Wanted: Scroll of Genocide

[Chicken]

I was just looking at an appreciation thread in the other forum where all the people reminisce about Nethack. And what's the greatest part of Nethack? Yup --- the part where you finally implement the Final Solution to your least favorite monster! I mean: the scroll of genocide!

I realize that Nethack is a little off-beat, and genociding every genocidable monster (which Nethackers are known to do) is not really Crawl style. But how about just one big beautiful artifact -- you just once in a while find a bejewelled black scroll pulsing with inconceivable power. And when you read that baby, you get to pick one monster species of your choice to send off permanently to some great wide resettlement camp in a lebensraum somewhere far, far east of the edge of the Dungeon. Titan? Neqoxec? Orb of fire? That's the fun part - you get to choose!

[duvessa]

What happens when a vault tries to place that monster, or a spell tries to summon it? If I genocide shapeshifters, how would you change polymorph, chaos weapons, and Xom? How do you plan to implement the deaths of off-level monsters?

[Chicken]

What happens when a vault tries to place that monster, or a spell tries to summon it? If I genocide shapeshifters, how would you change polymorph, chaos weapons, and Xom? How do you plan to implement the deaths of off-level monsters?

1) The player would have an attribute set that he genocides monster X, so whenever he enters a level, that kind of monster dies (or is vanished entirely) immediately, and whenever a new monster is added to the level, it is checked to make sure it's not that. (In other words, the sun shines only when you look out the window, it's cheaper that way. Convenient to be the only real person in the world!)

2) On Nethack there was a message "there are no such monsters in the world" if you try to polymorph into a genocided species. I'd say that anything getting polymorphed would have to be checked to make sure it's not being turned into the thing that was genocided. I'm hoping you might be able to test once, try the polymorph again, and if the result is the same, you end the transformation immediately. If you genocide something you might summon, well, that doesn't undo your tendency to make it away, so you might find that summon less useful.

3) Is a shapeshifter (the monster) linked to a character polymorphing or getting polymorphed other than by the possibility of turning into the forbidden species?

[Sprucery]

My suggestions:

What happens when a vault tries to place that monster, or a spell tries to summon it?

Another type of monster is generated instead.

If I genocide shapeshifters

...then all shapeshifters are killed and no shapeshifters are generated anymore.

How do you plan to implement the deaths of off-level monsters?

I would assume that when the genocided monster is supposed to come into play, it is killed instead.

[dpeg]

The scroll of genocide is a very bad idea, in my opinion. Monsters are there to pose a threat. With the scroll, your only decision is to pick the most dangerous (sometimes: most inconvenient) enemy. And ta-daa, it's gone. This is not how it should work!

[Chicken]

Any item is supposed to give you an advantage. Considering how many different kinds of monsters there are, I don't think this advantage is huge. If you pay 2500 gold in a shop for it or miss out on a different artifact drop, you're giving up some other advantage you could have had instead.

[duvessa]

What happens when a vault tries to place that monster, or a spell tries to summon it? If I genocide shapeshifters, how would you change polymorph, chaos weapons, and Xom? How do you plan to implement the deaths of off-level monsters?

1) The player would have an attribute set that he genocides monster X, so whenever he enters a level, that kind of monster dies (or is vanished entirely) immediately, and whenever a new monster is added to the level, it is checked to make sure it's not that. (In other words, the sun shines only when you look out the window, it's cheaper that way. Convenient to be the only real person in the world!)

I really don't think you've adequately thought through the implications of this. What about piety gain, inventories, monster_dies hooks, etc.?

2) On Nethack there was a message "there are no such monsters in the world" if you try to polymorph into a genocided species. I'd say that anything getting polymorphed would have to be checked to make sure it's not being turned into the thing that was genocided. I'm hoping you might be able to test once, try the polymorph again, and if the result is the same, you end the transformation immediately. If you genocide something you might summon, well, that doesn't undo your tendency to make it away, so you might find that summon less useful.

3) Is a shapeshifter (the monster) linked to a character polymorphing or getting polymorphed other than by the possibility of turning into the forbidden species?

...then all shapeshifters are killed and no shapeshifters are generated anymore.

Did either of you actually look at how shapeshifters are implemented? Like, at all? You can't just veto polymorphs into MONS_SHAPESHIFTER and be done with it. What do you do about the "shifter" chaos effect, for example?

Another type of monster is generated instead.

What other type of monster? If I genocide ancient liches, does Zonguldrok's Shrine now generate a troll zombie named "antique lich"? If I genocide spiders, does the spider trap vault create 8 random monsters, or does a basket of dead spiders fall on me? You are dodging the substance of the question completely. I suppose I should take some of the blame for not phrasing it more precisely.

I recognize the appeal behind the idea, but it raises several difficult questions and your OP only answers the easy ones. Of course, even if you had good answers to them, the scroll is only usable by spoiled players which should be a complete deal breaker.

[Chicken]

It doesn't have to be this way, but I don't think you should get piety gain or inventories for genocided monsters - they just would get unmade the moment they would show their faces.

Either shapeshifters are genocided - in which case they get vanished - or they are not - in which case their polymorph into whatever was genocided can be vetoed and they take some other form.

I don't know what Zonguldrok's Shrine is but I predict it would be empty, and whatever the lich would have been holding isn't there. Not everything is peaches and cream in the Reich...

The spider trap would go off, but the spiders wouldn't appear. (You're right that a message might use tweaking there, if you want to be clearer, but frankly, if someone is pedantic enough to genocide spiders I think he/she can appreciate figuring this out anyway!)

I will admit I don't know what the shifter chaos effect is.

[duvessa]

I don't know what Zonguldrok's Shrine is but I predict it would be empty, and whatever the lich would have been holding isn't there. [...] The spider trap would go off, but the spiders wouldn't appear.

Great, so now we have to edit every monster-placing vault in the game to account for the fact that one of the monsters could have been genocided.

[Doesnt]

Reflavor it to mass banishment, make it require you to select a monster that is in view, then chuck everything on this level only of that monster's type into the abyss. They can still spawn later, shifters can turn into them, anyone can summon them; no lasting effects except those guys are out of the way now. This cleans up the ugly interface and some of the problems at least.

Shifters are weird so just make it blindly work on appearance probably? A foo-shaped shifter gets hit along with targetted foo, and foo gets hit along with targetted shifters. A crocodile-shaped shifter is safe if the player aims at a killer bee-shaped shifter, or even a shapeshifter-shaped shifter.

The real weirdness for me comes with type, species, and genus. If I genocide Dowan, what happens to Duvessa? Should I be able to obliterate the entirety of Elf:3 or Snake:4 with one item?

[Sprucery]

What other type of monster?

Another type that is suitable for the vault/spell in question.

If I genocide ancient liches, does Zonguldrok's Shrine now generate a troll zombie named "antique lich"?

It should probably generate nothing instead.

If I genocide spiders, does the spider trap vault create 8 random monsters, or does a basket of dead spiders fall on me?

The spider trap would be empty.

The way I see it, the genocided species is removed from random generation anywhere. So usually there are other monsters that can be generated instead. If there are fixed placed where the genocided monster should appear, nothing is generated.

But I realize that this won't probably be implemented in Crawl. Genociding OoFs would be too much anyway, imo.

[CanOfWorms]

if I genocide centaurs, do I also genocide centaur warriors, nessos and centaur derived undead

in fact just ask that question for any monster that is classed like orcs or elves. do you think it's more reasonable for players to expect genociding orcs to wipe out the orcish mines, or to only wipe out a specific monster from the orcish mines

what do gods think about genocide

can I genocide monsters that can only be summoned like beasts from box of beasts

if i genocide draconians, do i genocide all draconians or only the colour i picked? keep that answer in mind. now answer the question but with "ugly things" in place of draconians

what happens if I genocide an immolated monster, or any monster that has an "on death" effect, like death channel or infestation

what happens if I genocide a dancing weapon, and then cast Tukima on a weapon that would be genocided if it was animated. related: if I genocide dancing tridents, do I hit all tridents or only unbranded +0 tridents

what happens if I genocide slime creatures while being chased by a titanic slime creature

[tasonir]

Genociding draconian would leave zot pretty damned empty, if it applies to the entire class. It's a neat concept, but really it doesn't make for a good mechanic. Monsters are challenge you're meant to overcome; in short, they are the actual game. Genociding some of them is basically just saying "I want to play less of this game and an easier version of it".

[Siegurt]

if I genocide centaurs, do I also genocide centaur warriors, nessos and centaur derived undead

Only if your scroll is blessed.

[watertreatmentRL]

What if you had a scroll that just kills one monster, but it does it instantly and irresistibly? I would say that already doesn't work as a crawl item.

[dpeg]

watertreatmentRL: Yes, that would already be a bad item.

Let's look for stuff that is somewhat similar to this idea: phantom mirror? (single use, single monster, requires Evoc skill, enemy's still there)
Anything else?

[duvessa]

What other type of monster?

Another type that is suitable for the vault/spell in question.

If I genocide ancient liches, does Zonguldrok's Shrine now generate a troll zombie named "antique lich"?

It should probably generate nothing instead.

If I genocide spiders, does the spider trap vault create 8 random monsters, or does a basket of dead spiders fall on me?

The spider trap would be empty.

The way I see it, the genocided species is removed from random generation anywhere. So usually there are other monsters that can be generated instead. If there are fixed placed where the genocided monster should appear, nothing is generated.

This is the third time I've gotten this hand-wave answer. I'm going to ask again: What, specifically, should happen when the game tries to create a genocided monster? You can't just decide not to create the monster, you'll cause a bunch of Lua errors in vaults. You have to either come up with a different answer, or manually change hundreds of vaults. I'm asking about the most fundamental piece of the scroll's functionality; the designer of the scroll should be able to come up with an explicit answer.

[Chicken]

I thought I'd given a response: it "unmakes" the monster the moment it shows its face. I'm thinking approximately the same thing as the banishment function of a distortion weapon, only without the smoke or any special message, and instead of notionally sending the monster to the Abyss it sends the monsters... to a resettlement community being set up for their race somewhere far in the East, that's it.

[Chicken]

What if you had a scroll that just kills one monster, but it does it instantly and irresistibly? I would say that already doesn't work as a crawl item.

I was picturing the scroll of genocide killing a particular "species" of monsters (either all yellow draconians or all yellow draconian shifters, I'm not sure which, though I prefer the former to make it kind of useful in that case - but in the case of orcs, it's probably more reasonable to demand that only orc sorcerors or warriors get hit by the spell, so I suppose that has to be carried over...). It wouldn't have to affect uniques, whose base race is not always obvious anyway. And it doesn't kill it in the sense that you get XP/piety/items for it, just in the sense that it doesn't show up. And if you really care that much, you could compensate to make sure that the level starts with its full complement of pregenerated monsters, and that the monster refresh is done again whenever one of them gets caught in the effect. I don't think that makes that much of a difference though - various levels have MASSIVELY different populations and yet they seem to balance out anyway.

[Siegurt]

How about the "mass polymorph" scroll!! It polymorphs all of one creature type in the game irresistably (No this is not a serious suggestion

[watertreatmentRL]

What if you had a scroll that just kills one monster, but it does it instantly and irresistibly? I would say that already doesn't work as a crawl item.

I was picturing the scroll of genocide killing a particular "species" of monsters (either all yellow draconians or all yellow draconian shifters, I'm not sure which, though I prefer the former to make it kind of useful in that case - but in the case of orcs, it's probably more reasonable to demand that only orc sorcerors or warriors get hit by the spell, so I suppose that has to be carried over...). It wouldn't have to affect uniques, whose base race is not always obvious anyway. And it doesn't kill it in the sense that you get XP/piety/items for it, just in the sense that it doesn't show up. And if you really care that much, you could compensate to make sure that the level starts with its full complement of pregenerated monsters, and that the monster refresh is done again whenever one of them gets caught in the effect. I don't think that makes that much of a difference though - various levels have MASSIVELY different populations and yet they seem to balance out anyway.

Sure, but in particular it "kills" whatever monster of that type might be in your LOS and it does so irresistibly and in a single turn.

I think the way a good player would use the item you describe is similar to the way they would use the one I describe: They would hold it until they are in a situation where killing a particular monster will make an immediate, decisive difference. My scroll of instant KO is a bad item. It kills a monster instantly, totally cold. No wind up like Grand Finale, no resistance check. XP and so on don't matter. Your item has exactly the same problem, which is already disqualifying, and more.

[Sprucery]

I don't know if there's any point in discussing this scroll that won't be implemented anyway, but just for the heck of it:

First, some monster could be non-genocidable (like in Nethack). So slime creatures, ugly things etc. could just be given a no-genocide flag. The monster description should say this, of course.

What, specifically, should happen when the game tries to create a genocided monster?

What Chicken said would probably be the best approach. Create the monster, then kill it instantly (with no exp granted of course). Wouldn't this work for vaults? For random generation, another monster would be randomly generated.

Genociding draconian would leave zot pretty damned empty, if it applies to the entire class.

How big part of Zot draconians are placed by vaults (I have no idea)? Randomly generated draconians would just be replaced by other Zot monsters. Also I think in Crawl genocide should just apply to a certain monster type, not the entire class.

I think the way a good player would use the item you describe is similar to the way they would use the one I describe: They would hold it until they are in a situation where killing a particular monster will make an immediate, decisive difference. My scroll of instant KO is a bad item. It kills a monster instantly, totally cold. No wind up like Grand Finale, no resistance check. XP and so on don't matter. Your item has exactly the same problem, which is already disqualifying, and more.

Yeah, this is exactly one very useful way of using this scroll in Nethack. I think you're right in that in Crawl it would be the best use for the item. It sounds a bit boring.

I think I've changed my mind. A scroll (or any item you can carry around) of genocide would be boring (and probably OP). This should probably be a god ability. A god of genocide! No piety decay, with every piety star you get to genocide one type of monster. No other abilities granted. Assuming that genocide is technically possible to implement of course (re: vaults etc.).

[Implojin]

Sure, but in particular it "kills" whatever monster of that type might be in your LOS and it does so irresistibly and in a single turn.

Here's a question: Would a scroll of instant KO be a bad item if reading it meant that your character received no experience for the next dungeon floor generated?

Would it be a bad item if it meant no experience for the next three floors? The next five? What if it had a limited window in which to use it, such as not being able to take it off of the floor it was generated on? Would it be a bad item if it had a max stack size of 1, reduced your experience for five floors, and hellfired the player? Would it make a bad racial ability or god ability under the same criteria?

Balancing strong effects like this is obviously possible; dismissing an instant KO effect or similar effects outright on the basis that using it could resolve a tactical problem posed by a single monster seems lazy, especially given the obvious interest this thread has generated in such a short span of time.

Why not instead use this interest, and this thread, to brainstorm methods of balancing this and similar effects, with the possibility of coming up with something interesting to add to the game?

[dpeg]

Would a scroll of instant KO be a bad item if reading it meant that your character received no experience for the next dungeon floor generated?

Certainly. It's a life saver, so you should use it no matter what. Note that the currently existing life saving powers (Lugonu's banishment, Lugonu's self-banishment, Zin's sanctuary, Elyvilon's prayer) do not kill the monster, they require a god choice. Also note that there is instakilling with Uskayaw, which is much, much better than the proposed scroll because it's an art to set up the kill.

Such a scroll is a really bad idea. For comparison, to end on a positive note: good item additions have been the scroll of fog, the revamped scroll of summoning, the potion of ambrosia, scroll of immolation.

[Chicken]

To be sure, Nethack is OK with life saving - they literally have an amulet for that.

If people are that worried about the notion that a lucky character finding the scroll might use it to not die, even though I kind of thought that was the point of artifacts, well, you could always have it pre-placed in a vault as a kiosk of some sort that you have to invoke there or not at all. (Welcome to Gozag's Assassination Store! We have hits available to take out on the following monster species... though personally, I think it would be funny to have that particular flavor for some known uniques instead. Wonder how much it would cost you on level three to take out a hit on Sigismund)

[MainiacJoe]

The best part of ?geno was reading a cursed one to bring in a bunch of nurses to dance with.

[Shtopit]

I see it as a massive implementation issue, but it would add meaningful choices. Let's say that I get a rare D:1 drop, do I read it immediately and delete all gnolls from existence, or do I use it for some more powerful moster I might even never live long enough to meet, or do I keep it as an escape option to kill the guys who are killing me right now?

[bananaglory]

Use it on mummy on D:3 to cleanse tomb (what a great idea )

Btw, what if i play mummy myself, do i remove myself from the game?