Ideas for low Humanity/Frenzy

Ok guys I have an idea. Last night as I was playing with the Osebo weakness and I wrote a short python script that surprisingly worked pretty well. And because of this script it gave me another idea that I want to run by everyone to see what you all think.

As of right now if you kill an innocent and your Humanity ranges from 4-10, you lose 1 Humanity point. If you kill an innocent or are involved in a situation where an innocent dies and your Humanity ranges from 0-3, you lose 1 Humanity point.

Now what I propose is this. What if there was a timer that ran in the background that did checks on your current Humanity level. If your Humanity level gets low enough it will run automatic frenzy checks at a severe penalty in which you would most likely frenzy, regardless of clan and regardless of hunger. Such as this...

Humanity level 3 --> Runs check every 5 minutes for a random frenzy event
Humanity level 2 --> Runs check every 2 1/2 minutes for a random frenzy event
Humanity level 1 --> Runs check every minute for a random frenzy event
Humanity level 0 --> Game over, LaCroix/Sheriff cutscene plays and you are beheaded

Notice: When your Humanity drops to 3 or lower, simply being around a situation where an innocent is murdered whether by you or someone else will excite the beast further drawing you closer, losing 1 more Humanity point. So from Humanity levels 4-10 Humanity is handled the same, but <=3 Humanity it becomes easier to give into the beast.

The python script I wrote is attached to every innocent in the game so that when they die, and your character has 3 or less Humanity they will lose 1 Humanity point. The game can't realize if you killed them or if someone else did. So let's say you commit a crime and the police are called. The police begin shooting you and an innocent is caught in the crossfire and dies. If your Humanity is 3 or less you would suffer 1 point of Humanity loss. We've been trying to perfect the script but as of now it doesn't seem to be a way to let the game know that you did the actual killing.

Thoughts on this?

I like the 0 Humanity result. Cause at that point you're really nothing more than a dog that needs to be put down. I don't like the idea of losing Humanity points just b/c someone died due to someone else's actions. Humanity loss should be b/c of your own actions, in my opinion. Although, I do like the idea that at the far lower levels of Humanity, its far easier to frenzy, but I'm not sure if it should hit you every few minutes or so. I don't quite like the idea that you're talking to someone calmly or just walking down the street and then you suddenly burst out in a murderous rage.

Overall, I'm divided.

Just on the humanity thing, shouldn't it be the other way round? With low humanity you wouldn't care that an innocent died because youin advertantly caused an accident for them. With high humanity you would be wracked with guilt over it and either succumb to the beast or remorse as a result.

The frenzying thing sounds cool... but unless you're damaged or hungry I think it should be a much lower chance of flying off the handle.

With low humanity, the character doesn't look human anymore, they look feral - perhaps a mechanic related to clan or appearance alongside humanity could make people fear you and run away? Where's the fun in hunting if there isn't a chase, after all?

It seems almost backwards in a way. The only people who are going to care if an innocent dies in the crossfire are those with higher Humanity. If I tried to stop a robbery and some store clerk got shot, I'd feel partly responsible. But someone who's more callous and uncaring would find it easier to rationalize, and say 'I'm not the one that pulled the trigger. They probably would've died anyway."

Of course, that's probably why you're right. Maybe the fact that it doesn't mean as much to them is [/i]why[i] they'd lose a Humanity point.

In the PnP game, Humanity loss isn't automatic. You roll vs. your Conscience (In OWoD, anyway), and if you succeed, you feel remorse or pity or whatever, and keep your Humanity. The fact that you did manage to feel something is evidence that you still care. If not, you managed to rationalize it somehow, or deny responsibility for your part in whatever happened. You lose Humanity, and become more callous.

The problem is that in a video game, the only time most players feel remorse is when something hurts their character, costing them money, XP, their life, etc. Hard to make them feel what it's like to 'harden their hearts', as the bible says. I guess the only way to make them regret their actions is if it has a chance of costing them their character.

Go for it. Sounds like a good idea.

Edit: Not sure I like the time dependency, though. It would be too hard to correct this, once you've gone that far. Your way, even if they are undamaged and full of blood, they could frenzy for no reason. Unless you have enough XP to immediately raise Humanity, or a convenient way to perform some act of kindness, you're going to frenzy eventually, and then your Humanity's even lower. Maybe if you just increased their chance to frenzy, or decreased the amount of damage that would prompt a frenzy check in the first place.

i say go for it! i never really cared about my humanity level, so with this i really have to! most all of my chars had humanity of 4 and lower.. (i like being the evil one ) i would really love to test this changes during the beta! The only thing i would maybe change is the timer speed.. like 8 min for 3, 4 min for 2 and 2 min for 1..

simison wrote:

I don't like the idea of losing Humanity points just b/c someone died due to someone else's actions. Humanity loss should be b/c of your own actions, in my opinion. Although, I do like the idea that at the far lower levels of Humanity, its far easier to frenzy, but I'm not sure if it should hit you every few minutes or so. I don't quite like the idea that you're talking to someone calmly or just walking down the street and then you suddenly burst out in a murderous rage.

Just to clear this up, remember that if your Humanity is 4-10 then everything is normal regarding innocent deaths. It's not until your Humanity falls to 3 or lower would your Humanity drop even if you didn't technically kill the innocent. For example of this, let's say you have a Humanity of 3 and your in downtown LA sucking on an innocent. A bystander walks by and sees this and boom you get a Masquerade Violation, the bystander runs away and summons the police. They begin shooting at you and as you run away they shoot the innocent you were just feeding on killing them. You would then suffer the Humanity loss for causing this whole incident. At Humanity 4-10 you would not suffer anything.

Another Example would by: You have a 2 Humanity score and 3 Masquerade Violations (poor sap). Your peacefully walking down an alley when you're ambushed by hunters. They chase you and you begin to run, they catch up to you and you begin to fight them off you. The police are called and they open fire on you too. You run away past some pedestrians and they get shot by the police and die. You would then suffer a Humanity loss for each innocent killed.

Does everything think this is fair or not?

Just remember, this python script is the only way that I currently know how to make characters drop below 3 Humanity. If this script isn't in place, or another one is written like it, then the player will not be able to drop below 3 Humanity by killing the innocent nor will the game end at a Humanity of 0 because again, you can't drop below 3 Humanity.

Killing this script takes away the good and the bad. Also keep in mind guys, it costs 2 XP points to raise Humanity regardless of level and for some clans it only costs 1 XP. It's not like vanilla where it costs 10+ to raise it 1 point, so keep that in mind before you say you'd rather kill the script making TFN alot more like vanilla.

I personally love the script, the new rules. I figure if you're going to let your character sink so far into the Beast as to have a level 3 or less Humanity, your really skating on thin ice and the fact that it costs almost nothing to raise it back up (Ishtarri and Salubri it only costs 1 XP) I really think it's balanced.

Zer0Morph wrote:

Just remember, this python script is the only way that I currently know how to make characters drop below 3 Humanity. If this script isn't in place, or another one is written like it, then the player will not be able to drop below 3 Humanity by killing the innocent nor will the game end at a Humanity of 0 because again, you can't drop below 3 Humanity.

I agree with making Humanity drop below 3. I just don't like making it time dependent. If you're out of XP, it's basically a death sentence right there. Even if you're undamaged and full of blood, at Humanity 3 you're likely to fail the first frenzy check, and there goes another Humanity point. Then it's even less time before you frenzy again, and 1 more point gone. It's a vicious cycle. It's almost like making the 'game over' point at Humanity 3, instead of 0.

Zer0Morph wrote:

Killing this script takes away the good and the bad. Also keep in mind guys, it costs 2 XP points to raise Humanity regardless of level and for some clans it only costs 1 XP. It's not like vanilla where it costs 10+ to raise it 1 point, so keep that in mind before you say you'd rather kill the script making TFN alot more like vanilla.

??? Ah. I just looked back at your "murdering the innocent" post, and remembered your new costs for raising Humanity -- 2 XP per point, regardless of current level. Wasn't sure if you'd definitely decided on that or not.

That's not quite so bad as I'd thought. Still, like I said above, if you are totally out of XP when this happens you're screwed, because you'll probably never last long enough to get 2 XP before you frenzy, and begin spiralling down. But I guess if you were skating the edge close enough to lower Humanity to 3, and you didn't save any XP just in case, you deserve what you get.

It won't affect me anyway, because I don't like playing 'Ee-vill' characters. (One reason I won't be playing Baali.)

Oh hey! I know! You could write a script where, if your Humanity reaches 3, you have the choice of switching to a Path of Enlightenment, like 'Path of Blood' for Assamites. Then your Path level would depend on totally different actions, depending on that path. Of course, you'd have to write a different script for each Path, and a different Path for each clan... But that'll be easy, right?

PGM1961 wrote:

It won't affect me anyway, because I don't like playing 'Ee-vill' characters. (One reason I won't be playing Baali.)

They are not evil, only morally challenged

PGM1961 wrote:

Oh hey! I know! You could write a script where, if your Humanity reaches 3, you have the choice of switching to a Path of Enlightenment, like 'Path of Blood' for Assamites. Then your Path level would depend on totally different actions, depending on that path. Of course, you'd have to write a different script for each Path, and a different Path for each clan... But that'll be easy, right?

O yeah! Great. Too bad it's not going to happen. Unfortunately. Maybe Path of the Beast for all clans to make it easier?

I think something is "wrong".
First of all, let's explain pen and paper humanity.

Humanity is a path of morality, and we all agree that "killing someone is wrong", right ? But for many people, it's not wrong (I'm talking assholes serial killers and stuff). Humanity's path is, as you know, divided in 10 "levels", and at different levels. Each level has a kind of behaviour and a moral "level" of what is a sin (and what's above is not).

Someone with a high humanity (I'm thinking 8 and more) would find glasses or jewelry on the floor, and will bring it to the police to give it back to the owner. They'll find a wallet and will use the ID card to bring it back, without taking the money. They'll have trouble accepting having to hurt others to feed, and would think "stealing is wrong" in the blood bank.. They'll have a strict moral code. These people will have remorses if they harm accidently while on frenzy, but if they can rationalise it (oh, it's ok, it's not my fault, let's hide the thing and not think about it), they'll lose one dot in humanity.
At 7, that's just basic humanity (oh alright, i can keep that wallet, but at least i'll send back the important papers..).
At 6 or 5, yeah I won't hunt kine for fun, but if one or two die, shit happens ! Jack is about here If i have to break and enter to feed, that's ok, but if it's avoidable, i'd rather.
At 4, oh, people die, and i'll kill them if it's useful to my purpuses and agenda. Masquerade violation starts here because they don't even care to look like the humans.
At about 3 and 2, only my whims count. Life, possessions, I don't care, I'll slash, bash, torture, and won't care about being too discrete.
At 1 : Feed and sleep. I won't deny myself anything, but my ego keeps me from being a true monster. He can't even have a correct speach or so.
At 0, like told earlier : a dog that needs to be put down. Not even playable.


Here are the sins :

At 10, a mere egoist thought and accepting it is a humanity loss.
At 9, an egoist action with few consequences (like asking malcolm for money) is a humanity loss. Stealing is wrong ;-)
At 8, hurting someone by accident.
At 7, basing stealing (pickpocket and stuff, stealing the charity box)
At 6, involuntary violation (like draining a mortal).
At 5, voluntarely destroying other people's stuff (pure vandalism with some consequences).
At 4, violation with attenuating circumstances (killing someone on frensy, involuntary homicide)
At 3, the same with premeditation (enjoing an exsanguination, man 1..)
At 2, violation for pure whim (feeding while full as a balloon, murder without mobile)
At 1, pure perversion and abominal actions.


So, if I'm at humanity 6, stealing the charity box shouldn't mean a humanity loss.
It's like Ted Bundy caring about stealing a car, or Jack the slasher caring about having destroyed it's victim's dresses...


As we told earlier somewhere else, frenzy is about self control and not humanity... but the stat is missing in bloodlines :/

Maybe, for TFN, you could try just throwing away humanity and code it as willpower.. ?

This is all very true for a PnP game, but for Bloodlines, we're lucky they even put in the Humanity trait. Correct me if I'm wrong Zer0, but to make Humanity dependent on all of these factors (stealing, vandalism, etc.) it would take a major rewrite of Bloodlines.

For this game, I think Zer0 and Child of Malkav are doing pretty good working around the limitations of the original game. Maybe when the WOD MMO comes out, they'll factor all of this stuff into the game. I hope so.

Note: "Los Angeles by Night" lists Jack's Humanity as being a 4. Sure, he seems charming and friendly, but he has no qualms about using you to get the Ankaran sarcophagus to LaCroix... or about killing a boatload of sailors on the Elizabeth Dane.

True ! I thought it was 5

I know it's a hell in the game, but I have no programming skills what so ever I'm just here to give information on the pen and paper game and ambiance, why and how

I appreciate both of your posts (Claudia and PGM), and though I really wish I had the knowledge to script code and re-write the game in a way that fits 100% of the Pen n Paper, I simply don't. As far as renaming Humanity to be called Willpower, a simple renaming in the character sheet wouldn't do because the NPCs (especially Jack) talk about Humanity so we would have to re-record his voice to say willpower instead of humanity.

In Bloodlines, when you change something it usually effects 10 other things which you have to change those too, to make everything fit right. Here's an example of this: Last night I was play testing the fight in the parking lot of Empire Arms against those 3 Russian mafia guys. I walk around the corner, notice the Parking Garage guard is gone, the three thugs standing there, and Akeem across the parking lot looking around leaning against the wall.

I talk to Igor (or whatever his name is) and being Osebo, I say some things to piss Igor off. We get into a fight and they begin shooting me. Now I have no idea why this happened, but Akeem see's the fight, draws a Katana, runs across the parking lot and cuts my freakin head off. I'm like WTF Akeem!!!!

So I have to go back into the la_hub map file and see that combat is triggered when he takes damage, not when he hears combat. I'm like what the hell?!?! So for a solution I decided to make Akeem go away along with the parking garage guard when Igor and his friends show, and reappear when you dispose of them.

It's things like that, the little things that plauge TFN. You make one little change and it ripples down effecting 10 other things you didn't even think of. So what you're requesting... I'm sorry I can't do, we've already make HUGE changes so big it's going to take a months to years to fix all the little bugs that we in-advertely broke.

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Now on to PGM's statement. I really appreciate what you said and I'm glad that you see the kind of limitations we're working with. Yes for the game to factor in stealing, murder, vandalism, arson, etc.. would require a re-write that I simply can't do. On a happy note I think I found a solution to our Frenzy vs. Humanity vs. Hunger problem. Last night I locked myself in my room for 4 solid hours working on python scripts for this. To make a long story short, I can factor in Humanity + Hunger = Frenzy chance and it's relatively simple.

Basically you're Humanity level will dictate just how hungry you can be before a frenzy check is checked. Vampires with a high Humanity are at a much less risk of frenzying when they are hungry for blood. Vampires with a low Humanity will have a much higher chance to randomly frenzy as they get hungry. As the Vampire loses humanity, he also loses self control vs. frenzy as he gets hungrier and hungrier.

Without going into specifics, does this sound fair? And I'd like to keep a 0 Humanity = Game Over in with this new system.

Zer0Morph wrote:

Now on to PGM's statement. I really appreciate what you said and I'm glad that you see the kind of limitations we're working with. Yes for the game to factor in stealing, murder, vandalism, arson, etc.. would require a re-write that I simply can't do. On a happy note I think I found a solution to our Frenzy vs. Humanity vs. Hunger problem. Last night I locked myself in my room for 4 solid hours working on python scripts for this. To make a long story short, I can factor in Humanity + Hunger = Frenzy chance and it's relatively simple.

Basically you're Humanity level will dictate just how hungry you can be before a frenzy check is checked. Vampires with a high Humanity are at a much less risk of frenzying when they are hungry for blood. Vampires with a low Humanity will have a much higher chance to randomly frenzy as they get hungry. As the Vampire loses humanity, he also loses self control vs. frenzy as he gets hungrier and hungrier.

Without going into specifics, does this sound fair? And I'd like to keep a 0 Humanity = Game Over in with this new system.

Alright, this sounds quite good as a new system.
Maybe, the lower the humanity, the less you tolerate "not being full" (which means frenzy check) ? I do agree with this


I understand very well the game limitations and coding and how it's screwed, as I told earlier, I'm just here to give "how it's written as a story", psychological and backround stuff. Then whether it's applyable or not, I can't really tell, and I'm well aware that adding a Willpower trait is SF. I just want to explain that many bloodholy assholes with low humanity are not giving in to the beast as we imagine (I'm thinking Vlad Tepes here, that guy doesn't frenzy a lot.. nor did al capone, right ?).

Sorry, I had a bit of a giggle at the Akeem thing

"Akeem, you bitch! This isn't your fight!"
*froths at the mouth in blood frenzy*
"ARRGH!"

I like the sound of the new system as well.

Sounds good. If some people want to roleplay low-Humanity vamps, they are free to do so; but that comes with a corresponding lack of control. That definitely follows the PnP rules.

In VtM, your 'Self-Control' trait (normal range from 1 to 5) determined your likelihood of frenzying; but no matter how good your Self-Control, you could never roll more dice to resist frenzy than your current Humanity score. Thus, as Humanity went down, so did Self-Control. That sounds very close to the mechanic you described, Zer0. That's also probably why Troika based everything on Humanity, rather than add additional traits.

Someone like Dracula or Al Capone would probably have a Humanity of around 4 or 5, so Self-Control could still be pretty high. But anyone with a lower Humanity would feel their control over the Beast start to slip. The Sabbat got around this by adopting a 'Path of Enlightenment' instead of Humanity, like I joked about earlier. Once your Humanity drops to a 3, you can switch to some other code of conduct- one which may not hold murder in such a negative light. I doubt that the guys who are making the 'Antitribu Mod' are going to take this into consideration; Judging by what Zer0 says it would be a royal pain to implement. I'll bet they're just going to leave it like it is... Humanity goes down to 3 and no lower. (Which is kind of a cop-out.)

Besides, I doubt most Sabbat are around long enough to switch to a Path... they stay on the Humanity scale, until they frenzy and die. "The life-span of a vampire fruit fly", as Bertam Tung said.

Frenzy checks, if implemented, should be after 20 minutes or so at Humanity level 3, 15 for level 2, 10 for level 1. Perhaps even more, like 30\20\15 minutes.

Remember that making too frequent checks may cause the game to be unplayable\unenjoyable for most folks. I'd like to be an asshole vampire from time to time, but that shouldn't mean not being able to walk down the street without frenzying 3 times in a row.

Celsius wrote:

Frenzy checks, if implemented, should be after 20 minutes or so at Humanity level 3, 15 for level 2, 10 for level 1. Perhaps even more, like 30\20\15 minutes.

Remember that making too frequent checks may cause the game to be unplayable\unenjoyable for most folks. I'd like to be an asshole vampire from time to time, but that shouldn't mean not being able to walk down the street without frenzying 3 times in a row.

I don't know. 20 minutes is an eternity in this game. In this time you can easily do the whole museum quest, if you don't take too much time looking at the dinosaur exhibits. (I usually take my time there, so I am justified telling the Jester "it was stolen, but there were lots of dinosaurs, so i had fun"). And not every frenzy check makes you actually frenzy.

For the sins/ humanity: From a purely programming point of view, only murder in safe areas is hardcoded. For everything else, like stealing or sending Copper off, making these things dependent on your curent humanity is possible, but a real bitch of work. I can code a python script to change the humanity level. But applying it would involve browsing every dialogue file, every map file, and probably a few others. And then for every opportunity for gaining/losing humanity, you have to decide the level and call the script
So it is entirely possible, but I really don't want to do this.

-

Childe of Malkav wrote:

I don't know. 20 minutes is an eternity in this game. In this time you can easily do the whole museum quest, if you don't take too much time looking at the dinosaur exhibits. (I usually take my time there, so I am justified telling the Jester "it was stolen, but there were lots of dinosaurs, so i had fun"). And not every frenzy check makes you actually frenzy.

I don't know what 'formula' is used to determine the likelihood of frenzy, but any check at Humanity 3 must have have a very high probability for you to lose it. 20 min. IS a long time, but 5 min. isn't. However, from what Zer0 said, I'm guessing that if you're full of blood you at least have a chance of making it until you get XP, and can raise your Humanity. If not... well, one less ee-vill bastard in the world.

Childe of Malkav wrote:

For the sins/ humanity: (blah, blah, words, blah) I can code a python script to change the humanity level. (more words) ...it is entirely possible, but I really don't want to do this.

I don't blame you. Especially since it's not necessary. In most video games, it's become almost tradition for the player to nab everything that isn't nailed down (and some things that are). Nobody expects this game to be a treatise on morality. Besides... how are you going to code drinking blood? Is someone with Humanity 10 expected to drink only blood packs? Silly. Let's leave the detailed Humanity for a more advanced game, where you guys don't have to do the work.

Hey guys, after reading your posts I think you'll be happy with what I came up with. I posted the final System here, check it out and post a comment.

TFN Humanity/Frenzy System