Decaying, routine & some realism suggestions!

[deskoft]

Hello, new player here!

I've been playing around for around two or three weeks now, and I'm in love with the lore, the people, everything's perfect! Everything's nearly flawless. Regardless, I have a single suggestion that I think would add some depth to the gameworld, not only developing new forms of role-play between the different PCs but also making the RP much more perceptive.

First of all, I enjoy the lore and how every single social class is defined, unbreachable and separated by defined trends. For example: templars dress better than nobles; nobles dress better than commoners, and each commoner's power and influence can be deciphered by their clothings.

I think that PERCEPTION plays a big role in our kind of role-play. You look at someone, you listen to them speak (and their language and style)... But I think there's one sense that is missing here: smell. There's other MUDs that employ this (by use of the command: 'smell'), and it can actually add a lot to the role-play, IMHO. First of all, you can discreetly smell someone and it will give you a lot of HINTS about who this guy is, what his power is, etcetera. A noble or templar would have at disposal a plethora of perfumes which she experiments with to attempt to convey power while meeting with people. I can imagine the reaction of a commoner or a new Aide who smells a Chosen Lady and a beautiful description of how the 'The golden-haired, midnight-eyed templar emits a beautiful, idyllic, strong odor which seems to be a mix of aromatic herbs, giving you the feeling of being close to an angel'. I believe that fasion and perfumes should be a constant war in the Noble Caste, and the idea of smell adds to the gameworld. Commoners would have a traditional smell, with some of them taking bathes (which simply gives them a neutral odor) or, the most priviledged, having some sort of basic perfume (probably those closer to the Noble Castes). I think you can get the idea of where this goes. (further reading)

ROOMS also should have some sort of odor. I acknowledge this is a lot of work for the coding team, but it can probably start by setting up a DEFAULT odor for all the rooms ("You smell your surroundings. You don't smell anything worth of notice.") and eventually start adding new odors. This can expand to the smell taverns, caves, natural environments... To the smell of rooms, noble manors, Estates, etcetera.

HOW OFTEN would people take a dip in water, or use soap? It depends on the caste. Templars and Nobles would probably do this once every week (perfuming too), to keep the strong scent active. I can see some nobles perfuming not so often, which won't give the description of a "strong scent" when someone smells them, but would rather show that the perfume is a "fading scent". Commoners would dip themselves in water (and some would be lucky to use soap) once every 7 weeks. After that mark, they will start smelling bad, eventually having a combination of abominable fetidnesses. There could be people that enter a room and immediately transmit some terrible odor to everyone in the room. Think about smell by races, too!

Perhaps, this could even add a new perceptive skill! I can picture some PCs using smell to define whom they are speaking to. Or perhaps, some distinctive scents between houses? I don't know, there's a lot of possibilities.

Do you think this is a viable idea, or is this complete crap and I should abandon these forums immediately and without further notice?

[slvrmoontiger]

The tall rangy elf sneers at you.
>sniff elf
He smells like sand and sweat.

That's the command. Yes, rooms don't have smells and people if they haven't used some sort of perfume always smells like sweat and sand. I agree this command could be extended to have more meaning. Like someone dripping blood could have a metallic blood smell to them. I like the idea.

[Beethoven]

Actually rooms do have odors sometimes.

"sniff room" is the syntax.

[slvrmoontiger]

Interesting, I've never found one. I guess I have to look harder.

[CodeMaster]

Yeah, most taverns have a smell.  A lot of places you'd expect to smell like something do too (even out in the wilds).

The default smell for a PC/NPC is "dust and sweat", but different activities will have you smelling like different things (if you're a snoop or a spy, you can actually find out things about people this way).

[CodeMaster]

It's worth adding that sniffing yourself, sniffing others, and sniffing the room do not echo to everyone around you, so you can get a whiff of whatever without looking like some kind of weirdo.

Sniff does appear to affect your "hide" status though, for sneaky types. (I don't know whether this is a feature, a bug, or just something that was overlooked).

[deskoft]

That's interesting information, thank-you!

I stand my idea of perhaps eventually having players smell bad without proper care, but I guess that most of this idea is completely implemented.

[CodeMaster]

I stand my idea of perhaps eventually having players smell bad without proper care, but I guess that most of this idea is completely implemented.

Yeah, that would definitely be cool deskoft.  There is a "smelly" flag that your gear can accumulate (a smelly blue hat), but I don't think wearing smelly gear affects your sniff status.

But your idea is something unique and definitely interesting.  In the same vein it would be cool if especially smelly places inflicted your character with a perfume effect, reflective of lifestyle.

People who recent rode a war beetle are going to smell like it...
People who work in a workshop might smell like whatever glues/resins are being used...
Etc.

An aside: one time I was able to have my character find his way around during a dark night because I sniffed the room and picked up a midden heap.  I knew which midden heap I was smelling so I was able to immediately localize myself.

[nauta]

I've had characters that smell, and just mix it into the emotes I shovel off, maybe an hemote, depending.  Sometimes I add it via CHANGE TDESC.