[MUD-Dev] Gods, worshipers and the balance

[Vadim Tkachenko]

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Adam Wiggins wrote:
> 
> A god's power is proportional to the life-energy his followers give
> to him (in the form of prayer, sacrifice, or whatever).

Agreed here, but don't forget that literally this approach will violate
the balance.

My idea was about preserving the general balance of powers in the world
for a price of creating non-balanced areas (BTW, the next idea of
gradient fields is coming soon :-)

> There's some other cool stuff about this.  It's best for all the followers
> of a god to be organized into some sort of church.  This church can grant
> or deny entry to potential followers.

Well, my RL soul doesn't like it at all :-(( See, I grew up in a Soviet
Union, and the very idea to be allowed or denied to BELIEVE in something
seems nasty to me.

Besides, the approach I described before is also consistent with some
other concept details - basically, you may be of any alignment, believe
in any god, ask for anything from that god (not nessessarily getting
it), pushing it to extreme - do whatever you want, but the
responsibility for the consequences is exclusively yours.

Just an example - what is usually handled with guilds, say - you can't
be a member of more than X guilds, and there are some conflicting ones -
you can't be Paladine and, say, Caballist simultaneously (traditional
approach) - in my concept you can, but if you try to invoke some
Paladine action it will check on your properties and even if case of
action success you will be punished severely (details on the project
pages).

>  This keeps people from hogging
> the god's power - taking more mana than they contribute in life-force.
> It's basically magic, but there's a group pool up there in the sky that
> every follower has to share, bringing in some very interesting group
> dynamics.

I have to think about it

> Now, we took a similar but slightly different route with our deties.
> The bit about the life-force is more or less the same.  However, clerics
> pray for specific things rather than energy.

Well, I was considering that from a point of energy flow and balance.

>  Each player has a favor
> value with each god (which can be negative if they don't like you, or
> 0 if they don't care about you).  They also have a debt level - how much
> the god feels they 'owe' you.  The cleric who sits devoutly praying each
> day and never asking anything of his god will be able to get whatever
> he wants when he finally does pray, because his debt is very high.  The
> cleric that is constantly calling on her god will have less debt, and
> thus less of a response from her god each time she calls on them.
> Gods have simple personality algorithms which control how they behave.
> For instance, calling on a destructive god for healing won't make her very
> happy with you, although she may still go ahead and do it if you're high
> in her favor or debt.

Agreed here.

> Gods also have a limit to the power they can draw at any one time.  Thus
> if lots of clerics are asking big favors at the same time, some of them
> may get ignored or denied despite the fact that they are perfectly well
> in favor.

Well, in my case there's no _direct_ limitation, as you see, because
every time the worshiper successfully prays to the God, the God's energy
increases, and, thus, the energy of the anti-creature increases too.
But, to make it fair, the amount of energy which can be transferred
should be dependent on the current God's condition.

> Lastly, we do a lot of 'automatic' god effects.  For a simple example:
> 
>  You are in a forest path.
>  An unshaven man with a big sword is standing here.
>  ] ' good day my friend, kindly let me pass?
>  An unshaven man says, 'Think again, god-boy...'
>  An unshaven man leaps at you, sword upraised!
>  A flash of light blinds you for a moment, and then Ominar, Avatar of
>   your goddess Celendria, stands before you!
>  The unshaven man's sword crashes down on Ominar's silvery shield.
>  Ominar cries, 'Stay thy blade, foul unbeliever!'
>  Ominar smashes the hilt of his silvery sword into the unshaven man's skull.
>  The unshaven man crashes to the ground, unconscious.
>  Ominar smiles at you, and is gone in a flash of light.

Agreed.

[snip]

> > - no obvious link between the god and anti-god exists.
> >
> > For example, given that the God is good, the anti-god is evil, it's a
> > monster, and lives somewhere - this creates a funny possibility that the
> > good worshipers of that good God will announce a quest to eliminate that
> > evil abomination, and ...
> 
> This would be particularly interesting if both the god and the anti-god
> were players.

And/or, advanced NPCs, as I was talking before.

--
Still alive and smile stays on,
Vadim Tkachenko <VadimT at 4CS.Com>
--
UNIX _is_ user friendly, he's just very picky about who his friends are
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