A Forlorn Nomad Problem

[Lanfear]

Hello! I took the quest A Forlorn Nomad and said nomad fell in love with and then became engaged to my main colonist during their stay. He then proceeded to betray the colony, beat his fiance to a pulp and tried to capture her. How does this make any sense whatsoever? I think planning to get married to a colonist should effect whether that specific nomad betrays the colony or not.

[Vermillion Cardinal]

Nuance and depth when it comes to NPCs, quests, and incidents are to me one of the weakest parts of RimWorld, so scenarios like yours aren't all too surprising.

[Duke Flapjack]

Originally posted by rock_hound119:

Hello! I took the quest A Forlorn Nomad and said nomad fell in love with and then became engaged to my main colonist during their stay. He then proceeded to betray the colony, beat his fiance to a pulp and tried to capture her. How does this make any sense whatsoever? I think planning to get married to a colonist should effect whether that specific nomad betrays the colony or not.

Well...I can see it happening in real life, honestly.

[glass zebra]

Originally posted by Vermillion Cardinal:

Nuance and depth when it comes to NPCs, quests, and incidents are to me one of the weakest parts of RimWorld, so scenarios like yours aren't all too surprising.

I'd say telling someone you wanna get engaged is a pretty good cover for betrayal. People do this in real life. Other than than, I see where you are coming from. Rimworld is usually deep on betrayal design though.

[coyo7e]

True love has no logic and knows no boundaries. The first two ppl I got in a recent game, came from a wanderer and then a subsequent raider that I got lucky and captured.

They were married but by the time I converted the raider guy my main pawn had become her lover (her husband ended up breaking up with her causing a huge mood debuff for a long time, I almost sold him away as a slave because it was annoying but I felt bad for the dude.) Maybe she wandered away because she hated being with that dude?

Lewis and Purple are still getting along swimmingly although her ex is a bit of a downer, cleaning up the stables.

[Lanfear]

The thing is not only did that happen, but they did not break up despite trying to kill eachother, so the colony ended up killing her fiance and she got the debuff for having a loved one die.

[Vermillion Cardinal]

Originally posted by glass zebra:

Originally posted by Vermillion Cardinal:

Nuance and depth when it comes to NPCs, quests, and incidents are to me one of the weakest parts of RimWorld, so scenarios like yours aren't all too surprising.

I'd say telling someone you wanna get engaged is a pretty good cover for betrayal. People do this in real life. Other than than, I see where you are coming from. Rimworld is usually deep on betrayal design though.

I can see your point as well. My original comment was a bit more caustic, noting that despite being a story generator RimWorld favors colony-destroying events (and opportunities for warcrimes) more than it gives you heartwarming choices and fortuitous results.

A better story generator would've accounted for some basic divergent scenarios like the one above (I'm not asking for a full RPG-scale system that accounts for everything) and made it a probability that the betrayal could've been averted whether by power of love or by considering that betraying a colony of supersoldiers solo would be a bad idea, among others.

[coyo7e]

Originally posted by rock_hound119:

The thing is not only did that happen, but they did not break up despite trying to kill eachother, so the colony ended up killing her fiance and she got the debuff for having a loved one die.

Oh you sweet, summer child! You should meet my neighbors IRL. This story is almost identical to their on/off relationship outside of the whole "the colony killed him and set his skull on a stake" bit

[ichifish]

Originally posted by rock_hound119:

Hello! I took the quest A Forlorn Nomad and said nomad fell in love with and then became engaged to my main colonist during their stay. He then proceeded to betray the colony, beat his fiance to a pulp and tried to capture her. How does this make any sense whatsoever? I think planning to get married to a colonist should effect whether that specific nomad betrays the colony or not.

Seems like pretty good rng to me. Seems a lot more likely than every relative trying to kill a pawn.

[Duke Flapjack]

Originally posted by rock_hound119:

The thing is not only did that happen, but they did not break up despite trying to kill eachother, so the colony ended up killing her fiance and she got the debuff for having a loved one die.

Sounds an awful lot like battered woman syndrome taken to an extreme.

As I said earlier, this scenario sounds exactly like something that could happen in real life. Take the hit and laugh about the whole scenario later.

[glass zebra]

Originally posted by Vermillion Cardinal:

Originally posted by glass zebra:

I'd say telling someone you wanna get engaged is a pretty good cover for betrayal. People do this in real life. Other than than, I see where you are coming from. Rimworld is usually deep on betrayal design though.

I can see your point as well. My original comment was a bit more caustic, noting that despite being a story generator RimWorld favors colony-destroying events (and opportunities for warcrimes) more than it gives you heartwarming choices and fortuitous results.

A better story generator would've accounted for some basic divergent scenarios like the one above (I'm not asking for a full RPG-scale system that accounts for everything) and made it a probability that the betrayal could've been averted whether by power of love or by considering that betraying a colony of supersoldiers solo would be a bad idea, among others.

They are capable of join offers though, even if they "plan" to betray you later on. Had several groups with people who offered to join, which I declined, and the whole group betraying me later on. Rimworld does in general very little more than a few rolls and how you interpret those is up to the player. If that person would have offered to join (and I think they do have a higher chance because of the buff), you taken them in and then the rest betrayed you, you could have pinned that one on the power of lover. Here the power of betrayal was stronger. Heck if we go that way, there should also be a scenario where your colonist decides to join them on betrayal because of that bond. On top of that: if something bad does not happen, you will never know it didn't.

In general Rimworld has very little on mechanics for friendly stuff. Most of it is just non-terrible things happend with non-terrible consequences. Like how friendship/blood ties in this game pretty much just makes it less likely to be insulted but is otherwise no positive outside of romantic relationships. When any of those die, your pawn will also just be unhappy. Or the new beggar event... (but there have been a thread for this already). Hope the next DLC will be called Mercy, but no idea if a lot of people would want to buy that and Rimworld is in general about strife and trying to push through it. Apart from parties and weddings (and now rituals), there is not much to look forward to for your people apart from surviving and that's kinda by design and okay. For everything divergent there is mods, though I am looking forward to DLCs touching this more than Ideology and Royalty tried to. This could probably also be done with a challenge on some new needs, maybe even a need for compassion. Until then, we gonna play this game of who eats who the worst.

[coyo7e]

'Hospitality' mod makes it way simpler/cleaner to recruit randos, but even a visiting Empire trader or taxation group sometimes will have a fallout between a couple of their own pawns, regardless of you. It's sort of funny to see a trader show up and two of their bodyguards (or even the trader themselves) get into a melee scuffle to the point of death.

They'll blame you for it too if you don't rescue them and let them leave the map safely, lol

[Astasia]

Originally posted by rock_hound119:

Hello! I took the quest A Forlorn Nomad and said nomad fell in love with and then became engaged to my main colonist during their stay. He then proceeded to betray the colony, beat his fiance to a pulp and tried to capture her. How does this make any sense whatsoever? I think planning to get married to a colonist should effect whether that specific nomad betrays the colony or not.

Originally posted by rock_hound119:

The thing is not only did that happen, but they did not break up despite trying to kill eachother, so the colony ended up killing her fiance and she got the debuff for having a loved one die.

This sounds like the plot of at least 10 different spy movies I've watched.

[Lanfear]

Originally posted by coyo7e:

'Hospitality' mod makes it way simpler/cleaner to recruit randos, but even a visiting Empire trader or taxation group sometimes will have a fallout between a couple of their own pawns, regardless of you. It's sort of funny to see a trader show up and two of their bodyguards (or even the trader themselves) get into a melee scuffle to the point of death.

They'll blame you for it too if you don't rescue them and let them leave the map safely, lol

That can happen in vanilla too. I had an empire traders guards have a social fight and one of them died on the spot, I didn't get blamed at least.

[coyo7e]

Originally posted by rock_hound119:

Originally posted by coyo7e:

'Hospitality' mod makes it way simpler/cleaner to recruit randos, but even a visiting Empire trader or taxation group sometimes will have a fallout between a couple of their own pawns, regardless of you. It's sort of funny to see a trader show up and two of their bodyguards (or even the trader themselves) get into a melee scuffle to the point of death.

They'll blame you for it too if you don't rescue them and let them leave the map safely, lol

That can happen in vanilla too. I had an empire traders guards have a social fight and one of them died on the spot, I didn't get blamed at least.

I never said it wasn't a vanilla thing, i just threw it in, as an afterthought to what hospitality does.....

[Vermillion Cardinal]

Originally posted by glass zebra:

They are capable of join offers though, even if they "plan" to betray you later on. Had several groups with people who offered to join, which I declined, and the whole group betraying me later on. Rimworld does in general very little more than a few rolls and how you interpret those is up to the player. If that person would have offered to join (and I think they do have a higher chance because of the buff), you taken them in and then the rest betrayed you, you could have pinned that one on the power of lover. Here the power of betrayal was stronger. Heck if we go that way, there should also be a scenario where your colonist decides to join them on betrayal because of that bond. On top of that: if something bad does not happen, you will never know it didn't.

In general Rimworld has very little on mechanics for friendly stuff. Most of it is just non-terrible things happend with non-terrible consequences. Like how friendship/blood ties in this game pretty much just makes it less likely to be insulted but is otherwise no positive outside of romantic relationships. When any of those die, your pawn will also just be unhappy. Or the new beggar event... (but there have been a thread for this already). Hope the next DLC will be called Mercy, but no idea if a lot of people would want to buy that and Rimworld is in general about strife and trying to push through it. Apart from parties and weddings (and now rituals), there is not much to look forward to for your people apart from surviving and that's kinda by design and okay. For everything divergent there is mods, though I am looking forward to DLCs touching this more than Ideology and Royalty tried to. This could probably also be done with a challenge on some new needs, maybe even a need for compassion. Until then, we gonna play this game of who eats who the worst.

The betrayal one could use a bit of improvement, like the lover/colonist potentially confiding that his pals (if any) will execute the plan at this time and day, giving you a free opportunity to preempt it (perhaps even apply guilty tags as well). As it is iirc (haven't gotten any refugees recently, particularly the betrayer kind) you still don't get any advance warning that the thing is going to happen even though one of the co-conspirators is now your ally/colonist. And if he's the only one, a single line saying that he originally wanted to betray you but was persuaded by X reason (Offer of turnips! Talk of leg hair! Slap of dominance!) would be a cheap way to inform the player that they've dodged a bullet.

I'm pretty sure that Tynan would be delighted to see the chaos that would ensue if your own colonists got converted; more chances for dramatic and deeply personal stories of betrayal where the ones betraying are not just some refugees but your own people. Maybe make it tied somehow to unhappiness/relationships so that you have more incentive to make sure your own house is in order and give the player some input on the outcome, and limit the number that can be affected. On the other hand, people might get paranoid enough to never accept refugee quests, or turn them into hats on sight...

I'd definitely look forward to something that explores the more merciful side of RimWorld; there should be more events that give you respite from the everyday horrors of the Rim and give you the chance to be properly charitable and get neat stuff from it (instead of just potentially traitorous refugees, entitled beggars, and a tiny Charitable precept that's binary in its implementation; either you help to the fullest extent at all times, possibly disregarding your own dire situation, or don't help at all and risk your charitable people going catatonic over it).