Way of the Shadow Monk

[Canuck]

Alcuin aspires to be a Shadow Monk when they grow up. The order follows strict rules (more than any mere Shadow priest):

1. Use no weapons.
2. Wear no armour or jewellery (a shirt for modesty is OK).
3. Consume no meat or potions.
4. Tell no lies.
5. Steal nothing and kidnap no one.
6. Attack no person or monster unless attacked first.
7. Provide no support to Feygard.
8. Express no binary gender (the Shadow is genderless).

(Update: removed rule 6 because it led to hypocritical behaviour, standing near monsters waiting for them to attack.)

When Alcuin is accepted into the order at age 16, their only loyalty will be to it; for now, however, they must still respect their father Mikhail and search for their brother Andor as requested. Permadeath does not worry Alcuin: if they die, their purity of mind, body, and spirit will ensure that the Shadow embraces them.

I don't expect to get much past level 10, but it will be an interesting ride. I'll post my experiences here.

[Canuck]

First attempt: died in level 2 fighting the giant rat. Tweaked the rules to allow attacking first.

[Antison]

Good luck with this one.

[Canuck]

Good luck with this one.

For sure. I've died a couple of times on level 2. It's rough not being able to complete the Leta quest to get an extra level before the rat cave, but the way it's designed right now…

…it forces you to lie to either Leta or Oromir, so there's no way for an honest character to complete the quest. It would be a simple fix: just add "I'm sorry, but I need to tell Leta" or "I'm sorry, but I can't tell you where Oromir is" as options.

[Antison]

I don't feel like those changes are necessary for self imposed player restrictions like this.
In fact, some of the stuff that I'm working on right now forces you to lie.

[Canuck]

I don't feel like those changes are necessary for self imposed player restrictions like this.
In fact, some of the stuff that I'm working on right now forces you to lie.

That's totally fair, but since people do take their characters' personalities and ethics very seriously and self-impose restrictions (like Feygard or Nor-City alignment, not using bonemeal, etc) — that seems to be a big plus for the AT community — perhaps it would be good for gameplay to

1. Not to force a character to lie unless it's essential to the quest (it isn't for the Leta one), and
2. Provide an option for a user to abandon a quest (a third category on the user quest tab).

[rijackson741]

.1 would require us to change existing quests. We are very reluctant to do this. It's not an issue for those that have completed the quest, or for those that have not started it. But it is very difficult to predict the consequences for those that are part way through it.

.2 Some quests require that to start them you have completed other quests. So no to this. Players could lock themselves out of portions of the game without any knowledge that their choice would do so.

[Canuck]

I don't think any of those concerns would apply in this case, since the quest end states are the same, but this also isn't the hill I choose to die on. Cheers. and thanks for the discussion.