I really like Leonard’s suggestion of consistently applying the notion that one gets better at what one practices. I am wondering whether it is practical to do away with character attributes as well as levels, and rely exclusively on skills, or perhaps I should call them aptitudes. There is an enormous list of these, and they are all organized in some sort of cluster network by how closely related they are. If you spend all day swinging a long sword, you get better at that; but you also gain a few points in closely related skills, like bastard sword and saber. You lose a few points in other skills like rapier and dagger; the notion is that you’ve got entirely the wrong habits for those weapons. The higher your actual practiced skill is in something, the less it’s affected by practicing other skills, even if they interfere. And, as queenpam points out while reading this over my shoulder, unpracticed skills decay.

Is this good enough to cover all the times when the computer’s got to pick a random number, is the question.

Basic flavor elements:

• magic is wild; somewhat unpredictable, from the heart as well as the head
• The High Elves were Not Nice. I’m thinking more like Pratchett’s depiction than e.g. Michael Moorcock’s. Also, they’re all dead.
• from Earthdawn: putting back together a very broken world
• keep the horror subtle, though (rugose, squamous ascii art! ha.)
• references to high fantasy kept small - mob monsters ok, plot monsters not
• take plot monsters from where? perhaps mythology?
• references to real world should not be exclusively European
• e.g. Chinese dragons, not European (also, dragons are much too badass to fight)
• steampunk technology is fun and could add interest
• high technology doesn’t fit, though

Fun stuff:

• Ursula Vernon wombats and weird fruit
• Secrets of the Gnomes gnomes
• Nomadic carpet makers? Flying!
• Non-Euclidean overworld map
• …gets more Euclidean as the plot advances?
• Jelaza Kazone-type sapient trees
• At least one type of magic done with bells.

As mentioned in the first of these posts, one of the biggest things I’d like to experiment with in a new roguelike is the setting and plot. In particular I don’t want the plot to be a big MacGuffin hunt. Responding to that, Leonard correctly pointed out that Nethack is a MacGuffin hunt because it has no plot, and outlined some possibilities for doing something about that. In this post I’m going to outline the sort of plot I have in mind and how it might mesh with Leonard’s suggestions.

The game begins in a country not unlike that of Hope Mirrlees’ Lud-in-the-Mist. (more…)