.

Armours: You may indeed wield axes and throughout a game of crawl you may wield several axes. I don't think that grammatical argument is strong in other contexts, though. One says "I am wielding an axe." In Crawl we wear at once multiple armours but only wield one axe. If you focus instead on the axes skill, one might say "I'm skilled with axes" as in "I'm skilled hand and broad axes." One might also say "I'm skilled with armours" as in "I'm skilled with banded and scale mail armours." So there are alternative grammatical argument against armour and for armours. I don't know which one is right. But it make some sense to me. I think the other weapon and defense skills are plural nouns or gerunds (-ing). Armour is the odd-ball.

Earth: I freely admit to knowing very little about Thauaturgy, see Tay al-Ard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_al-Ard). Somehow it was my impression that thaumaturgy was more connected to earth magic. And I recall one other crawler making the same connection, though I've forgotten who or where. Maybe it was in some old RPG?

Poison: I don't know if -mancy it's overused in general, but in Crawl can only think of we have necro- and aqua- but I'm sure I'm missing a couple. Personally, I think "poison magic" sounds silly. Maybe there's a non-mancer alternative?

What TGW said. Clarity and brevity is preferable to flavor on the m screen.

Under those criteria, "Maces" would be preferred to M&F and searching to T&D.

It's not clear to me how "venomancy" is unclear or overly verbose, but no need to explain. Or why brevity is preferable to flavor on the m screen, but I suppose this has been hashed out elsewhere. I would like to point out, though, that skills appear elsewhere, too: "Your Poison Magic skill increases to level 3." (As an aside, if it were possible then I'd kill the reporting levels as numeric.)

Sounds like a dead end, but to fill in your question marks, fire and ice would/could be pyromancy and cryomancy.

Thanks! All due respect, but I find it hard to believe that "X Magic" skill is the best option. And I'm surprised that anyone out there would prefer to become skilled "Fire Magic" rather than "Pyromancy."

[danr]

I think the player base is smart enough to figure out what is meant by terms like "Pyromancy". And ultimately all that really matters is seeing which spells belong to the same schools, not to understand the etymology of the school name.

I don't like "venomancy" though. Toxi something? Venomology?

I have no strong feelings on this one though.

[onryo]

I, for one, greatly prefer plain English names like "Fire Magic" to neo-Latin names that mean the same things like "Pyromancy" (or "neo-Latin"). However, if we're going to be doing fancy names, we should do them right, "Earth Magic" should be "Geomancy."

(Of course, the "-mancy" suffix doesn't actually mean magic, except in recent fantasy, traditionally, it only refers to divination, but I don't think that matters at all.)

[Jenx]

Best part is that's not even neo-latin. Mancy is an acient greek word. (So is "neo-" for that matter. XD)

[mageykun]

It's not clear to me how "venomancy" is unclear or overly verbose, but no need to explain. Or why brevity is preferable to flavor on the m screen, but I suppose this has been hashed out elsewhere. I would like to point out, though, that skills appear elsewhere, too: "Your Poison Magic skill increases to level 3." (As an aside, if it were possible then I'd kill the reporting levels as numeric.)

I don't know if it has been hashed out previously, but I'll explain my reasoning as to why clarity is better than flavor in this case. Careful skill growth is critical to successful character development, and one of the first things a new player needs to get the hang of to slow their mortality rate. Towards this end, you want to be as clear as possible- it should be obvious what a given skill effects. A easy way to help that is to use simple diction- ie less creative vocabulary. Save the fun, flavorful prose for suggesting skill titles, which honestly I think we could use more of. A new title every 5-10 skill levels is not enough.

[onryo]

Speaking of clarity in skill names, are the meanings of "Evocations" and "Invocations" obvious enough to new players? I know that I found out what they do through spoilers, but might something like "Prayer" and "Magic Items" be more clear?

[danr]

Are skill descriptions not in the manual?

[onryo]

They probably are, I just found the wiki much easier to read than the manual.

[galehar]

Unarmed Combat -> Martial Arts (yes a few martial arts involve weapons but still...)

Martial arts doesn't fit combat in animal form or a troll ripping enemies with his claws.

They probably are, I just found the wiki much easier to read than the manual.

There's an html version of the manual. We should probably pack it with the game.

[Jenx]

Unarmed Combat -> Martial Arts (yes a few martial arts involve weapons but still...)

Martial arts doesn't fit combat in animal form or a troll ripping enemies with his claws.

Or minotaurs headbutting things or Kenku pecking them to death either. Yeah, I'd stick to Unarmed Combat. Martial Arts is actually too specific to be of use in this case.

As for the magic schools - just leave as they are. No need to over complicate things.

[seth]

Armours: You may indeed wield axes and throughout a game of crawl you may wield several axes. I don't think that grammatical argument is strong in other contexts, though. One says "I am wielding an axe." In Crawl we wear at once multiple armours but only wield one axe. If you focus instead on the axes skill, one might say "I'm skilled with axes" as in "I'm skilled hand and broad axes." One might also say "I'm skilled with armours" as in "I'm skilled with banded and scale mail armours." So there are alternative grammatical argument against armour and for armours. I don't know which one is right. But it make some sense to me. I think the other weapon and defense skills are plural nouns or gerunds (-ing). Armour is the odd-ball.

Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armour and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shield and then do a CTRL + F for "armours" and "shields", repectively

I don't know the grammar behind it (I think that armour is a collective noun and that's why we use the singular when we talk about the entire class of objects that encompasses armour, but I'm not sure) but I do know that it would be going against standard use to use "Armours". I believe "armours" is really only appropriate if you are specifically talking about different types of armour e.g. "Plate armour is stronger than both of these armours [leather armour and ring mail]." In Crawl, characters are simply skilled (or not) with armour in general.

[seth]

Also I have to say that I'm surprised you love Crawl for the flavor--it's always seemed like a pretty standard orc basher to me in that regard (this is not necessarily a criticism).

[zasvid]

Also I have to say that I'm surprised you love Crawl for the flavor--it's always seemed like a pretty standard orc basher to me in that regard (this is not necessarily a criticism).

Well, flavour of a game is like a flavour of a dish - it doesn't have to be exotic to be rich and tasty. I, for one, love Crawl's flavour, because even if it is an orc burger, it's made from finest orc meat with the tastiest additional ingredients (though I disagree that it's that simple - there are exotic ingredients in it too. Love Zot!).

UC sounds military to me. Martial arts sounds more, I dunno, fantastical. Sometimes vague word are more evocative, as I think martial arts are more evocative than unarmed combat. If Crawl originally had "MA" instead of UC, I doubt anyone would think UC would be more appropriate.

Well, I associate the term "Martial Arts" with sport and I really don't like it when fantasy games use that (I think that one of angband variants did that). So I would probably be suggesting renaming that skill to Unarmed Combat now instead of you doing it the other way around

[smock]

I think that what they pertain to (god abilities and evokable items) are clear, but what the skill levels actually do is not. People might not expect that it increases spell power from wands and rods, power of cards in decks, rod hunger, etc.

Haha! I still think that!

I don't know if it has been hashed out previously, but I'll explain my reasoning as to why clarity is better than flavor in this case. Careful skill growth is critical to successful character development, and one of the first things a new player needs to get the hang of to slow their mortality rate. Towards this end, you want to be as clear as possible- it should be obvious what a given skill effects. A easy way to help that is to use simple diction- ie less creative vocabulary. Save the fun, flavorful prose for suggesting skill titles, which honestly I think we could use more of. A new title every 5-10 skill levels is not enough.

Thanks for your thoughts. Everything you said make sense to me.


Armour may indeed be plural. I guess it's plural-ish. We'd say that my helm and my greaves are pieces of armour, not armours.

Martial arts as mostly just sport is a recent, I think. With guns, they're much less useful, and so have faded in many areas. Asian societies valued their MA and so set aside places of learning to preserve them. Europeans and others didn't have the foresight to do so. Many European MA were lost. Wrestling and boxing survive but as I understand it many were lost. (If you've never seen "Reclaiming the Blade", I highly recommend it.)

It's still not entirely clear to me that skills are named consistently, be it for brevity and clarity or for flavor. But it's not a big deal.

It is nice to hear that some folks really do prefer Ice Magic over some fake-latiny fantasy setting made up word like Pyromancy.

And YES to packing the HTML version with the game. I'd use the manual more!

[danr]

I don't think we should dismiss terms like pyromancy for being "neo-latin" or fake latiny.

Both pyro and mancy are of greek origin. So it's not like someone is sticking greek and latin elements together into one bastardized word.

[seth]

Also I have to say that I'm surprised you love Crawl for the flavor--it's always seemed like a pretty standard orc basher to me in that regard (this is not necessarily a criticism).

Well, flavour of a game is like a flavour of a dish - it doesn't have to be exotic to be rich and tasty. I, for one, love Crawl's flavour, because even if it is an orc burger, it's made from finest orc meat with the tastiest additional ingredients (though I disagree that it's that simple - there are exotic ingredients in it too. Love Zot!).

Oh, there are definitely successful 'flavour' elements in Crawl--gods, for instance. But I remember the first time I played Crawl; I was extremely turned off by it because the dungeon felt so damn empty. Brown walls, brown floors, and some doors, with some monsters wandering around for no apparent reason. After playing Incursion and Brogue, which both have "fuller" dungeons, I considered Crawl to be inferior and didn't pick it up again for another year or so. Now I've been playing Crawl for a little over a year, though, and it's not the flavour that keeps me playing, although there are nice touches like some uniques and portals and vaults(though the Orb of Zot, as far as I'm concerned may as well be labelled "MacGuffin"). It's stuff like the gameplay and balance that, to me, make Crawl outstanding, and not the flavour. And like I said, it's not necessarily a criticism--it's not it's nice for new players to know what a Troll or Dragon is the first time they run into one.

This is OT, though, I guess.

[szanth]

Speaking of clarity in skill names, are the meanings of "Evocations" and "Invocations" obvious enough to new players? I know that I found out what they do through spoilers, but might something like "Prayer" and "Magic Items" be more clear?

I think that what they pertain to (god abilities and evokable items) are clear, but what the skill levels actually do is not. People might not expect that it increases spell power from wands and rods, power of cards in decks, rod hunger, etc.

Yeah for the longest time I had no idea what they did. Then eventually I had a character use wands often enough to where it leveled evocations up, but I was still confused about invocations until I played a DSCK of Makhleb.

[szanth]

Martial arts as mostly just sport is a recent, I think. With guns, they're much less useful, and so have faded in many areas. Asian societies valued their MA and so set aside places of learning to preserve them. Europeans and others didn't have the foresight to do so. Many European MA were lost. Wrestling and boxing survive but as I understand it many were lost. (If you've never seen "Reclaiming the Blade", I highly recommend it.)

Thanks for the recommend, it really got me interested; I like docs like this, so I'll probably be watching it sometime soon.

[7hm]

I think there could be a potential language barrier with evocations and invocations as well.

I knew what they meant as soon as I saw the first evocable items and as soon as I used a god's power because I knew what the words meant before playing the game. Someone coming into it with either a different language entirely or less knowledge may have a harder time making that connection.

That said, the fact you e[v]oke items makes evocations very clear even if you don't fully have the vocabulary. You don't [i]nvoke god powers though, so that one is less clear.

e: as a suggestion, I'd probably leave evocations as is and change invocations to prayer or something similar (prayer ties you back to the p key). you do lose flavour though, and I'm sure it's not entirely quick to alter, so I'd have that as a pretty low priority change

[ryak]

How about this:

Armour -> Wearing

[zasvid]

How about this:

Armour -> Wearing

Would suggest it helps with anything that you can wear, including cloaks, robes, gloves, wizard hats etc., which is just not true.

[Curio]

How about this:

Armour -> Wearing

Would suggest it helps with anything that you can wear, including cloaks, robes, gloves, wizard hats etc., which is just not true.

Actually, I think it is. With maxed armour skill even gloves, boots and cloak give egtra AC.
Nevertheless "Wearing" sound plain silly in my opinion

[ryak]

How about this:

Armour -> Wearing

Would suggest it helps with anything that you can wear, including cloaks, robes, gloves, wizard hats etc., which is just not true.

Actually, I think it is. With maxed armour skill even gloves, boots and cloak give egtra AC.
Nevertheless "Wearing" sound plain silly in my opinion

Silly? Yes.
Accurate? Also yes.

Alot of things in game are already silly. See: yaktaurs.

[Grimm]

The Wearing skill is to be introduced alongside the planned Fashionista class - possibly also to be called Dandies. They will gain the ability to enslave intelligent monsters when they wear flamboyant clothing with panache. They will dazzle and stun their way to victory.

[zasvid]

Silly? Yes.
Accurate? Also yes.

Alot of things in game are already silly. See: yaktaurs.

... that doesn't mean that adding more silliness is in any way justified. Many a times I have read claims from roguelike players who never got into NetHack because of tourists and kitchen sinks. On the other hand never seen anyone claim that they don't like a game because it is too serious. In fact, I believe that Crawl could do without some of the already present silliness (I am looking at you, triple swords and eveningstars' description), but I am trying to not annoy devs with that (but what is the opposite of a morningstar, anyway? Do you grip a ball and swing a spiked club on a chain or what?).

[MrMisterMonkey]

Silly? Yes.
Verging on stupid? Yes.
Worse than "Armour"? Yes.
Stupid argument about trivialities? Yes.

[Curio]

The Wearing skill is to be introduced alongside the planned Fashionista class - possibly also to be called Dandies. They will gain the ability to enslave intelligent monsters when they wear flamboyant clothing with panache. They will dazzle and stun their way to victory.

I think elves is mandatory, best race for this background

[vintermann]

"Traps & Doors" should be renamed to "Perception". Then the devs will think of better ways to make it relevant than door-creaking and trap-setting (the first doesn't matter, the second will never get interesting).

I think the magic skills should stay with their current names, although I'd be tempted if someone suggested renaming them Erfworld style (croakamancy, naughtymancy, dirtamancy, shockamancy etc.)

"Invocations" could possibly be more clear as "Ritual".

[7hm]

"Traps & Doors" should be renamed to "Perception". Then the devs will think of better ways to make it relevant than door-creaking and trap-setting (the first doesn't matter, the second will never get interesting).

I think the magic skills should stay with their current names, although I'd be tempted if someone suggested renaming them Erfworld style (croakamancy, naughtymancy, dirtamancy, shockamancy etc.)

"Invocations" could possibly be more clear as "Ritual".

Perception as a skill could tie into things like the portal announcements that are mentioned in another thread. Perhaps you would get a detailed message upon seeing an exterior vault corner with high perception, a less detailed message with mediocre perception, and no message with low perception. This would have to be tailored to depth of course - you can't expect people to have 20 t&d (or perception) by level 5, but maybe 3 could be considered high, 2/1 mediocre and 0 low, as an example.