Adapting mechanics from Sil to other (longer?) games

[Nick]

IThe Unlight ability sounds pretty fun. Would it render you unable to see lit squares?

Visually it acts as if the player has a light radius of 2 (although you don't get the special torch light colour), because it has to be actually a good thing for the player. And it gives bonuses in the dark rather than hampering in the light - it's like the player can put darkness to good use.

[Scatha]

(I'm not sure whether I'm comforted or depressed by that fact that you guys were working in Sil for 8 years before releasing it...)

I'm not sure where 8 years comes from. I think half first started thinking about it before that (he mentions 2001), and I began talking to him about it some time in 2007, and contributing ideas a little after (the alpha version numbers mark the point where he shared the game). Maybe 8 is the average of the two?

The Unlight ability sounds pretty fun. Would it render you unable to see lit squares?

[Nick]

One mechanic I'd direct your attention towards if you're looking for things you'd consider putting into Beleriand is the rules for light and magical darkness. It's very simple, plays well, and makes light and dark a serious part of the game, which feels perfect for the Tolkienian setting.

I like that, and thanks for the description. FA has Oangband's Unlight ability, which enables the player to see in the dark as if by lantern light - I can see that also fitting in nicely with your system. So I will probably include that or something very similar eventually (I'm not sure whether I'm comforted or depressed by that fact that you guys were working in Sil for 8 years before releasing it...)

[getter77]

At the very, very least then----exp for successfully Identifying things and making it to a newly reached decent depth or other metric is a no-brainer and would essentially move mountains towards making stealth and other more unorthodox playstyles more viable across the entire landscape of such, especially alongside the "first encounter" exp---since otherwise all you have is combat kills and that funnels some tunnel vision into the entire game design something fierce.

[Magnate]

There are definitely some simplicity advantages to a single roll. However an advantage to using opposed rolls (or indeed a single "roll" drawn from a distribution symmetric around zero) is that it makes the different skills directly comparable. If your melee is higher than their evasion, you will hit over half the time. And sometimes we roll, for example, Will against Will. The opposed rolls also give you more of a bell-shape, which reduces the incidence of weird effects where extra points in a skill are useless to you.

I accept that opposed rolls provide a symmetric distribution, but I think an asymptotic single roll with diminishing returns is a nice hybrid of smooth distribution and simple mental arithmetic. So every skill point continues to get you *something*, but each is worth slightly less than the last.

It's worth noting that V spectacularly doesn't do this: there are huge breakpoints at the upper ends of the STR and CON bonus tables. Then of course there's the significantly un-asymptotic 0% failure ...

[fizzix]

That said I think we'd like it if there were an aid in-game to help you with the combat arithmetic.

In Vanilla once you learn the AC of a monster you will see something like, "You have a x% chance to hit this monster with your current weapon" on the creature recall screen. I could imagine putting that information there. Maybe something like:

Your chance to hit monster: x%
Your average damage:  d

Monsters chance to hit you: x'%
Monsters average damage: d'

The calculation would include your current weapon and armor of course, so it should change as you switch around weapons. If you really want you can include some measure of variance for the damage as well. Extra lines for "range of possible damage" and/or some confidence interval for likely damage values.

[Scatha]

The one aspect of Sil I don't like (and remember this is on paper/in theory, since I haven't actually played it yet) is the twin sets of rolls for combat. I've played a lot of combat games, and I prefer there to be one roll for attack and a constant value for defence (AC or evasion or whatever). Two opposed rolls makes the mental arithmetic of estimating your chances much too hard. Of course this may be the idea!

There are definitely some simplicity advantages to a single roll. However an advantage to using opposed rolls (or indeed a single "roll" drawn from a distribution symmetric around zero) is that it makes the different skills directly comparable. If your melee is higher than their evasion, you will hit over half the time. And sometimes we roll, for example, Will against Will. The opposed rolls also give you more of a bell-shape, which reduces the incidence of weird effects where extra points in a skill are useless to you.

That said I think we'd like it if there were an aid in-game to help you with the combat arithmetic.

[Scatha]

I have seen the XP fall-off suggested before (and was planning to use it in Beleriand); the bit I think is genius is the experience for encountering monsters. That I am pinching.

That came into the game not long before release (you can see in the pre-release change notes), when we were looking for more non-combat sources of experience to make a wider range of builds viable. We're happy with how it turned out!

One mechanic I'd direct your attention towards if you're looking for things you'd consider putting into Beleriand is the rules for light and magical darkness. It's very simple, plays well, and makes light and dark a serious part of the game, which feels perfect for the Tolkienian setting.

Edit: Adding a description of the mechanic, since it's not in the manual.
Dungeon squares can by default be lit (light level 1) or unlit (light level 0). If you have light radius N then you add (N+1-k) to squares at distance k (where k < N+1). If you have dark radius N (= "light radius -N") you do exactly the same but subtract (N+1-k) instead of adding it. As well as the player, some monsters have a light or dark radius (as do some items on the ground). If the total light level on a square is positive, it's lit and you can see what's there. If a light-averse monster is on a square with light level L > 2, they get a penalty of (L-2) to morale and all of their rolls.

Edit 2: That's actually a very clunky description for such a simple mechanic. I hope the idea is clearly conveyed.

Edit 3: Perhaps a picture.

Shadow Spider (not moving), light radius -2; player, light radius 2; dark room:
######## ######## ######## ########
#******# #******# #******# #******#
#**M***# #******# #******# #****..#
#******# #******# #****..# #***@..#
#****.*# #**....# #**.@..# #**....#
#*.....# #*..@..# #*.....# #**...*#
#*..@..# #*.....# #**...*# #******#
######## ######## ######## ########

[Magnate]

Still, I wouldn't be opposed to someone drafting and implementing a new EXP system for v4. It could also give EXP for finding items and seeing monsters like Sil does. Might be tough to balance though.

Yes, I'd like to see this kind of thing too - it could go hand-in-hand with a new scoring system.

The one aspect of Sil I don't like (and remember this is on paper/in theory, since I haven't actually played it yet) is the twin sets of rolls for combat. I've played a lot of combat games, and I prefer there to be one roll for attack and a constant value for defence (AC or evasion or whatever). Two opposed rolls makes the mental arithmetic of estimating your chances much too hard. Of course this may be the idea!

[Nick]

I have seen the XP fall-off suggested before (and was planning to use it in Beleriand); the bit I think is genius is the experience for encountering monsters. That I am pinching.

[fizzix]

I can't think of a good reason why the base Angband, nor most other Roguelikes really save for special cases, would not benefit from pretty well wholesale copying of the EXP gaining mechanics at the very least---probably perhaps only needing to tinker with the tapering off effects as the kills pile up for given types when there is 100 floors or whatever versus Sil. Hell, I already pretty much advised as much for LambdaRogue some months back.

It is indeed a Eureka aspect in terms of "Damn, why hasn't this been with us since a decade+ ago?!"

I like this mechanic also.

Most games do have an EXP falloff, since you gain less EXP as you gain levels. So killing orcs for exp isn't really viable at clevel 25. You kill them for the stuff they drop. However, a strict falloff has the same difficulty of balance as a lot of the Sil mechanics when the player is allowed to hang out on levels forever.

Still, I wouldn't be opposed to someone drafting and implementing a new EXP system for v4. It could also give EXP for finding items and seeing monsters like Sil does. Might be tough to balance though.

[Scatha]

I can't think of a good reason why the base Angband, nor most other Roguelikes really save for special cases, would not benefit from pretty well wholesale copying of the EXP gaining mechanics at the very least---probably perhaps only needing to tinker with the tapering off effects as the kills pile up for given types when there is 100 floors or whatever versus Sil.

I think the main obstacle to this working more widely is not the number of floors, but the number of enemies you can encounter at any depth. You need to expect to meet several of most types of foe for the decay to be meaningful.

[getter77]

I can't think of a good reason why the base Angband, nor most other Roguelikes really save for special cases, would not benefit from pretty well wholesale copying of the EXP gaining mechanics at the very least---probably perhaps only needing to tinker with the tapering off effects as the kills pile up for given types when there is 100 floors or whatever versus Sil. Hell, I already pretty much advised as much for LambdaRogue some months back.

It is indeed a Eureka aspect in terms of "Damn, why hasn't this been with us since a decade+ ago?!"

[Scatha]

Hmm, I think I didn't write very clearly in the section on opposed rolls. But it's essentially technical geekery, and if you didn't follow it my guess is you wouldn't find it that interesting.

As far as I'm concerned you're welcome to take any of the ideas here and develop them.

[T-Mick]

That was a good read. I love the mechanics of Sil, and reading about them is always interesting. I especially like the part about how classes could be done. I may use that in the future, if you don't mind of course. Honestly, though, I didn't understand the part about opposed rolls and "p". Not my forte, but no matter.