"Master" option & variant selection..?

[Lord Fell]

This is something that I thought up ages ago, and suggested when Angband discussions were all on a Usenet Group (rec.games.roguelike.angband.something?).

Anyways... Someone pointed out to me that the Angband "theme" is all over the map these days. I know that over the different years, dozens of coders have added monsters and items from all over fantasy literature, mythology and film. What I was thinking is that these monsters and items could be flagged with their origin, and then when the game was opened, players could have a choice of which sources of creatures and objects they wanted to include.

For example, a bunch of monsters from David Edding's Belgariad series were once added (haven't encountered any in the current version). If all of these monsters (and the few items that are from those books) were flagged from that source, it would be easy to add them all, or opt not to add them in.

Additional flags for Japanese, Greek... and uhm, there's gotta be more in there, right? could be developed. Some of those sources could also be expanded -perhaps someone who's got a real fondness for Japanese mythos is just itching to add a pile of creatures and items to the game, but doesn't want to "spam" people who aren't so keen on it.

Obviously, there would be a "CORE" group, that should always be in the game... although the option to deselect ALL monsters and items might be ... well, stupid, but if someone wanted to depopulate the entire dungeon and run down to 99th level just to sight-see...

Additional idea: Weapons could also be developed which are "bane" against an entire source of creatures.

[chris]

Originally Posted by Lord Fell

Additional idea: Weapons could also be developed which are "bane" against an entire source of creatures.

A Broadsword of Slay Irish (2d5) (+10, +8)

Sweet

[Derakon]

The only Eddings monster I can think of off the top of my head is the Algroth, which has been there since the beginning. We did get a few Greek mythology monsters relatively recently to go with the existing titans, the Lernean hydra, Medusa, etc., as well as a few imported greater demons (Horned Reaper, Bile Demon) and some more 'p' uniques (e.g. Ar-Pharazon).

It's not too hard to add origin flags to monster.txt (e.g. SOURCE_CTHULHU, SOURCE_ZELAZNY, SOURCE_DND, SOURCE_TOLKEIN) and then add birth options to enable/disable generation of monsters with different flags. How much of an issue is it really, though? I could see it being useful if most Angband variants consisted solely of edit file changes, in which case you could basically switch between variants by changing some options at birth, but they aren't. To be clear, I'm not so much taking a stance against this idea as I am saying that I don't really see the cost/benefit ratio making it worthwhile.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

Eldrak is also Eddings...remember Grul?

But, I agree that it's a fair bit of work...obviously, edit the monsters, but also to modify the birth options code, to support doing this.

Of the sources...the 2 big sources are, of course, D&D and Tolkien. We aren't gonna ditch the Tolkien monsters cuz, well, they're kinda the point, right? But Tolkien alone is insanely sparse for anything BUT the uniques. The D&D critters often...not always, but often...have close enough parallels to the Tolkien critters that it's no big deal to include them.

Also: if we could squelch the Cthulhu critters...WE WOULD. Offhand, the only obvious Cthulhu critters are the Q's...and I daresay that the choice to squelch them, would be near-unanimous. What's the source for druj? If we could squelch them and not much else...we'd do that too.

Realizing that...this actually seems to be a very *poor* idea.

[Derakon]

Quylthulgs were invented out of whole cloth when the original developers went on a drunken bender. They aren't cthulhoid; just nightmarish.

Drujs, as best I can tell, are some kind of Persian demon, though how that translates to "stationary spellslinging undead" I don't know.

Good call on the eldrak.

[Zyphyr]

Originally Posted by Tiburon Silverflame

What's the source for druj? If we could squelch them and not much else...we'd do that too

I know it has been in D&D for 30+ years, but I don't have a clue if it was original to D&D or lifted from elsewhere.

[chris]

Originally Posted by Tiburon Silverflame

What's the source for druj? If we could squelch them and not much else...we'd do that too.

I *still* remember my first ever encounter with a Druj, probably something like 16 years ago. I kept getting messages like "It casts a mana bolt" and wondering what in god's name is whooping my butt. A truly excellent monster ... Who would ever want to squelch that

I'm with you on the Quylthulgs, though ...

[s0be]

There would also be the option of limiting higher power monsters on level to a certain source... that way we could still add lots of high power monsters, without too much risk of creating super dangerous levels. Would make sense too, that a certain flavor of monster would dominate a level.

[Lord Fell]

I guess my ultimate goal, would be a "master" version of Angband (hence the title) which would make all variants unnecessary.

In addition to allowing players to pick the different flavours of monsters, there would also be options such as: additional towns, starter dungeons, random artifacts, uhm... other stuff???

I think that there could be a separation between Core Angband monsters and artifacts and D&D Monsters and Artifacts. I think that being able to flag monsters from a source and choose sources carte blanche could allow players to really tailor the feel of the game to their own wants. I also think that this option would really give developers "free reign" to add monsters and items from certain sources, and whole new sources.

"I want to add all the Looney Tunes characters."
"Go hard... as long as it's an option, I just don't care."

It did occur to me that a lot of the "p"eople currently inhabiting Angband don't make a lot of sense. Other than named people, anyways. If you get right down to it, Morgoth would have absolutely no human servants at all... but Sauron would. Sauron's people were Easterlings, The Haradrim, the Corsairs of Umbar, and Black Numenoreans.

I'd be willing to write up a list of Tolkien flavoured "p"eople, and perhaps the current crop of "novice rogues" et al, could be separated from the Core Angband monsters and added to a D&D file..?

[Derakon]

You're never going to make variants unnecessary. There's too many with changes that can't easily be accommodated by a plug-in approach to allow for that.