Arguments for and against Stamina as a stat

In the comments to my last post, Nolithius remarks (rather sensibly) that:

No need to have complexity for complexity's sake! If 4 stats work well for your system, then 4 stats is the right amount. In fact, for a 3-class system you can get away with 3 stats and have the HP progression be determined by the class.

To be honest, the thought (of just having three stats in Stygia) had already crossed my mind, but I've been resistent to just having the three stats for several reasons:

• Dungeon Crawl has only the three stats, and using the same stats smacks of ripping Crawl off (the corrolary of this argument is below).
  


• To have HP Progression determined by class makes class the most important choice in the game (which is why, I guess, Crawl determines HP by skill levels).
  

However, on the other hand, there are excellent reasons for not having a stamina stat:

• A Stamina stat becomes either an irrelevance or worse, it becomes a 'stat tax': witness the continual dependency (and arguments) upon stamina items in certain MMOs
  


• It doesn't actively contribute to the game, and doesn't have any natural decision points hanging off it. In short, its additional unwarranted and unjustified complexity.
  


• Crawl doesn't have a stamina stat, and Crawl is the best roguelike about at the moment.
  

The first one is perhaps the biggest argument against stamina, and the argument that I'm likely to persuade me. But if I don't have a Stamina stat, how do we determine Hit Points?

Leaving aside whither or not we should have hit points (a whole other argument altogether), the standard roguelike options tend to be:

• by Class
  


• by Race
  


• by Skill
  

I'm against determining HP by Class alone, and Stygia will not have any races (the PC will be 'human'-ish). For this reason, I'm gravitating towards making Hitpoints dependent upon both Level and the value of the class's primary Skill (e.g. Fighting, Sneaking or Spellcasting).

Charisma and other stats

Getting back to Stygia development, I'm pondering, for a small roguelike, how many stats a character needs? 3, like Crawl (these are Str, Dex, Int). Or 6 like DnD, Angband?

I think 3 is too few, but 6 is too much (has anyone ever worked out a good use for Charisma in a roguelike?

I think just the four (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Stamina) would be better. They also suit thematically the type of game I'm planning (with only three Character Classes - Basher, Sneak, Adept that map to Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence respectively).

Thoughts?

BRogue!

A new version of BRogue is out and its now fully cross-platform courtesy of Libtcod!

I've downloaded it but not played it yet other than a cursory wander through to check that it works. But I'm really looking forward to playing it!

C# Cartesian Point class

I've developed a class for using Points in C# (unlike Delphi, there's no inbuilt type). You can grab the source code and a sample console app here or here. All code is public domain, knock yourself out, etc, etc, etc.

The best laid plans of mice and men....

This weekend I'll won't be working on my map classes and getting the '@ walking around an empty map' state done after all.

The perils of running out of anti-depressants on a bank holiday weekend. :-(

Stygia - story & monsters

Unlike Kharne, I'm intending to have a detailed story line from the start with Stygia. This will manifest itself in many ways throughout the game, from factions the character can join, perform quests and obtain reputation for, to NPCs from different factions fighting each other if the character's actions have caused a war between them. I think C# will allow me to make a really good living world and NPC/Monster AI.

I've found two posts on creature AI in roguelike that I can't recomnend heavily enough: here and here. Certainly the first one (and its followups), courtesy of the ever informative Andrew Doull should be read by any budding roguelike developer.

Meanwhile, a random screenshot from the intro section (which I eventually hope to animate and sort out suitable music to accompany it) explaining the back story of the game:

This weekend I'll be working on my map classes and getting the '@ walking around an empty map' state done.

Stygia - some initial design thoughts

One of the things I'm planning to do with Stygia is to not overreach myself - something that sadly, Kharne suffers from. To get the game done in 3 months, I'm going to limit the initial version to something achievable:

• One main persistent dungeon, with around a dozen levels (with varying themes). Dungeons will be smaller than those in Kharne.
• No character classes.
• Characters will have fewer stats then Kharne. I'm currently thinking of only having Strength, Agility, Constitution and Intelligence as the main stats.
• Only a few skills, e.g. Fighting, Defense, Subterfuge and Spellcasting.
• Only a limited number of items and brands.
• A limited selection of spells (perhaps just over a dozen, giving just enough to initially make magic playable and no more).
• Around a dozen types of enemies.

By limiting the scope, I hope to get an actual game out, which some of us perpetual roguelike programmers seem to forget to do.

Beyond this, I have a whole spreadsheet filled with ideas I want to implement in both Stygia and Kharne, culled from other roguelikes and near-endless searching of a decade of r.g.r.d's archives.