I don't know why this never occurred to me before, but a lot of information gets lost when someone dies, and sometimes this is important information. When you 'look' at a body, it just returns a generic message, something like "you see nothing special about it" or something of that nature. This is unfortunate - what if you wanted to check the body for any identifying tattoos, for example?
Would it be feasible to have corpses retain the mdesc they had in life, along with any tattoos, scars, or other permanent markings they had?
Examine body.. I think will give you the Main desc.
I would like this idea, but: I think over time signs of degradation should be evident. ie. skin sinking in, parts of mdesc being erased, etc.
or not.. eww..
Anyways....
I never knew you could "examine body"
Thank you Sarah for telling me.
I think examine body gives something like:
"You dont notice anything special about it."
I am not totally sure, but I think it gives that message. Because I always use examine.
And it would be nice if we could see the main desc and tattoos of the bodies.
For some nutzy reason I think I have been able to see the main description of bodies..
I think examine does it, along with showing what they have left on them, if anything at all.. However I could be wrong and have been known to be.
If not.. Well, it really should until rot starts to take effected. Maybe something like what I have put below would be cool, or a special skill special skill for people that would know about anatomy Hunters, healers and would aide in solving deaths:
The body of so and so lies here.
<insert Main desc here>
Then,
This body seems to have been (slashed, bludgeoned, stabbed, chopped, burned or a combo of these things depending on how the person was attacked) to death.
This person has been dead less than a few days.
Or
You see no visible signs of assault, This person has been dead less than a few days.
After maybe 4 or 5 days or a game week
This body has begun to deteriorate and the unmistakable stench of death fills your nose as you near it.
Faint signs that this person was (slashed, bludgeoned, stabbed, chopped, burned or a combo of these things depending on how the person was attacked) seem visible but you cannot be certain with the amount of rot in the wounds.
This body is Several days old.
Or
This body has begun to deteriorate and the unmistakable stench of death fills your nose as you near it.
You see no visible signs of assault, but the bloating and rot of the corpse makes it difficult to tell.
This body is Several days old
Maybe after a week or two:
Room desc where the body is would have something like
The entire area is filled with a morbid stench
On the body itself, just a short desc.
Main desc is now gone.
This body is rotten and a stench so putrid fills your nose as you near it, that you try to stop yourself from gagging. It is impossible for you to tell practically any of its features or the manor in which the person had died.
This Person has been dead for more than a solid week.
But just an idea. I have no idea if this is even codeable.
Everything is codeable. The most important question is, "How hard would this be, and just how do we manage to balance this correctly without messing up?"
There has been another post on this subject before. Do a search for it. It was very interesting, to me. Mansa, get the link, pimpin'.
You'd have to have a whole nuther pair of descriptions then - one for JUST the body, and one for JUST the head. Plus the third description to describe a dead body with the head attached, which would -not- include things like "his green eyes glimmer brightly, his pale cheeks rosey with life and his lithe body appearing extremely agile and capable."
Because, you know, he's dead. So his green eyes are gonna glimmer dully, his pale cheeks won't be rosey with anything except maybe the blood smeared on his face, and his lithe body isn't not going to reflect anything capable of anything other than just laying there like a lump.
I think leaving the main desc intact with the body would be fine, yes you wouldn't know that he had green eyes if his head is gone, but you can still carry around the head of the tall muscular man and wouldn't be able to tell from the head that he was tall or muscular.
Yeah, I'm all for simplicity. All I really want is to be able to see the mdesc and any permanent markings. The decay and all the rest is nifty, but just fluff. I think Vettrock hit the nail on the head (no pun intended) as far as headless corpses go.
Personally I would rather be given some clue as to how the person died. Slashes on the neck, a caved-in skull, a greenish tinge to the skin accompanied by bulging eyeballs, etc. But that would be even more work.
I think that would be cool to have some clue about how they died as well. but that would probably require more coding than just leaving the mdesc intact.
Actually, the way in which one died can be appended by flag. Flag_slashed could simply give the message that this body took many slash wounds. Additionall, the death blow could also be recorded as flag_slashed_death and could give the message that a slashing weapon killed this man. Warriors and hunters would know what these marks are...others could simply note that the man had died.
lol I thought of something, but it might be a bunch of useless text...
When someone is hit, the type of hit and the area will create a line of text, if it's more that 1, it'll have the couple, few, several etc. pretension under that area.
like:
guy gets hit in the head witha club, and stabbed in the gut with a knife then he is hit on the leg with the club, and stabbed in the guy again. He dies eventually and it says:
His head is bruised and bludgeoned
His gut has a couple stabs in it
his leg is bruised and bludgeoned
and the list would go on....onyl problem is that it'd be excess text, and I doubt we actually need that.
Just an Idea, I take no credit for it if you wanna say something about it
I dont' know how many areas are programmed to take damage...i see a awful lot of hits "to the body."
I think it's wholly unnecessary, though. Why the -hell- would you need to know this? Even if you're playing the phsycian/detective, knowing anything beyond what weapons he was killed with is silly.
I also think it is unnecessary to see the wounds on the bodies. If there is something important about how the body died, it can be searched with a wish up.
I think it would help to see how someone died as you should probably be able to tell. I'm not going to wish up on every body I see, but sometimes you find bodies, and I think What would have killed someone (or somthing here?) but its more curiosity than really wanting to know. wishing up, even if an immortal answers you is going to take a while for them to research how someone died.
I know if this were in place it would have saved one of my early PCs. I found this body inside the scain walls, complete with all equipment, money, etc. I was like Wow, Score. He even had food. So I took a bite out of one of his partially eaten fruits, and I found out how he died, as I died soon after....
Was that about a year ago, Vettrock? If so, I watched your character die...
It would probably be close to two years ago...
Jango the Templar Detective
Episode 1 "The runner"
emote begins writing on a scroll.
write It was a cool morning the day of the incident...
Emote leans back and smokes on a pipe
write I was sitting in my office, writing about recent events, when she came in. I was about to toss her out after looking at her ears, pointed like all elves. She had with her a little boy...
shouting from the other room: "Jango, you've got a few visitors!"
shout "Galin, Do me a favor, hold my visitors while I finnish this."
shouting through the door "I think you should come see this."
emote sighs, then pushes off his seat walking to the door.
w stepping through the door
change language allundean
say (looking at the body) What happened here?
"He was attacked, we need your help...Our tribe has pulled together all its money if you could help us."
examine body
MDESC...
He has been bludgeoned in the leg
His face has been bashed in several times
say "Hmm, interesting..."
say "where did you find his body?"
to be continued...
Next time on, Jango the templar detective
Discover how jango finds the killer
Jango The templar Detective
Episode 2, "The killer?"
say "That's interesting, he must've tried to run from the killer, but his leg was too bruised to continue."
Say "...And the killer...must've jumped out of the bushes and hit his leg...after a struggle, he managed to bash your friends head in."
Say "Tell me, what kind of weapon did your friend have?"
"We all hunt with spears, our tribe makes these spears in a special way so that when they're thrown, they stick in the animal. The only way to get them out is cut them out of the skin.
say "Come with me, I have a few suspects lined up."
........
Emote points through the bars of the jail
say "This man came to a local physician with a spear jammed in his gut like you said, the physician turned him over to us after he got the thing out."
Emote walks over to a chest and opens it, pulling out a broken spear
say "Is this one of your spears?"
"Yes, yes. This must be the killer."
say "somehow I doubt that...this man had a sword with him, not a club like was the cause of your friends death."
say "I'll questoin him, in the mean time go find something to do and I'll find you."
....
Next time on, Jango The Templar Detective...
Jango finds another suspect in the search for the killer, but this time, is it really the killer? Or just another face in a never ending line of faces?
Find out...next time, on Jango The Templar Detective.
*Que neato themesong.*
I want for physicians and perhaps assassins to be able to tell what a person died from, how long they died ago, and other pertinent information.
All relating to the skill, of course.