Mental Inventory

[ImpalerWrG]

Currently their are some rather odd non-material 'objects' in the game which the players puts in their inventory. Dreams are the first one the player encounters and I've described them as 'purple construction coupons' which is how most people treat them. Scents are the second and these are much more critical to the game as the whole justice system depends on them. Both 'mental' objects have a similar mechanic that if they are dropped on the ground they are instantly lost, yet they can be put in normal inventory containers which is quite impossible if we think about it for even a moment. Potjeh resent Ranger book thread made me think of how the games mental information representations are always forced into the physical inventory system because theirs no other option.

I propose that a player have a second separate inventory that represents the mind, it would be the same kind of 'grid' system but would have a different colored background to distinguish it (blue maybe) and mental objects can only be stored in this type of inventory. The size of said inventory would depend on Intelligence (not a 1:1 ratio of course but a series of row/column additions at particular Int scores perhaps maxing out at 12x12 at something like 1000 Int), this would help make intelligence not be a worthless waste of FEP. A generic 'book' created from parchment, string and leather would open up a 3x3 mental type inventory and objects their can be copied into the players mental inventory (if they can pass an Int check which could work like mining strength check "This idea is just slightly too hard for you to learn"), but the reverse (writing in the book) would require ink. It might also be possible for players to open up a kind of diablo style trade screen for mental objects ware they may present their objects for copying in the same manor but without need of paper (some kind of teaching skill could be used to make the learning players Int check easier).

Now under this basic framework for mental objects you can implement new type of mental objects and improve the handling of existing ones.

Scents no longer get put in crates and used by anyone, you could write them down in books though. Now of course I can hear you say "but that means infinite replication of the scent which destroys the system", which it would if not for the following changes, scents have a quality which declines over time and with each copying and usage. Thus the original Ranger will always have the best quality, anything he writes will be a bit inferior and the person reading it will get a yet more degraded copy (a direct transfer by window would be better). The lower quality will reduce the effectiveness of tracking in some way (I don't recommend simple radius based system like RR Extract) and when quality reaches Zero the scent is unusable.

Cartography could be made to work like our popular auto-mapping clients. A player with Cartography skill simply turns the skill 'On' (like turning on Tracking) and as they move around mental 'landscape' objects appear in their mind corresponding to each individual mini-map, it can be opened and viewed as well. They can then apply the landscapes to a piece of parchment (and expend some ink) and a map is created. An automatic compiling option would copy all their landscapes to available parchments (hour-glasses running back to back of course) at which point the player can clear their mind by dropping the landscapes to accommodate new ones. Now obviously people can and will still use automated mapping clients but this would at least be a competitive way to do it in game and the ability to exchange the maps in game should not be underestimated.

Dreams could actually behave like Dreams and be placed in the players mind inventory (if space is available) when they are logged off, but only after travel weariness is burned off. Many ideas have been suggested for how to make Dreams more usable but if their supply continues to come from objects made of sticks and strings they will never be valuable or believable.

Lastly their have been a lot of mentions of something called 'curiosities' by some people who apparently play tested a test server and can't resist hinting at this system, all I've heard is that is was some form of item based skill gain that replaced LP. Not knowing how it worked I can't really say if this is remotely compatible but I suspect it would be and could even be better implemented under these rules then under the current system of 'mixed' inventory.

[OvShit]

I love it a lot.

[brohammed]

Just as an aside, cartography s fine as it is, but I think it should require Beautiful Dreams to make in some way or other, such that the map updates itself, giving it an advantage over automappers. The Mental inventory would help with this, as carrying your tools + parchment + ink + feathers already takes up bags of room.

[sabinati]

interesting idea

[ImpalerWrG]

Thanks to some new information available about Curiosities I can update this idea with a set of modifications that would make Curiosities fit into the system.

First though I should restate some general rules for mental objects, because they represent information rather then matter they are duplicatable almost without limit, only mental inventory space and the degrading rule (each copy loses quality) limit a mental objects propagation. In fact mental objects are never moved (with the semi-exception of 'equipping' described later), they can only be created, copied and destroyed. The players mental inventory can be cleared by simply dropping the objects (as with scents), books on the other hand require a blank piece of parchment to be left clicked on an object which destroys it and the parchment, this represent tearing our and replacing pages. If larger then 1x1 mental objects will exist then the first parchment breaks the mental-object and creates 'gibberish' minus the one spot clicked so more parchment is needed to fully erase the object.

Second like scents no two copies of the same object can exist in the same mental inventory, any attempt to copy results in either a 'You already know that" or updating to the newest/best version if applicable. For example the 'landscape' object used for mapping is automatically updated if one is performing cartography the attempt to add a new landscape object is silently turned into an update just as currently a draw action is turned into an update to an existing map. For something like a scent the quality of the scent is the key with higher values overwriting smaller ones, so for example if a Ranger of low skill has given you a scent of low quality and a you are later given a superior quality scent of the same crime your object is updated. As all crime scenes will degrade over time (causing them to yield lower quality shorter lived scents) it will never be possible for an individual acting alone to get a better scent then the first they gathered from any crime.

Finally it will likely be necessary for most if not all mental objects to degrade in quality and be erased as time passes to prevent excessive accumulation or the limited storage space in players mental and book Inventories from becoming crammed full (cause you know newbs hoard everything they get their hands on). Quality decline would represent information going out of date or losing relevance, not just forgetfulness or some other mental failing so book information decays just as fast and turns into 'gibberish' the information equivalent of Slag to maintain the requirement for blank parchment to free up space.

Now Curiosities, for those who missed it here is what we know so far (either that or its a brilliantly original idea)

what if there were items that gave you LP? you could use only one of each type of item at a time, and more int would allow you to use more types of items. you would gain lp while you used these items, whether you were logged in or not. each item would have an amount of time that it worked for, after that the item would be gone. some could be foraged, some could be crafted, and some could be found in the course of your day-to-day activities, for example there might be a rare item found when clearing stumps, or fishing.

oh, and these items should be the only source of LP.

So keeping most of the key points but simply mentalize the whole process, dropping only the use of Int for using more objects in exchange for the Inventory and learning checks described earlier. The character will experience a 'Eureka' moment (With a Ding sound to alert you) and you'll find the new curiosity in your mental rather then physical inventory. The player then equips it to a new 'state of mind' row that will be added across the top of the equipment panel which would hold 5-7 objects (a whole other class of metal objects could give us various bonuses when equipped here) the Curiosities their are being 'pondered' and LP gained for them. This is still considered an extension of the players mental inventory and one-copy rules apply. A typical Curiosity might take 12-72 hours to be consumed so the player will likely be start pondering a 2-4 new ones every day, as its consumed the pie-wheel overlay goes around and this progress is permanent even if the curiosity is un-equipped and put back in inventory which can be done at any time, the progress is saved to the player so trying to discard the Curiosity and relearn a copy will just result in getting back the same progress on a degraded copy. All Curiosity being pondered or not loses quality over time maybe 3-10 points a day and the quality level directly determines the LP rate which can be seen on the tool tip expressed in points per hour so stockpiling them will not be viable. Though you can try to give your friends a copy if you have a particularly good or rare Curiosity though they will by necessity get a degraded copy both from the copying process and the delay.

The supply of available Curiosities will generally exceed the players ability to consume them all meaning the focus will be on choosing which to discard or trade. This choice will be the main means of allocating LP as the Curiosities will have types corresponding to the skill groups, so a Carpentry Curiosity adds LP directly to Carpentry. Their might be mixed Curiosities much like certain foods give different FEP and the mixes could be randomly generated. Curiosities occurring form most actions are random but weighted slightly towards the activity being done, players would still need to trade to be pure specialists. The players still have the ability to 'do' anything they wish but if they are doing one activity while trying to get all their LP in a different area they will need to do a good deal of trading to get the desired curiosities.

[OvShit]

stuff

As I`ve told it before, it`s the best LP idea.

[ImpalerWrG]

Yet another update, this time with thoughts on how to implement player made crafting recipes as you guessed it Mental object.

Their have been various sugjestions about a system ware players would create their own unique recipes most obviosly for food but possibly for such things as armor, weapons, clothing etc etc. Jackard sugjested a system based on a basic formula for each catagory of item, a few basic ingredients would be required plus certain extras, for example Flour + water + Extra = Bread. Their were various proposals on how the player would execute a recipie, they might have to combine exactly the matching ingredients exactly as they would when making the recipie normally, essentially recipies are accessible to everyone. I call this "Heraldric Cube" after the well know Diablo device. The downside is that the player has no uniqueness or specialization and the wiki would rapidly propagate all the best recipies to players and their would be no new discoveries very shortly. So I'd prefer a system ware the player must explicity aquire each recipie and that recipie exists as a mental object.

The exact nature of the recipie creating process is up for debate, but we know it needs to consume materials of some sort, possibly some LP as well, should not be something that can be put on a wiki to easily propagate a recipie outside the game and should give the player some control over what ingredients are ultimatly used so they can make recipies that fit their needs. My thought is to make it a bit like Numen points, for each recipie type the player has a 3 item list which is rectricted to the possible extras for that recipie (so no tin nuggets used in bread recipies), the player needs the basic items of the recipie and can then provide from one to three of the extras the hits the "Tinker" button and the ingredients are consumed and a roll is made on a larger table of pre-generated recipies and they have a chance of reciving a random recipie. Three classes froms simple 'Ertsaz' recipies like BarkBread to very fancy recipies like Beated Bird Breast exist and the number of extras provided determines which table is rolled on, the fancier recipies have a lower chance of successfull discovery. The Extras do not effect the recipe rolled other then through determining the tier, but the player may provide a 'kicker' item which dose not modify the success chance but will on success make the recipe selected use the ingredient, essentially it restricts the roll for the recipie to a particular ingredient colum of the large N-dimentional recipie matrix.

So now we have given the player a recipie object in their mental inventory. They can simply click the recipie to into crafting mode and naturally drag to the hot bar for easy crafting, thus eliminating the need for an interface in the right hand corner that has to accomadate hundreds of possible combinations. The recipie obeys all the same basic rules of mental objects, it has a quality and that quality is important, it softcaps everything made with the recipie. But the recipe quality is itself raised when ever it is used to craft, provided that it softcapping effect was relevent (this rise in quality is scaled by the recipe type so fewer swords need be made vs loafs of bread). So for example a recipie of q20 being used on some q10 ingredients dose not rise in quality as its above the ingredients and not capping them. The effect of all this is that theirs a strong incentive to specialize on a few good recipies that you can raise to high levels of skill, and doing so requires equally good materials so we developed specialized crafters who have the potentiall to be truly unique. Ofcouse if the player wishes they can propagate their recipie by writing as a trade good in itself, though it's not likely many would chose to do so, many crafters would take secrets to their graves making death that much more potent.

[dra6o0n]

Just call it "Memory Capacity".

The list of kins you memorized can be based off of this element. So stupid people can't memorize and describe people as easily as smart people can.

There, you just made intelligence that much more useful.

Memory can be a bar for a capacity, much like stamina, but the twist is that it caps out at 100.
Intelligence affects the efficiency of memory related stuff, thus makes them cost less to hold in memory.

So if you think of your hearthling as a robot, he'd have a limited memory.

Why not the actual learning of skills and skill levels, to your memory, and intelligence?

You can't learn every single skill that's given to you until you boost your intelligence to enable it to fit in that tiny brain of yours.

This leads to players focusing in specific roles for specific characters and might even bring back a few traits.

Adding a kin to your list?
Cost 1 MP (Memory Point)

Learning a new skill to use? (Hunting)
Cost x MP (depends on the tier of the skills)

The higher your intelligence, the better you can compress the cost of each points.

Learned too much and can't learn anything else?
Erase memory by forgetting!
You can forget certain skills by using a dream and maybe with a bit of booze (drink till your stats drop!).
You can't forget basic level stuff.
Forgetting a skill only refunds half the LP spent on that skill.

You can only lower skill levels down to your Max FEP cap (Meaning if you buff up stats, its harder to refund skill levels).

20 Intelligence = +10% reduction in memory usage

Maybe someone can come up with a workable formula for int.

[ImpalerWrG]

I denoucne and reject ANY attempt to limit the kin list size, that is literally the worst idea I have ever heard on this forum.

None of what you wrote adresses the core concept of having an inventory for things like scents and dreams. What your proposing is basicly a set of Int based restrictions on purchace of the one-off skills like hunting, foraging, Trespassing etc, this would basicly kill the potential for a jack-of-all type character and thouse are important for hermits. I don't know if your proposing and extention or an alternative to my proposal, but I dont like it either way.

As an extentsion if would make Int overwhelmingling the most important attribute, as an alternative it dosn't adress the central point I raise about how 'knowlege' like a scent is shoe-horned into normal inventory rules.

[TeckXKnight]

I denoucne and reject ANY attempt to limit the kin list size, that is literally the worst idea I have ever heard on this forum.

Agreed. I like your ideas a lot Impaler, for what it's worth. I have nothing useful to contribute to them though.