Registered Member #279
Joined: 4:17:59 pm GMT 09/25/04
Posts: 5460
In some multiplayer game, such as an MMO, or a coop persistent world, your character loses a fight. Normally, at this point we assume your character died, and then go through some sort of respawn/penalty process.
But what are the alternatives short of that? Let's say your character is brought to his or her knees, incapacitated, exhausted, mind-controlled, captured, or something. What sorts of scenarios could make sense? How would you get out of them? What kinds of game systems would need be developed to support them?
For purposes of discussion, please assume there is no DM or gamemaster involved; i.e., it has to be something which is scriptable in principle, even if the details might be complicated.
What sorts of defeat-states make sense? DOes combat damage always have to be potentially lethal physical injury? How would one transition from the lethal sword/fire/acid/teeth&claws implied physical damage into a non-death defeat state? Be imaginative.
Please feel free to use Thain or NWN examples as talking pieces, but everyone please understand this thread isn't really about Thain. This also means there's no need to build up anger or fear that Thain or anyone's RP in Thain is endangered by this discussion. Further, if you think this can't work without a live DM, that's fine, but isn't the topic in this thread, and that position doesn't need to be argued here.
One aspect is how does one resist monotony of the same method being used over and over? How do you inject variety into the experience, or better yet, inject player choice and degree of control over how it plays out?
The obvious one, which has been done in limited circumstances, is being knocked unconscious by what otherwise would have been the killing blow, and then be deposited into a jail/cage/nest/larder of some sort, which one can then escape through normal game mechanics or by a rescue mounted by other characters.
Registered Member #279
Joined: 4:17:59 pm GMT 09/25/04
Posts: 5460
It occurs to me that if one does have a defeat short of death in mind, it puts extra responsibilities on a content developer.
Let's say I'm making a new zone for adventuring, and it's populated by animal groups and by a semi-intelligent hostile humanoid group. In raditional building, once the player is dead, I don't care much anymore. They'll click the respawn button and there's out of my zone.
But if they're going to be captured by myanimals or humanoids, I have to decide how to deal with them in the aftermath. For instance, my animals may try to start eating the downed player on the spot. I would want to set conditions or intervals where the player can attempt to rouse themselves, and perhaps use a distraction or other escape mechanism, and then I need to provide scripting to get my animals to leave them be for long enough to get to safety. Consider the -10 to 0 HP bleed range where you can do a con roll to try to get up in Thain -- there's a lot of scripting in the AI for the critters to not continue to attack you while you're down (which doesn't work so well for reasons of "complicated").
The humanoids might have a prison they take one's body to. In case of a group of players, when one is down, the humanoids ought to at least try to take possession of the defeated player -- they try to grab the person and steal them away. Other players can try to prevent that through normal combat means. But if a player is taken away to a prison, then the developer needs to provide for a means and rationale for them to come to awareness, and then provide the clues and means to effect an escape. Or to barter with their captors, if they're minded to do so. E.g., their jailer might let them out for a prize, a promise, a threat, or something else. In NWN terms, it's more opportunity to use bargaining, persuasion, and bluffing.
As a developer I should also think about providing for a rescue effort from the other players; and then also how I might provide for entertainment of the jailed character's player while they wait. What can you do while in a jail or prison? Some sort of mini-game or investigative work, or perhaps interaction with other prisoners or the guards. Can they dig an escape? How would they find where to try, what skills and tools are needed? Where are their belongings? Did the humanoids put their stuff in another area? How would they retrieve it, and what might be missing? Not only what makes sense, but what would be perceived as fair.
Registered Member #753
Joined: 1:37:02 am GMT 04/29/06
Posts: 2015
Amber:
I love this discussion, and I'll be one of the first to take a stab at the points of this idea. I deal with games all the time, and one aspect that's very hard to create nuance and variety in is the "death moment" or the "respawn" process. I very rarely see a game that is unique, rewarding, and makes you really plan or make a choice via your death sequence. I will say in the past year though, I've seen some very well scripted moments in other video games that -may/should- be included in the way we view death in video games.
1. The Nemesis System:
If you haven't had the joys of playing Shadow of Mordor yet, I highly recommend you do so. It's both a rewarding and thrilling experience that asks you to make critical decisions in your gameplay as to who you'll kill and when. In the game you play as an elven man cursed with the soul of a Wraith tied to him. It deems immediately that he can't die, but how does the game then compensate for this inability to truly die? It gives the player a nemesis system. Orks you face will either die, or they'll try and retreat from battle. If YOU die in a battle though, the ORK who lands the killing blow becomes promoted to Captain, and those that died are replaced by new Orcs - so it becomes a challenge/a goal to seek revenge on an enemy. You also get rewarded, by the more orks you kill the more skills you unlock - so sometimes it's worth dying to use new skills in new situations.
2. Prolonged Injury:
This happens a lot in games like Dragon Age or even in NWN with the "Bleed" mechanic. Prolonged injuries affect the character in ways, by forcing the character to have negatives to certain stats, move slower, have less stamina, etc. It's a unique way for the player to actually take inventory of their injuries and take time to heal themselves via rp or searching for healing kits instead of just insta-healing via spell or bandages. It's easy to rp the "broken arm in a sling." or "hitch in a kneecap" giving yourself a negative to the prolonged fighting and giving yourself a reason to perhaps fight differently in the future.
3. Loss of Limb/Anemic/etc.
The goal here is to institute an ability to possibly allow the player to augment their body. Loss of a hand, loss of a foot. I know this is programmed into the main script, but I rarely see it used. This is good. I'd hate if everyone was walking about with missing limbs, but the point is, if I've lost a lot of blood - perhaps I become Anemic because I have an iron deficiency now. I script in an ability to be able to change skin tone, so I can rp from there that my slight pigment change is due to the way I lost a major fight. I lost a hand, I script a craft option to remove the hand completely. Other options are there, but you can see that this is something that should be implementable and give variance to rp opportunities other than die/live/repeat.
Registered Member #279
Joined: 4:17:59 pm GMT 09/25/04
Posts: 5460
AtanatarAlcarin wrote ...
Can an OnDeath event handler be set for an area, rather than for just the character? If so, I have an idea or two of how to do this sort of thing.
I dont' remember for sure, but I think the OnDeath event and handler in NWN is specific to the creature blueprint and or to "player". That being said, it is very possible to be flexible. One could throw another event from the player OnDeath handler, and let a script defined for the area/zone catch it and handle it. You could even make it specific to the faction of the killer. E.g., being killed by an animal could have a different handler than a death resulting from another player, or a humanoid faction, or say, an undead faction in the same zone.
💅 Registered Member #463
Joined: 1:37:12 am GMT 03/10/05
Posts: 7900
While this doesn't only apply to Thain it is a formula that I use in my DM style for Thain, especially for TPKs. I use it a lot in my PnP games too, and when I'm doing writing I apply it to "well this person could die [due to this circumstance] but wouldn't it be more interesting if..."
And that's the heart of my style, death is one consequence of "failed" actions but it's rarely to most exciting or most creative. Mind Flayers have TPK'd your group? Cool, you and your two other party members wake up strapped prone and defenseless to cold metal tables as they're inserting mind-worms into your ears. It doesn't matter though, because you black out and soon forget that you're being used as unknown sleeper agents for the flayers on the surface world after they drop you off in a field. As far as you know, you went into the Underdark, blacked out, and then woke up with your possessions and a killer headache a mile from Hamley.
You all died against the Poisonwood Orcs? Well, luckily for you (and your party members) they admired the fact that you took out their ex-warchief and have now sent you to an arena on the Planet of the Orcs to prep you as their next strongest warrior by having you fight in slave pits against strange and "alien" creatures from the orc planet so they can use you against the Poisonwood Elves and reclaim a spot on Thain. Of course you have other plans... or do you?
Bag'norn got you down? You'll make a great sacrifice to F'tarek. Luckily for you he wants to see how much ork YOU can burn and grants you a temporary fire-avatar state.
Yuan-ti? Their high priestess would rather negotiate and see if you can catch them some more surface monsters in exchange for freedom.
Lord's Tomb? He has so many souls to keep track of, in your fugue state he might not notice you hunting for your soul back and escaping.
On Thain true death can never be enforced, and I like that. The story ends at true death and it's just boring. In my PnP games sometimes when it can't be stretched death can/will be a consequence but only when it seems to be in the name of fun and danger and there is no other alternative. The same goes with jailing, jail is never fun. It's in fact worth than death because you can only RP pissing in your chamber pot so many times before it wears thin. It's like if the beginning of Oblivion was stretched into three hours of content, bleh.
So I like to look for the most fun option. You're a great hero, you have more uses than being dead and everything else is looking to exploit that. Of course this requires everyone to communicate OOC and people to be willing to take unexpected paths with their PCs and usually in the end the result is surprising and tons of fun to see through.
Registered Member #279
Joined: 4:17:59 pm GMT 09/25/04
Posts: 5460
Moviemaker137 wrote ...
I love this discussion, and I'll be one of the first to take a stab at the points of this idea. I deal with games all the time, and one aspect that's very hard to create nuance and variety in is the "death moment" or the "respawn" process. I very rarely see a game that is unique, rewarding, and makes you really plan or make a choice via your death sequence.
This is one of the biggest problems in the industry today, imo. Most all death systems wouldn't be out of place playing Pong, but we ought to do better.
Moviemaker137 wrote ...
2. Prolonged Injury:
This happens a lot in games like Dragon Age or even in NWN with the "Bleed" mechanic. Prolonged injuries affect the character in ways, by forcing the character to have negatives to certain stats, move slower, have less stamina, etc. It's a unique way for the player to actually take inventory of their injuries and take time to heal themselves via rp or searching for healing kits instead of just insta-healing via spell or bandages. It's easy to rp the "broken arm in a sling." or "hitch in a kneecap" giving yourself a negative to the prolonged fighting and giving yourself a reason to perhaps fight differently in the future.
I see prolonged injury as also reducing the likelihood of dieing to begin with. At least in the sense of the player is given a warning things aren't going well before they suddenly drop dead. Usually players approach an encounter as a binary event: either they're going to win, or die trying. They're basically at 100% capability right up until the last moment, and then suddenly, with the last hit point, they lose all their ability to fight. If there's injury, then there's a definite partial 'defeat' as they go. This interpretation of prolonged injury sends definitive signals to the player which can lead them to decide that they probably won't win after all, and then trying to disengage is a better option. And critically, to make that decision while they're still able to retreat. Again, the developer needs to account for this by having most adversaries be willing to give up the chase at some point, and let the injured player escape. That's defeat short of death, for sure, and potentially a very clean and effective one.
Registered Member #279
Joined: 4:17:59 pm GMT 09/25/04
Posts: 5460
Just Miggen wrote ...
I also realize my process involves an active DM, so it does not completely answer Amber's question.
*chuckles* In each case, I could imagine a developer thinking of those possibilities ahead of time, and putting scripting in place to make something like that happen. The important part is, could the sequence of events and rules/heuristics be specified a prior to the degree of detail a scripter would need to make it happen?
[ The Island of Thain ]
Defeat Short of Death
