Mutation category expansion: Game balance derail

Game Talk The Drawing Board
81

That would be good, sure.

But again: those are actions and context, not “what you have among traits” and “what morale hits did you take”.

This should be decided on faction-by-faction basis.

And should be answered along the lines “What would you prefer - a doctor who holds your hand while you die or one who ignores you while you get better?” (Dr. House) =)

[quote=“Coolthulhu, post:80, topic:8589”]IRL psychopaths often fake their emotions really well.

Plus, someone being jaded is to be expected in a world where you routinely put down undead children.[/quote]

Exactly.

So far I would like to say that we may at least agree that in relationship with faction there should be two important things. And those are not “what you have in traits” and “where you get moral hits”. Those should be
1) Actions.
2) Context of said actions.

Any objections to this?

82

Don’t forget that the average CataDDAmerican would make the average RL KKK member look like a nice friendly person.

Given how most(if not all) CataDDAmericans think that mutants = zombies = damn dirty communist invaders KILL ON SIGHT, mutants should get a real hard time, unless they fall in the human-ish Alpha/Medical/Elf category.

83

I think that the government may be more like that than citizens, and some people may take a bit kindly to something that doesn’t kill them. It should be case by case nonetheless, but remember that a lot of what is left over would be hermits, bundles of lucky, smart, or inquisitive civilians, remnants of organized gangs, very rich people, and the Old Guard (am i the only one who feels this is awfully unfitting?). All of which can be a mix bag. Military groups depending on the attitude and experiences of the commanding officer, civilians depending on collective mob mentality unless comprised of intellectuals or charismatists who take charge, hermits depending on their gut feeling and opinion of the world, and gang remnants steeped in loyalty and prejudice.

84

[quote=“Muaddib, post:82, topic:8589”]Don’t forget that the average CataDDAmerican would make the average RL KKK member look like a nice friendly person.

Given how most(if not all) CataDDAmericans think that mutants = zombies = damn dirty communist invaders KILL ON SIGHT, mutants should get a real hard time, unless they fall in the human-ish Alpha/Medical/Elf category.[/quote]

I dunno, zombies tend to have a rotting appearance and visible behavioural differences, like a stumbling gait. A mutant that shows none of those traits even at a glance might still be identified as a monster, but probably not a zombie per se. Particularly if it’s holding a tool or weapon, which zombies don’t do, or wearing gear in good repair.

Certain types of mutants are still likely to scare the shit out of people on sight; spiders come to mind, given that humans have an evolved fear of spiders and human-sized spider mutants are probably going to look just fucking horrifying. Slimes may be mistaken for a kind of blob monster. Mycus might be mistaken for fungal monsters (and they really are, aren’t they?). Some of the other obvious mutants I imagine might have a fair bit less JESUS CHRIST value: lupines (somewhat, anyway), cattle, plants, birds, you get the idea.

85

Though, wearing good deals of clothes and armor should reasonably buffer a fair deal of gut-reaction to your appearance, even though you’ll still look a bit odd and suspicious.

86

When judging spookiness of mutants maybe it should consider visibility and ugliness instead of a case by case basis?

87

That makes sense, Logrin. Though dare I also say that if spider mutants don’t already get Terrifying they absolutely should.

88

Which reminds me: if we are going to actually implement monastic vows for Shaolin membership - we really need some kind of non-lethal subjugation method for Shaolin monks to use againts those humans who attack them (I also would really appreciate if I’d have some other options than to kill those suicidal NPCs, who think that they simply must “talk” to every chimera they found).

For example, some variation of martial style specifically for this - maybe even allowing some weapons to be used with it (different staves, batons and so on).

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Some people might consider some mutcats to be more appealing/repulsive that others.

89

And here I was going to have the monks be particularly good at ferreting out dangerous PCs in conversation (who needs the full Voight-Kampff test anyway?) with speech/lying checked as needed.

shrug

Folks go around insisting that Cannibal and Psychopath are must-take if you use random NPCs, and that needs reined in. You take a trait that lets you ignore the consequences of your actions, that will itself have consequences.

And monks, by definition, are not the Buddha. For all we know these folks could simply have been former Adepts who got together to keep the styles going. Demanding strict Buddhist adherence is not going to make me any more likely to install it: I’m fond of “the Master is never what the student expects”, personally.

90

[quote=“KA101, post:89, topic:8589”]And here I was going to have the monks be particularly good at ferreting out dangerous PCs in conversation (who needs the full Voight-Kampff test anyway?) with speech/lying checked as needed.

shrug

Folks go around insisting that Cannibal and Psychopath are must-take if you use random NPCs, and that needs reined in. You take a trait that lets you ignore the consequences of your actions, that will itself have consequences.

And monks, by definition, are not the Buddha. For all we know these folks could simply have been former Adepts who got together to keep the styles going. Demanding strict Buddhist adherence is not going to make me any more likely to install it: I’m fond of “the Master is never what the student expects”, personally.[/quote]

I can see why people would take Psychopath with random NPCs enabled if they’re the “assume everyone’s hostile and shoot first” kind of player, but why Cannibal? (And now I’m wondering what options and limitations there will be for characters who are Cannibals but not Psychopaths, and who follow the logical path and eat people they had justification to kill anyway, but who don’t hunt innocents for dinner.)

Admittedly, if I were to turn random NPCs back on, it’d be for things like trading and quest opportunities, and shooting them on sight would really get in the way of that.

Also, I imagine if people are actually using Psychopath, that’ll leave a trail in terms of actions. If they’re using it to kill innocent people, that provides room for judgment on the basis of their actions. If they’re mostly using it to shrug when granting zombie children their eternal rest, it may not be so obvious–and in that case they aren’t quite getting their two points’ worth anyway.

…Semi-related. Trait idea: Hardened. A less extreme, 1-point “Psychopath Lite.” The character still takes penalties for actions that hurt other people without justification, like cold-blooded murder, but they have an easier time with other things, like killing zombie children or eating human meat (they’ll still take the normal murder penalties if they’re killing innocents, but the problem is the murdering and not the taboo around consumption of human meat per se–so they don’t have a moral problem with eating a found body, or blank body meat, or someone they killed in self-defense, for instance).

91

Right now, the only difference between a “justified” and an “innocent” kill is whether the NPC went hostile to you before you attacked. You can achieve this by threatening the NPC or failing to comply with a drop-weapon request.

Cannibal is handy because all those NPCs become sources of delicious, morale-boosting meat. Efficiency and practicality reasons.

92

The complaints about psychopath are easy to solve.

Add a new trait. Clinical psychopath. The real deal. Lies with a smile, backstabs with a smile, politely shoots NPC’s in the face with a shotgun, friendly abandones friends to hordes, friendly kills friends because they looted his katana.

Because there are two variants of psychopaths. The dumb psychopaths that get caught when they kill a few people, up to 30 or 40 people. And then there are the people that never get caught.

If you want to be a psychopath that just murdered an entire refuge camp and turned them into meat jerky and still want friendly contacts with NPCs, you need some better trait than just “when i murder people it feels like i’m doing nothing at all!”

AllisonW: I don’t really like the idea of Hardened as a trait. Might be better as a “mutation” that happened after X amounts of zombie child kills without being a pacifist or something.

93

The thing is, we already HAVE a means to have our psychopath (or deppressingly murderous otherwise sociotypical) survivor to do this. It’s called
Speech skill
Skilled liar trait
Intelligence stat
Shouldn’t that cover the bases?

94

It already works like this. It takes killing ~100 zombie kids to reach the point where it no longer hurts a non-psychopath character’s morale.

95

It already works like this. It takes killing ~100 zombie kids to reach the point where it no longer hurts a non-psychopath character’s morale.[/quote]

Shouldn’t it be a gradual change instead?

96

It is gradual. By the time you kill the 99th zombie child, you’re only getting maybe 1 point of morale loss.

97

Real psychopaths are still better at hiding it than any monk - at detecting it.

No. Traits should not have consequences. Actions should have consequences. Your problem is not “characters with that trait”, your problem is “characters going around killing NPCs”. Problem is with action not with trait.

But “to keep the styles going” is impossible without adherence to underlying philosophy. Without it they would be simple “punches and kicks” (much like Krav Maga, Brawling and such) - not much to “keep going”. Also, desing document mentions “supernatural effects” on high-end of martial arts. How would that be possible with Kung Fu and Tai Chi reduced to “punches and kicks”?

Now your reasoning is getting really strange. You say

I am offering you an entirely logical and internally consistent way to penalize unsightly behavior (indiscriminate killing of NPCs) that is impied by this combination of traits and circumstances. And you are answering “no, because %entirely irrelevant point%”. How exactly is adherence to monastic vows going to stop “the Masters” from “never being what the student expects”?

98

It already works like this. It takes killing ~100 zombie kids to reach the point where it no longer hurts a non-psychopath character’s morale.[/quote]

Oh, that explains some things. I actually was wondering why my most recent character wasn’t getting morale penalties from killing zombie kids. This takes care of it, then.

(I do wonder if eating human meat–not killing innocents for food, just the part about eating an already-dead body, or blank body meat–could be handled the same way, though something tells me that characters who aren’t going out of their way to be A Humanitarian would never hit the desensitization threshold organically even if they’re a lab start or whatever, so it’s probably moot.)

99

It already works like this. It takes killing ~100 zombie kids to reach the point where it no longer hurts a non-psychopath character’s morale.[/quote]

All those characters with wasted points on psychopath… oh my god what am i doing with my life

100

Slight derail (of a derail), but I’m gonna be blunt: in the real world at least, woo has no effect that a sugar pill doesn’t, and stripping it out won’t make a fighting style any less effective than it already was. You could maybe make an argument about spiritual or philosophical elements related to training rigor, but training rigor can be valued without the woo. Brazilian jiu-jitsu, for instance, deliberately strips out all philosophical and supernatural components, and apparently is one of the best martial arts in the world in practice. Military martial arts are also known for their efficacy, and not for being terribly concerned with spirituality or philosophy (aside from “do what you’re told,” like all military things).

Now, in-game, some of the spiritual or philosophical components may be related to the possibility of certain forms having supernatural effects at high levels. A faction concerned with preserving martial knowledge specifically, if it happened to know which parts of the underlying philosophy are actually required to make the martial art work and which aren’t, doesn’t need to preserve parts of the tradition that aren’t directly related to end results. Whether they do so depends on their own beliefs, but it sounds like even in-game, even the more esoteric styles don’t need all of their traditions upheld to be effective. According to KA, factions with powerful martial arts to teach are likely to be concerned with keeping some semblance of societal stability and rebuilding civilization, and those arts being used towards these ends–and this is probably as true for those that teach strictly pragmatic martial arts as much as it is for ones that teach traditional ones–but that isn’t the same thing as demanding total adherence to the philosophies that may be traditionally associated with those arts.

tl;dr: I get the impression that for game purposes, “martial arts” = “fighting styles,” and depending upon the nature of a faction, they may be more concerned with preserving fighting styles than traditions that accompany them–because actual effective martial knowledge is, in fact, something to keep going, and the point of a fighting style as a fighting style to begin with. Philosophies and spirituality have no measurable effect on the efficacy of fighting styles except insofar as the devs choose for them to be relevant to supernatural techniques.