Feel, Think, Mood, and game echoes

[mansa]

Hey,

I was thinking that there should be more things in the game that force your characters to feel, think, or change their mood.

We have these wonderful roleplaying tools by these commands that help flesh out what your character's motivations are, and sometimes I forget they exist.  If I was reminded of these during my gameplay, I think I would use them more often.


Some ideas I had were:
Skellebain poison having echos that are simply "You feel x" or "You think y"
Food items that may distribute those feelings.
Periodic rare room echoes, maybe depending on if you were a noble, or part of a clan.
New poisons that make you feel hungry/thirsty?

Imagine going through the sewers and:
"You feel nauseous."

Imagine sifting spice and:
"You think:
Did I just drop some spice?"

Imagine sitting in the Gaj and you're drunk level is through the roof, and:
"You think the soldier is hitting on you"



I'm sure there are other ideas that more people could think of. 



I'd just like to be reminded once in a while that these tools exist, and allow my character to automatically feel/think things based on the environment / poison / etc.

[kahuna]

This treads dangerously close to telling a player how to play their characters. If this is something you can simply activate/deactivate at your discretion I am fine with it. Otherwise I wouldn't want to be told what to think or feel with my characters. Skellebaine poison already echoes a ton of absurd stuff to your PC, no need to force me character to think certain thoughts, that should be left up to the player to use these tools as they see fit.

[MeTekillot]

Having people feel memories of cultural heritage depending on their hometown would be interesting to me. Hometown Allanak/Labyrinth characters should feel the fear pounded into them by their community and the Templarate when magick happens around them, for example.

Elves could feel an instinctual recognition of a good mark when they look at someone wearing a high enough value piece of gear, a la that one Labyrinth dwarf that thinks it's somethin' wurth takin'.

Half-elves should randomly feel like being alone when around people, and being around people when alone.

Characters not of a certain rank in noble clans should feel a recognition of a high-blooded person when a noble enters a room or when they look at or interact with the noble.

[Eyeball]

I'd like there to be some sort of ability or skill such that a character can have minor visions. For example, examining a statue, and suddenly receiving a thought or image of a moment of strife and someone turning to stone. There could be ones that last (e.g. are available to someone sensitive to them) for a short while (e.g. a death and its immediately preceding events), and some nearly permanent ones (set up by the staff to capture some history). The latter could be used as a plot device to guide characters too.

A little like the hunt skill but with different information forthcoming.

[mansa]

This treads dangerously close to telling a player how to play their characters...

That's part of the change in what I want to happen.

Your characters should feel *something*

You feel nervous.

>think am I nervous right now?

>Feel less nervous

[kahuna]

This treads dangerously close to telling a player how to play their characters...

That's part of the change in what I want to happen.

Your characters should feel *something*

You feel nervous.


>think am I nervous right now?

>Feel less nervous

You want the game to tell players how to play their characters? 

[Riev]

I think he wants there to be a guide for people to play their characters a little.

I don't control my feelings IRL all the time. Sometimes I just get anxious about something, but when I think about what it could be, there's nothing, and I feel better about it.

I'm not 100% on board with the idea, as advertised

As a note: Even in Dungeons and Dragons, sometimes the DM tells you how your PCs might feel, or that there is a sense of doom in the area, or that the light blinds you. They aren't telling you HOW to play your characters, just giving pivot points that you can play against.

[kahuna]

I think he wants there to be a guide for people to play their characters a little.

I don't control my feelings IRL all the time. Sometimes I just get anxious about something, but when I think about what it could be, there's nothing, and I feel better about it.

I'm not 100% on board with the idea, as advertised

As a note: Even in Dungeons and Dragons, sometimes the DM tells you how your PCs might feel, or that there is a sense of doom in the area, or that the light blinds you. They aren't telling you HOW to play your characters, just giving pivot points that you can play against.

Yeah I'm good. Make it optional and I'm fine with it. I don't need the game telling me how my characters feel or think. I'll be the one to decide how my characters are feeling and what they are thinking.

[Jihelu]

I feel like if the game started giving Echoes people would ignore them, and then when other sources give people echoes (Staff, Mind Benders, Certain Magicks, Etc) they'd wind up ignored because people would think they are just the same old echoes.

That's just my 2 cents tho.

[Veselka]

I feel like if the game started giving Echoes people would ignore them, and then when other sources give people echoes (Staff, Mind Benders, Certain Magicks, Etc) they'd wind up ignored because people would think they are just the same old echoes.

That's just my 2 cents tho.

I agree. Unless they were given another color in ASCII in the scheme, and were considered RP suggestions, and was something you could toggle on and off. Sometimes you're looking for a little inspiration to run with, other times, not so much.

[ShaLeah]

Roleplay evolves.

It took me a long time to realize I was really immersed and then took me longer to start using thinks and feels consistently.

I'm 100% against game echoes that tell someone how to feel. That's what [redacted] are for.

[LindseyBalboa]

I dislike this. Your character is in the sewers, that doesn’t mean they feel nauseous. Maybe they feel homesick. How a character feels depends on the character. It’s up to the player to immerse themselves in their own character and the setting they are in, or experiences they are having.

[MatisseOrOtherwise]

I dislike the game telling me how to play my character.

***HOWEVER!!!***

Items, effects, etc. that cause feels to happen? That's fucking *awesome*.

Maybe a whiran does [[pure speculation ahead:]] some spell that causes the region to have more biting, cold winds.

"You feel goosebumps form on your arms.", etc, as a low chance for folk in the region to feel would be /awesome/. That's not an emotion, but it coming up through the feel command would still give the benefit of 1) allowing [redacted]s a bit less OOC metagame counters against them and 2) allowing OP to get kinda what they want here.

Maybe a less mundane creature has what in D&D would equate to a 'fear aura'. They use an attack and roar horrendously - "You feel a shiver run down your spine" is fine. Physical feelings that could be linked to emotions, but don't tell you how to play.

You're in a sewer, and a particularly nasty scent wafts by, as caused by a creature or by there being like 20 corpses in the room at the time? "You feel your stomach wobble." That's fine. Still doesn't mean you're nauseated, maybe you're used to the feeling if your character has been there enough.

Done ***CAREFULLY!!!*** as to not cross the line to 'telling players how to play', feel ((and in some cases, even think!)) echoes from sources other than [[redacted]]s is an amazing idea that would not only add to the game ((IF DONE SPARSELY AND WITH GOOD REASON)), but allow [[redacted]]s a bit more freedom because people wouldn't metagamingly immediately be like "A FEEL THAT ISNT MINE?!?!? UHHHH" and jump to defenses that aren't IC.

Y'know what else could be done with the feel command? Wounds.

A spiderbite that successfully induces venom? "You feel your [wounded location] swell and pulse sickeningly."
A horrifyingly critical hit to the head from anything that isn't a bludgeoning weapon? "You feel a warm liquid trickle down your face."
A near-critical wound from [[redacted somewhat noxious creatures]] that isn't treated / the poison is just waited out from? "You feel a light burning sensation ripple across the surface of your [wounded location]."

Staff should & could begin using feel echoes for their fuckery, too - less to describe feelings, and more for physical sensations players can use as cues.
It would solve tons of problems with insta-metagame defenses against [[redacted]]s and ***ALLOW THEM TO ACTUALLY RP INSTEAD OF METAGAMING TOO!!!***, but also provide fun new avenues for player-world tactile interactions.

[JohnMichaelHenry]

I dislike the game telling me how to play my character.

***HOWEVER!!!***


A horrifyingly critical hit to the head from anything that isn't a bludgeoning weapon? "You feel a warm liquid trickle down your face."

The HOWEVER made me think of Marisa Tomei on the witness stand in My Cousin Vinny, and 'a warm liquid trickle down your face' of Richard Gere smacking that guy over the head with that statue in Unfaithful.

Anyway, I like the version presented by Matisse a lot better. It seems the trend is (thankfully) to describe things as they are, and let the PC decide what to do with that information. Need to differentiate between 'feeling' as in the sense of touch (ouchie that hurt!) which we don't always have control over, and 'feelings' as in emotions, which, despite popular opinion, can be controlled. Quite simply, physical feelings of pain (you feel your bones crush as the half giant smacks your arm with his club) or pleasure (you feel a soft hand trace its way lovingly up your thigh), are fine, but emotions are not.

[ShaLeah]

I dislike the game telling me how to play my character.

***HOWEVER!!!***


A horrifyingly critical hit to the head from anything that isn't a bludgeoning weapon? "You feel a warm liquid trickle down your face."

The HOWEVER made me think of Marisa Tomei on the witness stand in My Cousin Vinny, and 'a warm liquid trickle down your face' of Richard Gere smacking that guy over the head with that statue in Unfaithful.

Anyway, I like the version presented by Matisse a lot better. It seems the trend is (thankfully) to describe things as they are, and let the PC decide what to do with that information. Need to differentiate between 'feeling' as in the sense of touch (ouchie that hurt!) which we don't always have control over, and 'feelings' as in emotions, which, despite popular opinion, can be controlled. Quite simply, physical feelings of pain (you feel your bones crush as the half giant smacks your arm with his club) or pleasure (you feel a soft hand trace its way lovingly up your thigh), are fine, but emotions are not.

 I could get on board with anything descriptive of pain when it comes to combat.

Pleasure's another story though. No for that.

Emotions definitely out.

[JohnMichaelHenry]

Okay so maybe a soft hand up a thigh is not pleasurable for some folks. I guess I should have considered that, but you get the idea I think. Physical touches, okay to describe. Emotional reactions, not okay.

[ShaLeah]

Okay so maybe a soft hand up a thigh is not pleasurable for some folks. I guess I should have considered that, but you get the idea I think. Physical touches, okay to describe. Emotional reactions, not okay.

It's not about whether the soft hand up the thigh is pleasurable, it's that that shouldn't be happening at all from strangers/npcs/ghosts, know what I mean?

You feel a hand in your pocket - Already in game. Ok.
You feel a hand on your thigh - I'm personally not ok with that.

You feel your bones crush and blood ooze out of head? I'm okay with that too.

[JohnMichaelHenry]

I see what you mean now. I did not mean to make it sound as though this would give blanket permission to grope someone in game

I'm just assuming that it's like it is now with emotes, which most players I've seen will do 'em reaches out to stroke the back of <whoever>' sort of asking for permission before touching.

However, now that I'm talking more about it, emotes are probably good enough for our mudsexing sessions. Probably no need to do the hand up the thigh thing.

[Riev]

So, physical sensations as a reaction to something in game, yes.

Forcing emotional responses to reactions, no.

[kahuna]

Except even physical sensations to a reaction to something is subjective. Pain thresholds, differing nerve systems, magickal spells, there are far too many conditions where the message could be completely false, forcing a reaction onto every PC is not a good way to foster a realistic and fun roleplaying atmosphere.

[MatisseOrOtherwise]

Okay but in the vague one-out-of-ten-thousand times where someone happens to have some effect that makes them invulnerable to touching sees the feel prompt "You feel x on your y", they can just... shrug it off and be like "lol probably not because of z spell"

and same for if for some reason someone is RP'ing in depth enough that they know about THEIR CHARACTERS NERVOUS SYSTEM WHAT THE FUCK

you're saying that in those cases where someone is that advanced as to be playing/rping that level of stuff, they wouldn't also be smart enough to think "huh, that probably doesn't apply to me", or to have seen the prompt before and know it's automated thus attribute it to automation thus ignore or play it off in ways other than the norm due to their altering circumstances?

You're basically wanting 9999 out of 10k people to have a weaker shallower experience just because you don't trust the 10,000th person for some reason

[kahuna]

Okay but in the vague one-out-of-ten-thousand times where someone happens to have some effect that makes them invulnerable to touching sees the feel prompt "You feel x on your y", they can just... shrug it off and be like "lol probably not because of z spell"

and same for if for some reason someone is RP'ing in depth enough that they know about THEIR CHARACTERS NERVOUS SYSTEM WHAT THE FUCK

you're saying that in those cases where someone is that advanced as to be playing/rping that level of stuff, they wouldn't also be smart enough to think "huh, that probably doesn't apply to me", or to have seen the prompt before and know it's automated thus attribute it to automation thus ignore or play it off in ways other than the norm due to their altering circumstances?

You're basically wanting 9999 out of 10k people to have a weaker shallower experience just because you don't trust the 10,000th person for some reason

No I am basically not wanting automation for how my PCs are thinking or feeling. I can emote the pain of combat just fine, I really don't need the game telling me that the grievous wound on my head is bleeding horrifically. You should always put the ball in the player's court.

If you send these automatic messages it completely removes the imaginative story telling aspects from my hands as a player. Why should I even emote at all or try to bring the world to life if the game is going to do it for me?

[Medena]

I agree with those who have said they don't want or need to have the game telling them what to feel and think.**   I'm all for having the environment or objects help elicit responses from my RP.  But how about they not be a version of power emotes like "You feel sick" and, instead, be something like "A heavy, sickening stench of excrement and rotting flesh assails your nostrils."  That way I can choose how to feel/think/emote as appropriate for my PC.

There are a couple of cases in existence already where I am down with having effects laid on for me:  like for poisons and certain coded sicknesses.  Those are very cool.  I'd be fine with other ones like that which take you through some kind of physiological condition.  Then, of course, there are staff animations which might sometimes mention how you feel but are fine because they are individually crafted for your PC in a particular situation for the purpose of advancing a story line or just because staff are cool and creative.  :-)


** As for mood, I have to confess that not once in the 10+ years I've been playing this game have I ever used this command.  I don't really get the purpose of it?   I don't get what typing "change mood crabby" would do for me.  If my PC is in a crabby mood I will rp that they are crabby.   [I wonder if the mood command may have predated the feel command and was rendered rather obsolete after it was instituted.]

[Veselka]

Mood was after feel. But it can be a useful reminder of a color to your thinks/feels particularly if it is in your prompt.