Feral Heart

So, now that we have access to the source code again, I think now is the time to suggest something I have wanted for a long time. TL;DR, next paragraph and bottom two paragraphs.

It would be awesome if the chatbox could be used for RPG mechanics, preferably with customizable stats. Stats would include, minimally, an attack and hp stat with some sort of roll system to limit predictability. However, I would love to see attributes like agility, perception, movement, and possibly magical stats

This would be entirely isolated to the chat, and would have no impact on the physical appearance of any characters or the game world. Thus, participation is entirely voluntary.

I have two ideas for customizable stats

1) Attributes tied to appearance

+Things like damage, speed, agility, make sense naturally if well implemented

+Easy-ish to program

-Difficult to balance in an immersive way

- Specific appearances may become optimal for a specific builds/adventures.

Some ideas what this may look like:

Longer tails increase agility, with shorter tails having a different benefit (magic maybe?)

Bigger animals get a bonus to HP and attack with a proportionate debuff to magic and agility.

This is of course super flexible, but one gets the idea. It could either be in blocks as large as three groupings (small, medium, large) or since it would be run automatically every tick might be countable.


Second idea: a special stats page added to character customization:

+With stats either not tied to appearance, or not as closely if mixed with the above, it allows for greater player imagination

-Would probably take longer to make

-Clutter for the players that don't use it, which may be many.

-More capacity for strange designs to break immersion

This is more straightforward: capabilities are listed on sliders on a page. This may involve ability checkboxes that give boosts and penalties simultaneously, sliders with a point cap, or a number of other possibilities.


How I imagine various potential abilities being used:

/attack"[name of character]": attempts to lower target HP. Remaining HP will be displayed

/movestart: Displays a movement score, and places an anchor for the following command:
/movecheck: Displays how many movement points remain between where your character is on the map now, and when /movestart was inputted, if negative you have to move further back if your group is playing in a turn-based manner.

/usemagic"[ability name]": multiple processes are calculated together based on how the magic ability works, including mana depletion, hit checks, status affects, and so forth, all listed in chat.

/applycondition"[name of condition]": Informs player that a condition has been applied to their character via chat. Has no physical impact and no internal list is kept, so it comes down to the player to willfully RP this.


/rest: restores HP and provides some other bonuses potentially.


Out of character commands I imagine:

/ignorerp"[player name]": Any attempt by another player to initiate an RP interaction with you will be ignored. They will receive an "invalid target" response in chat, freeing up your stats to RP with who you want to RP with.
/rpon: Allows these chat commands to be used
/rpoff: prohibits you or other players from using these abilities until turned on
/creategame: creates a new adventure, with all stats at default. By default, you will be "GL," a position that allows you to create NPCs and do other things a D&D DM could do (not all things, but could be built over time)
/invite"[character name]": Invites a specific player's character to join an adventure. Will need to re-invite if they switch characters. They will accept or decline with a pop up.
/kick"[player name]": kicks a player from an adventure. No physical impact, but their chat commands will be ineffective.
/listconditions: Lists conditions placed on your character (like paralyzed, slowed, etc). For player's referance only.
/removecondition"[name of condition to be removed]": Applied condition will no longer be listed under /listconditions. 

Game leader commands:
/createnpc"[desired name of npc]": Game leader creates an NPC by entering numbers for a series of system generated prompts to assign stats.
/"[desired name of npc]"[desired action NPC takes from the first list]: Takes an action as listed NPC




Of course, these are all just ideas. If the only command we get is /attack which deals a randomized amount of damage, preferably (though not necessarily) with a randomized chance to miss altogether, I would be happy. For the time being, HP could be listed in the bio. All of these are just my fantasies of where we could go from here with chat commands.

The central idea is that our 3d characters could be used as miniatures, like in a board game, and it would give us a convenient, universal tool to implement mechanics that would make for convenient, table-top RPG -like combat in its simplest implementation, or down the road could transform FH into having the capacity to be a chat-based pen-an-paper-like RPG too complicated to implement as a real RPG, made easy for players with all the record keeping and attack calculations done by the computer, making it far easier than even D&D. And it is all voluntary, the chat can simply be ignored if a player does not want to engage with these mechanics.

So, I have been thinking about having a sitcom style RP in FH, and maybe even record it. I had to think about what situation would be funniest to exaggerate for a theme, and then I realized: just make FH itself the theme. I was thinking some of the characters could be:

Sparkle le Sparkle: I think the name gives away what this character is a satire of. Bright, clashing colors, hyperactive, non-serious personality, uses the OMG face the entire time, and anything else the person playing such a character could think of that goes with the theme.

Brutus: Based off of bad godmodders. A pup that is annoying (in a funny way) because he keeps thinking he can take on anything and kill it with one shot, often without reason or consideration for size or experience. Most characters usually respond to his attacks with "Hi Sparky." I would reserve this character for a skilled comedian, however, because such a character could easily just become annoying, as the real versions are.

Demon of Evilness: Stereotypical demon RPer. Tries to be edgy with a good heart, but ends up not being too different from all the other characters.

I don't have ideas for names for the following, but here were a few other ideas I had:

Stereotypical hyper-serious player. Calls out how everything is unrealistic. Best name suggestion I have heard so far: Mr. Wolfspeak.

TLK RPer. To be honest, I don't know the stereotypes floating around about them. I think TLK RPers are a significant enough part of the community to be part of the parody though, so I would be counting on commenters here and the people doing the satire to generate ideas regarding how to exaggerate the tendencies in this community (or their reputation) in a way that would be funny for everyone. Best name suggestion I have heard so far: Official TLK.

If we could get this going regularly, maybe a bunch of guest characters would be awesome.

The trick would be finding people that can make this funny without being offensive. I mean, people are always going to find something to be offended over even outside of humor, but keep it within reason. As in, not Family Guy post-2010.

If things go really well, maybe we could get someone to stream it to Twitch, and/or upload to YouTube.

Thoughts? Volunteers? Ideas? I welcome whatever feedback people have. Just an idea that's been swimming around in my mind for a while.

I noticed a number of disclaimers in the rules, which led me to wonder about something.

"Swearing inside of the public chats is NOT allowed..."
"...any actions representing any sexual behavior... AWAY from public maps."
(Apparently there are no rules against excessive gore? I thought this was a rule at some point)?



So let's suppose that a group was formed that specifically forewarned those that joined that a given private map was to be used where swearing and/or sexuality (and/or gore if there was supposed to be some rule about that) is to be anticipated. But, let's suppose that despite full disclosure of exactly what was to be expected in the chats/lobby of this private map, for whatever reason (vengeance for being reported themselves, judgementalism, who knows) a player joined specifically for the purpose of reporting players on their own private map. Let's suppose that there is no disrespect or abuse that is reportable under any circumstance, only the issues that are not allowed in public.

My question is, whether such a report could be viably appealed as it was not in a public chat or public map? Besides full disclosure, are there any other disclaimers that are recommended or required?

Finally, a question that I came across when writing this one: is there a rule against excessive gore (including chat descriptions)? Did there used to be? I was sure there was a rule about that, but I might be mixing it up with another forum, or maybe it is an old rule that got revoked.

Free-form RP has always really bothered me, because physical combat isn't unusual either to draw emphasis to the/a climax, or indeed as the/a climax itself. I generally find it hard to do drama better than with a brawl.

The problem is, in table-top RPGs like D&D, it is so structured. You just learn the rules, setup your stats, then if/when a fight happens (almost always when), you roll your attacks and defense. I have so much anxiety about free form combat because it isn't so cut and dry. Sure, there are some conventions like the 3 hit rule (I rule I find frustrating, but fully understand why it is necessary and wouldn't have it any other way) and allowing the other party to acknowledge injury instead of pushing it on them.

But it still seems so... awkward. Who wins and who loses can be a very tricky balance. You don't want to fight a Mary Sue or even the more rare anti-Sue. And yet, you don't want to be that Mary Sue or anti-Sue. At the same time, the fight has to be resolved somehow.

Has anyone else felt this way, and found a way to get past it? Are there any other conventions besides the aforementioned two that can help? And is there a way to add more structure without turning people off because of the complexity of numbers, RNG, and the like that make TTRPG players so hard to come by?

Surprised that there isn't a thread for this already. Just wondering, what are people thinking of the new patch?

I'd add a poll, but can't find were.