Re: RJ's DG4-Temple of the Elders (Ponderings and plans)
Shaddup tubby
Anyway: Due to the non-surprising amount of feedback I actually received, consider this a journal of sorts to record my thoughts to go over later for reference. It'll help with consistency and I'll probably be able to recall good ideas or correct past mistakes later. For now, I'll answer my own questions while the glorious crowd of Tassadar will amount to my only source of criticism and feedback. Not that his input isn't valuable. It helps me to figure out where I stand and solidify what is a good idea.
So, the big question. What do you lose when you lose? I've actually thought of a few things after yesterday. For one, surrender is totally an option. If you come across a group of enemies you can't handle, or don't want to risk handling cuz you don't want to lose HP and EP or any other resources you might have, then surrender should be one of your first options. That and running away. I also believe you might be able to bribe your way out of a fight. If so, I'll have enemies be labeled with a tag that determines whether they can be bribed or not, and with what. This means that as an encounter begins, the player will be given indicators as to what the enemy would accept as a bribe.
All that being said, I'll break down each option to take and what each implies.
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Surrender
For whatever reason you choose, when you surrender to an enemy or group of enemies, there are multiple things I have in mind for what can happen. I plan for TotE to love its dice, so surrender won't always mean rape. There'll even be a chance that the enemy will
refuse your surrender. All that will be determined on a random roll before the consequences take place. So, how about some other penalties?
Rape: In character, it sucks to get raped (maybe, unless you're weird), but mechanically it won't hurt you that much. Penalties involved here depend on a few future decisions, but most importantly, you'd be losing time. You only have so much time on each level within the temple, and the first penalty here is that the enemies who choose to rape you will
capture you. As you're made prisoner, you can take
corruption (which can lead to a game over depending on how I finalize the game), and for every failed attempt you make to escape, you will lose more
time while the enemy turns you into a breeding factory. You can get lucky and escape very early and lose a very minimal amount of time, which should make surrendering a valid option, If You're Fucked.
N***a Stole My Bike: Not everyone wants to bake their sausage in your oven. Some people are just in it for the money. So if you surrender in this case, it'll basically amount to the worst possible result that Bribery can have. If the dice decide the enemy steals 100 denarii worth of goods from you, then they will go down your inventory, from top to bottom, taking your shit until the worth of the goods they've stolen goes over the amount they're after, leaving the rest should you not have been completely robbed.
~But this puts people like spirit users and mages in a good spot, doesn't it? They can go without having lots of cool stuff. So what happens when you turn up short? They take 'you' instead. The result end up being similar to the rape scenario. Your shit is stolen, and they make you earn their money through slavery. Your duties may include washing their bodies with your own, dancing for their amusement, and of course sex. (For the non-ero version if I ever decide to make it, they'll just have you do normal slave things.) You will be forced into earning a random amount of Denarii every turn. You can also attempt to escape, but you won't earn any denarii. They'll also spank you for being a naughty slave :3.
Results that don't end in capture: A few random, small things can happen. Including your foe throwing up their arms and saying, "Wow, I thought YOU were evil!" and then going on their way without a word, or even giving you assistance. But the chances of these things happening will be fairly small and not to be relied on. They're only to allow miracles to happen in the case of you ending up in a bad spot. That's not to say there won't be equally terrible things that can happen either. All in all,
losing to a group of enemies, I've decided, will (almost) never result in total defeat. The only time you can lose is during a boss fight, of which there are five in total in every temple.
No Barter or Surrender!: Surrendering is an option because it gives you a second chance. If you lose flat out to a group of enemies, you are raped, robbed, and captured for a pre-determined amount of time. No escapes until your time is up. You will also lose a certain amount of exp based on the level you're on. If you don't have the exp to lose, you will need to forfeit a talent to get the exp you need to lose. The talent can be of your choosing.
Speaking of Barter: Bribing will be pretty simple. When you ask an enemy what they could want, the tribute they ask for can be either severe or light. A pack of talking wolves might want ten denarii because you spilled some syrup on them accidentally. The oiled up weight lifters might want 500 denarii worth of stuff in order to fund their gym. It'll be a random value purely in denarii with a possible 'favorite'.
Favorite items are things that the group of enemies really want for one reason or another. If they want a bow, or 500 denarii, you can give them your shittiest bow and get away for free. You'll even get experience for it! Other than that, bribing isn't that complicated.
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Final Note
Before you go nuts about how horrible all of this sounds, keep in mind that the theme of today's discussion was "Losing." In TotE, I plan on losing not resulting in insta-loss. Instead, as a theme I deem fitting of Dark Gate, you lose by slowly being withered down until you can't fight anymore, at which point you become dinner, or a slave for the rest of your days. Should times be grim, I find that being surrounded in despair and doubt with the tiniest glimmer of hope has more personality than a simple GAME OVER declaration. I hope to have losses in TotE to truly feel like you were completely and utterly defeated before you brew up another adventurer to go and lose again!