Current mood:	depressed
Current music:	Audioslave, "I Am The Highway"

Old LJ bits, part two.
I must say, this is one of the most clever things I've ever written. And it's not even that old.

Stuff I'd Like To See In RPGs

I've been thinking a lot about RPGs lately.

Not the pen-and-paper RPGs; I've always wanted to try that, but there aren't any people around here that I know of who are into that sort of thing....this is rural northwest Tennessee, one of my earliest memories is hearing a televangelist talk about how Dungeons and Dragons was Satanic. No, I'm talking about PC-based RPGs, specifically the "fantasy" kind (which are somehow okay, which is good, because I love them).

I'm currently playing "Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor" on my laptop. I know, I know, it's been out for more than a year, but I'm cheap. I'm not gonna pay $40-50 for something when I can wait awhile and get the $10 version with electronic documentation. It's really only the box and the manual that you're paying so much for, you know; "Baldur's Gate" is not Adobe Photoshop.

Anyway. I actually *did* pay full price for one game: The Sims. And it was so, so worth it--but that's another matter. The real purpose of this post...well, I was thinking about some of the aspects of The Sims that appeal to me, and about all the RPGs I've played...

Bodily functions. It's all about bodily functions.

Think about it. When was the last time you saw a RPG that allowed--no, *required*--your character(s) to eat (for hunger, not for health), drink, sleep, and go to the bathroom--all in the same game? Most of them allow one of these functions, but I can't think of any that allow *all* of them....let's see. I'll make a list of sorts.

1. "Nox." (Recently dug this one out and replayed it for the hell of it.) In "Nox" you can eat, but only to regain health, not to satisfy hunger. No drinking, no bathroom, no sleep.

2. "Darkstone." (PoR:RoMD reminds me a LOT of this one...all that mindless wandering and little quests that don't mean a whole lot...) In this one you had to eat to satisfy hunger; it was possible to starve, I *think*. (It's been a while.) And you could rest to regain health, but not to satisfy any urge to sleep.

3. "Baldur's Gate." Characters required rest, but nothing else. Drinking was allowed, but only as a means of getting information, and drunkenness apparently had no effect on the characters. Oh, and you could talk just a bit to the prostitutes in the Undercellar, but you couldn't fuck them.

4. "Icewind Dale." I may be wrong about this one, I haven't played it in a bit, but I think it was basically similar to "Baldur's Gate". Possibly without the prostitutes.

5. "Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor." So far, all that's possible is resting for the sake of regaining health. No food, no booze, nothing else. Maybe I'll get lucky and it'll change later in the game.

You see the deficiencies? I've pondered all this for several days now, as I've recovered from my first sinus infection of the winter, and I've come up with The Assassin's Little List Of How Things Should Be...also known as Geez, People, Let's Have Some Fuckin' Realism.

I want to see the following:

--Characters having to eat (and drink) to satisfy hunger/thirst. There would be serious consequences for failing to meet this need...ever play NetHack and have your Level 15 Barbarian get killed by a newt because he fainted from lack of food?

--Characters would be able to drink, get intoxicated, AND have it affect their performance on the battlefield (or, for that matter, their ability to get around anywhere).

--Sleep. Sleep is good. Sleep is very good. Sure, it would piss me off to see my Fighter fall unconscious in the middle of a major battle because of his fatigue, but hey, it happens. There's this little thing called "exhaustion", you know?

--My personal favorite: Characters should have to go to the bathroom! If you're at the Friendly Arm Inn in BG and you spend all your gold buying drinks to get rumors, you're going to have to piss that stuff out sooner or later. So why not do it in the middle of combat? RPG watersports! :) (...Okay, so that's a little over the top, but it would amuse me to see a 20th-level Mage fumble his 8th-level Flamin' Fist o' Death spell because he forgot to visit the little boys' room before leaving that last tavern. Better yet, have a little interaction in which one of your party members says something like, "Uh, guys, I can't help you fight the Ancient Multi-Hued Dragon...I had the curried goblin for lunch.")

Maybe that's enough...Anyway, you see where I'm coming from, right? (If anyone knows of a game--other than The Sims :P--that's anything like what I'm aiming at here, please let me know; it would satisfy my curiosity if nothing else.)

Expect more on this. If you're lucky, I may eventually write "Why Nobody Pees in Fantasy Novels."