Fluff

[Trowel]

Hi guys,

New guy here...

I've just started developing my own roguelike (started work a few months ago but suspended it till now), anyway the whole development thing has got me thinking, I want to make a roguelike that is a full, immersive game but with enough 'fluff' in there to make it work as a coffee break roguelike too.

By fluff I mean, if you don't want to explore the dungeons, go on quests etc, why not stay in the overworld town, sneak into a rival guild, set some traps, stand back and watch as the members chase you out and set the traps off, a healthy loot available... That's just an example of course.

Anyway my point being, is there a point at which you can have so much 'fluff' content, non essential, optional 'story driven' interaction available that your game stops being or feeling like a roguelike?

I think it would fit into my game quite well as they'll be an active overworld community full of interaction (all of course, procedurally generated) but I can't picture whether or not this 'depth of play' outside of a dungeon would make it less of a roguelike...

Maybe I'm overthinking this whole thing, I'm fairly tired..

Anyway, see you around

[guest509]

Well you might be overthinking it if you are still at the '@' on a grid phase of developing your game. If your goals are to have a lot of RPG and story features I wouldn't say that's not doable, and don't worry about it being a straight roguelike, make the game you want to play and others will also want to play.

[Vanguard]

Anyway my point being, is there a point at which you can have so much 'fluff' content, non essential, optional 'story driven' interaction available that your game stops being or feeling like a roguelike?

I don't know if that sort of thing would make a game feel less like a roguelike or if it would even be a problem if it did.

To me, the bigger concern would is that too much of this sort of thing could lead to a divided and unfocused game.

Roguelike players are pragmatic by nature.  If murdering every guild in the land is more profitable than exploring dungeons, your dungeons will be deserted.  On the other hand, if guildmurder is dangerous, it could turn out to be a feature people use for a quick laugh on a new characters, but ignore in serious play.

Those kinds of problems aren't impossible to resolve or anything, but you'll want to be aware of them.  If some feature or mechanic is intended to be fluff rather than a key part of the game, you may want limit how big of an impact it can have on the player's chances of success.

I tried to get into an older roguelike called Omega recently, and that game makes huge sacrifices to support its "fluffy" aspects.  The early dungeons are all extremely deadly for level 1 characters to the point where you basically need to get experience and equipment from non-combat quests and from joining guilds before you can properly start the game.  And then after all that, half the time you get a random encounter just outside of town where a ninja oneshots you before you get a single turn, so you get to spend another half hour doing all the fluff to get your next character ready.

I guess my point with all of this is that you should worry more about making the best game you can make instead of making one that captures the feel of a roguelike.  And that fluff can be well and good, but it needs to be kept under control so that it doesn't mess up the "real" game.

[Trowel]

To me, the bigger concern would is that too much of this sort of thing could lead to a divided and unfocused game.

That's a very good point actually. My ultimate design goal is to create a defined game world and within that world you can either choose to play the traditional roguelike structure (encouraged) or you can go off and speak to characters, explore places and play more rpg or adventure mode. The idea being that you can dip into the side quests (fluff) when you need to stock up on some resources or gather knowledge etc.

I see what you mean about Omega though, very unbalanced.

[Krice]

I think fluff should be made a new basic rule of a roguelike. If there is no fluff, it's not a roguelike.

[Soyweiser]

When I read fluff I thought you meant background materials at first (Like this: *spoiler Cataclysm DDA* https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/blob/master/data/LAB_NOTES *End of spoiler*. Stories about where the monsters came from or something. But you mean additional game content.

I don't really have anything to contribute apart from listing what kind of fluff Crawl Stone Soup has. It is all content you can do when you are already capable of winning the game. It just provides more score, or more stuff to do with your character while still being challenged. Not sure if you are looking for that, or just for more paths that make your character stronger to take on the endgame.

In Crawl stone soup you need to perform 3 steps to win. You need to collect 3 of the possible 15 runes, go down to the lowest basic dungeon level and collect the orb of zot in the realm of zot, and then go back up and escape.

Optional parts:
- During the normal dungeon run the various optional branches such as the ice caves. They provide only loot at expense of some additional danger.
- Collecting all 15 runes. There are a few very hard ones in the different Hells, and Pandemonium (Randomly generated super hells).
- Going down a ziggurath to level 27. (Each level of a zig is progressively harder than the first, and while almost any build can win, very few builds can reliably get to a zig level 27).
- After getting the pandemonium runes, any pan level.

The only things these provide is more exp, more items, and in case of the 15 runes some score. But they are optional.