Re: reading books, another idea I am working on

[Matt Cortes <link@alpha.pulsar.net>]

On Thu, 14 Dec 1995, Brian Thomas wrote:

> > I'm wondering how hard it would be to say..  choose a religon?  Make 
> > strict rules for clerics once they choose a god to worship.  The 
> > advantage is random favors from the god based on how faithful the cleric 
> > has been.  Do simple things like Elemental gods, Demon gods, etc. Cleric 
> > studies the arts, practices etc for the god of his choose, as he advances 
> > he gains the strengths and weakness of such practices.  For example, 
> > studing under the Fire God increases his ability with fire, but makes him 
> > weaker toward cold, etc.  Something like this should be done for all 
> > types of characters by the way..  Make spells more intense, likely to 
> > succeed, harmful, as the players level raises (reads more books on type 
> > of spell <G>).   
> > 
> 	Hmm. Well, all of this is already possible with the MULTIGOD 
> 	option!

Oh really?  I didn't even know it existed.  Guess most of this is found 
out by wading through the source huh? :>
Is it possible then please to get some explantion to what MULTIGOD does 
exactly and on its use?
 
> > What the heck is the writing skill and stylus pen used for now anyway??
> > 
> 	You can use it to "overwrite" magical scrolls with spells
> 	that you know. In this way, it is easy to keep a few 
> 	"cure confusion" scrolls (or whatever you find useful) 
> 	around.

AH, ok.  Cool idea.
Thank you for making me alittle less ignorant to the game. :>

> 	Yeah. I though that the player aught to be able to write
> 	in *any* non-magical book, even the ones you find on the 
> 	maps. Anything a player writes would be appended to the 
> 	end of the previous message. Pretty easy to code this.

Yes, I do program somewhat..  It does sound easy to do, I have yet to 
actually look at the crossfire code though.
 
> > Also maybe a "note paper" item for small "Link was here first!!" 
> > messages, etc. :>
> >
> 	This brings up a "tangential" idea I had. For those of you
> 	out there who played "nethack", remember the "magic marker"?
> 
> 	I thought I might make something like that. It would 
> 	allow the player to inscribe a permanent message on the 
> 	floor/wall/etc. The way to code this would be to create a 
> 	invisible, unique "talk" object where the player was standing.
> 	In this way, even though the map had been re-loaded, the 
> 	players message would still be there to be read. The only 
> 	problems I see w/ this are the 1) stability of the unique
> 	objects code and 2) the number of unique messages that might
> 	build up over time. Will this cause problems?

Well, #2 could be solved.  Everything wears away over time..  Also, not 
all surfaces should be able to have marks on it.  make them for weak, 
easily marked walls, etc in hard to get to places.  Or at least not as 
many public places.  Like that huge wall in the city to the west (forget 
the name), it already has writing on it, but something like that.  Also 
only allow those areas to contain so many lines.  The newer stuff speeds 
up fading away of the older stuff.  Also the dm's job could be to go 
around and clean up and nonsense messages?  Just some extra ideas thown 
out anyway..
  
> > > 	I would further propose that reading skill be adopted. If a 
> > > 	player's literacy level is less than the level of the book (I 
> > > 	wont explain how that's assigned) and/or the level of the 
> > > 	spell/prayer in the book, then they get the "gibberish" message.
> > 
> > Thats pretty much already doing that if a player buys/gets a spellbook 
> > thats higher then his level and he tries to read it.
> > 
> 	Right, but that's the point. Replace the old system w/ this 
> 	one.

Ok, I see what your saying.  Yes, some of these new features would be 
alot easier/better if the whole system for this was rewritten.

> > > 	Allow a nominal amound of xp to be awarded for translation of 
> > > 	a book (based on the readers level and the level of the book of 
> > > 	course). 
> > 
> > Or, why not make different xp catagories?  Pysical, Mental, etc.  That 
> > would open up a whole new world of stuff, then have seperate levels as well.
> > In AD&D you can be a fighter/mage/thief, etc.  Maybe we can implement 
> > something like that and have xp awarded to each catagory depending on 
> > what acts we do?
> >
> 	
> 	Take a look at the skills system... are you playing 0.92.1?
> 	Enable the ALLOW_SKILLS code and you will find all of this 
> 	(more or less) already exists. :)

How bout that.  Yes, I'm using the latest one.  Like I said, I haven't 
messed with the code at all, so alot of this I didn't know about.  But 
its interesting to see these ideas have already been thought of, used 
etc.  My only problem is how come its not enabled now?  We shouldn't have 
a bunch of different rules lieing around.  Come up with a standard set 
which we can always add to later on.

Thanks,

-Matt