Predators and Prey

[Miee]

This was mentioned in Ktavialt's Zalanthas/Athas post in the General Discussion section and I really, really like it.

Bob the Tembo is out stalking the scrublands.  Bob's a big tembo and if you step out into the scrubs, you're likely to lose a limb to him.  His favorite food is Southern Byn Runners which he comes across more often than one would imagine because Byn Runners are DUM*.

Here's Amos the Byn Runner.  His Sargeant took him up north on a contract and they're leaving next week after the fat merchant gets his Northern whores and flame.  Amos decides to slip out of the Scien Walls and try his hand at the Northern beasts.  After all, Tulukis are as strong as a newborn tregil and if they can reap massive bags of sid from hunting, then a tough Nakki Runner should too.

So out goes Amos.  He spies Bob or Bob spies him, either way combat ensues and Amos is taken down like the bitch he is.  Bob begins to dine upon his freshly killed Southern Byn Runner.  After Bob finishes, the following things could be left/dropped with regards to Bob's skin skill.

Uber: A mass of cleanly picked human-looking bones with only a few bits of flesh left on them.  Around the bones lay some weapons that may have belonged to the owner of the bones.
High: A severly-mangled and half-eaten corpse that may have been human.  The broken shaft of a weapon can be seen near to it.
Moderate: The eviscerated corpse of a Southern Byn Runner.
Low: A mauled and chewed on corpse of a Southern Byn Runner.
Byn Runner: A barely nibbled on corpse of a Southern Byn Runner.

Granted, those give a bit more information than they should, but this is pretty much the rough draft.

Ideally, all PCs and NPCs could be flagged to drop certain things like a verron hawk will drop a verron hawk corpse and some feathers and a Borsail slave would drop the corpse and possibly their collar.

I'm suggesting basing it off an exisiting skill in the hopes that it would cut down on the work.  Skinning causes the results to be dropped in the room.  Granted, a predator's ability to eat would rely on it's ability to kill things and not it's ability to "skin", but like I said, it's a rough draft.

Which is why I'm proposing it here.  I really like this idea and think it could add at the least some more atmosphere but it's still rough.  So it's here for feedback, refining, drawbacks, flames, and "No, we just can't do that."

*I made all that up and I'm sincerely hoping I didn't accidently reveal IC info.  Aside from Byn Runners are DUM.  That part's true.
And the DUMness increases as you go up! :lol:

[Ktavialt]

Obviously I'm going to say that *I* like this idea, but I liked the storyline
too. :P Instead of Baobab the Kank, TemBob the Byn eater.

So, gonna add my two cents to this idea:
Shouldn't be based on the skin skill, but instead on how hungry the
creature is. On an aside, I've got beef with the skin skill to a degree. I
think anyone should be able to cut off a piece of meat off of a creature,
the only difference with someone with the skin skill is that the meat will
most often not be poisoned by fluids from other organs, and the cut will
be better for actual cooking, rather than getting a "tattered piece of dark
red meat" instead of a "slab of dark red meat". Still be able to eat it, but
cooking'll be a pain.

[Agent_137]

I like!

[sarahjc]

I like it a lot.. Top notch Miee!

But I agree, I think for animals, hunger should be the main factor as to what is left.

The problem when someone dies is that there is almost no evidence of it.. I'm not saying that your remains should be around forever, shifting sands and such..  But in places like the Grey Forest, I think your corpse or what is left of it, should be around for at least a few weeks.. At least for someone to find them.

[Xamminy]

Sarah, why do you think the tembo and halflings that populate the Grey Forest would leave much of anything behind?

My personal opinion would be that corpses outside should be gone quickly, with the scavenders that are about.  Inside a city, depending on the city and where in the city, would be a different story.

[sarahjc]

Sarah, why do you think the tembo and halflings that populate the Grey Forest would leave much of anything behind?

Not a shred of cloth, a bone, a broken knife.. Nothing??

The way I see it, In real life when someone goes missing, for the most part people don't think, "Hey?? Maybe Tomtom logged out of life for a few days."

Tommy hasn't been around in a while, ..people start looking..

In game, a bit different. People -do- log out for a while and sometimes they just do stupid shit and die. It is hard to know where half your clan went sometimes.

Now, that said, Ok.. Maybe halflings are a useful sort and will pick apart a body like an American Indian.. leaving nothing unused. But I don't that a Tembo is all that neat about it.. I am sure that they might not find tanned leather all that tasty, and maybe sandcloth isn't in their diet.. I don't know..   Yes, bones will be licked clean, but last I checked, not every tregil is clad in human bone armor. All I am saying is that there is a good chance that something will be left behind.. and that maybe that something would be a clue into how that person died.

It would definitely add something to the Deaths of PC's other than just the disappearing act that death is now. I stand by Miee.. I like it..

[Miee]

Sarah, why do you think the tembo and halflings that populate the Grey Forest would leave much of anything behind?

My personal opinion would be that corpses outside should be gone quickly, with the scavenders that are about.  Inside a city, depending on the city and where in the city, would be a different story.

The halflings wouldn't leave anything behind.  I didn't think of them.

My basic idea is that even with scavengers, bones tend to be left.  In the case of Amos and Bob the Tembo, I'd imagine that Bob isn't going to eat Amos's training equipment or his weapons or that Bob is going to eat all of Amos's soft squishy human parts.

The concept of scavengers (which I didn't take in to account the first time around) would basically have the body slowly decay.  I believe scrab are scavengers.  You could always have the remains of the half-eaten-by-a-tarantula beetle have its short desc be something like, "A scrab is tearing into the decaying remains of a beetle."

Of course, the resultant problem with that is that's a damn good time to attack that scrab for it's shell.  It's distracted.  Also, virtual.

But that's just if we want that much more depth and you'd like to come along to Amos's body as something's snacking on the remains.  Because that would be cool for the OOC "Eugh" factor.

Xamminy also brings up another good point.  In the wild, that body's going to be picked clean in about a day.  Eaten by scavenger animals and human/humanoid/mantis scavengers might take the bones, scraps of cloth, and/or weapon(s remains).

On the other hand, it's a neat thing and it could help the "spam hunter or ecosystem" dilemma.

Miee makes a note to put all of this into a notepad file so she can continue to work this up.

[Solas]

Would help with the murder and investigation dilema as well.  :wink:

[Angela Christine]

My personal opinion would be that corpses outside should be gone quickly, with the scavenders that are about.  Inside a city, depending on the city and where in the city, would be a different story.

I think there would be things left over.  The virtual scavengers are busy stripping the virtual corpses of the unlucky virtual hunters, so we can ignore them.  

I have run accross some corpse-eaters that I won't name, but they are out there and I'm not sure how realistic they are.  At death you drop the things in your hands, usually a pair of weapons.  The body-eating creature then eats your body, including everything "inside" the body.  Ok, some creatures are big enough that maybe eatting that obsidian breastplate wouldn't bother them, mmm crunchy, but most things will not want to eat armor or the shells, large bones and teeth of big prey.  

Lets take scrabs for an example, since most people that ride around or shop in Allanak will have encountered many of things found in a scrab corpse.  When a non-gigantic animal kills a scrab they are after the meat, so there should be a chance that a few things will be left.  Not 100% every time, but a random chance of leaving;

a shell, a pincer, a couple legs, some entrails.

A gigantic animal might eat more, but even they might not eat everything.  When my cat was younger he used to hunt mice, and sometimes ate them.  He was big enough to eat the whole mouse, but would usually leave at least the intestines.  With a bird there would usually be a mess of feather, the feet and the head/beak left over.  A snake will eat the entire animal, but some of the hard parts may not be fully digested exit the snake more or less intact.  Maybe a gigantic animal would poop out some of those bones, armor and stone tools he ate?  Mining gigantic poops could be a new source of income!

Intelligent and semi-intelligent creatures are something else.  A halfling might haul everything from a duskhorn corpse away, because he or his people can use it.  But when he kills another humanoid, he might well leave behind some of their clothes and equipment, because it is useless.  It is all the wrong size, it is absurdly heavy, and some of it seems to have no use at all.  Halflings aren't believed to trade with other races, so they probably have no use for obsidian coins.  Heavy armor wouldn't interest them, because even if they could cut it down to size it would be too heavy to wear -- from what I've seen they like to run around in little more than a loincloth.  Gigantic two-handed lumber axe?  Heavy as hell, and it would take a lot of work to cut it down to be something useful for halflings.  Halflings don't seem interested in weath or aquisition, so unlike other races they seem unlikely to take everything they can carry and store it up in case it is useful "someday".  Gith might be more likely to take everything, but even a gith will only take as much as he can carry, and since most gith don't use pack animals they can't take everything.  Mantis would take anything useful, but most clothing will be too small and the wrong shape to be useful.  The semi-intelligent humanoids (you know who you are)  would take what they could recognise as useful, but they are simple minded folk who probably won't consider anything but food, water, and big weapons useful.

Something like a mekillot might be able to eat a hunter, all his gear, and his kank in one go, but a halfling shouldn't.  Maybe eating a body (which is a container) should cause all/some of the things in the container to drop on the ground, like it does when you sell a container.

I think there should be things out there for PC scavengers to find.  Scavenging is fun, it is slightly less dangerous than hunting, and it is a good way for unskilled PCs to make a little money.


Angela Christine

[Miee]

OK, so here's my basic outline so far.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Things to consider:

Code Select Expand


-coding
   -work off of skin skill
   -work off of a new skill
   -work off a hunger value
   -something else entirely
-scavengers
   -virtual or not
   -intelligent scavengers vs. non intelligent scavengers
      -what would each eat/take/make use of
   -body decay time (eaten/stripped by virtual scavengers)
-how much of body predator will use
   -will predator eat bones
   -might particular predator avoid certain organs/parts
-what will drop what
   -animals
       -feathers, shells, bones, other?
   -humans/humanoids
       -weapons, broken weapons, armor, clothing, bones, other?
-intelligent predators and non-intelligent predators.
   -which animals fall into which category (halflings, d-elves, gith, and mantis all assumed as the former)
   -what would each class of intelligent predator take/use
   -what would each class of non-intelligent predator take/use
-excrement/poo mining? <---I really like this thought, AC
-include murder/city death?
-part of SimDesert?
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These are just my notes to myself and a number of them obviously circle back onto each other.

I'd like to keep it simple to implement as possible since I'm running low on mansa with which to bribe the staff.  (It took a lot for me to get that lightning boob power.)  That last thing I just added is a big consideration too.

ETA: Formatting fixed.

[dolores]

When my cat was younger he used to hunt mice, and sometimes ate them.  He was big enough to eat the whole mouse, but would usually leave at least the intestines.  With a bird there would usually be a mess of feather, the feet and the head/beak left over.  A snake will eat the entire animal, but some of the hard parts may not be fully digested exit the snake more or less intact.  Maybe a gigantic animal would poop out some of those bones, armor and stone tools he ate?  Mining gigantic poops could be a new source of income!

Hey, remember the GDB rules! No posting AC-information! *wink*

--Dolores

[Gargath]

This has come up before a few times. Personally, and I speak for myself, I love it. I would really like to be able to see -some- trace of at least a recently dead person aside from a pile of gear there. I guess it would depend on who/what killed them, as stated above.

[ShaLeah]

This has come up before a few times. Personally, and I speak for myself, I love it. I would really like to be able to see -some- trace of at least a recently dead person aside from a pile of gear there. I guess it would depend on who/what killed them, as stated above.

At the very least a pile of picked almost clean bones.

The carcass of an elven/human/dwarven/giant/etc is here, baking in the sun.