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Game News Colony Ship Update #38: Combat Demo Update #5 - Quest Dialogue Sample

Mr. Hiver

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I would maybe keep the "angry orange light"... although its not necessary, especially fi we see the light is orange. It conveys that the character is pissed off... already angry, inpatient and why he just tosses the wrong part away without a word.
At least i assumed so because of that description. If he actually isnt and thats just how he does his business then off with the "angry light".

Definitely less adjectives and unnecessary explanations and clarifications. Let the player wonder why is every third round free. Induced paranoia is a good thing for survival.
 

Vault Dweller

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Doesn't it look better?
Cutting out adverbs and descriptions as if they were weeds is hardly the secret to good writing.

- Cut out unimportant descriptions. The more it's important, the more description it can have. Right now too much text is devoted to the history of this guy loosing his eye. Unless it's the main antagonist in the game, it has to go.
It's an indirect introduction of a creature you'd run into later.

“What’s the deal?” asks Chance, his righteous indignation more than slightly overplayed.
If we drop the flavor and go with he said, she said, might as well drop it too as it adds absolutely nothing in its barebone form. His line can be said in fifty different ways, the part that you removed tells you how he said it.

* * *

'Now don't you be offended at what I'm a going to say,' observed Mrs. Mann, with captivating sweetness. 'You've had a long walk, you know, or I wouldn't mention it. Now, will you take a little drop of somethink, Mr. Bumble?'

'Not a drop. Nor a drop,' said Mr. Bumble, waving his right hand in a dignified, but placid manner.

'I think you will,' said Mrs. Mann, who had noticed the tone of the refusal, and the gesture that had accompanied it. 'Just a leetle drop, with a little cold water, and a lump of sugar.'

Mr. Bumble coughed.

'Now, just a leetle drop,' said Mrs. Mann persuasively.

'What is it?' inquired the beadle.

'Why, it's what I'm obliged to keep a little of in the house, to put into the blessed infants' Daffy, when they ain't well, Mr. Bumble,' replied Mrs. Mann as she opened a corner cupboard, and took down a bottle and glass. 'It's gin. I'll not deceive you, Mr. B. It's gin.'

'Do you give the children Daffy, Mrs. Mann?' inquired Bumble, following with this eyes the interesting process of mixing.

'Ah, bless 'em, that I do, dear as it is,' replied the nurse. 'I couldn't see 'em suffer before my very eyes, you know sir.'

'No'; said Mr. Bumble approvingly; 'no, you could not. You are a humane woman, Mrs. Mann.'

* * *
The bolded parts do a great job bringing this scene to life and going far beyond of a mere transcript of what was said.

“What can I get you?” The bartender has spotted you looking over the assortment of unlabeled, plastic gallon jugs, each with its own unappealing liquid in some shade of brown. “We got Gutwarmer, Rat Poison, High Voltage, Firewater, and Absolution. Special on the Rat Poison right now, every third round is free for as long as you're able to drink it.
What he says absolutely sets the mood and lets my imagination take over, nothing else here is necessary.
Is the booze in bottles, jars, jugs? Glass, metal, plastic? Is it clear as water (like moonshine), brown, yellow?
 

Bester

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'Now don't you be offended at what I'm a going to say,' observed Mrs. Mann, with captivating sweetness. 'You've had a long walk, you know, or I wouldn't mention it. Now, will you take a little drop of somethink, Mr. Bumble?'

'Not a drop. Nor a drop,' said Mr. Bumble, waving his right hand in a dignified, but placid manner.

'I think you will,' said Mrs. Mann, who had noticed the tone of the refusal, and the gesture that had accompanied it. 'Just a leetle drop, with a little cold water, and a lump of sugar.'

Mr. Bumble coughed.

'Now, just a leetle drop,' said Mrs. Mann persuasively.

'What is it?' inquired the beadle.

'Why, it's what I'm obliged to keep a little of in the house, to put into the blessed infants' Daffy, when they ain't well, Mr. Bumble,' replied Mrs. Mann as she opened a corner cupboard, and took down a bottle and glass. 'It's gin. I'll not deceive you, Mr. B. It's gin.'

'Do you give the children Daffy, Mrs. Mann?' inquired Bumble, following with this eyes the interesting process of mixing.

'Ah, bless 'em, that I do, dear as it is,' replied the nurse. 'I couldn't see 'em suffer before my very eyes, you know sir.'

'No'; said Mr. Bumble approvingly; 'no, you could not. You are a humane woman, Mrs. Mann.'

'You are not, Cecilia Jupe,' Thomas Gradgrind solemnly repeated, 'to do anything of that kind.'

Is the booze in bottles, jars, jugs? Glass, metal, plastic? Is it clear as water (like moonshine), brown, yellow?
Do Orlans have 5 toes or 6 and do they have interdigital webbing?
 

Vault Dweller

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Is the booze in bottles, jars, jugs? Glass, metal, plastic? Is it clear as water (like moonshine), brown, yellow?
Do Orlans have 5 toes or 6 and do they have interdigital webbing?
That's irrelevant because nobody cares about such things, much like nobody cares about the exact shape of the above mentioned plastic jugs and whether or not there's some kinda brand imprint on them (well, maybe some people do but that's too much, in my opinion). Thus (as always) it's a matter of finding the right balance, which when it comes to writing is extremely subjective. PoE-like verbose prose is an extreme; stripping descriptions down to the basics is another extreme, in my opinion.

I just don't see how Dickensian style works in a 2020 sci-fi rpg.
Describing what the characters do while talking and how they say their lines isn't a specific style that can be attributed to any particular writer or a century. As far as I know the Dickensian writing style doesn't refer to it at all.
 

Bester

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Dickens overused adverbs. But who's doing it today and why?
 

Mr. Hiver

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Vince also has a point. Those additions can help set the mood or explain some detail better, but work best when not used too much.

Maybe going over those descriptions that are obvious from the scene already could be good balance. Like people "standing silently" is already clear from the scene, and leaving something to paranoia as in the case of the third free round of booze.
 

FeelTheRads

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Look at it this way: you have a 30% chance to hit. You roll in 1-30 range, you hit. You roll 31-100, you missed. It doesn't matter if you roll 31 or 99, even though 31 is a very close call and 99 is that cross-eyed gunner from Spaceballs.


:what:

Based on what logic? What are you rolling... or rather smoking?
If 1 is a hit and 31 is a miss then there's 30 points of difference between the two. How the hell is 31 a close call then?
By what logic is 30 a better roll than 1 if they're both hits?
On a d100 roll, there's no difference between 1 and 30.
 
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Murk

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A weird trick of psychology to view d100 outcomes as linear, in that "30 = hit, 31 = miss" is interpreted as "close call" when in reality the numbers assigned are arbitrary.
 

Vault Dweller

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The outcomes aren't linear, of course, but the sequences determining whether you hit or miss are (i.e. 1-5 is a crit, 6-70 if is a hit if THC is 70%, 71-100 is a miss). Naturally, if the goal (or hope) is to roll a number between 6 and 70, then rolling 71 is a much closer roll than 96. Similarly, there's no real difference between rolling 5 and rolling 6, yet 5 is a critical hit because it's an arbitrarily low number (could be 10 if your crit chance is 10%) and 6 isn't.
 

FeelTheRads

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I think you need to buy a set of dice and roll them till you figure out how they work.

The "closeness" you babble about does not exist. It's just perceived. If you want to make it about "feels" then say so, but don't blame it on the dice.

And if it's about feels, why? Does the player see all the rolls to figure out if he was "close" or not?
 
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Murk

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71 isn't closer than 96 tho, that's my point. This isn't like stacking damage where doing 99% damage is "almost dead" and 100% damage "is dead" -- that is a true linear system. The rolls of a die are not linear and whatever numbers are arbitrary. Even in a literal d100, the numbers aren't even in a line:

Imported%20d100%20Blue_White.jpg

You could just as easily just assign names to each side, at which point you surely wouldn't argue that "rolling a Johnny" is a close call instead of "rolling a Bethany", despite it being the same thing.

Well, in a true random system. No clue how your pRNG works so it may actually be "closer" based on whatever algorithmn, but you get my point.

To reiterate tho, I don't disagree with your implementation and what the user-experience is when they roll a "71" instead of a "70" and can see the roll, leading to even more "grr so close" feelings. Just saying it's a trick of the mind.
 

Alpharius

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Cmon dudes, its obvious Vince meant that a system with grazes will make the distribution of "damage dealt to the enemy" look more like a normal distribution, as opposed to a system without grazes. Which will lead to less butthurt and save-scumming for the players and probably will also make combat system easier to balance. (Assuming base weapon damage has normal distribution. Otherwise, the same is true for uniform distribution which is another possibility).

see Vault Dweller ? another reason to go deterministic
Deterministic is great in an RTS or TBS, with small number of units in combat it would be too gamey imo.
 
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hivemind

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Based on what logic? What are you rolling... or rather smoking?
If 1 is a hit and 31 is a miss then there's 30 points of difference between the two. How the hell is 31 a close call then?
By what logic is 30 a better roll than 1 if they're both hits?
On a d100 roll, there's no difference between 1 and 30.
FeelTheAutism
 

Murk

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the numbers aren't even in a line
well... sum od opposite faces is same and they are usually distributed in [counter]clock wise way

It's not consistent and it doesn't really matter either (tho most d100 are designed the same from what I've seen). If the die is actually "balanced" then you can have them in a line or not, since a roll should give equal chances to all sides (assuming we aren't doing some weird trick roll).

My point in bringing that up was to just break the visual device of 1 2 3 4 5 ... 100 being in a line.

But all of this doesn't account for what the pRNG in the game is, since those always have their biases (and the ones that aren't biased to "look more random" are often accused of being rigged when they're actually more "air".)
 

Murk

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It's not consistent and it doesn't really matter either (tho most d100 are designed the same from what I've seen). If the die is actually "balanced" then you can have them in a line or not, since a roll should give equal chances to all sides (assuming we aren't doing some weird trick roll).
it doesnt even need to be a weird roll, imagine if numbers were grouped, as in high ones close to 100 and low ones by 1. Even amateur would be able to throw dice in a way to get top or bottom 50%, depending on desire.

In a way you might look at this whole design reasoning in a funny way: designed to look random, even though actual randomness could be everything. After all its easy to spot machine made random sequence and human made one, based on which is more 'in order'.


Anyway, its not like talking dice make sense since VD implemented cards right?

That's why I kept bringing up if it's fair and not a "weird" throw. If you are rigging the throw then yeah, placement matters, but at that point the system is broken so the "rules" don't apply.

It's also why I keep mentioning the pRNG of the game and how it may be biased too.
 

luj1

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The "closeness" you babble about does not exist. It's just perceived. If you want to make it about "feels" then say so, but don't blame it on the dice.

Agreed that 31 and 99 are the same. Thing is, I think VD is speaking from a "threat range" viewpoint, not a dice roll viewpoint.
 
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Bester

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Cmon dudes, its obvious Vince meant that a system with grazes will make the distribution of "damage dealt to the enemy" look more like a normal distribution
Looks like attempts to fix something that isn't broken. If there's such a high dispersion in damage distribution in D&D-like systems, how come D&D games are in top-10, and nobody's ever complained about the hit/miss system? Confused.
 

Vault Dweller

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71 isn't closer than 96 tho, that's my point. This isn't like stacking damage where doing 99% damage is "almost dead" and 100% damage "is dead" -- that is a true linear system. The rolls of a die are not linear and whatever numbers are arbitrary. Even in a literal d100, the numbers aren't even in a line
You keep missing the point. Yes, the rolls aren't linear and nobody claimed they are. Yes, from the perspective of rolls and probabilities, there's no difference between 31 and 99. Should we spend the next two pages restating the obvious over and over again?
 

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