Social interaction in RPGs

What happens when you do something good or bad in games? Say you walked into a store and killed a merchant. In older games you would instantly become the bad guy (at least in this town), even if no one really saw or heard you doing it.

Later on, game developers introduced the system, where NPC would only do something if they saw you committing a crime. I think it’s hilarious, when NPC speaks to you in a room full of corpses, as if nothing ever happened, just because he didn’t saw you killing all these people.

Better games incorporated mixed systems, where doing things influenced your karma and affected NPC attitude toward you. However, guards would not attack you, unless someone saw you doing stuff.

In modern RPGs, a person who saw you doing the crime, must first get to the guard and tell him everything. This gives you a chance to finish off the bastard, before he tells on you. The only weird thing is – when one guard becomes aware, suddenly the whole town knows that you’re the villain. This is unnatural.

Let’s say that a town drunk – Jake, saw you brutally killing the traveling merchants in the woods. He now is in a shock and runs away as fast as he can. Jake will not go to cops, since he thinks that no one there would believe him. He is also scared that you’ll come for him, so he hides in a barn for a few days. After some time, he goes to the bar, gets drunk and tells everyone what he saw. Some people think it’s nonsense, some don’t really pay attention, but some folks may take him seriously. Those who think he’s not making this up, would report it to the law and go to the killing site to search for clues. If you haven’t cleaned up the mess and they find it, the people would become suspicious. Since Jake is a drunk for quite some time, he probably has a bad memory and can’t remember your face in detail (another version – he was shocked so deeply, that he actually remembered you for all his life). So the people start rumoring about strangers who visited the town (and seemed weird to them) or were spotted passing nearby. Eventually, they would either agree on who was the killer, or just become more suspicious to outsiders. Most of them will also forget this in a year or so.

What does one need to implement such a system? First of all, one should have a memory system, in which all significant events and observations would be stored. Jake was shocked with what he saw, and will never forget it. An excerpt from DB:

>#2658, memory type: code 7 [got drunk], importance: 45, timestamp: 25.09.1980 19:00, time precision: 1.5h, relevant memories: #2656 (20), #2657 (15).
>#2659, memory type: code 34 [saw a murder], importance: 95, results: fear #3, trauma #4, timestamp: 25.09.1980 21:00, time precision: 0.5h, relevant memories: #2660 (95).
>#2660, memory type: code 70 [remembers face], importance: 95, face ID: #0 [player], relevant memories: #2659 (95).

This database would then collect everything character remembers and link memories. Some memories will be deleted over time, while others will only fade. Access depth, memory fading rate, recollection accuracy, events worth remembering, etc. – all this depends on personality.

In example above, if someone asks Jake about him getting drunk, he will likely remember the fact that he got drunk and maybe even remember where (memory #2656) and what he was drinking (memory #2657).

If Jake sees you somewhere, your face will emerge in his memory for certain. When it happens, the memory of a murder will most certainly surface and trigger his fear and trauma. Triggered fear will make him shut up and run away, while the trauma will most likely force him to get drunk.

With such memory system, one needs a perception system to identify what character sees important to memorize. It should also filter out stuff/people character listens to, does he believe rumors, what are his interests, opinions, etc.

To complete such a system would mean to give your NPC a true personality – an ability to choose and react, ability to commit crimes, blame others, spread rumors, etc. Implementing it is a pain in the ass, and would require at least a year or two of hard work with a bunch of psychologist and sociologist advisers. The system would use tons of memory and require a lot of processing power.

It is my opinion, that advanced social interaction systems might be the next step in RPG evolution, and will make NPCs more “alive” and the game – more immersive than ever before.

Things to do

I’ve suddenly remembered, that there are few things I want to accomplish in this life. Here is the list, if anyone is interested:

Travel and immigration:

A.1) Migrate to Denmark and live there for some 5-6 years;
A.2) Visit Scotland, Ireland and Canada. Live there for a week or two;
A.3) Migrate to Australia and live there for some 5-6 years;
A.4) Visit South Korea and Japan. Live there for a week or two;

Education:

B.1) Get Mg.sc.Ing. in electronics (almost done);
B.2) Get a PhD in electronics;
B.3) Get a B.sc.Ing. in mechanics;

Achievements in electronics:

C.1) Implement an augmented reality system (current master’s thesis);
C.2) Make an interactive wargame terrain for Warhammer 40K;
C.3) Implement a camera-based light gun (next semester);
C.4) Implement 10+ CFA demosaicing methods in FPGA and compile a manuscript;
C.5) Implement an artificial neural network in FPGA (next semester);
C.6) Understand the PCIe bus and make a PCIe device;

Achievements in games:

D.1) Develop and publish a board game;
D.2) Develop a tactical RPG game for PC;
D.3) Develop an unbelievably hard 2D space simulation game (with custom joystick);

Expensive stuff:

E.1) Buy an electric violin and learn to play it;
E.2) Buy a composite bow and learn to hunt;
E.3) Buy a 100+ unit Warhammer 40K army and a large paint set. Assemble and paint it;
E.4) Buy a 1000€ professional photo camera (for my travels);
E.5) Buy a bicycle and do some town-2-town traveling;
E.6) Buy a lot of materials and make a room-wide Warhammer 40K terrain piece;
E.7) Buy a big inflatable boat;
E.8) Try some scuba diving;
E.9) Buy a goban and resume playing Go;
E.10) Buy and play a lot of board games (Neuroshima Hex, REX, Elder Sign, Warhammer Invasion);
E.11) Buy the Oclulus Rift for my AR project;
E.12) Buy a powerful multi-processor server with >100GB RAM, >2TB SSD storage and at least six PCIe v3 x16 slots for my crazy experiments;

Global stuff:

F.1) Have a dachshund and an owl;
F.2) Have a garden/orchard full of fruit and berries;
F.3) Do R&D (and maybe a bit of teaching) for living;
F.4) Convert to a healthy lifestyle.

My list

I was in a weird mood lately. I think I’ll get over it somewhere next week, and finally write a bunch of movie reviews, instead of posting half-naked girls. I have recently compiled a list of my favorite movies, TV shows, books, anime and music bands, and now I intend to share it with you. If you’re interested – here it is:

Favorite movies: Constantine, Full Metal Jacket, Aliens, Watchmen, Pulp Fiction, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Going Postal, Four Rooms, A Beautiful Mind.

Great movies: Sweeney Todd, Starship Troopers, Repo! The Genetic Opera, Minority Report, Edge of Tomorrow, The Fifth Element, Cloud Atlas, Harrison Bergeron, Men in Black, Starship Troopers, Pitch Black, The Adjustment Bureau, Stargate, Vanilla Sky, Blade, John Carter, TiMER, Resident Evil, City of Ember, Screamers, Total Recall, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Johnny Mnemonic, Judge Dredd, Inception, The Dark Knight, V for Vendetta, Cypher, Dark City, Equilibrium, Divergent, The Fountain, Limitless, Donnie Darko, Fight Club, eXistenZ, Mr. Nobody, The Hunger Games, The Green Mile, Austin Powers, Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, Edward Scissorhands, Hogfather, Sleepy Hollow, Maleficent, Dogma, The Color of Magic, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Witches of Eastwick, Hancock, Click, Dorian Gray, The Golden Compass, Interview with the Vampire, A Clockwork Orange, District 9, Indiana Jones, Inglourious Basterds, Serenity, Back to the Future, The Color of Magic, Vatel, Interstate 60, Scarface, Kill Bill, Twelve Monkeys, Leon: The Professional, In Time, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Identity, La boite noire, Law Abiding Citizen, Cruel Intentions, Captain America, Star Trek, The Power of Few, American Psycho, Catch Me If You Can, Life Is Beautiful, Groundhog Day, The Silence of the Lambs, Oz the Great and Powerful, Dogville, Angel-A, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

Favorite series: Doctor Who, Torchwood, Battlestar Galactica, Sherlock, Whitechapel, Firefly, Persons Unknown, Jekyll, The Lost Room, Jeeves and Wooster, The Lone Gunmen, Ripper Street.

Great series: Stargate, House M.D., Grimm, True Blood, Game of Thrones, Hell on Wheels, Vikings, Lost, Justified, Misfits, Desperate Housewives, The Good Wife, Monk, Lie to Me, Wire in the Blood, Almost Human, Deadwood, The Dresden Files, Black Books, Dirk Gently, Yes Minister, Luther, Fargo, Life on Mars, FlashForward, Penny Dreadful, The X-Files, Helix, Murdoch Mysteries, The Doctor Blake Mysteries, Garrow’s Law, Broadchurch, Great Expectations, La Femme Nikita, Eureka, Do No Harm.

Favorite books:  I See a Man Sitting on a Chair, and the Chair Is Biting His Leg by Robert Sheckley and Harlan Ellison, The Futurological Congress by Stanislaw Lem, Monday Begins on Saturday by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky.

Great books: Discworld series by Terry Pratchett, Hyperion Cantos series by Dan Simmons, Hobbit & Lord of the Ring series by J. R. R. Tolkien, Labyrinths of Echo & Chronicles of Echo by Max Frei, everything by Robert Sheckley, The Star Diaries series & Cyberiada series by Stanislaw Lem, Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny, Roadside picnic & The Inhabited Island by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, The Good Soldier Schweik by Jaroslav Hašek.

Favorite bands: Muse, Daft Punk, Depeche Mode, Röyksopp, Ace of Base.

Great bands: Rammstein, Linkin Park, ABBA, Aerosmith, David Guetta, Metallica, Tatu, Scorpions, Nickelback, Kylie Minogue, No Doubt, Evanescence, Madonna, Placebo, Guns N’ Roses, Frank Sinatra, Nirvana, Pink Floyd, ATB, Cher, Наутилус Помпилиус, Ночные Снайперы, Queen, Сплин, Ария, Prāta Vētra, Līvi, Jumprava, Tumsa, Within Temptation, Oasis, The Cardigans, Garbage, U2, Radiohead, Modern Talking, Pink, Dido, Gorillaz, System of a Down, Marilyn Manson, Louis Armstrong.

Favorite anime: Clannad, Kare Kano, Toradora!, Elfen Lied, Air, School Rumble, Great Teacher Onizuka, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika, Higurashi When They Cry.

Great anime: Neon Genesis Evangelion, Fullmetal Alchemist, Monster, Working!!, Pumpkin Scissors, Claymore, Strait Jacket, School Days, Tenjho Tenge, Black Lagoon, Chobits, Azumanga Daioh, Hellsing, Parasite Dolls, Ghost in the Shell, Wonderful Days, Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Armitage III, Code Geass, Death Note.

I spent quite a bit of my time on this list, and still I’m sure I forgot a lot of good stuff, especially in anime and book sections (should be at least twice as much, by my account). There was a time, when I would kill for a list like this. Consider reposting this.

Hair pulling

Hair pulling – a little something to spice things up. Just remember to discuss it before doing, because: a) some people don’t like to be submissive, b) not everyone likes it rough, c) hair roots may be very sensitive, d) must be in the right mood. It’s also important not to overdo it.

Faces

It is my opinion, that 60% of girls look nice, another 10% look stunning, about 5% look just perfect, some 15% could really make it into the “nice” if they tried. Hey, I don’t judge people by the appearance, I just don’t ignore it. The thing is, for the last 3 days or so, I tried to figure out what I consider the “just perfect”. Is it the look, skin color, makeup, nose shape, eye distance, hairline?

So I browsed through a directory of girl face photos (some 2500 pcs) and picked those, which really caught my attention. I always thought I was attracted to the so called “celestial” nose type. It appears I was wrong, and the nose shape is secondary. Primary is the face shape. See for yourself – you’ll notice the correlation right away:

Random girls

Did I mention that I’m horribly picky? Yesterday, I went through an archive containing 4000+ girl photos and selected those I like. So here you go, random girl photos:

Pseudo-dice combat system

This here is a goblin warrior with a shield, sword and leather armor:

[ Image taken from http://rackhamminiatures.yolasite.com ]

The sword

> Ordinary jagged goblin sword: 3x[attack], 1x[fail], condition 30/30.

What you see above is a freshly forged jagged goblin sword. It has 4 tokens – 3 [attack] and 1 [fail]. When goblin tries to attack with this sword, one of these tokens is chosen at random, as if a 4-sided die was thrown. If [attack] token comes up – an attack is performed. However, if a [fail] token comes up – the goblin not only misses the target, but is also left unbalanced for the turn.

If a skilled craftsman produced this sword, he might give it some additional bonuses, for example:
* ordinary (prefix) – nothing special.
* fine (prefix) – converts one [attack] token into a [critical]. Critical strikes produce a lot of damage.
* hardened (mod) – removes one [attack], and doubles initial condition points.
* excellent (prefix) – adds a [critical] token to a weapon, thus reducing the fail rate.
* serrated (mod) – converts one [attack] token into a [bleed]. Bleed will draw small portions of health and will not stop until treated.
* poisoned (mod) – converts one [attack] into a [poison]. Much like the bleed, but poison needs some time (4 turns) to kick in and way harder to treat.
* balanced (mod) – converts one [fail] into a [miss]. Miss does not leave the character unbalanced.

The modding rules are simple: a) one prefix per item, b) a weapon must have at least one [attack] left, and c) mods can’t be used twice. An example:

> Fine jagged goblin sword (serrated, poisoned, balanced): 1x[attack], 1x[bleed], 1x[poison], 1x[miss], condition 30/30.

About the condition. Each time character tries to attack, his weapon condition will decrease. The amount depends on target’s armor (or shield type, if the blow was successfully blocked with a shield). When condition reaches zero, the weapon gains an additional [break] token. The [break] token acts as [fail] and makes your weapon into a piece of metal waste.

Blacksmith can repair a weapon (not the metal waste) to 65% of it’s initial condition. To do better, one might consider visiting a shaman, proficient in goblin blood magic. A little bit of goblin sacrifice, and item is back to 100%. Shamans also do weapon modding, but one should remember that restoring the condition with blood magic will erase all enchantments.

The shield

> Ordinary goblin leather shield (small): 3x[block], 1x[fail], condition 10/10.

Shields made from leather, damage the weapon by 1, wood – by 2, metal – by 3. Small shields have a high block rate (>70%), but suffer +3x[fail] against ranged weapons. medium shields have somewhat lower block rate (>50%), no penalties against ranged weapons and higher initial condition. Large shields have the lowest block rate (>30%), protect from all ranged attacks, and have a highest initial condition.

Swords, spears and knives damage shields and armor by 1, axes – by 2, hammers – by 3. Arrows only do 1 damage to leather items.

Shield may be used only once per tick, so it won’t do mush good to a surrounded warrior. If the target is stunned, the shield is not used.

Modifications are possible, for example:
* heavy (mod) – converts one [block] token into a [bash]. Bashing an enemy does minor damage and has a 25% stun chance.
* hardened (mod) – removes one [block] token and doubles initial condition points.
* reinforced (mod) – converts one [block] token into a [damage]. Damage acts as [block], but does 4x damage to weapon.
* spiked (mod) – doubles damage and stun chance from “heavy”, doubles weapon damage from “reinforced”, adds 1x[fail].
* ordinary (prefix) – nothing special.
* fine (prefix) – adds one [block] token.
* excellent (prefix) – adds one [block] token and converts one [fail] token into [miss].

Modding shields is similar to weapons – one [block] token must remain.

> Fine goblin leather shield (small, hardened, heavy, spiked): 2x[block], 2x[fail], 1x[bash], condition 20/20.

The armor

> Ordinary goblin leather armor: 2x[protect], 3x[open], condition 15/15.

If the goblin fails to defend using the shield, the blow passes to the armor. The armor either protects the warrior, or not. If the blow came from a side, armor gains additional [open], if from the back – 2x[open]. If the warrior is unbalanced – one [protect] token is removed. Armor also damages the weapon, even is [open] comes up (except when the armor is broken). While the target is stunned, every blow counts as inflicted from the back.

Of course the armor is also modifiable, but I’m too lazy to provide you with examples. Use your imagination!

Damages

Let’s think balance. Let’s say your average poison does 3 damage/turn. Poison must be treated with the antidote (which can be hard to get, so it’s often a death sentence). Bleed can be treated with a bandage (which are cheap and easy to make and use), so bleed might be randomized to 3-5 damage/turn. Then your average attack should probably do about 5 to 7 damage, depending on the attackers strength (5 for weak, 7 for strong, may even be more for creatures and machines). Critical strike should produce 3x normal damage. So I guess the average goblin health could be about 30, while injuries and diseases may reduce it. I think that critical strike should also have a 50% chance to inflict an injury. Shield bash could do about 4 damage.

Personality

Each goblin should be a little bit different from the others. As mentioned before – some are weak, some – strong, some could be born leaders, others – fighters, hunters or shamans. There are plenty of possibilities. Goblins may have personal traits (coward, furious, cunning), training (healing, spell casting, shield training), skills gained from work (sharpshooter – for hunters, heavy blow – for builders), natural aptitudes (for magic, for hammers). These may alter parameters or add tokens to attack or defense dice.

Inventory and mobility

Average warrior may have: 1 main weapon, 1 backup (or ranged with quiver) weapon, 1 armor, 1 shield and 1 item. A wide range of items should be available – lucky charms, health tonics, bandages, additional quivers, etc. Other creatures and classes may have different slots – ogres may only have slots for weapon and armor, wargs may only have one item slot for collar or charm, shamans don’t have a shield slot, but may have up to four items. Something like that.

Initial mobility for a goblin is 5, which means that he may move up to 5 cells on the battlefield per turn. Second weapon, medium or large shield and metal armor, each reduce the mobility by 1. Maximum mobility should be limited to 10.

Time progression

Game system was designed as turn-based, each turn consisting from up to 10 ticks (max mobility). A unit can normally attack only once per turn. Attack resolves simultaneously for all units in a tick.

Conclusion

So this was my pseudo-dice combat system concept. I think it might be ok for 20×20 PvP battles, but it should be even better for massive (hundreds of units) semi-automated combat simulations. By semi-automated I mean that you won’t have to control each and every unit – only give orders to 5-10 squad commanders. Item generation system should be ok for simulations: your people gather scrap from battlefields and anything they find in the woods, then your artisans create a bunch of items (random or requested), some of which appear to be very good. You take the good stuff and order any enhancements you want. Then you give the good stuff to select few (these may be squad commanders, heroes, elite warrior squad, etc), while other stuff is distributed automatically (a goblin with aptitude for sword should get a sword, a higher-ranking warrior should pick his weapon first, etc). This gives you a bit of micro-management, while allowing to have large armies. The game itself would be some kind of economics/military simulation strategy, with a hint of tactics and RPG – just the way I love it.

Notice, that this system allows to include different races, creatures, professions, perks, training, etc. All these fun thing are necessary, so that you feel the complexity, but do not struggle with it. The hardest part is battlefield management, so that the force is flexible enough to implement different strategies. As soon as I come up with something – I’ll post it in the blog. Another problem is the AI. It has to be quite intelligent to manage all this.

Fantasies unlimited

Say you got the human invasion coming in a week. You could send your goblins hunting and arrange a feast to improve the morale before the battle. Or you could draft some peasants and make them train day and night, while artisans produce weapons and armor for them. Another option – send your men on a dangerous mission to obtain the fire-spider’s gland, which may be used to produce a powerful spell, which should smite half of the attacking force, but will your men actually find it, and if they do – will they succeed in defeating the fire-spider? Maybe you should order them to scavenge the ancient ruins for some old (but really powerful) weapons and charms? Another option – host the arena event. Some good warriors will surely die, while others will probably gain some ranks and learn a trick or two. A champion will surely emerge, and there is nothing better than a champion, leading your elite squad.

The non-combat part could include food and resource gathering; catching and taming wild beasts; breeding wargs, horses and lizards for your cavalry; building peasant-powered warmachines; creating tonics, potions, spells; managing food rations; building your settlement; claiming lands, expanding the kingdom and exploring; raiding the neighbors; scavenging battlefields and ruins; trading.

The game would be boring, if it only consisted of fighting battles. Of course, one can make it into a wargame, by replacing building, exploring and producing stuff with some kind of point system. Say – time points. You need a sword – spend 5 time points to forge it, not enough iron – spend 10 time points to gather some, etc. Could also be fun.

But if it was a strategy, with building, trade, exploration and research – what would be the main goal of it? I see it as something similar to Civilization – research, expand and annihilate others. Though research should have a different scope. Civilization game progresses through ages, so research scope is technological advancement. In this game, research should be resource based. Say you’ve found ancient ruins, some weird new metal, an old artifact of unknown origin, a yet unseen kind of beast, a lake full of weird fish, a manuscript written in blood, or something like that. You research it and adapt to your cause (much like X-COM/UFO science) – try making weapons or armor from new materials, try producing potions from unknown weeds and berries, make a shrine for the forgotten god, try the forbidden ritual, eat the weird meat-looking fruit. The area map could be like in Fallout 1&2 – a large map with a bunch of hidden sites. Your explorers would need to search for food, water and supplies, establish resupply posts to extend the exploration range, search for hidden treasures and unusual stuff.

Greenfield tea

I don’t drink coffee, I only drink tea. Some 6 years ago I would drink almost anything, but lately I only do Greenfield. When I drink the third cup in a row, some teas start tasting like dried grass sprinkled with chemistry (Lipton). Others – taste like chem right away (Basilur). Maybe my taste buds are weird and the teas are actually ok, but I just can’t swallow that stuff.

I discovered Greenfield when I bought a Premium Tea Collection, containing 30 different flavors (4pcs each), some two years ago. If you ever come across it – buy without hesitation: a) it is irreplaceable when you host a party; b) it’s a perfect gift for almost any situation; c) you can always drink it all by yourself and enjoy all 30 flavors four times over.

My favorites are: Spring Melody (black), Mango Delight (white), Lotus Breeze (green), Mate Aguante (herbal), Highland Oolong (oolong), Flying Dragon (green), Jasmine Dream (green), Japanese Sencha (green). It kinda depends on the mood and the weather, but they all are great.

By the way, these 30 flavors aren’t all Greenfield has to offer. There are Honey Rooibos, Strawberry Gourmet, Blueberry Nights, Chocolate Toffee, Delicious Plum, etc. The only problem is to find them.

 

A little bit of me II

Ventspils International Radio-astronomy Center (VIRAC), had a 20 year anniversary this month. So we gathered at the Irbene RT-32 (32m dish radio-telescope) and celebrated a bit. The day was hot, the people were happy, the meat was delicious, and the beer was free. What more can one ask for?

Some photos of me taken during the event:

My photos of the event:

Photos of other stuff:

Kitty and Athena II

Took some photos of my cats. Kitty is sleeping on the window board most of the time, while Athena is running around hunting and eating flies, beetles and mosquitoes. It’s her first summer and she’s so excited about everything – the hot sun, the flies, the people, the music, etc. No rain, no cold, and most importantly – no scary wind.