General Description

General Description

A lot of this is outdated, but it serves an important historical record of what the game was initially
supposed to be like. While many things have changed over the years, I think it is important not to
forget where it came from and the original nugget of inspiration that has evolved into something
else over all of these years. Also, while many things have changed, a lot of the core DNA still exists
in the game. -b

Basic Gameplay

The game is a multiplayer text based game that can be played in any web browser. Player progress, with a party, through dungeons that each contain ten rooms. The goal for the player is to get through all ten rooms alive, but also to be more successful than the rest of their party in doing so.

In each room, players are presented with 4-10 decisions. Some decisions exist as a default in the room, others are presented only to players that meet certain trait requirements. Players then pick which decision will be best for them and/or the party.

Players decisions are not displayed to the rest of the party, nor they are alerted when other members in their party make decisions. The outcome of the room is dependent on both the order in which decisions were made, the frequency of certain decisions being chosen, and the traits of the players.

Example:

The room contains a minotaur. Bill, Joe, and Steve are in the room. The default options are "Punch the minotaur", "run from the minotaur", and "talk to the minotaur". Because Bill's "Archery" trait is at least 1, he also gets "Shoot an arrow at the minotaur". If Steve chooses "talk to the minotaur", Bill chooses "shoot an arrow" and Joe chooses "punch", they will pass because the minotaur was friendly and talk was the first option chosen. If Bill shot first, the minotaur would have been angry and attacked them all, dealing damage. If they all chose punch, they would have defeated the minotaur.

Rooms

Each player is sent an email notification whenever they enter a new room. At that point, players have a day to make a decision; if they do not, they take the default action "Shit your pants" which deals a damage and increases the "Pants Shitter" trait by 1.

Rooms operate as such:

1. Players are presented with the results of the previous room, or the introduction text to the dungeon.
2. Players are presented with information about the room, containing a title, text, and an image.
3. The room runs through a set of rules to decide which decisions should be presented to each player.
4. The room waits until each player has made a decision, or a day has passed.
5. The room goes through a second set of rules to resolve the action.
6. Players are sent to a new room.

In step two, the rules are based on player traits. In step 5, the rules are based on the order, frequency, and the traits of the player choosing a decision.

During resolution, players may gain or lose gold, traits, and health.

Dungeons

Dungeons are comprised of an intelligently selected but random set of rooms. A user is presented with knowledge of the dungeon to allow them to strategically make decisions. After a player completes a dungeon, they are presented with results of the dungeon, including a ranking of how they compared to their party, measured in gallantry, health, and trait acquisition.

Players

Players have two primary stats, health and traits. Traits are talked about in a later section. Two of the traits are special; Gallantry and Pants Shitter. Gallantry measures the overall success of the player; good actions will raise Gallantry, bad actions will lower Gallantry.

Pants Shitter measures the amount of times a player failed to make a decision within the time allotted. If a player fails to make a decision in a day, they automatically take the Pants Shitter trait and any bad that comes with it.

Each player starts the dungeon with ten health. When health is depleted to zero, they are dead, but must still finish the dungeon, the idea being the the party drags the corpse from room to room. Dead players can only take the action "Lay like a corpse". Dead players can still get the "Pants Shitter" trait if they do not answer. Each room a player enters dead decrements the Gallantry trait.

Some rooms may revive players. Rooms may also check for dead players and present decisions to the rest of the party accordingly ("Block the fireball with Brian's corpse").

Traits

The core of the game is the traits system. There is no stat tree or even predefined traits in the system; traits are given context solely by rooms that use them. Traits can be classic (Archery, Constitution, Bravery) or silly (Mermaid Wrangling, Obesity, Hole Digging). When a trait is assigned, it is added to the players permanent profile, so the common user will have hundreds of traits.

Each trait has a level indicating the players skill in a trait. Rooms look at these values when assigning decisions or resolving actions during resolution.

The flexibility of traits means that some obscure traits may only be relevant in rare occasions, but it also opens up the ability for complex traits, that rooms only assign if multiple other traits meet a certain level, i.e. "the player has Dexterity at least 20, Strength at least 10, and Woodworking at least 5, they gain Fletching." or "the player has Willpower less than 0, Obesity greater than 10, they gain Glutton".

Building Rooms

The game includes a room builder so that players may create rooms and add them to the pool of rooms that dungeons pull from. The room builder must be expressive but also easy to use for non programmers. When building rooms, players can preview and playtest them, and make revisions to them later if needed.

Rooms should be designed to utilize traits based on the standard trait tree.

Game Invitations / Dashboard

To start a game, a player must first invite up to four players to join their party. Each player will then get a game request, which they can accept or deny. If they accept, it becomes a pending game on their dashboard. When all players accept an invite, the game begins and each player is sent an email notification for the first room. Players may specify what happens if someone denies the invite; the game will either be thrown out or will continue with the players that accepted.