Demon gamemode. It's nearing completion, and I want input.

[pidey]

Hello, as some of you know, I'm making a demon gamemode. The inspiration is the soul merchant demon trope.
I'm also nearing completion of it, and I would like feedback, and inspiration for several parts.

General outline

Demons are never the only antags on the station, perhaps there are changlings or traitors, or some other source of mayhem.

Each demon has their own "soul power" rating, which is simply how many souls they own, minus any penalties they may accrue (such as from resurrecting yourself).

If soul power ever becomes negative, the demon is banished permanently.

When soul power reaches certain thresholds, the demon mutates into more powerful and more demonic looking forms.
The first form looks fully human. The second form is a deep red lizardman (darker than normally possible, but not by much.) The third form is an OBVIOUS demon. The fourth form is a winged arch-demon, on par with an ascended shadowling in power. The demon does not choose to upgrade his/her form, it happens automatically.


Demon's powers
The demon will have the following powers.
Base and higher: Summon contract. Summons an infernal contract in someone's hand.
Base and lizard: Hellfire. It is a weaker fireball with shorter cooldown.
Base and higher: Summon pitchfork. Summons/unsummons an obvious demonic pitchfork.
Lizard and higher: Infernal jaunt. Works like wizard jaunt, except you can remain in it for much longer, but you can only un-jaunt near a potential 'customer'
Demon and Archdemon: Sintouch. Causes a target to become sintouched. Requires you to hold the target still.
Archdemon: Need suggestions for archdemon powers. These are supposed to be hell/sin themed.

However, a demon is not without their weaknesses. Every demon has the following, which never change over a demon's life.
True name: there is a demonic truename, this is useful for looking up the other traits (see the demonomicon section)
Ban: An action that the demon cannot perform. This is not mechanically enforced, and is instead a game rule to follow, much like silicon laws.
Obligation: An action that the demon MUST perform under certain circumstances. Also not mechanically enforced.
Bane: A weakness of the demon. This is mechanically enforced. This might be toolboxes deal double damage, or perhaps fresh vegetables act like stun batons.
Banishment Ritual: When a demon is killed, provided it has enough soul power left, it can revive itself, UNLESS the banishment ritual is completed. I would like suggestions here.

Benefits/downsides of selling soul
There are (currently) the following types of contracts for souls, and the signer immediately gets the benefit of the particular contract they signed.
The act of signing a contract is simply use a pen on the contract.

Infernal power
--Gives the signer hulk, fully heals signer.

Unlimited Wealth
--Gives the signer the ability to conjure gold, silver, diamonds, and other such valuables out of nothing. (This seems kinda weak, does anyone have any suggestions on improvement?)

Prestige
--Gives the signer an all access, gold ID. Uploads an ion law to the AI that the signer is the ONLY captain on the station.

Magic
--Gives the signer fireball, knock, and robeless magic missile.

Knowledge
--Gives the user X-ray vision, AND antaghud.

Revival
--Revives the signer (This is not signed the same way as the others, the demon has to press it to a corpse, and the ghost gets the option to sign it.)


Downsides:
--You can't be revived by any means.
--The demon is one soul closer to destroying the station.
--RP reasons.


Demonomicon
So the librarian starts with the demonomicon, it can be used to determine the ban/bane/obligation/banishment ritual for a demon, if you have it's demonic name.
Anyone other than the librarian will take longer to research, AND have a chance of getting wrong information.

Reading the demonomicon may cause you to become sintouched. Librarians have 5% chance, captain/security have 10% chance, most crew have 20% chance, clown has 75% chance.

Sintouched
By reading the demonomicon, or by a demon using a particular power on you, you may become sintouched. These are minor antags, similar to abductees, with an objective inspired by one of the seven deadly sins (though replace lust with acedia, since we don't want to encourage ERP)

• "Everything is so delicious. Go eat everything."
• "You want MORE, more money, more wealth, more riches. Go get it, but don't hurt people for it."
• "You just get tired randomly. Go take a nap at a time that would inconvenience other people."
• "You are on edge and just want to PUNCH somebody. Make sure people know this, through either your words or your fists."
• "Those [target.title]s are always showing off their newest work. Go knock them down a peg or two, without physically harming them."
• "You are the BEST thing on the station. Make sure everyone knows it."
• "Angels, demons, good, evil... who cares? Just ignore any demonic threats and do your job."

Demon objectives
I'm not sure how many of these I will give each demon but:

• Become an arch-demon
• Purchase X contracts of Y type
• Have X sintouched on the station
• Own X souls of Y position
• Own more souls than OTHER DEMON

Now with the exception of the sintouched objective, all of these are solo, in fact, other demons actively make it HARDER to accomplish objectives.

Lawyers
Now, what would a contract be without a lawyer to resolve disputes?
Inside of the lawyer's office (or HoP's office for stations without a lawyer), there will be a filing cabinet of employment contracts, new arrivals to the station have their contracts bluespaced in.
The Lawyer can simply bash you over the head with YOUR employment contract to give you your soul back. This removes all benefits the demon gets from the contract. The signer also gets to KEEP their demonic boons.
The HoP can also perform this task, but not as well.
The employment cabinet has a unique sprite, it has golden trim.
There will also be a law degree that can be ordered from cargo to enable someone to return souls (with the HoP's success rate)


List of bans

• "This demon seems to prefer hunting men."/"You must never harm a female outside of self defense."
• "This demon avoids holy ground."/"You must never attempt to enter the chapel."
• "The annointed clergy appear to be immune to his powers."/"You must never attack a priest."
• "The demon seems to have some sort of aversion to water, though it does not appear to harm him."/"You must never willingly touch a wet surface."
• "This demon only shows interest in those who are awake."/"You must never strike an unconcious person."
• "This demon will not strike a lizardman first."/"You must never harm a lizardman outside of self defense."
• "This demon avoids hurting animals."/"You must never harm a non-sentient creature or robot outside of self defense."

List of banes

• "Silver seems to gravely injure this demon."/"Silver, in all of it's forms shall be your downfall."/Silver will IRRADIATE the demon.
• "Throwing salt at this demon will hinder his ability to use infernal powers temporarily."/"Salt will disrupt your magical abilities."/Salt puts all spells at negative ten seconds of charge time.
• "Bright flashes will disorient the demon, likely causing him to flee."/"Blinding lights will prevent you from using offensive powers for a time."/Puts all spells OTHER than infernal jaunt at negative twenty seconds of charge time.
• "Cold iron will slowly injure him, until he can purge it from his system."/"Cold wrought iron shall act as poison to you."/The reagent iron, if chilled will add toxin to the demon's bloodstream.
• "Wearing clean white clothing will help ward off this demon."/"Those clad in pristine white garments will strike you true."/Wearing white clothing makes you deal double damage in melee (White jumpsuit is triple).
• "Presenting the labors of a harvest will disrupt the demon."/"The fruits of the harvest shall be your downfall."/Fruit and vegetables act like a stun baton.
• "That which holds the means of creation also holds the means of the demon's undoing."/"Toolboxes are bad news for you, for some reason."/ 2.5x damage from toolboxes.

List of obligations

• "This demon seems to always offer it's victims food before slaughtering them."/"When not acting in self defense, you must always offer your victim food before harming them."
• "This demon seems to always offer it's victims a drink before slaughtering them."/"When not acting in self defense, you must always offer your victim drink before harming them."
• "This demon seems to only be able to converse with people it knows the name of."/"You must always greet other people by their last name before talking with them."
• "This demon seems to be unable to attack from stealth."/"You must always make your presence known before attacking."
• "He will always chant his name upon killing someone."/"You must always say your true name after you kill someone."
• "This demon always loudly announces his kills for the world to hear."/"Upon killing someone, you must make your deed known to all within earshot, over comms if reasonably possible."
• "This demon always responds to his truename."/"If you are not under attack, you must always respond to your demon name."

[Lumbermancer]

Demons are never the only antags on the station, perhaps there are changlings or traitors, or some other source of mayhem.

So it's not really a mode huh. Just another meme-antag.

[InsaneHyena]

Don't listen to this arse, you're doing god's work here. Demons are awesome, and I'm going to TC trade for them A LOT.

I suggest giving sintouched his objective based on the power he got. For example, if you signed away your stole for prestige, you get pride objective, and if you wanted wealth - greed objective, hulk gets wrath and so on. Or maybe that's how it's coded already, I don't know.

[pidey]

Don't listen to this arse, you're doing god's work here. Demons are awesome, and I'm going to TC trade for them A LOT.

I suggest giving sintouched his objective based on the power he got. For example, if you signed away your stole for prestige, you get pride objective, and if you wanted wealth - greed objective, hulk gets wrath and so on. Or maybe that's how it's coded already, I don't know.

Sintouched and the people who sell their souls are two different things.

Selling your soul does NOT make you an antag.

you're doing god's work

When adding demons..... riiiiiight. kinda the polar opposite there.

[Zilenan91]

There's gonna be some problems with the lawyer. He can slap people with his paper to return their souls, but they keep their powers? That's just going to be abused, people are gonna sell their souls, then immediately walk to the lawyer and get their soul back. No point in making a headache for the admins, you might as well make it get rid of their powers too.

[Cobby]

There needs to be a human ban and a male ban since we have a female and lizard one.

If the issue is lesser people play them, then make both male/female and human/lizard bans less than the other bans in terms of your chance of getting them. SJW demons who only attack cis white male humans sounds really memey.

[Anonmare]

An idea for an Archdemon power could be the ability to spawn a few Faithless on a long cooldown. Plus maybe add in an ability to cultify nearby walls and floors. Make 'em feel like they're bringing Hell with them, literally.

[Jazaen]

Turn corpses into your servants (player-controlled simplemob)? Make wizard events happen more often ("The barrier between words is weaker")? Empty the hell dim and spawn all ghosts from there as skeleton servants? Emit rays of soul-power?
If this is supposed to be AShadowling-lookalike, maybe add a power to directly rip someones soul apart, turning them into sintouched instantly or gibbing them?
Singularity resistance?

EDIT: Also, you need to make sure people won't just sell their soul only to have a lawyer give it back to them later. Maybe make their soul fractured, so upon death there is a large chance it still goes to the demon? Or apply some other negative effects, since they have sold their soul once. Maybe have demon gib-them if it ever attacks them. Also, most demons able to do so will kill lawyers as soon as possible.

Also, if reading the Demonomicon has a chance to antag you, well, it will be abused to hell (heh) and back. Maybe add a slightly larger chance of them getting gibbed instead? (So not all roundstart clowns rush it to gain antag status)

[pidey]

There's gonna be some problems with the lawyer. He can slap people with his paper to return their souls, but they keep their powers? That's just going to be abused, people are gonna sell their souls, then immediately walk to the lawyer and get their soul back. No point in making a headache for the admins, you might as well make it get rid of their powers too.

Yes, that's supposed to be a real problem for the demon. However, I can see several solutions to that.

Kill the lawyer.
Space the contracts/cabinet. (the cabinet is difficult to move)
Kill the person that signed the contract.

I'm also thinking of giving the demon a way to reaquire lost souls. But I'll have to see how the balance goes.

If this is supposed to be AShadowling-lookalike, maybe add a power to directly rip someones soul apart, turning them into sintouched instantly or gibbing them?
Singularity resistance?

I like the ability to sintouch people, and singularity resistance is inherited from the AShadowling.

Also, if reading the Demonomicon has a chance to antag you, well, it will be abused to hell (heh) and back. Maybe add a slightly larger chance of them getting gibbed instead? (So not all roundstart clowns rush it to gain antag status)

Gibbing sounds like an EXCELLENT idea.

[Jazaen]

Still, this gives an alternative to roundstart suicide - even smallest chance of getting an antag (say, 20% antag, 60% (or 80%) gibs, 20% (or 0%) chance of demon info) will make it an equivalent of rushing rev carrying a flash or asking shadowling for conversion, since person that wants to do it doesn't care about life.
This can be solved by policy ("Using the Demonomicon without a vialable cause is a bannable offence"), if you add sintouched bans. Or just give the book limited uses, or if someone doesn't write a valid demon name into it nothing happens/bad stuff happens/explosion happens with no chance of antaging.

[Cheimon]

So you know that moment when Homer Simpson get taken to hell, a circle opens up, and the devil kicks him into it? Something like that, which kills but takes a short timer, would be a neat archdemon power.

As it is, unlimited wealth is good so long as it can produce all the metals. They are very valuable for a research scientist or a miner who can profit from them by getting extra gear.

[Zilenan91]

So would the sintouched be unable to murderbone? It seems like it'll be really shit if they're allowed to do that rather than their objectives.

[lumipharon]

Robeless MM is really fucking powerful.

Fireball ALONE is typicaly worth most/all of a tators tc's (fireballing nerds when you're cuffed or in perma is hilarious).
I would leave it as jsut fireball and knock for balance reasons.

For the hulk + heal, I would make it passive heal over time, like an implanted hivelord core or something, as a one of heal is pretty shit.

For prestige, they need some kind of unique SWAG item or something - all acces is useful, but honestly not really that fancy.

With revive, what's to stop the demon from just offering people contracts, then murdering them if they refuse and offering their corpse a contract or threaten to space the body or something? Most people won't say no to that, except out of spite.

[pidey]

So would the sintouched be unable to murderbone? It seems like it'll be really shit if they're allowed to do that rather than their objectives.

I'd say no they can't. A gluttony guy stabbing, or maybe even killing someone for a cheeseburger is fine, but a rampage isn't. Rage going and punching everyone in the bar, but nothing lethal, that's fine.

[pidey]

Robeless MM is really fucking powerful.

Fireball ALONE is typicaly worth most/all of a tators tc's (fireballing nerds when you're cuffed or in perma is hilarious).
I would leave it as jsut fireball and knock for balance reasons.

Okay, fair point, I'll remove MM.

For the hulk + heal, I would make it passive heal over time, like an implanted hivelord core or something, as a one of heal is pretty shit.

Okay, I'll try and figure out something for this.

For prestige, they need some kind of unique SWAG item or something - all acces is useful, but honestly not really that fancy.

How about giving them captain's hat/headset/carapace/jumpsuit?

With revive, what's to stop the demon from just offering people contracts, then murdering them if they refuse and offering their corpse a contract or threaten to space the body or something? Most people won't say no to that, except out of spite.

Absolutely nothing. The demon being able to kill someone just to offer them new life is intentional.

[lumipharon]

They need like a gem encrusted top hat with obnoxious flashing lights or something equally over the top.

[PKPenguin321]

For the hulk + heal, I would make it passive heal over time, like an implanted hivelord core or something, as a one of heal is pretty shit.

Okay, I'll try and figure out something for this.

gotchu fam, the code for inserting organs is actually hella easy:

Code: Select all

if(the user picks the hulk+heal option [this line isn't actual code, it's just whatever your relevant if statement is])
 var/obj/item/organ/internal/hivelord_core/organ = new /obj/item/organ/internal/hivelord_core
 organ.Insert(user)

For prestige, they need some kind of unique SWAG item or something - all acces is useful, but honestly not really that fancy.

How about giving them captain's hat/headset/carapace/jumpsuit?

give 'em a dope necklace too while you're at it, they're already in the code

[lumipharon]

Also the other obvious contract power would be a demon heart, no?

[Zilenan91]

I don't think we want to give anybody blood jaunt that easily for murderboning.

[PKPenguin321]

I don't think we want to give anybody blood jaunt that easily for murderboning.

that requires the person selling their soul to be a traitor and therefore capable of murderboning in the first place
selling your soul doesnt make you an antagonist

[Zilenan91]

I honestly don't like blood jaunt even conceptually for anyone but slaughter demons because you can do so much shit with it

[lumipharon]

Yeah it's actually hilariously buggy/abusable, since you can use some (but not all) nades while blood jaunted to ggnore people while being completely immune yourself. Shit's fun.

[PKPenguin321]

Yeah it's actually hilariously buggy/abusable, since you can use some (but not all) nades while blood jaunted to ggnore people while being completely immune yourself. Shit's fun.

i thought they fixed that by making blood jaunting require empty hands and disabling your hands during the jaunt

[lumipharon]

Maybe, I haven't tried it for a while. But even so, you could get around that with voice activated nades at the like I would suspect.

[Topham]

I feel like right now, this idea is terribly unbalanced. Nevertheless, it's a frickin great idea and I'd love to see it eventually implemented.

Also, I see no reason why the Lawyer would be a demon's main enemy. Aren't lawyers usually demons already?

[Wyzack]

I think the idea is that they can try to out-beuracracy eachother in terms of contracts and stuff, which I think is neat. If anyone watches Supernatural (inb4shit taste) the part where Crowley makes a deal with the Leviathan guy comes to mind.

EDIT: If this goes through i am going to make it my mission to swindle the devil and become the greatest lawyer of all time

[lumipharon]

That's a point - is there anything stopping the lawyer himself making a contract with a demon then just freeing himself?

[1g88a]

I feel like right now, this idea is terribly unbalanced. Nevertheless, it's a frickin great idea and I'd love to see it eventually implemented.

Also, I see no reason why the Lawyer would be a demon's main enemy. Aren't lawyers usually demons already?

[youtube]bXfU2AaJDEQ[/youtube]

[pidey]

That's a point - is there anything stopping the lawyer himself making a contract with a demon then just freeing himself?

Well, the demon could simply destroy the employment contract. But no, the lawyer can immediately nullify the infernal contract, provided he has his employment contract.

[Zilenan91]

So lawyer genocide

[dionysus24779]

The idea sounds really neat on paper and I'm a huge fan of the whole deal with the devil stuff.

Also, it's a very minor thing, but I do think the whole thing should be renamed to Devil mode or whatever, we already have demons and such and usually Devils are the ones who go up against lawyers and haggle for souls, but it's just a naming thing.

I also have to agree that the lawyer's soul return shouldn't let people keep their powers, it just screams to be abused. Sure the demon could get rid of the lawyer or whatever, but it still rewards a player for selling their soul and getting captured, there're no consequences outside of free powers.

[Xhuis]

It's a good concept, but I just can't agree with it. An antagonist that gains power by making people antagonists with huge benefits doesn't really appeal to me, and even if the demon gets caught, that's still a lot of potential people with wizard spells, or ANTAG HUD, or all-access and AI subversion. Antag HUD is by far my biggest gripe. You know our playerbase (or maybe you don't play anyway and don't), and it's almost guaranteed that some of our more famous powergamers, no matter what role, will choose the antag HUD so they can valid with no repercussions. See a doctor who's saved tens of lives, but they're a traitor? Kill and space them despite them doing nothing but help throughout the shift, and it's completely okay. I will never agree with this, and I think it's a terrible idea in its current implementation.

[Zilenan91]

They aren't real antags, they have to do their objectives and can't murderbone.

[Xhuis]

They aren't real antags, they have to do their objectives and can't murderbone.

You're missing the point. Even if someone isn't an antag, antag HUD will still let them go around and kill antagonists, because it's valid for them to do so. You've been here for a long time, Zilenan, and you know that a huge amount of people on our playerbase are obsessed with killing antagonists. It's a good way to break up the boredom of a standard shift, but it's still bad practice. It's the same way with the whole all-access thing; even if you aren't an antagonist, you still have all-access and the goddamn AI and borgs are forced to obey your every whim.

[Zilenan91]

So then rule one people who use it to valid if it becomes a problem.

[Helios]

Xhuis, you know what the solution would be, right?
Make the objective of those people that they cannot harm or restrain any other person on the station.
It'd be the Myth of Cassandra, being able to know what will destroy the station but being unable to stop it.
They can yell and scream about so and so being an antagonist, but it's just as easy for them to say it, as someone else pretending to have the same ability.

[Anonmare]

Deals with Devils usually have a clause that backfires on the signee. I'd suggest adding downsides to the powers and let the devil hold onto the contracts that the signee has to "negotiate" for or otherwise "acquire". Or something like that.

[lumipharon]

Randomised (or chosen by the devil) drawbacks would be hilarious, especially since losing your soul in game terms is pretty minor.

[Zilenan91]

Also losing powers when you get slapped by the lawyer would be awesome because people are gonna immediately beeline for him after dealing with hte devil.

[Drynwyn]

The employment contract's implication that NT owns your soul is nice.

[Zilenan91]

It's a nice touch I'll admit

[invisty]

I feel I (and others) would enjoy this addition more if it was more thematically appropriate to ss13.

It seems to stand on its own as ill-fitting of the universe of the game. How about giving them more connection to the lore, or alterting their identity/appearance/background to fit somewhere into the game better?

I mean sure, we have clowns. But theyre there for entertainment, and the clown is the nemesis of the mime. Would you say the lawyer would be the nemesis of the demon?

[Cheimon]

To be honest I think many modes seem to fit the universe only tangentially. There's one big cluster of "syndicate" which is traitor/doubles/changeling/nuke, but the rest are all pretty much stand alone and don't interact with each other. Revolutions, gangs, shadowlings, blobs, Hand of God, cult, and wizard occasionally share the odd item (a pistol, a monster) but are otherwise distinct. Several of them aren't even that science fiction (hand of god, wizard, arguably gang too). Against the background of the supernatural, I think demons are alright, especially since we already have a different demon, a revenant, and various other bits of western fantasy.

[DemonFiren]

I thought revs and gangs were syndicate-sponsored?

[InsaneHyena]

I feel I (and others) would enjoy this addition more if it was more thematically appropriate to ss13.

It seems to stand on its own as ill-fitting of the universe of the game. How about giving them more connection to the lore, or alterting their identity/appearance/background to fit somewhere into the game better?

I mean sure, we have clowns. But theyre there for entertainment, and the clown is the nemesis of the mime. Would you say the lawyer would be the nemesis of the demon?

This game has wizards with pointy hats in it.

[Yakumo_Chen]

Contracted crew needs incentive to NOT want to be hit by the lawyer. Letting the lawyer fuck over the demon while giving the crew free powers is bad.

Also I agree, they should be changed to Devils, not Demons. Very basic standard D&D lore is that Demons are Chaotic Evil, they don't do contracts they just murder people. Devils are Lawful Evil and are the 'contract-upholding' types. Mephistopheles is literally the Lawful Evil Demon God of Contracts in D&D lore.

[One Seven One]

Prestige and magic are a bit too similiar. Their main draw is the all access they can both give but one can be stolen the other can not.
Maybe prestige needs a special cursed set?

Antag HUD WILL be a big problem if it's ever a power.

Maybe a crew member that has been given their soul back should have their powers stripped AND given a negative, just to keep them from being obvious about it?
Small things, nothing major or hell, maybe something major just to ramp up the risk of making a deal with the devil?

Dropping items
Falling over
Randomly picking different intents
Randomly turning throw on and off

[lumipharon]

Just make the lawyer cancelling the devil's contract bind their soul instead to the corporation -giving them psuedo antag like abductees, with objectives to do corporate things/slave to the company/etc.

[Cheimon]

Just make the lawyer cancelling the devil's contract bind their soul instead to the corporation -giving them psuedo antag like abductees, with objectives to do corporate things/slave to the company/etc.

The soul is already bound to the corporation. Being hit with your employment contract just reminds you of that, and through a highly classified process also revokes any contracts made after the fact that go against the original employment one.

If the lawyer could give out pseudo antag to literally everyone on the station it'd be a bit silly.

[DemonFiren]

Just make the lawyer cancelling the devil's contract bind their soul instead to the corporation -giving them psuedo antag like abductees, with objectives to do corporate things/slave to the company/etc.

The soul is already bound to the corporation. Being hit with your employment contract just reminds you of that, and through a highly classified process also revokes any contracts made after the fact that go against the original employment one.

If the lawyer could give out pseudo antag to literally everyone on the station it'd be a bit silly.

It would be kinda fun to have organics slaved to Corporate.
For a round. One round. Only.