Duck and Cover

Saint_Proverbius wrote:Of course, I'll admit there are problems with this [concept of mercy], especially since it would allow weapon skills to usurp diplomacy skills.

You could always make the "mercy check" dependent on CH and/or Speech. Some ogre may kick an NPC's ass, but he/she wouldn't trust him as far as they could throw him. So instead of taking the opportunity to join the PC they simply try to run away or continue fighting.

Or, CH and/or Speech could enhance the effect of this "mercy check". The ogre mentioned above may intimidate the NPC w/his/her weapon skills, but all they've done is won over someone nursing a bad case of "conscript syndrome" and they will do what they can to either sell the PC down the river or run away, all at the first opportunity, of course.

Maybe providing healing after having beaten said NPC up would win them over a bit better. However, I think that the results should be weighted toward the use of First Aid/Doctor skills in the case, to keep people from simply stimming them back together again. Call it the advantage of a personal touch, or something.

OTB

That´s a great idea!
Tim: Are you taking notes?

Damn, SP, I already have some NPC's that you can beat on until they give up, but now it will look like your idea.

And yes, Pastorius, my notebook is primed and ready!

ps. Doyle, I wear pants! I do!

I always liked the idea of npcs having little quirks and traits. Mabye some could be scared of the dark, some refuse to kill women, some HAVE to cut the ears off their enemys....

anyway

Morale could be 'checked' by giving players lower/gigher aps. Other they do a pre-set action the npc/player does at the beginign of his/her turn, like run away or start burst-firing at any foes (or friends)

The game sounds like it's going to be interesting. Do you have an ETA?

The mercy option would be interesting, perhaps if you're evil you could 'set a price' for mercy. And sparing the life of the endboss and to forgive him would be an interesting ending possibility.

Pyro wrote:I always liked the idea of npcs having little quirks and traits. Mabye some could be scared of the dark, some refuse to kill women, some HAVE to cut the ears off their enemys....

Yeah sounds good, as long as there's no silly 'personal items' they must carry around.

VasikkA wrote:And sparing the life of the endboss and to forgive him would be an interesting ending possibility.

You could do that if you were a naive do-gooder, too. "It's okay, Mr. Villain, as long as you're sorry and promise not to do it again.

Vasikka wrote:Yeah sounds good, as long as there's no silly 'personal items' they must carry around.

Well, there goes my idea for a "rootin'-tootin'-meanest-sonuvabitchin'-killer-you-ever-saw" who gets disgruntled and leaves if he doesn't have his Teddy Bear along...

OTB

Hey Saint, Mercy is a great idea. But how about the other side of the coin, surrender. Here is an example of what I mean:

Take one of the gang leaders in the bad part of the hub, say you were to literally obliterate him with one of you first shots using something like burst with an automatic. His people which were probably scabs anyway might surrender, one of them might want to join as a CNPC, or they all might just drop their money and run. You of course have the option to accept their surrender, attempt to take all there stuff for there life or continue mowing them down.

I think that sort of scripting would really be a pretty sweet surprise in an RPG.

triCritical wrote:Hey Saint, Mercy is a great idea. But how about the other side of the coin, surrender. Here is an example of what I mean:

Take one of the gang leaders in the bad part of the hub, say you were to literally obliterate him with one of you first shots using something like burst with an automatic. His people which were probably scabs anyway might surrender, one of them might want to join as a CNPC, or they all might just drop their money and run. You of course have the option to accept their surrender, attempt to take all there stuff for there life or continue mowing them down.

I think that sort of scripting would really be a pretty sweet surprise in an RPG.

It would be funny as hell seeing one of the gang members begging for his life. And it would also be interesting if a situation like that could affect your reputation depending on how you handled it if people were around to see it. You could be known as someone to not mess with but you might also be known as a cold-blooded killer if you just killed him anyways or if you let him live people from the underworld might think you were softhearted. I'm sure other people could think of many other things that could happen if you made someone beg for their life.

TimCain wrote:Damn, SP, I already have some NPC's that you can beat on until they give up, but now it will look like your idea.

And yes, Pastorius, my notebook is primed and ready!

ps. Doyle, I wear pants! I do!

Scripting that kind of thing has been done before. I'm talking about making it a feature of anything inherently intelligent. Most intelligent things won't fight to the death if they can help it. Of course, some would, but that can be handled as well.

Reaction could even be based on alignment. An evil person may yield to a character, but still plot his death later on. Whereas a noble person would yield and respect the character for his honor.

Saint_Proverbius wrote:

TimCain wrote:Damn, SP, I already have some NPC's that you can beat on until they give up...

Scripting that kind of thing has been done before...

Yes, it has. If you fight Dekker and the Underground in The Hub the no-name guards will surrender as soon as Dekker and Kane are dead. While the player doesn't have the latitude suggested by triCritical, it was still a noteworthy feature.

In SP's example I would think that you would still be limited by your Charisma (or Mental Affinity, if you're playing a Palladium game) as to how large your entourage/horde could get. Something in that vein that could get interesting would be that if you were at your limit, and dismissed one of your other NPCs in favor of a newly vanquished foe the spurned follower could come back to haunt you.

(You know, it's things like this that make the tabletop so much less complicated. If a GM comes up w/an idea, it's not hard to implement at all w/a few scribbled notes. No cumbersome, bug-prone scripting to worry about. )

OTB

OnTheBounce wrote:In SP's example I would think that you would still be limited by your Charisma (or Mental Affinity, if you're playing a Palladium game) as to how large your entourage/horde could get. Something in that vein that could get interesting would be that if you were at your limit, and dismissed one of your other NPCs in favor of a newly vanquished foe the spurned follower could come back to haunt you.

Well, if you have a good Charisma, you really wouldn't need to use force to influence others.

That's what I was talking about.

well then again if your one of the brutes who has a good charima but everyone's scared anyways then you could go either way.......