Dungeon Master
Posts: 3618
Joined: Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 12:43
Random gods revisited
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.