Discussion on the Music skill.

[Variaz]

Ok, so, I've been rather silent on this forum for the whole month of december. Took some vacations, slept a lot(noon was the average time that I woke up), played some other games, etc...

But now is the time to break this silence and resume Portralis work now. And what's a better way of breaking silence than the Music skill?

The Music skill is a potentially interesting skill, being the only skill that produces passive area of effect spells centered on your character, similar to the "aura" abilities. It can be further enhanced with musical instruments to produce more effects, and the Bard class has several abilities dedicated to it. And since it's charisma-based, it has the extra bonus of making everything costs almost nothing in shops, making Bards easy to gear up!

But I feel like the Music skill is currently extremely ackward to use when making songs. The user interface is really annoying to use, mainly because it's not really a user interface per se, more like a series of choices you have to make. This is due to me wanting to do the whole thing lua-based and not use anything hard coded, but the result is an ackward system.

But the way the skill works, with the three components combo, I don't really feel like I'm a composer making a song, and more like an alchemist who has to hunt for components(it's even worse, in fact, since crafters/alchemists have to look for two components, and musicians needs three). The fact that you can use the Throwing skill to throw Rhythms to kill foes doesn't help improving the skill's flavor.

I'd like to do some brainstorming on what we can do to improve the skill, both to make it more effective and make it more fun.

One idea I had was instead of using a components system, when you compose a song, you would actually get to type your own lyrics. (limited to one line, of course) Or a song's title. Or whatever you want. And then it will get saved in a list of songs, similar to your list of spells. It would then produce an effect, randomly generated based on what you type. There would of course be some predetermined songs that you can find in parchements during your dungeon exploration, but you could always try your own songs. The effect and power will vary greatly, and some songs will not work until you have enough skill in Music. The challenge would be to try and find some good songs by trying various combinations(however, you would start the game with a few basic premade songs to allow an easy start), something that is different than anything we have right now.

Anyway, that's one idea, let me know what you think and if you have other ideas.

[zekk]

You could just use a similar system to magic... Find different music books and learn the components from them to use whenever you want.
Though, the make your own title idea sounds really cool. But what if someone tries to make a song that's complete gibberish?

Jan 13, 2011 13:48:19 GMT -5 Variaz said:

I'd like to do some brainwashing on what we can do to improve the skill, both to make it more effective and make it more fun.

You mean... brainstorming, right?

[Variaz]

The idea would be that you could type anything you want. Whether you type "Song of the Unknown" or "hiaouignojwaqgb", it would make no difference for the system.

There would also be predetermined song titles that you could find in parchements in the dungeons, so it's not all up to the rng. You would also begin the game with a list of basic songs to get you started.

The good thing about this is that it could also be used for some puzzles in some quests where you would have to use a word or song to trigger an event. For example, a dungeon could be closed until you shout "Open Sesame!" to open it!

Jan 14, 2011 13:56:24 GMT -5 zekk said:

You mean... brainstorming, right?

Who knows? *evil laugh*

(edited my post, thanks for pointing it out!)

[Gando]

Using Keywords might make more sense than totally random effects. IE: your song title contains the word Love it makes an effect that charms a target. Your song contains the word Battle you gain a passive bonus to your combat stats. Your song contains the word Courage you get a bonus to resists. This approach would require a glossary which would have to be finite just to be practical. However you could combine this with random other effects to get unique songs.

As a balance to this you have would a test based on the complexity of the phrase. The more words (eliminating prepositions and articles like 'to' and 'the' from the count) in it the harder it is to learn. Also with more than one keyword you could get hybrid effects or one randomly dominant effect. (If your song title was "Battle of Love and Courage" you would either get a song with one relatively strong effect (up to your music skill rating) or a weaker hybrid (charm that also boosts combat stats or resists) randomly determined.

Also the word you were looking for is "awkward".

[Variaz]

Yes, using preset keywords would be a good idea! This would make it easier to use than totally random effects. We would have to determine how to handle multiple identical keywords though. Do we really want the songs to be titled "Fire Fire Fire Fire Fire Fire"? Keywords should probably provide their effect only once.

[Gando]

Well keeping mind that my idea = random effect if you use more than one keyword it would choose between the 6 fires. Might be interesting to have quests to find special keywords (that change each game) that do much more powerful things and maybe a few as you suggested that unlock stuff.

[Variaz]

Also, musical instruments.

Right now, they improve songs power, and some also have the ability to turn an element into another one. If we implement the new idea, switching different elements might not be useful anymore, since we can always just use a different word to call a different element(unless we make some elements exclusive to certain instruments). So we'll need a different functionality for instruments.

[challtdow]

I suggest having different instruments types and tiers which each give different bonuses to music. We have three main types of instument winds, percussion, and strings. Then we have tiers of quality withing each type.

Ex. At the lowest tier we have old flutes, drums, and harps. Have flutes give bonus to music power, drums give bonus to radius, and harps give bonus to something else, maybe lower music skill requirement of songs. Then the next tier gives higher bonuses to the main ability and possibly lower bonus to the other two, and so forth. Possibly require certain rare, but non-artifact instrument types to play songs with powerful abilities (dual-element damage or rare types like radio or mana). Artifacts would be useable for all songs but would also grant special abilities.

For learning songs/keywords I think using something similar to the existing magic system would be a good choice. You find old sheet music and read it to learn the new stuff. Perhaps have a quest for a composer or old bard to learn some of the better effects.

Chall T. Dow

[sekira]

I like the idea of learning a music component and then being able to "compose" songs in the town based on your level of musical knowledge (ie, using the melodies, Harmonies, and Rhythms you learned earlier)

I think it might be cool to have more than just circle effects for the instant songs... I can see that would be difficult with passive or effect songs though. I would like to see more than just the rhythms for various radius circle effects, like for ball (throwing your voice), bolt (directed note), chain radius 0, or even higher radius chains. the more powerful effects (like chains) would cause the power to be lowered for the same charisma requirement, or perhaps double or triple or more the existing Harmony's charisma requirements for the given power. There could be rhythms that are more simple (like a range one bolt) that double the power for the same charisma. Variations would be nice.

I suggest the other effects because bards are hard to play with just the circle effects. It is true that the passive ones are nice, but being a one trick pony doesn't work too well in portralis.

I don't like the key word song title idea or random song title idea though. takes the strategy out of things I think. It becomes a "scum for a good random song" game, or "learn the right key words and then exploit them" game.

[Variaz]

Well, what you're suggesting pretty much boils down to making Music a sixth spell school. However, I'd like Music to be different than spell schools, rather than being the same but with charisma and instruments instead of int/rods.

I picture a Bard singing or playing an instrument. This creates a song that everything around him can hear, hence the circle-type effect. It's a little difficult to imagine a bolt spell coming from the Music skill.

[sekira]

I'm not saying to take that away, there should be passive and effect songs that produce circle effects every turn, and also instant songs that do the same on demand as well. That makes sense to me.

In order to defend my idea let me say this:
1) I don't see allowing bolt, ball, melee, and chain effects for instant songs only to be equivalent to a 6th school of magic. They will still be chr based. They will still be limited to those damage types that are given by the melody chosen. Either way, isn't the damage or healing or strength boost, etc already like magic anyway? Thematically it already is another kind of magic that a player can use.

2) There is both scientific support (todays sonic crowd control non-lethal weapons are absolutely directional), and precedence in fantasy games (ever play bards tale? the bard songs could help the group or could hurt the enemies, meaning the bard could direct - very specifically - who was affected by each song) for directed sound waves. Who could better cause sound to be directed than a bard who is using supernatural kinds of abilities to sing songs that have supernatural effects? Ever seen the movie "Push"? The screamer characters were certainly using a directed type of sound/psionic attack.

I have an idea for allowing these new effects: add a 4th component: Theme. It could allow various possibilities... instant song effects that are something other than a circle effect (ball, bolt, melee, chain, etc). I also like the idea of letting some themes be a multiplier on the harmony's power or the rhythm's radius, for a set chr cost. This would allow bard songs to really compete with magic in terms of overall power. Of course, if the 4th component theme was added, then rhythms would not be changed to include the non-circle effects.

Theme ideas:
Simple - no additional effect, 0 chr (allows lower level bards to create songs like normal, MUST put this one in the music shop)
Focused - allows a bolt or ball effect depending on rhythm, 20 chr
Consuming - allows a chain effect, 40 chr + 40 chr for every radius above 0 that the rhythm gives
Cantrip - allows a range one bolt or ball effect, 0 chr
Forte - doubles the song's power, 20 chr
Fortisimo - triples the song's power, 60 chr
Choncerto - increases song's radius by 50%, 40 chr
Grand Concert - doubles song's radius, 100 chr

[Gando]

And then you have Dune

Seriously though, while I think the idea has some merit based on precedent the question is: why would anyone choose to use music over spells for directed ranged magical attacks? I think the only answer that suffices is that the save/resist would be different.

[Variaz]

In the end, however, it is still similar to normal spellcasting, with the same possibilities, similar mechanics where you build a custom attack of any types you want. Except it might actually be worse, since you now have to find 4 components just to get a single song, whereas magic only needs one book. And the power levels are still predetermined. So Gando is right: why would you want to use music if it's just a weaker magic? Save/resist wouldn't work much differently, except charisma-based.

The custom titles idea is "abusable", to a certain extent. But that at least gives uniqueness to the system, and gives music an advantage over standard magic: you can cast the good songs as soon as you have enough skill/charisma. This is counterbalanced by the fact that in the end, you still don't have as much control over what you get, so magic is still great once you get the books, as it gives you more control over the spells effects. Song-scumming could be an issue early on(or not, since it's your own decision whether to scum for songs or not. I would make sure that you get enough words/premade songs through parchements to avoid the need of scumming), but once you find some good ones, the need for scumming goes away. Gando's idea of some random, powerful secret words that changes each games is also interesting.

[sekira]

Ok, so how about a compromise? The Title-keyword method is used to create songs, but there are some keywords for bolt, ball, chain, and range 1 bolt (like melee, but power based on your power keyword instead of your character's melee damage) when you create an instant effect song?

I do like the idea of having "super keywords" randomly generated and saved in the character save file at creation, that give really spectacular results.

My idea on the mechanics is to have a list of vowel equivalent phonic tags (a, e, i, o, u, y, oi, ia, ea, ee, oo, ... etc) and a (much longer) list of non-vowel phonic tags (b, c, d, f, g, ... as well as ch, sh, th, gh, sk, rh, ph, qu, ... etc) and then randomly pick a number between 2 and 8 (favoring 2 through 5) and then randomly pick whether vowel or non-vowel comes first, then randomly pick from the whole list of vowels for each vowel tag, and from the whole list of non-vowels for each non-vowel tag. Perhaps the number of tags determines the power of the super keyword... maybe having some lower level 2 or 3 tag super keywords that gave results better than the standard keywords at the same level, but are found in parchments at lower levels would be nice, but also have higher level 5, 6, 7, or 8 tag key words that give the really awesome but high-chr requirement effects.

This method would be much better than just having a static list of possible super keywords and choosing a few at creation. The possibilities would be in the millions, maybe billions, so just trying to guess them would be impossible. You would have to find them in parchments.

[Gando]

I wrote something like this in javascript a long time ago and a decade before that in C++ using header file mechanics.

The logic is fairly concise so it shouldn't take much to set it up but the question is why is this necessary? Not saying it isn't just not quite getting what the problem is with a more static list?