Preview Morale in DoubleBear's Zombie RPG

[Jason]

Tags: Brian Mitsoda; DoubleBear Productions

<a href="http://archive.gamespy.com/devdiary/june01/torn5/" target="blank">Brian Mitsoda</a> is doling out more details on DoubleBear's Zombie RPG (they really need to nail down a title) over at the <a href="http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php/topic,1394.msg46146.html" target="blank">Iron Tower Forums</a>. This week he delves into the morale system.
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<blockquote>The amount of Morale that an ally loses is equal to their Mood. Each ally loses Morale every day, no matter what their Mood – even under the best circumstances, the reality of living after society has broken down takes its toll on the survivors. There are several ranges of Mood, from Good to Disgruntled, with the least amount of Morale being lost if they have a positive outlook on their survival. Mood is influenced by player actions and events that have affected the Shelter or that ally, both good and bad. Mood is not necessarily tied to an ally’s respect for the player – for example, their Mood might drop because a loved one dies – but making people hate you is not going to do wonders for their Mood and the Shelter’s Morale.</blockquote>
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From further on down the thread:
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<blockquote>Players can see their ally's mood. If they are in a Good mood, then they are only losing -1 Morale a day - not hard to compensate for. You don't know what their actual Mood score is, you just know that they seem to be "Good" and unless something happens to drop that, they will continue to be 'Good". It's when you start getting down to the worse Moods that you have to worry about both the Morale hit (it's much larger per day) and the fact that they are more desperate and therefore more likely to either do something dangerous or stupid (like panic in battle or <b>even commit suicide</b>, for example). Note that there are several levels of Mood and it's not just a drop from Good to "terrible stuff is going to happen", there's a gradual slide, though some events will drop their Mood pretty quick. </blockquote>
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Emphasis added for awesomeness. Goading annoying NPCs into offing themselves could possibly be the greatest RPG mini-game of all time.
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.gamebanshee.com/">GameBanshee</A>

 

[DarkUnderlord]

I'm going to make all my guys kill themselves.

 

[dr. one]

there´s certainly a lot of interesting possibilities with such mechanics so i hope they´ll be as creative as it gets with the implementation and hopefully avoid the micromanagement horror subgenre in the process.
i especially like the fact NPCs mood isn´t necessarily in correlation with their attitude towards the PC.
a lot of adrenaline scenarios could come out of this system.

this game is shaping up real good so far.

 

[MetalCraze]

I really want to see Mitsoda not including a single dialogue option in the game. It will be fun to see how next-gen codexers will cry how Zombie RPG is shit even though all other elements may turn out to be great.

 

[Hory]

I think that Zombie CBG (computer board game) would be more appropriate in that case.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

But will it include rape?

 

[janjetina]

I really want to see Mitsoda not including a single dialogue option in the game. It will be fun to see how next-gen codexers will cry how Zombie RPG is shit even though all other elements may turn out to be great.

Yeah, I know, all these next gen games like Fallout and Planescape: Torment had too many strange looking shapes called letters that tend to group into larger and stranger shapes called words that combine into even stranger looking shapes called sentences. They are all evil, because they hurt my head and my jaw because I must move my lips when I'm reading but sentences are the worst because they make the pain endure.

WTF? Most of your posts make sense, but once in a while you write something utterly stupid and it sticks.

This is a game where interaction between characters (who are supposed to be humans) is at the center, and dialogue is one of the most common forms of human interaction, hence it is essential (as in any game where interaction between characters is important, and that means every RPG).

 

[Silellak]

Most of your posts make sense

 

[Norfleet]

Each ally loses Morale every day, no matter what their Mood – even under the best circumstances, the reality of living after society has broken down takes its toll on the survivors.

I dunno. Imagine that nearly everyone you ever hated is now an undead monstrosity roaming the streets, and you get to SHOOT THEIR FACES OFF. Is that not a cause worth living for? Now imagine that all the people who ALSO never liked in the first place, who didn't manage to get their FACES CHEWED OFF, may, in fact, at some point in the indefinite future, GET THEIR BRAINS EATEN and then you get to SHOOT THEM IN THE FACE! Is that not AWESOME? Doesn't that just get you pumped with anticipation every day? I mean, WOO! Another day, another face to shoot!

 

[Castanova]

Personally, I'm strongly hoping that Mitsoda implements extensive, branching dialog trees with all possible NPCs because, I've got to be honest, there is nothing I enjoy more than having virtual discussions with imaginary characters about their innermost feelings, hopes, dreams, and nightmares. Can you imagine that bond that forms between you and the digital personality on your screen when you come to understand their mental anguish, their existential malaise, and you put your un-animated arm around their pixelated shoulder and guide them back from that brink of self-destruction? This is the stuff of life.

 

[Black]

It can be really something good and fresh as long as it focuses on the apocalypse, survival and "social" parts. If it focuses on killing zombies, get out.

 

[Hory]

Personally, I'm strongly hoping that Mitsoda implements extensive, branching dialog trees with all possible NPCs because, I've got to be honest, there is nothing I enjoy more than having virtual discussions with imaginary characters about their innermost feelings, hopes, dreams, and nightmares. Can you imagine that bond that forms between you and the digital personality on your screen when you come to understand their mental anguish, their existential malaise, and you put your un-animated arm around their pixelated shoulder and guide them back from that brink of self-destruction? This is the stuff of life.

Sounds better than most real discussions.

 

[Mattresses]

Each ally loses Morale every day, no matter what their Mood – even under the best circumstances, the reality of living after society has broken down takes its toll on the survivors.

I dunno. Imagine that nearly everyone you ever hated is now an undead monstrosity roaming the streets, and you get to SHOOT THEIR FACES OFF. Is that not a cause worth living for? Now imagine that all the people who ALSO never liked in the first place, who didn't manage to get their FACES CHEWED OFF, may, in fact, at some point in the indefinite future, GET THEIR BRAINS EATEN and then you get to SHOOT THEM IN THE FACE! Is that not AWESOME? Doesn't that just get you pumped with anticipation every day? I mean, WOO! Another day, another face to shoot!

I do hope, and assume, some npc's will represent this mindset, completely at ease and continually gratified by the zombie apocalypse, Cleve of the new world.

 

[circ]

Will we finally be able to see Annie's ass though?

 

[Murk]

Sounding almost Dwarf Fortressy at times, hoo hoo.

It can be really something good and fresh as long as it focuses on the apocalypse, survival and "social" parts. If it focuses on killing zombies, get out.

early info on the game seemed to stress that zombie-killing is not the point of the game, and doing so will quickly lead you down a path of ruin..

 

[SerratedBiz]

It makes sense. Zombies are known for keeping primitive forms of verbal (groans, moans) and non-verbal (herd movement, smell attraction) communication, allowing them to amass themselves where survivors are holed up. Killing too many zombies will only alert the semi-aware horde to your location and ultimately lead to your demise.

 

[Azrael the cat]

It makes sense. Zombies are known for keeping primitive forms of verbal (groans, moans) and non-verbal (herd movement, smell attraction) communication, allowing them to amass themselves where survivors are holed up. Killing too many zombies will only alert the semi-aware horde to your location and ultimately lead to your demise.

Wait...'Zombies are known for...' - because if we add all the different zombie films together they form some sort of scientific canon? With zombies you don't even have the fallback of 'well, they're a traditional folk/horror-tale with established elements', as the modern conception of zombies basically began with Romero (yes, Romero was heavily influenced by the novel 'I am Legend', but that was re-imagined vampires rather than zombies). In fact, Romero admitted that when he made 'Night of the Dead' he actually thought of them as ghouls rather than zombies, and that is reflected in the original scripts (note that no-one in the Romero films refers to them in dialogue as anything other than 'the dead', or 'them', at least for the first couple of films).

Prior to that, zombies were thought of as per the Haitian legend from which they arose - dead that were under the control of a witchdoctor/necromancer. The idea of 'an undead virus/curse that spreads through the camp/town/civilisation' was very much a vampire thing. Romero basically combined the two sets of folklore, as he wanted a much weaker threat than vampires could pose, so that it was clear that it was society's own corruption and weakness that was being exposed. Hence things like the hero in NotD getting killed by rescuers the next day, the opening of Dawn of the Dead where it's clear that the problem is the mass poverty in the city slums where police can't penetrate, the way that the smarter characters in the Romero films are always trying to urge the others to not worry too much about the zombies but instead get the fuck away from other humans (e.g. the 'let's just keep flying' when they're flying over the largely unmolested but obviously gun-happy rural town in Dawn of the Dead). In that set of films it was all slow-moving-zombie because zombies were 'the inevitable', the force of nature that flows in through the cracks in civilisation. They never 'break in' to the stronghold (except via human stupidity in Night) - in Dawn of the Dead the survivors deliberately LET them in to kill off the biker gang that they're fighting for control of the shopping mall (its made abundantly clear that there's more than enough goods and food for both parties, and that the survivors are acting on a 'Hey! We stole this first!' mentality).

Note that in the entire series of those films there isn't a single scene showing zombies communicating via grunts or smell (though in later films in the series, i.e. Day and Land, there are zombies trained by humans to respond to Pavlovian stimuli, and eventually a zombie that has 'evolved' to be able to train and command other zombies).

But in other films, the zombies and their causes and behaviour are completely different. If done right, they simply fit whatever themes underly that film. The worst films are those that think firstly 'what do zombies do as per previous fictional films' and THEN go 'what will our film be about, thematically?'. If it's about the unbeatable-predator-in-the-dark, then have the zombies fast and mysterious. If it's about the problems of uncontrolled scientific advancement, then have it caused by a human-made virus. If it's about questioning our role as the 'dominant species' then have corrupt human characters together with intricate naturalistic details of how zombies communicate and organise (so that they are a competitor species rather than a monster).

Basically, given that zombies are neither real nor drawn from established cultural folklore (not that either of those things should prevent you from changing how they work if it fits a film's/book's/game's themes better), there's absolutely no point in saying 'yeah, zombies do that', or 'no, zombies would never do that'. INTERNAL consistency matters, of course. But external consistency? Not in a game where the dead come back to life and hunt the living.

 

[Gragt]

It's exactly the same thing with Bloodlines: when you ask Jack if staking a vampire will kill him, he laughs and tells you to forget that comic book crap because it doesn't work that way. There is no need to respect traditions and previous works, but it needs to be consistent within the same work. One of the reasons Twilight sucks is that not only are the vampire made silly — they sparkle in the sun, for Crom's sake! — but they are pretty much human, same but different, with feelings and desire that are too close to ours. Actually a good storyteller might be able to get this successfully, but not someone who is criminally puerile like Meyer.

 

[MetalCraze]

I really want to see Mitsoda not including a single dialogue option in the game. It will be fun to see how next-gen codexers will cry how Zombie RPG is shit even though all other elements may turn out to be great.

Yeah, I know, all these next gen games like Fallout and Planescape: Torment had too many strange looking shapes called letters that tend to group into larger and stranger shapes called words that combine into even stranger looking shapes called sentences. They are all evil, because they hurt my head and my jaw because I must move my lips when I'm reading but sentences are the worst because they make the pain endure.

WTF? Most of your posts make sense, but once in a while you write something utterly stupid and it sticks.

Failing at reading comprehension seems to be a Codex national sport these days.

This is a game where interaction between characters (who are supposed to be humans) is at the center, and dialogue is one of the most common forms of human interaction, hence it is essential (as in any game where interaction between characters is important, and that means every RPG).

See now you actually prove my point about how if a RPG won't have any LARP'ing it will be deemed crap or non-RPG with all other parts being non-essential unless the game will let you talk that hot chick into bed.

 

[Serious_Business]

I really want to see Mitsoda not including a single dialogue option in the game. It will be fun to see how next-gen codexers will cry how Zombie RPG is shit even though all other elements may turn out to be great.

WTF? Most of your posts make sense, but once in a while you write something utterly stupid and it sticks.

You're not getting all the subtle levels of calculated irony in his posts. And by this I mean fucking look-at-me bullshit

 

[Azrael the cat]

It's exactly the same thing with Bloodlines: when you ask Jack if staking a vampire will kill him, he laughs and tells you to forget that comic book crap because it doesn't work that way. There is no need to respect traditions and previous works, but it needs to be consistent within the same work. One of the reasons Twilight sucks is that not only are the vampire made silly — they sparkle in the sun, for Crom's sake! — but they are pretty much human, same but different, with feelings and desire that are too close to ours. Actually a good storyteller might be able to get this successfully, but not someone who is criminally puerile like Meyer.

My main problem with Twilight is that the reader/audience is supposed to accept that vampirism is this horribly difficult curse that warrants all of Edward's whining, when he neither kills anyone, nor is plausibly going to. Simply saying 'oh my god I feel like I'm going to bite you, oh noes!' is as effective as having a villain threaten James Bond - you KNOW that it's not going to happen. Even Whedon cottoned on to the fact that if you're going to have an 'oh noes, I have to fight my urges, this is SO much worse than bowl cancer' character, you need to have a series pretty soon up where he actually follows through and becomes a villain.

As it is, vampires in Twilight are basically really whiny goths with superpowers. It would work if they NEVER complained about it, but treated it appropriately, say with Edward being a smartass whose damn happy about being near-immortal.

That and it has the most passive and anti-feminist female character in the last century. Fuck, possibly longer. I'm struggling to think even of a decent pre-20th century novel/play with a female character who is more passive than that (forget Shakespeare - he seemed to have a Joan of Arc warrior-princess fantasy happening with most of his female leads).

I guess the obvious contrast is the Buffy/Angel craze of the 90s. They aren't exactly works of art, either, and also got far more attention than they deserved. But at least they didn't catastrophically fuck up with their characters or scripts. Vampires, even the whiny 'good' ones who complain about how hard it is to resist their urges, treat the condition appropriately with regard to how it is portrayed (more so in Angel, where his friends actually comment on the unjustifiability of his whiny-ness, and he occasionally admits that it actually it's actually pretty neat being near-unkillable). Fear of 'good' vampires turning bad is based on it actually happening, with Angel becoming the main villain for season 2 (and for a hefty chunk of one of the seasons of Angel as well), rather than trying to ground it in constant whining about how hard it is not to drink blood. And characters aren't treated as by-standers to the plotline, especially the fucking leads.


Edit: actually, thinking about it, there's another thing that Bloodlines does really well. It's totally unnecessary to respect previous fiction when creating new fiction, but if the characters are set in the pseudo-real-world, then it breaks plausibility for them to have never heard of major pop fiction (unless that's a notable feature of the setting). Your character in Bloodlines knows of the whole 'stake-through-the-heart' thing, and asks about it. Similarly, it probably isn't plausible to do a zombie game where the characters say 'hey, there's all these dead shambling guys around trying to eat us - what word can we use to refer to them, um....'. They've heard of the Romero films, they'll look at them and go - ZOMBIES!! So you don't have to follow Romero in holding that the zombies are killable by causing massive brain damage (i.e. bullet to the head), but individual characters might theorise about that if they've seen the films, they might try it out or argue with other characters about whether it's true or not.


2nd edit: just lolled by reminding myself of 'Return of the Living Dead' where characters do exactly that. The two morticians who are the main characters in the 1st half (before the movie goes downhill), keep talking about the Romero films, and Night of the Dead in particular. Until they decapitate one of the (completely unfazed by decapitation and brain-damage) zombies and have a 'goddammn MOVIE LIED TO US!!!!' moment.

 

[Gragt]

Yeah, I was going to mention Return of the Living Dead and how NotLD was supposed to be a documentary about real events. That was done really nicely and it's one of those rare instances where a movie (or book or whatever) references pop culture monsters and ways to deal with them only to find out that it just doesn't work that way. I'm surprised that you do not see that more often because it is a simple way to connect the world of the movie with ours, but then again the norm in horror flicks is that people will just act in the dumbest possible way to advance the story and that certainly doesn't help to make it believable.

Nice summary of the situation in Twilight. I summarised it a bit too succintly by saying that they are too humans but lack of sleep does that.