Tavern idea

[paul1]

wanted to capture an idea for vanilla angband that came to me. i briefly searched for it but didn't come up with anything similar...might've missed it, so apologies if i did.

the idea is for a tavern in the town. the player can strike up a conversation and buy drinks for himself and for other non player chars. his charisma can have a positive or negative effect on his interactions with the npc. he can also bribe them. the point is to get some information from them. the kind of info is basically that which you'd find in the spoilers, eg monster/unique abilities, artefact/ego item abilities, spellbooks and their spells, etc. the info would range from common (cheap) to rare (expensive: drinks, gold, high charisma). there could even be unintentional misinformation. unwelcome curiosity and/or low charisma could spill the character and npc out of the tavern into a street brawl. or there could be deliberate misinformation as an alternative to a street brawl.

a more ambitious feature would unfortunately require a bit of memory/non-randomness/determinism in dungeon level creation: an npc could provide info about uniques or artefacts "recently" seen on certain levels, that would then affect creation of that level if the player got there quickly enough or the info wasn't otherwise too old.

further to that ambitious feature, the npc could also be baiting/setting up an ambush on the character by one of the uniques, through false, enticing info. the character could try to bribe or charm the npc to reveal this.

the level and int/wis/charisma of the character could give them clues about the integrity of the info they are getting.

so, is that a stupid/boring idea? praise or abuse are equally welcome!

[ekolis]

Hmm, I like it... would add some flavor to the game without *quite* adding "quests" as found in some variants Not to mention make charisma more useful...

[Paffa]

You haven't happened to read Penance have you?

That idea sounds nice, especially that tavern people would give information about uniques and items/artifacts. Like "I've heard a rumour that an Ancient Gold Dragon on dlevel xx carries Mordenkaiden's escapes" or "There's a greater vault on 3000', you might want to try it"

[Bandobras]

The non-spoiler part seems similar to TOME fates. I don't quite like them, but they are OK. However, if to get them you have to make 1000 conversations with tavern folks and buy them 500 beers, etc. this would be boring. Some sane rules would be needed, as in one fate per day (or no more fates until the current one is found), no more than 10 actions needed to get it, a chance to lose the tip for the day if answering wrong or bargaining wrong (as with shopkeepers with haggling_on), etc. Purely random chance to get a quest/fate would be bad, but for tips it's OK. There are also fortune cookies and Inn romours in TOME similar to the week version of the tips.

[paul1]

thanks for all the comments.

in response to bandobras, i agree with your concerns. it shouldn't be a mechanical nor purely random process. it should involve some skill on the part of the player to extract the info, too, through the right combo of booze, bribes and even threats, where what is right depends on the player and npc.

the character's level, class, sex and charisma would have an effect on the kind of company they can rub shoulders with in the tavern and hence the sort of conversations they would typically have, ie a high level character would be able to mix it with other higher level npcs and get info re deeper level uniques/monsters/artefacts etc, whereas a lower level character would get info re shallow levels and would be ignored or thrown out of the tavern on approaching higher level npcs.

cheers

[Fuma]

May I suggest that if the brawl idea is added that you start standing on the shop entrance, your opponent (a leveled battle scarred veteran?) gets the first hit and also stands next to the player so that the player will get hit once again before he can escape.

This is what it'd look like:

The Battle-scarred veteran hits you!
   t  
 ##@## 
 ##### 
t@###@t
 ##### 
 ##@## 
   t