The Conclave

[Dhuran]

After watching this weeks video I was thinking about goals/conflicts in game. The addition of aspirations is great to have.

From what I understand the Conclave is supposed to be a major or long term antagonist/hurdle for the player to solve (or ignore/annihilate/subjugate/etc.) in the final game.

Anyways, I was curious what you're approach to implementing that particular group is going to be. It doesn't quite fit into a standard RNG town citizenry, but it also doesn't seem quite like a monster lair kind of deal either. It's almost like it could end up being a mixture of the two.

Anyways, thanks for making this game! Keep it up!

[LordYabo]

Originally posted by Dhuran:

From what I understand the Conclave is supposed to be a major or long term antagonist/hurdle for the player to solve (or ignore/annihilate/subjugate/etc.) in the final game.

Hey there Dhuran, thanks for the interest.

I've purposefully put the Conclave work at the end of the schedule for the reasons you identified: it isn't one thing, it relies on many different systems and it's effect in the game will be the culmination of those.

First, you may notice in recent screenshots/videos that the core character sheet has a "Faction" section. The Conclave is a faction so it will sit there.

Factions function like they do in Skyrim (I'm thinking of the werewolf faction Companions of Jorrvaskr) or D&D Forgotten Realms or Knights of Solamnia in Dragonlance.

You have a "membership level" within any faction. Your standing with a faction determines a few things:

• How other members immediately feel about you
  
• Cost of annual dues
  
• Problems/jobs/tasks they trust you with. So if the conclave has word of a renegade mage, they don't give it to the newest member. Only a trusted member would be given such an important task
  
• What they give you access to, like if you want to get into the Conclave's HQ special library you gotta have high standing

The Conclave has a head person and a ruling council. The player can become a member of the council and then head of the conclave.

So how's that happen?

Well there are annual votes for positions. So if you woo lots of influential people in the Conclave to like you, then you can win the vote. Think: friendship, bribery, maybe even some threats. So this is where the NPC relationship system is really important for political offices.

Ideas here come a bit from Tropico and a lot from Guild 2.

There are two "big" things you can do with the conclave: become head of it, which is hard and worth the effort. Or destroy it and make the renegades the new standard for mages. There are two ways to destroy the conclave: power (killing) or politics. The political way is to become head of it and then dismantle it. That's kinda like dissolving the UN. :-)

The conclave, and the formation of it, is the centerpiece of the oft talked about and never shown Vaelun History. It's the formation of the Conclave that ended the mage wars and anarchy of the preceding century, so dismantling it could be seen as an evil act (plunging the world into chaos once more) or a real libertarian move, depending on the players personal views.

Finally, Nic keeps bothering me about "persistent play", like unlocks or "carry-forwards" from one play session to another. So if you do X, you get Y at the start of your next world, like class unlocks in other Rogue-likes. Anyway, being head of the conclave or destroying it is a pretty big deal (my hope is it takes several attempts to pull off) so if you do it there is some kind of really cool unlock/starter situation.

So that's it in a nutshell. As with anything, its subject to change when it is actually implemented and we see how it plays out. But that is the core intent and i don't expect to waver too far from it.

[Dhuran]

As always thanks for the detailed write-up. This all sounds very cool!

Persistant play seems like a tough one. It's not like you can unlock classes or ships or something when certain requirements are met. Maybe a 'lost library' that you can locate that has books/loot in it that scale based on your best play through or something. I'll have to think about it more!

[Kazeck]

I like the ide aof persistant play/unlocks. I'd like most ot have unlockable starting bonuses/skills, or just more character-gen options. I.e Necromancy being an unlockable spell-set to start with if you've become a lich/found the book of the dead in a playthrough or something like that. Similarly I like the idea of a big option from 'beating' the conclave, and I love how you've considered multiple ways of doing so.

Can't wait to see how you can influence kingdom politics and wars.

Afterall the conclave may not like this random rogue mage but the king that was losing a war before he signed up as a merc would definitely protect him...at least until the war ended.

[LordYabo]

I'm not a fan of "loot in" rewards, or maybe I should say I find them less meaningful. Enter the Gungeon I thought was a fantastic game, told all my friends about it, and started unlocking stuff. Then i discovered that the unlocks were simply the CHANCE to get that gun at some random point, not actually getting it to start with. I stopped playing. I don't have time for that.

My initial vision was identical starting point: poor farmer parents, crappy mage school, expelled. You make choices within those constraints. What I like is how every beginning is the same therefore what you DO with it is more exciting because your hand wasn't tipped either way.

For instance, in Tropico you can choose your starting bonuses and vices. Well if I start with +25% US Relations or +33% Banana revenue, chances are I will play that way the whole game through. One choice at the beginning has pruned many choices away.

But Nic keeps harassing me for more starting conditions: like what if your parents were merchants? Or what if THIS event happened to you. I have to admit that does sound pretty cool. So to placate the masses and the Nics I intend to have unlocks you can discover that create different starting choices. The game may start with a deck of 10 or 15, and then you add more cards into it. It's not that the unlocked cards are better, just that they are different. We'll see though, this task is a long way off.

[LordYabo]

Back to the conclave, here is a preliminary org chart I made while working on the Conclave backstory I'm trying to get out this week.

http://defiancegamestudio.com/CoolStuff/Conclave%20Heiarchy.pdf

I'm using the term First Mage for head of the Conclave. I'm trying for it to sound prestigious but not too flamboyant, like Grandmaster Flash.

[Dhuran]

That's awesome. Is the Onyx Order the 'dirty work' branch?

[LordYabo]

Sort of. They are the answer to "who polices the police?". They are the secret police of the Conclave mostly focused on watching the members of the conclave. That they report only to the First Mage is problematic, absolute power often corrupting absolutely...

[willsama974]

Originally posted by LordYabo:

I'm trying for it to sound prestigious but not too flamboyant, like Grandmaster Flash.

Grandmaster Flash was/is/will never be too flamboyant ^^
Conclave Hierarchy: Shouldn't you double the number of members of the low positons (bottom two or more) ?

[LordYabo]

Those are positions, not number of people. Yes there are lots of low rank mages to a few high level ones.

[Dhuran]

I played a game where one of the mages guilds employed the use of ethically questionable constructs as guards. They were actually people fused with magic armor that required the removal of their souls as part of the ritual of fusing them with it. They never slept, and could talk but were completely emotionless!

[TheMountainWilliam]

I see people talking about a weekly video.. can someone point me towards them?

[TheMountainWilliam]

Found your videos.. watched the 1-5 part older series on what is the game then watched that last little update video!

[LordYabo]

Great! Welcome!

[LordYabo]

You can now read all about the conclave in this free PDF supplement:
http://www.archmagerises.com/news/2018/5/19/update-70-the-conclave

[Dhuran]

Downloaded it yesterday as soon as I saw it on the site. I haven't had a chance to read through it yet, but the art and layout are amazing!