Frayed Knights: Learning the Lingo!
Frayed Knights - the comedy-based indie RPG - continues development. Which euphemistically means, "haunts my nightmares, tortures me during my waking hours, and teases me with stark unrealized potential." Game development is fun, dontcha know...

Phat Loot!
Loot works. Taking a page from many jRPGs, loot just... happens. Since you have an infinite party inventory, there's no reason NOT to take everything that's not bolted down. So you do. It ain't fancy, but it works. (That same sentence may be useful to describe my coffin at the end of this project.)


There were little "odds and ends" details - black triangle work - that had to go in here, like keeping track of whether or not the trap on the chest had already gone off or been disabled, and the loot-state stuff.

Conversations
I conceded defeat on conversations. For now. When you click on an NPC, a static dialog comes up. It can change based on your relationship with the NPC, the number of times you clicked on them already, or if you have a flower in your inventory, or anything else. So that much is cool. But some of the more fancy-pants conversation options I intended to put in there have been back-burnered for now. If I end up with more time at the end of this month... well, yeah. Right. Like that's ever gonna happen.

Instead, I'm focusing on creating higher quality static dialog scripts. Well, okay - quantities of static dialog scripts. Hopefully with humor. I changed how conversations are represented, based on some feedback I've received on a previous post. The NPC's are no longer bolted on to the bottom of the party. This system will hopefully portray the conversation more clearly. There's still a little work that needs to be done --- the portrait needs to be positioned a little better, and for some reason it's not scrolling correctly with the rest of the dialog. But those shouldn't be difficult fixes.

For other tech-heads like me - I had to implement a binary-search tree for handling persistent game data for the conversation and quest system information (though it can also be used by the trap & loot system, merchants, and interactive objects). The big win here was simultaneously creating a bunch of "unit tests" - all in TorqueScript - to exercise the addition, retrieval, and modification functions. The code did NOT work the first time I tried it out, but the tests made it easy to hunt down and fix the bugs.

The Frayed Knights Adventurer Culture and Lingo
In the world of Frayed Knights, the community of "adventurers" is large enough that they could probably have conferences and trade journals and stuff. ("Dungeon Delver's Quarterly?"). The veterans know each other, at least by reputation. The fraternity of adventurers is a key element to both the flavor and plot of the game.

Part of the "vision" for this was the idea that there was a world of adventure out there, and all the adventurers are kinda-sorta like Player Characters (for different players) in an RPG. As a community, they get a little bit jaded. They deal with mind-boggling spells, horrendous monsters, and death on an almost daily basis. It's old hat. And when they get together, they talk shop.

It stands to reason that they'd have their own jargon - expressions, terminology, and euphemisms - for their profession. And, like professional soldiers, a healthy dose of gallows humor. They'd talk about their profession and lifestyle a lot like players talk about their gaming experience, but all "in-character." So I can have no references to dice, rules, gamemasters, or game designers - but somewhat anachronistic-sounding terms fits perfectly.

I've had a great time working out dialogs for these guys. As they start to get into my head, they develop their own voice. And I take notes as to what they say. I've been building up something of a dictionary of adventurer terms. Some sample terms include:

'Keet, (or Parakeet): A party member who is so useless that they are only good for sticking out in front of the rest of the party as an early-warning device for traps and ambushes.

Stomper: A newbie adventurer. So called because they "stomp around" a dungeon with their lack of finesse or experience.

Hand-Me-Down: Euphemism for equipment taken from the dead, particularly the remains of dead adventurers. Not applied to loot gained from enemies.

Chewspit: An adventurer (or thing) so vile that the monsters don't have the stomach to eat him - they can only chew him up and spit him back out again.

Class A Dungeon: An underground complex with intelligent hostile forces capable of mounting an organized defense. The most dangerous kind of dungeons.

Got some good ideas? Let me know so I can put words in their mouths. They tend to use too many mundane, modern terms right now (particularly the four-letter variety), so I have to help them with their vocabulary. As you can see below, however, they don't dwell in a world of pseudo-medieval "thees" and "thous."

And yes, there will be explanations for some of those terms for players who can't figure them out from context. Benjamin, in particular, is kind of a "stomper" himself - a newbie to the adventuring community. He asks a lot of questions. He doesn't in this example below because... well... he may not be available at this point. I will say no more on this subject.

Conversation Sample
Here's an excerpt from an NPC conversation with another adventurer that occurs in the Inn at Ardin. I have only done one editing pass on it so far, so it's kinda rough.

Arianna: So what happened to your own group?

Shiela: We were tipped off to a class C dungeon outside of Kerrikan. We brought on some stomper as muscle, since Targuin found himself a woman back in Erimor City. Turns out the tip was way off - it was a class A run by some diamondback nagas. They were using festerbones as diversions against us.

Dirk: Diamondbacks? Wow! I've always wanted to see one of those.

Shiela: No you don't, Dork.

Dirk: It's DIRK!

Shiela: Whatever. We were clearing the last of the festerbones when the diamondbacks jumped us. Renee and the stomper were morted in the fireball barrage. And they turned poor Kerric, our spell-monkey, into this ferret while the two of us were making an escape.

Chloe: THAT little thing is Kerric?

Shiela: I'm afraid so.

Chloe: But he's SO CUTE! Who ever knew Kerric would make such a cute ferret? Who's duh fuzzy wittle wizard now?

Shiela: Just be glad he doesn't understand you right now. I'm trying to work my way back to Erimor City to find someone who can change him back, but I know it's going to cost a pretty coin. I'm hoping to earn what I can, and maybe sweet-talk Targuin into loaning me the rest. Assuming he hasn't gone broke keeping that woman of his.

Chloe: Oh! Oh! I have a question!

Shiela: Yeah?

Chloe: Can a diamondback naga actually DO that? Make Kerric so cute and fuzzy?

Shiela: Obviously, they can.

Chloe: Oh. Okay. It's just that that is some serious, epic magic. I didn't think the nagas had it in them.

Not every conversation is stuffed to the gills with jokes. As you might guess from the above, there are actually some clues and character development stuck in there from time to time.

(Vaguely) related wastes of electrons:
* Frayed Knights: Mocking (Up) Conversations
* Frayed Knights: Talk Ain't Cheap
* RPG Conversation Redesign
* What Makes a Great RPG - The World

Come Talk Shop on the Forum, And Help Fill Me In On Other Adventurer Lingo!

Labels: Frayed Knights, Roleplaying Games

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