Cannibalism Game Mechanics, pt. 1 of 2

It is necessary. How else will I thrive? Without man flesh, this game will surely be doomed. Do not pray for easy lives, pray to be stronger men.

 

@Bowen,

Even if cannibalism isn't in the game, there's a good chance (if certain devs get their way) that trophies and body parts will be in the game. If people can't eat them, then they still can be traded, either for the sake of it, or for necromancy or something else. So you'll still have the same gameplay problems to solve. If there are trophies, will trophy vendors be allowed? Can people carry and traffick in trophies without attracting the attention of the law and bounty hunters?

Supposing that any body parts as trophies are considered contraband, that creates a disincentive for people to take trophies, supposing that the other player didn't pay the ransom.

As for cannibalism, its simply a question of whether the game will allow these trophies to be processed using the cooking crafting table, or whether the game will just say 'no.'

 

We shall find a way to feast.

 

I hear they make patches for that now; to wean people off of their cannibalism habits.

 

@redfish: Let me ask you this. If trophies have no market value or use other than to be displayed. How many people do you suppose are going to trade them?

I've never heard of people trading heads in UO. Saw a lot of them on public display.. but never heard of them being sold or traded. Also, would not the number/variety of trophies be limited? You wouldn't for example.. get redfish's brain or liver. You'd be limited to something like an ear or a head or what have you. You wouldn't have the full range of body parts for cooking or other crafts.

Quite frankly I don't care for body part trophies any more than cannibalism. At least with this time around there's an attempt to give cannibalism some meaning. With body part trophies? There is nothing but morbid self gratification and humiliation (particularly with naming). What's wrong with a weapon or armor trophy? I put a trophy on display what's important to me is the achievement of victory.. who lost is irrelevant. If they're worth remembering I'll remember them.

 

I hear Bowen Bloodgood's heart fetches a premium price....

 

If this goes in I'm sure it will. There's already dibs on all my parts from the trophy discussions. Get them while they last.. IF you can.

 

What about combat PETS? Surely it's not wrong for an animal to EAT YOU!!! I wouldn't mind feeding bad people to my DOG!!!

If we can have pet CANNIBALS-- then I won't need a Dog!!!

 

hmm interesting question. Though I don't think we even know what combat pets are going to be yet. It would at least seem more acceptable but if there were a "feast on his flesh" command I think I'd still have to call humiliation factor.. I mean that's just insult to injury. Being turned into dog food? hmm lovely.

Well I think this current dialogue has pretty much run its course. I think we've covered just about every point of view there is to cover and then some. Much more and we'll be going in circles (actually I think we've done that too a couple times).

I want to stress that while we disagree I do very much appreciate that serious thought went into features. Not many people really put so much effort into things. I wish everyone who had the next best idea ever did even half as much.

Waiting for part 2.

 

I hear pigs can get through a corpse pretty quick.

 

So.. The whole player becoming a wendigo and thereby being fully lootable thing..

Ah, nevermind. Guess you didn't read it.

I mean.. Alright? We're different. That was why I brought up the D&D thing: to show that people are different. Kudos.

You're so out of context here that it's genuinely amusing to watch you make assumption after incorrect assumption...

Like, I'm setting up a system that the devs can approve, modify, or deny. I took an idea that a lot of players like and ran with it. If they approve it, they'll take an idea that some players don't like and make it work for them.

They devs have already talked about body parts as necromancy reagents. People seem to want this.

As of right now, you're the only person on this thread so vehemently opposed. o.0

 

Hey.. you're the one who said your player would just whip out a template character and keep going if he'd been killed. Was exactly is the incorrect assumption? That one of your players didn't care whether their character died or not?

I could just as easily throw out accusations like "wow you assume so much" without any explanation.. ha ha so amusing. So not productive.

 

I like this. I hope if they have story points where you have to go through some kind of inspection checkpoints or something like that, the guards give you a hard time if you have people's parts in your inventory. The outcome could be good or bad. You might be able to find guards/quests to support that kind of activity (guard is secretly part of some cult or something) or the guard demands a bribe not to toss you into the clink or something.

They could make you pay a tax to go into certain cities with certain items. Maybe certain undead are attracted to cannibals (or want to punish them for desecrating their brethren.

 

"By Combining All of Our Wishes All into One"

You want to kill players?
You want to role play a monster?
You want there to be a real evil in the world?
You want to become the literal embodiment of hell itself?
You want your shot at becoming the most powerful character in the game?
You want to invite your friends for dinner and not have to tolerate all those long goodbyes?

"Then Get on Time Lord's Bandwagon and Lets Send Those Evil Players Strait to the Hell They Deserve"

There is a time and place for all things within our New Britannia and that time is now while our world is not cluttered by useless markets of your body parts in use by other players. "That's Right!" By acting on this now we can place a deterrent to all those bothersome PK that only want to take your hard earned resources in an easy way. By having a Cannibal that you can enjoy having for a short time in our world. Monsters are monsters and they all have an end unless we make the mistake of allowing them to be passively accepted as being the dominant overbearing grief'ers they all want to be. By placing an almost uncontrollable increasing hunger within them as a consequence to their actions, we thereby limit them to a very short lived non-productive lifestyle that they will be hard pressed to being able to ever come back from and by ever increasing their hunger, then there won't be any worries of any body part market because they'll need it to survive until their character is so non-playable they'll delete it. It's an all in one, combining the good with the bad while creating one of the toughest way of playing our game. They'll need to eat it fresh because there are no refrigerators to keep body parts here in New Britannia and if we do not have such Cannibals with consequences, we then leave room for the necromancers who also want to establish a human body part market within our game.

Just take a look at my past posts on the subject and I'm sure you'll agree that, they can get what they want, while providing consequence in very harsh terms leading to a hell they'll never want to survive in even if they can afford the way to survive in it. But most in the end, would become nothing more than the weakest beggar wrenching from agony in the streets.

I'm not saying that they can't be a very fun part of our New Britannia, but what I am saying is that they need to have the consequences they deserve. Give them what they truly deserve with a safeguard that matches reality.
So come join me and...

"Send'em to Hell" !
~Time Lord~

 

This. xD

Time Lord, I can't wait to get everyone back together and see what kind of quests you come up with..

 

Bowen, again, the point was that you had sort of ruled out that there are people who would probably just not care about being cannibalized, or people who may even find it humorous.

As far as my specific D20 group, I can tell you this:

My RPers are very invested in their characters as well. They enjoy writing, and so they go to great lengths to come up with a character (one that they'll likely incorporate into some fiction that they're working on). But, character sheets? Stats? Inventory? None of us care about that, because we are vested in our characters and roleplaying them to the fullest. The character sheets are simply something that we turn to when it comes time to roll. Are they templates? No. We roll them ourselves, and attach them to a specific character that we'd thought up. Only one person has the group-minimum of one extra one lying around, and the others have five or six ready-to-play. Again, they're really nothing more than a reference to us for rolling and to keep track of hit points/status... takes like five minutes to put one together: character development is the toughie. If it dies? Bring it back in another game - voila!

Our group is so roleplay intensive that when someone exhibits good roleplayer traits (and they're doing something that their character could accomplish), they just don't roll. It's a house rule put in place to reward people for staying in character, not metagaming, etc. Most of the time (especially if I'm DMing), I simply let them do it because it furthers the story. Now, if we're in combat and someone has to jump to a ladder to escape - that, of course, is different. If they fail to reach the ladder, it sets up a more interesting combat encounter. So on and so forth.

So, maybe you guys don't play that way. Maybe we're the worst group ever. I don't know, but we have a damn good time. We switch roles between DM and player regularly to enjoy the worlds we've been building. We have limits too: don't disrespect the other player for their actions. At that time, both characters totally understood why they were involved in that scuffle (there was a lot of lore on the line). It wasn't as black and white as you seem to think. There's an element of trust that allows us to challenge each other, push ourselves out of our comfort zones, and try new things. Even if that 'new thing' is trying to steal a valuable ring from another player to be used as an engagement ring for a lonely barmaid.

So, yeah, when you imply via inverse that we don't 'spend a lot of time developing' and are no more invested in our characters than our 'template character sheets,' you're wrong. We just don't care about character sheets because we're there to enjoy eachother's time, and if one of us dies without the ability to be brought back to life, then so what? We like playing all of our characters.

Maybe I'd miscommunicated something along the way or didn't give you enough information, but I honestly hadn't expected you to take one simple example (that was only meant to show that people have different ways of playing games in passing) to this length.

 

Caska, these are all very good ideas.

I'm going to start up a group for coming up with NPCs, quests & encounters, and it'd be really great to write in any ideas that you're willing to lend us. Look for an invite soon!

 

I didn't rule out people who don't care. I'm not arguing on their behalf. That's YOUR job. If they don't care.. they don't care. Good for them. My concern is the people who DO care. Incidentally.. those who don't care won't miss it.

So the other stuff. To me you honestly made it sound like the guy in question just didn't give a rip. Whip out a new template and meet in town.. doesn't sound like a lot of investment. You could have just said "trust me they care.. there was more to it than.." or something. Rather than the sarcastic sounding sobbing etc etc.

Anyway.. thanks for clearing that up.

 

And, let me guess, Bowen... you'd have just dropped it entirely?

 

"Balance of whatever is created, is always our concern in consequences"

Extreme Power creates Extreme Consequences need.
Moderate Power creates Moderate Consequences need.
Common Power creates Common Consequences need.
Absents of Power creates and Absents to be filled.

I am in favor to all these above, with equal weight by their measure.
But if I had to choose, I'd choose Extreme Power to be present in our game.
It's a brilliant document and one I would support, yet still have a shining eye to what could have been very evil, because the Time Lord Character as a kind and resolved to good Monk, could have been so much more good, if true evil had been first embraced...
It's all just suggestions
~Time Lord~