UnReal World > Suggestions

Rules of engagement for adventurers in the wild

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Utumno:
Hi everybody,

I would like to propose a set of simple rules for making the interaction between the player and adventurers or hunters found in the wild more realistic and less prone to exploitation. Sami has said that next version is all about NPCs, so I wonder if there is still time for a simple fix regarding this aspect of NPC-player interaction.

As you know, when the player stumbles upon a pacific NPC in the wild, said NPC basically acts as if nothing interesting is happening. A completetely unknown person appears from nowhere, pointing a broadhead arrow to the NPC head. Nobody says anything, not even "hello?" or "hi, I'm gonna murder you while you are all alone here!". The NPC walks around, bored, looking at the trees, turns his back to the player and bang!, free equipment/clothing and food. Not that realistic. Luckily it is easy to remedy, in my opinion.

Two basic considerations:

First, if the NPC sees the player for the first time, the NPC should be able to react.

Second, that first-time reaction should depend on the distance from the player. If the distance is outside the "personal space" of the NPC, the NPC talks, asking if the player is friend or foe. If the player is inside the "personal space" of the NPC, it will assume aggressive intent, and the NPC will attack at once.

If the player said "I'm a friend", can he treacherously attack later? I'll say either no, or give the player such bad karma that is almost suicidal. I prefer that the player be prohibited from attacking, so he can't exploit, again, a naive NPC.

The player still has the advantage here, as he can still zoom in with weapons ready and at range while the NPC won't have his weapons at the ready, and has the option of stalking the NPC and shoot it with impunity. But once discovered, it is either challenged about his intentions by the NPC (if far) or directly attacked if too near.

The logic is pretty simple. In pseudo-pseudo-pseudo code: ;)

if (player_not_detected)
      do nothing
else
      if (distance > NPC_personal_space)
         NPC asks if player is friend or foe
                if (answer is foe) NPC attacks; else nobody can attack,
      else
         NPC attacks
     endif
endif

As you can see, it is nothing particularly complicated and solves the naive adventurer NPC exploit.

What do you think?

Regards,
Utumno

   




 

 

PALU:
It won't work because half the times you encounter an NPC in spruce infested forests it's going to be bloody, because you won't see them until your nose bumps into theirs as your round a tree, not to mention zooming in right beside the NPC from the overland map.

Dungeon Smash:
I really like this idea but I don't think NPCs should automatically attack when somebody enters "Personal Space", and should instead simply ask intentions, or give a shout to the effect of "Halt!  Come no closer!" and then engage in combat if the warning is not heeded. perhaps there could be another case to prevent constant bloodbaths.  Like perhaps "Cautious" state, similar to animals "Alert" state, where NPC will wield their weapons and will watch the PC continually until a certain distance is established, friendly relations begin, or combat begins.

Utumno:
Hi guys,

Thanks for the interest!

Regarding the issue of the starting distance (the distance between player and NPC right after the auto-zoom), I think it is realistic that most of the time you'll see/hear each other coming, so that distance will be well beyond personal space. BUT, in a few occasions, you will almost bump into each other, and yes, if within personal distance a freak-out can occur.

Let's establish this 2 extra rules:

1: probability of starting distance < personal space = 5%

And:

2: If player has any weapon ready while spawning withing personal space, the NPC WILL go into attack mode. Otherwise, the friend-or-foe dialog occurs.

This mitigates the advantage that player has zooming in fully armed: there is a small chance that it will provoke an attack by spawning too close to a startled NPC.

The pseudo code needs to be changed for that possibility. Your homework, dudes :-)


 

Saiko Kila:
Why just don't give "negative karma" to PC attacking non-aggressive people (except maybe robbers, I always shoot the robbers on the spot and consider it justified)? The effects of negative karma can be for example bad luck (penalty to rolls) or inability to sleep (which already sometimes happen even if you are in good standing with spirits, though this can be alleviated by some beverages).

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