SoC Dev Diary 2: Wounds

 
Sup, Rein here, with another, long-delayed SoC Development Diary, this time concerning Wounds, Damage, and Death Spirals. 

The wounds have been perhaps the biggest obstacle on the way of the rework, primarily because at first, I had no intention of messing with them. I expected the skill rework to be taxing on our workload by itself, with the sheer volume of the events currently in place, so I was mindful of adding further changes, especially if I was convinced the current systems were *fine*.

But wounds weren’t *fine*. Or at the very least, they weren’t what we would need going forward. 

The existing system is pretty simple - whenever a scene had Rowan taking damage, the game would add a wound to his character sheet, hand-tailored to reflect the wound description. That in itself proved to be a problem, as Rowan was taking *a lot* of physical injuries - and little else. With the new skill system reducing the number of skills in play, Rowan quickly started accumulating an exuberant amount of Combat Prowess, Brawn and Agility skill penalties. And as checks involving skills like Combat Prowess, Brawn and Agility tended to result in physical injuries if failed… 

You’re seeing where I’m going with this, right? 

So that was one issue that kept haunting me. The other was the custom nature of the wounds themselves - a wound could be anything, from a -1 penalty to one skill that lasted a week, to a -10 penalty to several skills that lasted 3 months. That made it difficult to create ways for the player to interact with Rowan’s wounds, and it made tracking Rowan’s state very frustrating, both for the player and the game itself. 

The data could be aggregated - there was nothing stopping us from keeping track of total number of penalties applies, the average duration of wounds, categorize the severity of each wound based on its properties - but in all honesty, the preliminary work on that felt like putting a lot of effort to apply a patchwork solution to a system that simply did not provide us with what we wanted. I didn’t want a complex wound system. I wanted something straightforward, that is easy to grasp for the player. Something that doesn’t distract people from their eternal hunt for more tits. 

So I started from scratch. And several months later, here we are, with the new draft of the damage and wounds system, ready to see the light of day. 

Damage and Wounds. 

To start with, if Rowan gets injured during scenes, he will now take “damage” rather than direct wounds. I call it “damage” with parentheses, since for us it doesn’t equate physical damage, and rather represents the accumulation of physical weariness, mental fatigue, minor injuries like cuts or common illnesses pilling up, and even Rowan’s luck running out. All of this is portrayed on the Damage Bar, which fills up with Damage until it reaches a certain Threshold. Once it does - Rowan receives a Wound. 

Upon receiving a Wound, the Damage Bar is cleared, to give the player some breathing space. What exact wound is received is semi-random (though they’re all more or less of equal impact), rolled from a group of wounds reflecting the last Type of Damage received. 

What Types of damage are we talking here? There is a handful of categories, split between location, weapon used, and even the emotional impact of the blow. The goal here was simple - to create a variety of wounds Rowan can receive, so he doesn’t always end up with stab wounds, bruises and broken bones, as was often the case earlier

So for example, let’s assume Rowan is in a battle with an orc in the Bloodmeen arena, and receives a devastating blow to the face that pushes him past the Damage Threshold. As the battle ends in a very public defeat, this damage is categorized as [Face/Humiliation], meaning Rowan will now receive a random Wound from either [Face] or [Humiliation] Category. Each will come with a short description and an adequate name, as they should: 

• Humiliation Wound: Shame: -1 diplomacy, -1 deception, for 8 weeks.

“The memory of his last failure is still fresh in Rowan’s mind, making it hard to look people in the eyes.”   

• Humiliation Wound: Denial: -1 Combat Prowess, -1 Diplomacy, -1 Stealth, +1 Deception, for 8 weeks.

“His last failure might have been humiliating, but Rowan will go through great lengths to convince everyone nothing of the sort ever happened. “

• Humiliation Wound: Irritation: -1 Stealth, -1 Wilderness Survival, -1 Perception, +1 Combat Prowess, for 8 weeks.

“The memory of his last failure is still fresh in Rowan’s mind, and whoever has the misfortune of crossing Rowan’s path will quickly learn it was a one-time thing.” 

• Face Wound: Ugly Bruising: -2 Diplomacy, for 8 weeks.

“An ugly reminder of Rowan’s recent defeat makes it difficult to persuade others.“ 

• Face Wound: Eye Injury: -2 perception, for 8 weeks.  

“Be it a minor abrasion to the eye itself, or heavy swelling around it, Rowan is forced to rely on his other senses for the time being.” 

• Face Wound: Concussion: -1 Combat Prowess, -1 Agility, -1 brawn, +1 stealth, for 8 weeks. 

“Nausea, dizziness, vomiting. Better to avoid physical confrontation with anyone, at least for now.” 

(Obviously, that’s all work in progress. The game will likely have around ~18 general wounds total, categorized so that that there’s always at least 3 possible wounds to gain whenever Rowan takes damage.)

The numbers themselves will be tweaked, but the intent is simple - wounds should be lasting, impactful, and feel like a significant event the player should take notice of, akin to a building being finished or new research being completed. Ideally, the game ought to offer various ways of dealing with wounds. For the time being, two will be guaranteed. 

The obvious choice is to, of course, tough it out. Simply wait for the wound to run its course. That’s a viable option, very fitting of Rowan’s character. We do, however, run into the classic problem of wound penalties resulting in failed checks, which result in further wounds with further penalties (the aforementioned death spiral). To counter that, we will have a simple system that will decrease Rowan’s susceptibility to wounds with each wound currently on his body, with the working name for it being “Tenacity”.

The second obvious choice is to heal up. In time, I’d love to have a sexy chaos nurse keeping Rowan in peak physical condition, but being a practical man, for now we’ll be retrofitting Cla-Min’s shop to handle healing. Along with temporary skill buffs, this will be the primary gold sink for Rowan. Nothing of substance is decided beyond that, but I plan for it to some Anti-Frustration Features, like free healing before major story segments, or the ability to go into debt if the player has 3 wounds and no money, when they’d rather have no wounds and 3 money.   

And that’s basically all that has been decided on the subject so far. I’m still working with DarkMaster to fine-tune the system, so as always, feedback of all kinds would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your continuous support of Seeds of Chaos. You’re all wonderful people, so don’t be afraid to say Hi on Discord! 

FAQ: 

So what will the player need to keep track of ingame? 

New wounds taken, and nothing else. The player will be able to check their current Damage and how close they are to a new wound, but there’s nothing they can do with that info, as the game will not offer ways to heal Damage directly. Similarly, the game itself will not tinker with Wounds themselves - it will never mysteriously extend or shorten their duration. If the game says a wound will last until week 34, the player is guaranteed it will do so, unless they heal it themselves.