Forum Challenge Game?

[Mobius]

Perhaps a ID dive and return mission?

Each team has 4 characters - 4 predefined races, 4 pre-defined classes. Mix and match how you like.
You get 4 total wishes, but no duplication of wishes allowed. (fine tuning of wish mechanics TBD)

The goal is to go as deep into the ID as you can AND return alive.
Points awarded for survival, deepest depth achieved for a class / race, deepest overall, etc.

Could also be solo, rather than teams? Save at deepest spot, and switch off to teammate?

[JellySlayer]

I think I'm going to go with TWL, more or less. Here's what I'm thinking about for the rules. Comments? Glaring problems?

The game proceeds as following:

1) Players are split into teams (which we call "leagues" here). Generally, there will be r60 leagues and Steam leagues, depending on how many players of each group are interested. For Steam people, please be aware that there is a good chance that for the finals, you will have to play on r60. If you need help finding/downloading that version, please speak to me or any of the league administrators.

2) Each league will have a randomly rolled character in exploration mode starting in I:1 of the ID. This character will receive a wished-for item from the list provided below to assist you on your quest. Care should be taken not to destroy this item.

1. Mace of destruction
2. Eternium two-handed sword
3. White dragon scale mail
4. Crystal tower shield
5. Pairs of seven league boots
6. Bracers of resistance
7. Pairs of bracers of regeneration
8. Whip of the snake
9. Staffs of smiting
10. Rings of elemental mastery

3) Players play one after another, order is defined before the start of the game. You have 2000 game turns to survive, during which you have to descend at least once. Unless special circumstances, you may not ascend. If you do, you automatically die and everyone else is free to say what a shame it was to play with you in the same competition. If you die normally (that is, sliced, diced, roasted, crushed, frozen, electrocuted, choke on vomit, etc.) you are temporarily removed from your league. What happens next is based on what happens next.

4) Player Z plays his turn and creates savefile 1. Player A loads savefile 1 but fails to live through his turn, next player B starts at the same savepoint. If he dies too, next player C starts there. If player C succeeds and survives, players A and B are removed from their league permanently. Sorry, people. However, if the whole team dies (everyone after player Z), the likely explanation is that player Z created an impossible situation. He is given a chance to play from savefile 1. If he survives, he's proposed winner of the league and that league game is over. If he doesn't, he's cast into the Abyss (removed from his league) and savefile 1 is now officially a Trial situation. All other players from the league who tried to survive from savefile 1 and failed are resurrected and the game continues from a point before save 1.

4+) In case player Z survives, the other winner is decided by the following criteria:
1) Who descended to the deepest level wins
2) If equal depth, the player with most experience wins
[edit]3) If equal experience, the player with highest turncount wins
[edit]4) Note that you aren't required to reveal this information immediately upon your death.

[edit]
4++) If only two players are left, both are considered league winners and advance to the next round. They will continue playing to determine who is overall winner for that league. In this case, the Abyss is not in play: If one player dies, and the other survives, then the surviving player wins. If both players die the same turn, then the winner is determined by the criteria above.
[/edit]

5) The situation which caused team death is promoted to Trial category. Anyone dead from other leagues has a right to try it (only once though). If he somehow manages to complete it, he is resurrected in the league where the Trial situation appeared in the place of player who created the Trial situation.

6) The first two rounds of the game (each league player successfully (or not) played 2 rounds) must be played without intentional character crippling. Examples may include dropping valuable equipment, equipping cursed fortune cookies etc. Players who indulge in such tactics will be removed without a second chance. After two rounds are completed, you are free to do anything. In shady cases, such as: player A accuses player B of chaotic tactics during first two rounds, player B denies that his tactics are chaotic, league moderator has the final word.

A few specific cases to keep in mind

-Diving more than 5 levels is considered chaotic. No exceptions. Even if you're starving or being chased or whatever. Doesn't matter.
-Be very careful discarding items. Different people have different opinions about what items are considered essential. You should not discard obviously high value items like your starting gift, wands, useful spellbooks, good weapons and armor etc. You can obviously discard trash items like sticks, [0,0] clothes, etc. with impunity. Between these is a large gray area. Generally, you will be granted leeway in terms of what you discard, but if it appears to the rest of your team that you are discarding items recklessly, then they can discuss it with the moderator. If you aren't sure if people want you to keep a specific item, you can always ask.
-Likewise, be careful using consumable resources. You are allowed to use prayers, wand charges, spells, potions, etc. as much as you need to survive your turn. At the same time, reckless use of these resources can also be treated as chaotic--if you have full HP and a good weapon, and use a bunch of wand charges to kill a few rats, expect to be called on it.
-Aside from the diving rule above, it is generally not chaotic to survive a challenging situation, even if the tactics required are extreme. If you need to use a corruption trap to get teleportitis and escape an unavoidable tension room, that's okay. This type of action obviously must be documented in as much detail as you can, because your team will almost certainly have a moderator look at it.

7) Last two surviving players of each league are proposed winners and get to play in the finals. Final game has only one winner.

7+) Players who die early will end up in some sort of wildcard game and will have a chance to make it back to the finals.

8) You are obliged to describe your turn as thoroughly as possible. Base method is to post in the corresponding thread (these will be created). You may also record your game and upload the video somewhere, have a ttyrec on the server or do something else, but that is optional and do not eliminate the necessity to post here. Please consider this point very carefully: no one forces you to describe each individual turn, but such things as prayers, intrinsics, equipment changes, are quite important. Repeated or blatant disregard of this rule may result in your removal from your league. This is of course subjective and, as usual, league moderator has the final word.

A few specific cases to keep in mind:

-You MUST report any "chaotic" actions you do in as much detail as possible.
-For items that don't auto-identify, you are allowed to only report the message/description of what it did, even if you what that message corresponds to. Eg. if you use a wand and it generates a "buzzing sound", you can report that, not that the wand is trap creation. If the wand is out of charges, you should still report that you tried it and got "No effect". This holds generally for wands, scrolls and potions. For equipment that doesn't auto-identify, you should at least say if you put it on (ie. is it cursed or not).

8+) If you die on your turn, you may write only "I died" in order to let other players break the PC in the same pit you did.

9) There are time limits on your turn. Basically, noone wants to wait forever and this kills interest quite easily. You are supposed to complete your turn in 72 hours after the last player informed of his turn. If you have something important to do, please leave a notice here on the forums. We may wait for you, switch playing order within the league (if possible) or try to allow you to continue competition.

10) Turn count is very important. You are allowed to overplay by as maximum as 55 turns (base Recovery setting is 50). If you overplay by more you may technically be removed from your league. The decision is up to the next player and league moderator.

10+) You are allowed to make less moves if the player before has overplayed so that your 2 turns combined result in 4000 moves (practically, he played some moves for you).

11) Have fun playing. This is a entertainment for all of us, and if people start being bad sports, we are doing it wrong.


These are the basic rules.
Now, about those special circumstances I've mentioned:

The river rule: if you happened to generate a river, which can't be possibly crossed (with all prayers, healing potions etc), you are given a right to regenerate the level, that is go straight back to staircase, go up and immediately go down. This does not count as descending and you should then descend properly.

Other stuff:
League moderators do not (obviously) play in the league which they moderate.

[yhal003]

6. Bracers of resistance
7. Pairs of bracers of regeneration

Maybe let people wish for pairs of resistance bracers too?

Also, any objections to playing with high loot setting on?

[Blank4u47]

4+) I thought exploration mode didn't have a score?

[JellySlayer]

4+) I thought exploration mode didn't have a score?

Your score isn't recorded in your highscore list, but you can still see it in your .flg.

[edit]Actually I think I should probably change score to turncount. If two players have the same experience and are on the same level, it's fairly likely that they will have the same score.
[edit2]Changed to turncount.

[Maul]

Sounds good. Though some of the items may not help much in a tough situation early on (the bracers or even the 7LBs - the latter is awesome but kinda not much help if you are surrounded by two strong monsters). I would suggest that these wishes be accompanied by one of the pairs of bracers/7LBs being buffed to at least [+3, +3] through scrolls of defense/protection (should be doable even with the small number of r60 wishes).

[Blasphemous]

Why crystal shield and not eternium? Why WDSM and not Red/Black/Blue one?
What about phase daggers, whips of slaughtering, crowns of lightning, rings of tctrl etc?

You get the idea; I'm questioning the validity of that list in general since some entries make sense (regen items) while some don't, at least to me.

Aside from that, I love the idea, I find the rules to be fair and I can't wait to get my hands on the character.
Oh the excitement =D

[JellySlayer]

Why crystal shield and not eternium? Why WDSM and not Red/Black/Blue one?

I chose these two because they weren't the conventional choices. WDSM does, at least, have the advantage that cold is by far the hardest resistance to acquire in the ID (though fire is arguably the most useful).

What about phase daggers, whips of slaughtering, crowns of lightning, rings of tctrl etc?

Not really helpful enough to include, IMHO. Easily damaged/destroyed and/or don't provide enough benefit.