To extend on why - Spiderwebs RPGs had this mechanic that you had to feed your characters or face severe penalties. It became a strong distraction having to make sure your whole party was fed all the time, searching for mushrooms and scraps of food, and eating unmentionable things to stay alive. I didn't like it.
I've played the latest Fallout game which made use of a hunger and thirst mechanic. I found that it added to the depth and immersion I experienced while playing the game. I would be all for a similar addition to BG(EE[1/2], TOB). I think it would make towns more towny and the wilderness more wild.
I don't think it would add anything at all to the game. If the point of Baldur's Gate was total immersion into a single character, then I'd be more for it. However, you control an entire party of characters from a bird's eye view. It's not worth it.
I like the concept, I am a pen and paper roleplayer at heart. I still remember the time I got a bonus 50 xp for announcing my character was going to use the 'facilities.' But as it stands I see all the daily ablutions and eating requirements are all reflected as part of the fatigue state. The act of resting is sitting down for the night and having your meal and doing all the upkeep the party requires.
We already have fatigue which is fine, and your characters are assumed to eat and drink when they camp. And the inn rooms specifically mention the quality of the beds and evening meal.
There was a game I played back in the 90s called Realmz, which included food rations as part of the resting mechanic. Basically, if you had food rations, you would use up roughly one a day, and that would allow you to gain benefits from resting. If you didn't have food rations, you'd get no benefits from resting.
So you could set it so that resting consumes one "Ration" item per party member, and that resets the Fatigue timer--and if you don't have any Rations, it doesn't reset; so if you're fatigued and you have no food, you stay fatigued.
But inventory management is already cumbersome as it is. I wouldn't want to add food to that.
yeah... this is actually how i thought BG worked when i first started playing the game (when i first pressed the rest button, i imagined it had to 'cost something') only to be sorely dissappointed when i realized that time doesn't figure as a strategic factor and you can, in the long run time your actions any way you like (except the terribly forced take us to nashkel, kill wyvern in 2 days quests), and getting to sarevok in a year or in 100 days doesn't have an consequences for your character or the gameworld.
these are some ideas that i've had over the years regarding making passage of time (meaning days here) a strategic factor:
- make progressively tougher assassins seek you out every month, with those past the 150 days mark really really nasty - make sarevok tougher every month: he levels sorta alongside you, but not in a level-scaling way (in a timetable-scaling way instead) - make more and tougher bandits spawn all over the place until you deal with them in the camp - make progressively worse and stranger things happen in the city of baldur's gate ending with sarevok taking control of the whole place and ordering your execution which presents itself as an almost impossible fight after which you face sarevok himself in an alternative, ten times tougher ending.
and finally: - make resting effectively cost money (need to buy some food along to feed that hamster) - make excursions out of town limited in duration - just like you said it: no food = no rest = fatigue, and you can only bring with you a limited amount of rations, because rations weigh, and you don't have a bag of holding. they are not excessively heavy tho, so you can carry at least a tendays worth of rations into a dungeon. still: no rest-cheesing in between every battle this way = a massive improvement imo.
in BG2, you'll have a bag of holding but you won't be able to put rations in it because the pocket dimension is abounding with magical energy, which causes mostly harmless magical irradiation of everything you put in - except for food when it's not harmless and causes you to feel sick when eating food that's been in there, thus making it unusable.
food will figure in the inventory just like any stackable item (up to 999) - when you buy food in a tavern, every character gets automatically several rations in a single stack there needs be only one type of rations and the item could very well just be called 'rations'. you can find rations all over the place, but in limited amount. resting costs more than 1 ration: for a single characer an average is around 5. some classes eat more than the others for each 8hrs of rest - fighters eat 10 and monks eat 2. higher level druids and clerics might need only 1.
rangers create a random number of rations every hour when outside.
sleeping in town is actually tied to rations, as getting progressively pricier accomodation, aside from resting, actually makes you spend progressively less rations (-0, -5, -15 and -30 rations per rest for the whole party, and obviously the better rooms should be way more costly and even less available, depending on rep.), and that would be a way to make sense out of that feature, which already exists but doesn't provide anything.
a stack of 20 rations could cost anywhere from 1-50gp depending on the vendor and reputation. so an average rest for an average party might cost you as little as 10gp if you're moderately popular and a couple hundred, if you're despised and buy food from people who hate you. and there's the "how much you can carry along" factor which dictates you can't spend months in dungeons.
what do you ppl think? could this be modded in? (don't think so)
Yeah...but buying food isn't nearly as effective to gain information as liquoring people up (not that majority of people even realize you can buy drink rounds to get rumors and hints).
Only if it was handled like the Mount and Blade games. No clicking necessary, as long as there is food in your inventory, the characters are fed (a little bit is consumed automatically each day).
I think that perhaps tying a hunger/thirst mechanic to morale would be a way to go. More expensive/luxury food would lead to higher morale and bad food would lead to poor morale.
And then, what about the option to forage or hunt?
' Only if it was handled like the Mount and Blade games. No clicking necessary, as long as there is food in your inventory, the characters are fed (a little bit is consumed automatically each day).
'' I think that perhaps tying a hunger/thirst mechanic to morale would be a way to go. More expensive/luxury food would lead to higher morale and bad food would lead to poor morale.
''' And then, what about the option to forage or hunt?
' yeah just like that. resting = time elapses (during which healing and spell memorization happens) and rations get spent automatically. so it's a one click thing
'' this would be quite complicated and morale doesn't figure in the game prominently so i'd rather skip this. along with differen't types of food: i'd just settle with "rations"
''' i actually mentioned that in my previuous post: "rangers create a random number of rations every hour when outside."
It would be interesting to see what are the views on this subject now.
I've decided to return to this thread after finding out Pillars of Eternity will have a ‘camping’ system in which you must collect or buy camping supplies in order to actually set up a camp. An interesting idea, isn't it?
No, for one big freaking reason: inventory space/tetris. Can you imagine how incredibly tedious it would be to have to manage your supplies along with scrolls/wands/potions/ammo etc?
But in games like Fallout New Vegas on Hardcore Mode it's absolutely awesome and my personal favorite.
Are you kidding? Why would I leave slots in my inventory open for food and water when I could be carrying useful things like weapons, armor, wands, potions, scrolls, questies... You know, the stuff you need to survive?
(Disclaimer: This was said knowing full darn well that we need food and water to survive. Away with you, beggar!)
Ummm... I would just make it one item, have an extra box somewhere on the inventory screen, and it would use up one every time you rested. That might actually work. Regardless, I would like to see food in inns and taverns, even if it didn't do anything.
I think Pillars has a good rationale for implementing the camping system - limiting the "cheese" of resting after every battle (or right outside the Big Boss' chamber). However, I don't think it would be a good idea to "backport" this feature to BG1/2.
Personal opinion is that it is more mechanic (and therefore more likely to go wrong) than the relatively minor boost you get here. As stated in the OP, a player can already 'imagine' that if they so choose. Why does there need to be a game mechanic?
They had food as a component in the original Ultima games. you could even "pop" corn if you wanted. it didn't generally add anything to the game in my mind (other than the fun of discovering that) and added a component of micro-management. Players already have a limited number of slots and a requirement to manage weight. Do we really need more stuff like this? I say Nay.
Everyone who mentions inventory tetris has a very good point. But I was more imagining it as a single stack of rations (that could hopefully stack to 999) and flasks of water (that you could get from 'clean' water as well, not that there are many sources of that in BG2), and then a new page at taverns that had food involved. It would be another money sink, which the game badly needs.
On the other hand, I like playing survival like games. I always make my Fallout/Elder Scrolls games require food, water, sleep, etc. On the other hand, Baldur's Gate isn't really realistic in any shape or form (even your characters are far more able to survive long periods without sleep then the majority of the world), so... I'm not sure what adding this bit of realism would do.
(And what about Cernd and Aerie's babies? That's either going to lead to NSFW commentary, or stupidity.)
I think it would be interesting as a mod, actually. I would play it because, the way I play, it would add depth to the imaginative dimension to the game. I can understand how others would hate it though.
@Twani Rations and food is assumed when you rest with a campfire or rest at an inn. As well as people going to the toilet or having a bath. Or bedrolls.
I like survival in games as well. But I don't think it fits with RPGs like Baldur's Gate. But I'm planning to play Fallout New Vegas with the Hardcore Mode on, eventually. And I wonder if there are mods that add even more survival features.
If it was like might and magic X, where it isn't kept in your inventory and there is a limit you could carry at one time. Fine. I'll accept it. And add a tiny bit more tactics to the game. But not for RP reasons.
However, for BG, I wouldn't force it on players because there is already a mechanic built into the game to thwart over resting and that is the random encounter.
Have the food there, but not as an essential part of the game. Or put it into a quest that requires food and drink.
Or one could do like Icewind Dale 2 and add Iron Rations to the game that cure a few hp.
Adding food & water tracking also raises lots of other questions. Shouldn't rangers and druids be able to "live off the land"? Could you hunt to create rations? Fill waterskins at a river? What about the priest spells Create Water, Purify Food & Water, and Create Food & Water?
And, why not also require torches for dungeon adventuring?
Just a friendly correction: "dost" is Old English for "does." The word you're looking for is "doth," for "do." "Does you mock me?" does not make grammatical sense; "Do you mock me?" does. Example:
"Does that hurt?" would be "Dost that hurt?" "Do you hurt?" would be "Doth thou hurt?"
EDIT: I say "Nay," by the way, because eating and drinking are implied actions party members do, presumably while resting. Other implied activities would be casual conversation not dialogued as banter, bathing and restroom breaks, and the actual bartering between the adventurer and merchant during purchases and trades. If we add those mechanics, we might as well add these as well. While this would make the game certainly more interesting, it would also render it needlessly more complex, not to mention tedious at times.
Remember: in virtually no RPG game ever developed are there bathrooms or toilets. With the exception of a rare few (e.g., Borderlands series), apparently people don't bathe, defecate, or urinate.
Comments
To extend on why - Spiderwebs RPGs had this mechanic that you had to feed your characters or face severe penalties. It became a strong distraction having to make sure your whole party was fed all the time, searching for mushrooms and scraps of food, and eating unmentionable things to stay alive. I didn't like it.
But as it stands I see all the daily ablutions and eating requirements are all reflected as part of the fatigue state. The act of resting is sitting down for the night and having your meal and doing all the upkeep the party requires.
this is actually how i thought BG worked when i first started playing the game (when i first pressed the rest button, i imagined it had to 'cost something') only to be sorely dissappointed when i realized that time doesn't figure as a strategic factor and you can, in the long run time your actions any way you like (except the terribly forced take us to nashkel, kill wyvern in 2 days quests), and getting to sarevok in a year or in 100 days doesn't have an consequences for your character or the gameworld.
these are some ideas that i've had over the years regarding making passage of time (meaning days here) a strategic factor:
- make progressively tougher assassins seek you out every month, with those past the 150 days mark really really nasty
- make sarevok tougher every month: he levels sorta alongside you, but not in a level-scaling way (in a timetable-scaling way instead)
- make more and tougher bandits spawn all over the place until you deal with them in the camp
- make progressively worse and stranger things happen in the city of baldur's gate ending with sarevok taking control of the whole place and ordering your execution which presents itself as an almost impossible fight after which you face sarevok himself in an alternative, ten times tougher ending.
and finally:
- make resting effectively cost money (need to buy some food along to feed that hamster)
- make excursions out of town limited in duration - just like you said it: no food = no rest = fatigue, and you can only bring with you a limited amount of rations, because rations weigh, and you don't have a bag of holding.
they are not excessively heavy tho, so you can carry at least a tendays worth of rations into a dungeon. still: no rest-cheesing in between every battle this way = a massive improvement imo.
in BG2, you'll have a bag of holding but you won't be able to put rations in it because the pocket dimension is abounding with magical energy, which causes mostly harmless magical irradiation of everything you put in - except for food when it's not harmless and causes you to feel sick when eating food that's been in there, thus making it unusable.
food will figure in the inventory just like any stackable item (up to 999) - when you buy food in a tavern, every character gets automatically several rations in a single stack
there needs be only one type of rations and the item could very well just be called 'rations'.
you can find rations all over the place, but in limited amount.
resting costs more than 1 ration: for a single characer an average is around 5.
some classes eat more than the others for each 8hrs of rest - fighters eat 10 and monks eat 2.
higher level druids and clerics might need only 1.
rangers create a random number of rations every hour when outside.
sleeping in town is actually tied to rations, as getting progressively pricier accomodation, aside from resting, actually makes you spend progressively less rations (-0, -5, -15 and -30 rations per rest for the whole party, and obviously the better rooms should be way more costly and even less available, depending on rep.), and that would be a way to make sense out of that feature, which already exists but doesn't provide anything.
a stack of 20 rations could cost anywhere from 1-50gp depending on the vendor and reputation.
so an average rest for an average party might cost you as little as 10gp if you're moderately popular and a couple hundred, if you're despised and buy food from people who hate you.
and there's the "how much you can carry along" factor which dictates you can't spend months in dungeons.
what do you ppl think? could this be modded in? (don't think so)
I think that perhaps tying a hunger/thirst mechanic to morale would be a way to go. More expensive/luxury food would lead to higher morale and bad food would lead to poor morale.
And then, what about the option to forage or hunt?
'' this would be quite complicated and morale doesn't figure in the game prominently so i'd rather skip this. along with differen't types of food: i'd just settle with "rations"
''' i actually mentioned that in my previuous post: "rangers create a random number of rations every hour when outside."
It would be interesting to see what are the views on this subject now.
I've decided to return to this thread after finding out Pillars of Eternity will have a ‘camping’ system in which you must collect or buy camping supplies in order to actually set up a camp. An interesting idea, isn't it?
Can you imagine how incredibly tedious it would be to have to manage your supplies along with scrolls/wands/potions/ammo etc?
But in games like Fallout New Vegas on Hardcore Mode it's absolutely awesome and my personal favorite.
(Disclaimer: This was said knowing full darn well that we need food and water to survive. Away with you, beggar!)
Could be good for a mod, but not for the vanilla game.
Regardless, I would like to see food in inns and taverns, even if it didn't do anything.
They had food as a component in the original Ultima games. you could even "pop" corn if you wanted. it didn't generally add anything to the game in my mind (other than the fun of discovering that) and added a component of micro-management. Players already have a limited number of slots and a requirement to manage weight. Do we really need more stuff like this? I say Nay.
On the other hand, I like playing survival like games. I always make my Fallout/Elder Scrolls games require food, water, sleep, etc. On the other hand, Baldur's Gate isn't really realistic in any shape or form (even your characters are far more able to survive long periods without sleep then the majority of the world), so... I'm not sure what adding this bit of realism would do.
(And what about Cernd and Aerie's babies? That's either going to lead to NSFW commentary, or stupidity.)
I like survival in games as well. But I don't think it fits with RPGs like Baldur's Gate.
But I'm planning to play Fallout New Vegas with the Hardcore Mode on, eventually.
And I wonder if there are mods that add even more survival features.
If it was like might and magic X, where it isn't kept in your inventory and there is a limit you could carry at one time. Fine. I'll accept it. And add a tiny bit more tactics to the game. But not for RP reasons.
However, for BG, I wouldn't force it on players because there is already a mechanic built into the game to thwart over resting and that is the random encounter.
Adding food & water tracking also raises lots of other questions. Shouldn't rangers and druids be able to "live off the land"? Could you hunt to create rations? Fill waterskins at a river? What about the priest spells Create Water, Purify Food & Water, and Create Food & Water?
And, why not also require torches for dungeon adventuring?
"Does that hurt?" would be "Dost that hurt?"
"Do you hurt?" would be "Doth thou hurt?"
EDIT: I say "Nay," by the way, because eating and drinking are implied actions party members do, presumably while resting. Other implied activities would be casual conversation not dialogued as banter, bathing and restroom breaks, and the actual bartering between the adventurer and merchant during purchases and trades. If we add those mechanics, we might as well add these as well. While this would make the game certainly more interesting, it would also render it needlessly more complex, not to mention tedious at times.
Remember: in virtually no RPG game ever developed are there bathrooms or toilets. With the exception of a rare few (e.g., Borderlands series), apparently people don't bathe, defecate, or urinate.