Dreams

[curiousdannii]

Things to discuss and do:

• [ ] Invite participants to contribute ideas again, and specifically for dreams. On the intfiction forum, maybe some other roguelike forums too?
• [ ] Consider using an activity for dreams - it may make it easier for other rules since they can check whether it is in progress
• [ ] Have a system for swapping out the player character - probably having them keep all their belongings, stats and powers won't be good
• [ ] Make it easy to control the side windows

[VictorGijsbers]

I though I'd start with the intfiction forum and see how much response we get. For this particular contribution, being into roguelikes is probably less important than having some knowledge of IF. And if people write Inform 7, all the better. (Though I'll make clear that I'll also accept pseudocode.)

I though about implementing a scene for dreaming. Would that be OK instead of an activity?

What do you mean about the side windows?

I've been thinking about what should happen to the player character, and it's sort of complicated. If we have dreams with combat, and we probably do, using the normal player character makes perfect sense. (Having the dream influence reality, and in effect be entirely real, is a feature, not a bug.) On the other hand, for dreams without combat, stripping the player of her inventory for the duration of the dream makes sense. And there could also be dreams in which you are someone else, and we might want to give the player an entirely new avatar.

We could either choose to always use one of these options, or just switch depending on the dream. The first is more elegant from a design point of view, the second gives us more room when designing dreams.

Switching to another avatar should be very simple, except for powers, which would have to be turned on and off using some special code.

[curiousdannii]

Oh, scenes are a really good idea. I've never used them before, but they have a big advantage compared to activities: you can give them properties. So for example we could classify dreams as to whether or not they want to show side windows, whether we want the player to keep the statistics etc.

In some dreams we may want empty side windows. In some we may want other content. We can probably connect it up to the scenes so that the rules can say "Window-drawing rule for the stats-window when a no side windows scene is active..."

I was thinking there could be dreams where you dream you're Malygris, or many other options. There could even be extra powers for some dreams. Powers are currently just set to on or off, but perhaps we should change them to a relationship, so that we can associate them with the normal PC, or with dream PCs.

We could have a dream that ends after a short time, but is repeatable. There could even be a kind of mini-Aisle in a dream!

[VictorGijsbers]

We probably need to have at least 5 dreams for Kerkerkruip 9. My post on intfiction.org has not led to any serious responses.

[rvdpluijm]

I'll try to work out a dream, probably about the Tungausy heathens :-))

2013/9/13 VictorGijsbers notifications@github.com

We probably need to have at least 5 dreams for Kerkerkruip 9. My post on intfiction.org has not led to any serious responses.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/i7/kerkerkruip/issues/105#issuecomment-24411856 .

---

Met vriendelijke groet,

Remko van der Pluijm

Postgraduate Student Logic, History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Ghent LinkedIn: http://nl.linkedin.com/in/**rvanderpluijmhttp://nl.linkedin.com/in/rvanderpluijm

[mciul]

I didn't realize dreams were getting such a poor response. I'm thinking about writing a dream that can only be activated when at least two still living monsters have been seen - it would let you weaken some enemies while strengthening others.

I like Dannii's dream ideas. Please write some, Dannii!

[mciul]

I've been delving a little deeper into Dreams, and I have a couple things:

Why is the dream of Tungausy Shaman set to current-test-dream within the extension? Shouldn't that be done in Story.ni so it can be easily enabled or disabled?

Now I understand what the "Tungausy warrior" in the "remember" output is - it's the PC in the dream. Should we suppress listing dream characters or PC creatures in the remember command?

I also found a bug, maybe I should create a new issue for it.

[mciul]

Here's the bug report: https://github.com/i7/kerkerkruip/issues/117

Would anyone mind if I start implementing dreams as scenes? I have some experience with scenes. I might still need help integrating it with ATTACK's turn structure, though. If you have any tips about how it works overall or pitfalls to avoid, I'd really like to hear them.

[mciul]

First challenge: Each scene's beginning has to be defined separately. I think this is the best I can do:

The selected dream is a scene that varies. Definition: a scene is ready to dream if the player is asleep and it is the selected dream.

Briar Rose begins when Briar Rose is ready to dream. Tungausy Shaman begins when Tungausy Shaman is ready to dream. ... etc, for every dream.

On the other hand, we get this for free:

instead of using "redreamable"... Tungausy Shaman is a recurring dream scene.

Briar Rose is a dream scene.

[mciul]

I've implemented dreams as scenes in a branch: https://github.com/i7/kerkerkruip/tree/dreams

If you like it, I can merge it in.

Unfortunately, it didn't fix bug #117 - it seems like every turn rules don't run on the turn after a dream ends, and I don't know why.

[mciul]

I've written a Banquet dream and pushed it up to my dreams branch. It's not quite finished and it's a bit buggy, but I'd love to hear your comments about it!

[VictorGijsbers]

Hey man, great! I'm going to look at all your recent contributions and comments ASAP.

[VictorGijsbers]

About the test-dream: yeah, I could have put that in story.ni.

[VictorGijsbers]

"Should we suppress listing dream characters or PC creatures in the remember command?"

This has been fixed by fixing #119.

[VictorGijsbers]

I've fixed #117 by adding the line "now the take no turn boolean is false" to the waking up code. Not quite sure what that is needed, but it works. Dreams within dreams have also been disallowed.

[mciul]

Great! I've merged your changes into my dreams branch and pushed it up. I think I'm almost ready to bring it back into master, but there are a couple funny things still.

At least once, I got stuck in an infinite sequence of dreams, starting with Briar Rose. https://github.com/i7/kerkerkruip/issues/120

Various issues with the Banquet dream: https://github.com/i7/kerkerkruip/issues/121

[mciul]

Thanks for cleaning up the Dreams extension, Victor:

https://github.com/i7/kerkerkruip/commit/a5eddeaed90f6afe3b4bc17d8f51cbc2a935c80d

I was thinking about the spelling conflicts earlier but I never actually noticed that I had created any.

I have one concern about your change to the definition of banquet-dining for Malygris. Banquet-dining is tested both before the dream starts (in the dreamable rule) and while the dream is happening (for inclusion in the, ahem, menu). While the dream is happening, the player is Chef, so the player will never be in the same location as Malygris. If there is an issue with "yourself," is there another way we can test that Malygris is in the same room as the dreamer?

[VictorGijsbers]

You're right, that was a mistake. (I try to avoid using "yourself" when we don't mean it, but you evidently did mean it and I failed to notice that in the code.)

[mciul]

I have the same hesitations about "yourself," and I wondered if there was a better alternative. But I couldn't think of one.

[VictorGijsbers]

We could set up a new person that varies called "the dreamer"? Sounds like a good idea -- I'll make it happen.

[mciul]

That sounds perfect!

[VictorGijsbers]

Done. I had to make an addition to your dream, since the person with respect to whom banquet-dining is defined is sometimes the player (before dreaming) and sometimes the dreamer (while dreaming). I hope I managed to not mess it up. ;-)

[mciul]

I think "banquet-definer" might be a useful phrase for other dreams if it had a more general name, though I'm not sure what I'd call it. "the one who dreams?"

[mciul]

How about "the true body of (guy - a person)?"

which usually returns guy, but if guy is the player and dreaming is true, it returns the dreamer.

[VictorGijsbers]

Sounds fine, be my guest and make that change. :-)

[mciul]

Okay, I will.

[mciul]

https://github.com/i7/kerkerkruip/commit/46570aa99f5c9509984ce16419632c5924d87bfb

(This particular change is just re-commenting out the debug code, but my previous commit has the real changes)

[mciul]

I just looked back at the original four points of this issue. Where are we at with this? Are you happy with the way dreams are managed now, Victor? Should we have a means of putting dream info in the side windows?

[VictorGijsbers]

I'm not sure what Dannii meant with the side windows remark, actually.

As far as I can see, dreams are ready for Kerkerkruip 9. (It might be good to have 1 or 2 more, but that's hardly essential.)

[mciul]

I have an idea for another dream, but I haven't decided whether its effects are too messy:

You are presented to all of the Kerkerkruip gods at once. You have a choice of whether to follow one of them or none of them. If you choose one, you get an immediate favour bonus, but every soul you absorb afterwards is instantly sacrificed to your god. If you choose none, you may not ever sacrifice an ability, and you might get punished by some or all gods.

How does that sound?

[rvdpluijm]

Hmm... perhaps you get a special godslayer weapon when you choose none, giving a bonus to any of the monsteravatars?

I have been working on another dream, but it isn't quite finished yet. The proposal is as follows:

You dream that you are standing in the tavern where you were drinking a lot, boasting about how you would defeat Malygris. As you stumble out of the bar, you bump into someone. It suddenly appears to be a talker monster from Kerkerkruip, who attacks you directly. If you win the fight, the talker monster suddenly becomes a standard follower (either Fafhrd or the Mouser or perhaps some other enslaved persons), who will help you in the dungeon, since they realise you helped them before. If you lose the fight, instead of dying, you suffer 5 points of spirit for remembering the humiliation.

2013/12/9 mciul notifications@github.com

I have an idea for another dream, but I haven't decided whether its effects are too messy:

You are presented to all of the Kerkerkruip gods at once. You have a choice of whether to follow one of them or none of them. If you choose one, you get an immediate favour bonus, but every soul you absorb afterwards is instantly sacrificed to your god. If you choose none, you may not ever sacrifice an ability, and you might get punished by some or all gods.

How does that sound?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/i7/kerkerkruip/issues/105#issuecomment-30175336 .

---

Met vriendelijke groet,

Remko van der Pluijm LinkedIn: http://nl.linkedin.com/in/rvanderpluijm

[VictorGijsbers]

Having every soul sacrificed to a god immediately sounds extremely harsh to me -- it makes it impossible to gain more piety, regain health, and so on. It's basically a delayed but certain loss. What about this: every god who you don't choose does something nasty.

Aite increases the attack strength of all people in the dungeon who are hostile to you by 1. Sul grants angelic radiance to 3 random people in the dungeon. Chton increases the attack and defence of all undead persons by 1. Herm destroys every scroll in the dungeon that you are not carrying. Nomos predicts that he will deal you 10+1d20 damage in 50+1d50 turns.

Then, have only the gods appear that have temples in the dungeon. This makes the dream more manageable, because there will be fewer punishments, and more useful, because worshipping a god you can't sacrifice to is useless. The dream is only available when there are at least two temples.

What do you think?

Remko ... interesting, but would this be people who are in the dungeon anyway? Having someone appear out of thin air is possible, but perhaps a little weird.

[mciul]

Victor, thanks for suggesting some god-punishments!

What I had in mind was not that you lose the soul completely as if there were an abyss, but that you would absorb the soul and then immediately sacrifice it. So you get healed and maybe also get a faculties bonus, but you don't get the power. I also considered getting a little extra favour than you would from a normal sacrifice, but I'm not sure how it would affect gameplay to have the possibility of really high favour.

I wanted this dream to have a slightly bad effect overall, but give some opportunities for cool stuff, including worshipping gods who don't have temples in the dungeon. And I wanted refusing to worship a god to have a slightly worse effect than choosing one.

But your idea sounds easier to implement...

[mciul]

Remko, I'm a little confused about the actual effects of your dream but I love the idea of giving the character some backstory!

[rvdpluijm]

Hi Victor,

Yeah it would be persons in the dungeon, but only talkers. But I'm thinking about implementing an extra room to make sure that a person is available, see below.

Mike, the idea is that, in a drunk state, the player bumps against a talker monster (which is of course a metaphor for a bully) , who interprets this as picking a fight. If the fight is won, one of the enslaved persons (but I'm thinking about creating an extra room in Locations (an extra prison) which where the player can find his ally in case the Slug is absent) will remember that his bully was defeated, therefore being loyal to the player.

[mciul]

I think what confuses me is what constitutes "winning" a fight. Obviously, if this is a flashback to something that happened to the PC, the "bully" can't have been killed.

[rvdpluijm]

Well, first of all, it's a dream. It might have been a lethal fight, but perhaps it wasn't. But, without resorting to this dream-excuse: I'm going to add a special rule when fighting in this dream: If the player is fighting in this dream and he was going to give the final blow, instead, the player is hold back by some bystanders. When the bully runs away, the captured person enters the scene, telling that he is grateful for getting rid of his bully.

2013/12/10 mciul notifications@github.com

I think what confuses me is what constitutes "winning" a fight. Obviously, if this is a flashback to something that happened to the PC, the "bully" can't have been killed.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/i7/kerkerkruip/issues/105#issuecomment-30232574 .

---

Met vriendelijke groet,

Remko van der Pluijm LinkedIn: http://nl.linkedin.com/in/rvanderpluijm

[mciul]

That is awesome. I love it. Oh, and now I understand - I thought the bully WAS the captured person.

[mciul]

Remko, you're still working on a dream, right? Do you hope to include it in Kerkerkruip 9? How do you feel about closing this general issue? I would not object to opening a more specific one about your dream, but I think we might have enough dreams for Kerkerkruip 9 now.

If folks want to keep brainstorming here, we could just move the milestone and keep the issue open.

[rvdpluijm]

It's better to make a new issue for it. I mailed Victor personally for that issue (you can't fight in a dream). You can close this one; I'll make a new one for the issues in dream of a bar fight, which will probably be for Kerkerkruip 10. Op 30 jan. 2014 18:46 schreef "mciul" notifications@github.com:

Remko, you're still working on a dream, right? Do you hope to include it in Kerkerkruip 9? How do you feel about closing this general issue? I would not object to opening a more specific one about your dream, but I think we might have enough dreams for Kerkerkruip 9 now.

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/i7/kerkerkruip/issues/105#issuecomment-33712837 .

[VictorGijsbers]

Rescheduling to Kerkerkruip 10.