For those reading, this is ported over from the etherpad at Hardfought which I no longer have access to. It'll honestly be easier to maintain an offline copy overall, but as far as "things I want people to be able to directly contribute to" this is probably one of the easier options until I look into all that. In the meantime, here it all is - if you wanna edit, feel free to, just don't break wiki rules or piss me off. If you wanna look at other stuff I've been fiddling with, check out my "workspace" or, see User:Umbire the Phantom/sandbox.

YANI/prospective variant idea repository/design doc for one Umbire.

Introductory notes

Formatting this from the Lumapad is gonna take some time, so it'll be a while before things're up and running to the point I'd be fine with letting people contribute so that they can properly be attributed - this is a sort of problem I had with the Hardfought Etherpad for a bit. If you wanna see that and peek at the stuff I'm moving, here you go.

In the meantime, may as well lay the ground rules for anyone agreeing to pitch in:

Don't be a dickhead to other contributors.
Don't be a dickhead to other contributors.
Think of this as an extended spitballing session - the purpose of this is to refine ideas in general, and to that end I'd like you to be at least open to critcism.
CRITICISM IS NOT LICENSE TO BE A DICKHEAD.
Don't be a dickhead to other contributors.
Signsignsignsign sign yer posts! Wiki software records who added/removed what but signing is soooooooooo much easier.
Respect small matters of programming. This is not "don't ever suggest something ambitious" - just keep in mind how much work a prospective idea might require to implement.

Okay?

Okay.

YANI

All YANIs listed here are variant-agnostic, unless stated otherwise. Ideas specific to my variant are for the level-1 header below this.

Mine

If a holding attack would drown you while you have magical breathing or are in a breathless form, you are instead pulled into the water and moved to an applicable adjacent square if possible, where the monster will then attempt to hold and/or crush you as normal. This will wet your inventory as is the case anytime you step into a moat - which is unusually not the case with drowning normally.
Reading a non-cursed scroll of amnesia while confused instead "clears your mind", which still causes you to forget the current level but may also have additional, possibly beneficial effects such as a chance of enlightenment.

LumaHack

Tentative variant name. Will eventually get its own subpage.

Design principles

It isn't hand-holding to implement QoL and generally not be a dick to the player.
• NetHack as a whole is already hard and, despite reactive protests to the contrary, will only get harder. Yes, this game will be harder than default NetHack, that's almost a given - but this variant is not about defining itself by its difficulty or lack thereof, since that is one facet of the whole. My primary aim is to strike a proper balance in providing that challenge in a way that isn't as commonplace with other variants, without unduly breaking the uninitiated over my knee.
• Regular discussion of difficulty in games is a minefield as it is, because difficulty is a both a thing a lot of people don't fully understand and a thing that a lot of people don't wanna admit they don't fully understand, because too many of us like to define ourselves by how we consume this form of interactive media where we play games that are occasionally on video. But rather than sermonize about this off the bat, I'm just gonna leave it at "don't use my variant for your genitalia-measuring contests" and save the meatier stuff and Actual Opinions™ for later on this page.
Make player choice matter.
• No amount of quality of life requires that the game always save the player from themselves - you choose the buttons you press, ergo you opt in to taking certain risks. Interhack is a set of guideline principles, not hard rules.
• This also means that if a player opts to do something, they should be prepared for the consequences of those actions.
• Alignment abuse systems are a relatively common step towards this end.
Keep it simple, silly.
• I'm not the most experienced coder, and even better coders than me (read: all of them) hit a wall in making C do what it wants sooner or later, let alone with a roguelike like this. What it's been made to do is an achievement in itself, but even so I don't wanna get too overambitious, especially not until I find some level of footing from which I can tackle higher-difficulty concepts. That doesn't I don't have some quite novel ideas lined up, simply that I'm trying to take it slow.
• This also means that, while there is no desire to eliminate any conducts from attainability, conduct feasibility will have to take a backseat to make sure the game actually functions on the base "do a normal run" level before making considerations to that end.
Flavor is the spice of life.
• The plot, at the end of the day, is but so much window dressing for a hack-and-slash. That doesn't mean we can't make make certain monsters and items more memorable.
• At mininmum, I'm thinking the role quests can have just a little more variance besides "kill this one BBEG". Just how much is something I'll have to work out gradually.
• Side branches are something dependent on the length of the dungeon, and we might have to do some SLASH'EM style chicanery if I can't narrow down the amount of branches I want to fit in.
• I could simply say "make boring things interesting" but that's so vague and subjective as to be unhelpful, and there's a lot to be said for monsters performing "basic" roles - getting you used to group fights, teaching you the value of spacing, things of that nature. To that end, the play is gonna be "make what currently exists more distinct".
Removal is a last resort.
• I'm already hesitant to resort to "deletionism" or consolidation as a first course of action, and it doesn't strike me as useful to throw out something without thoroughly examining it first.
• Sometimes it takes time for the right opening to appear that gels with an object or monster's role - if it ain't fixed, don't break it.
• "Last resort" =/= "never do this" - while deleted stuff can be restored later, I'd rather work around it than without it if it's feasible to do so. If not, then we'll adjust accordingly.
• This numbered point refers primarily to existing vanilla stuff - variant stuff is something I can cherry pick a bit more, so it'll be easier to focus on desired changes to begin with.

Mechanical inspirations

There's a few variants that have the look of a fertile foundation to work with:
- SpliceHack (and to a lesser extent its rewrite) as well as older versions of Hack'EM prior to going too hard on object materials and properties and over-nerfing certain items IMHO seem especially compelling.
  - God knows if I'll bother with techniques at all, though. If there was a way to implement them without potentially sacrificing too much balance...
  - The "named rooms" thing had potential, as did descriptions of paintings and such. (Reminds me a bit of Dwarf Fortress actually...) I wanna see if I can make that work on a per room basis, possibly using near look : to view the ceiling and/or walls in each room.
- To lesser extent, EvilHack and xNetHack - both have particular methods of spicing up the dungeon and its denizens, as well as the starting races, that I quite enjoy! If I had to assign arbitrary advantages, though, xnh has the "edge" in regards to handling skills and giving the existing vanilla races a guaranteed skill they can level, while Evil's "edge" is in the expanded item selection and additional artifacts.

Mechanical changes

And now, the proposed home-brewed mechanical changes, with my own commentary (and those of others should you wish to comment):

Options

Paranoid stuff is opt-in - if you don't like a particular paranoid option then... you never have to use it! Why yes this is "how options already work", hypothetical reader!
- Almost like it'd be silly to get absolutely filtered by something you never have to interact with!
- Anyway, no new paranoid warnings are going to be added, let alone necessary - the existing suite does just fine.
  - No, no conducts. That's stupid.

Existing roles

The following assumes completely vanilla NetHack roles (i.e. 3.6.7 with respect to upcoming 3.7 changes):

Cavefolk

Even post-aklys upgrades, Cavefolk tend to be cited (in my experience) as one of the less interesting roles, even having a dedicated patch meant to fix that. Indeed, how to remedy this...

Bonuses for use of stone or bone weapons and bone or leather armor, perhaps.
- Perhaps allow them to make their own hide armor?
Annam seems a bit more on theme for a nemesis versus Tiamat.

Monk

Oft-maligned by the vanilla systems, Monks get a lot of love in variants and 3.7 is finally throwing them more to work with - but there are certain angles of the role that are yet unexplored...

Remove to-hit penalty for the weapons that Monks can advance skill in.
- The goal is to allow for some level of weapon-using builds while not touching (or barely touching) the stuff that makes Monk THE role for weaponless.
- Could also make it a lesser to-hit penalty.
Try to implement some form of fighting styles.
- This might be based on weapon choice, worn rings or something else - I haven't decided what if anything yet.

Dungeon

Perhaps lean the dungeon's setting slightly more into urban fantasy and a tiny bit of tech geekery - no one said a bustling city couldn't have old tunnels and such!
- It'd certainly explain all the sinks and such lying around.
- Could also be used to make watery areas more common a la EvilHack/xNetHack/et. al. - EvilHack's implementation of the watery Mines is better than GruntHack almost entirely on the basis that you can see where you're going and thus much less likely to get lmao'd by lag. Making water monsters more commonplace is a very close second.

Traps

Make it possible to untrap or cancel certain traps and have them leave behind a certain amount of a particular item. Not too many - just enough that it might entice players to do a bit more trap-busting.

Monster generation

If a group of monsters are generated and none of them already have a potion of gain level, A) one of them may be replaced with a higher-up, or B) an additional one can generate among them. (e.g., ogres can get an ogre lord or much more rarely an ogre king, soldiers and sergeants can get a lieutenant or captain, etc. etc.) Conversely, taking out a higher-ranked monster in view of their underlings may cause a "rout", scaring them into fleeing.
- Have to settle on either A or B eventually...

Monsters

I've had an interest in post-quest exclusive monsters and "shiny" rare spawns. Feasibility of either is another ask, though...
- A "shiny" monster would be a unique monster of a given class (probably one per letter as a floor) that is insanely tough even for high-level characters, but pacifies once defeated and can be tamed easily.
Quest guardians and leaders
- Friendlies representing a specific role closely enough should have intrinsics and abilities resembling those of that role - they're also worth buffing besides if we're allowing characters to potentially access quest by killing the leader.
- A lot of variants lower the entrance level to XL 10 but raise monster generation and the like accordingly - probably keep the course on that as well.

Items in general

Forging
- Probably lift forging straight from Evil and work from that base.
- I've always wondered if there shouldn't be race-specific forging materials or recipes, but hmmm...

Spellbooks

Spellcasting monsters have a chance of generating with a spellbook on hand, and using #loot towards a peaceful spellcaster or #chatting while wielding a spellbook may prompt that spellcaster to offer a spellbook trade.
- In theory, the player would be incentivized to trade off spare/unwanted books for desired ones. In practice... they probably just kill the NPC when they think no one's looking. Cute, but if I'm gonna stick with this at all, it needs more time on the burner.
The spellbook of cure blindness is replaced with the spellbook of clearsight. At Basic or lower, cures blindness like normal. At Skilled or higher, also gives temporary astral vision and see invisible and suppresses hallucination for that duration.
- ...if I can make it so that sight is ignored by hallucination for the duration I should. Otherwise this might be the "simpler" fix to cure blindness getting power-crept - not every spell is gonna be used late in the game, but this gives it *a* use case.

Rings

A blessed ring of sustain ability additionally confers limited level drain resistance: if a level would be lost, the ring will unbless instead.
- Drain resistance pre-3.7 is rough to get without reliance on artifacts or polyself, and while black DSM gets a nice boost from it, it still requires that you, well... face a black dragon. You probably have reflection or something else that lets you deal by then, but even so I wanted to encourage at least a bit more creativity.

Wands

The wand of probing autoIDs if used to engrave on a square with a buried item(s).
- ...I feel like they do this already? If they don't though then hey ho!

Tools

When you first open or tip an ice box that was generated cursed, it may spawn a gelatinous cube or a group of pudding or ooze monsters, respecting level depth. There is also a chance that the corpses inside may be aged as well, and an even smaller chance that some of them rot away immediately upon you opening the icebox.
- Might be a bit mean... eh, not really. Should make the odd one-off trap ice boxes at least marginally interesting.

Iron chains

Have them and the heavy iron ball use the flail skill so they aren't completely useless.
Do what Hack'EM did and incorporate them in a few forging recipes.

Misc./unsorted

If a hostile monster aggravates you (typically via cursed potions of invisibility but also sometimes by fighting shrieking monsters), you should additionally gain detection of that specific monster for a limited time.
- Miiiiiiiiight be a SMOP. But hey, worth the shot - I hate immediately forgetting a monster like that's location after it happens.

New-to-the-variant races

All races that have a "complete" draft will be given their own subpages as needed.

Kobolds

Theme: Seemingly weak scoundrels with an easily-underestimated cunning streak
Neutral or chaotic
Tentative attribute caps:
- STR: 18/50
- DEX: 18
- CON: 18
- INT: 16
- WIS: 18
- CHA: 16
- Note: Can easily raise one of these, just dunno which yet. Gnome STR/CON should be enough for now; stats should be lowish but not too low with what I'm planning.
Intrinsics by level up:
- XL 1: Infravision
- XL 3: Poison resistance ("domestic" kobolds aren't acclimated to harsh underground conditions)
Unique traits
- Basic/Skilled in darts
- Basic in pick-axe (they're "natural" mine-dwellers but not nearly as proficient at digging as dwarves)
- Gnomes and dwarves are always hostile, while other kobolds are occasionally peaceful
- Special Rules
  - Can potentially tame lower-level kobolds by #chatting to them
  - Gain 1 less AC from most non-DSM body armor - it's an awkward fit for them
    - Maybe an additional penalty for weight...?
  - In return, they gain an AC bonus from proximity to allied kobolds
  - Tame allied kobolds can follow you to other levels with greater proximity than a normal tamed monster

Gnolls

Theme: Hyena-like beastfolk
Neutral or chaotic
Tentative attribute caps:
- STR: 18/**
- DEX: 20
- CON: 18
- INT: 16
- WIS: 18
- CHA: 16
- Initial caps were borrowed from an actual SRD or w/e for a gnoll - riker pointed out they were super low, which was intentional since I wanted to work using that as a based, but decided "fuck it" and settled on these for the time being.
Intrinsics by level up:
- XL 1: Infravision
Unique traits:
- Basic/skilled in flails
- Other gnolls are the only monsters that might be peaceful towards player gnolls, probably
- Special Rules

Unnamed serpentfolk

Theme: Offshoot of naga, probably of the "snaketaur" subtype of serpentfolk
- Perhaps use a similar tack to dNetHack's half-dragons? Specifically, have elemental powers and or additional effects, possibly tied to alignment
Tentative attribute caps:
- STR: 18
- DEX: 25
- CON: 18
- INT: 20
- WIS: 20 (snakes have a reputation for cunning)
- CHA: 14
- Might raise STR and lower DEX - the idea is that these serpentfolk are quite nimble, and while not exactly wimps, lacking legs doesn't do much for carrying capacity
Intrinsics by level up:
- XL 1: Infravision
- XL 3: Poison resistance
- XL 10: Swimming (they are half a snake)
Unique traits:
- Basic/Skilled in Trident
- Can #chat to snakes to potentially pacify them, akin to rats and Convicts, and nagas' mumblings become intelligible to them
  - Include YAFM if chatting to what turns out to be a snake while hallucinating
  - Hard Mode: No referencing Krowl's works

New-to-the-variant roles

All roles that have a "complete" draft will be given their own subpages as needed.

Janitor

General theme: Viable Tourist-style joke role based around "cleaning" up the dungeon
Lawful or Neutral
Playable as: human, dwarf, gnome
Starting equipment: Total AC of 7
- +0 leather gloves
- +0 leather jacket
- +0 pair of low boots
- +1 broom or +1 mop (equal chance of each, will start with knowledge of both)
- 1-2 uncursed food rations
- 1-2 uncursed candy bars
- 2 uncursed potions of water
- Small chance of 1-2 uncursed potions of booze
- uncursed skeleton key
- uncursed towel
Intrinsics by level up
Quest ideas
Skills
- Starting Skills
- Skillcaps
  - Basic
  - Skilled: Bare hands
  - Expert: Quarterstaff
Unique traits:
- Special Rules
  - Angering peacefuls by letting them slip on recently mopped tiles will anger your god or induce a luck penalty unless you are chaotic
Other traits

New-to-the-variant monsters

Monsters with "complete" drafts get subpaged.

New-to-the-variant items

Items with a "complete" draft get subpaged.

Broom

Type: Weapon-tool
Size: two-handed
Appearance: sweeping stick
Damage vs. small: 1d4
Damage vs. large: 1d2
To-hit: +0
Skill: quarterstaff
Base price: TBD
Weight: 25
Material: Wood
Uses:
- Apply in a direction to move items on your square in that direction.
Other traits

Mop

Type: Weapon-tool
Size: two-handed
Appearance: sweeping stick
Damage vs. small: 1d4
Damage vs. large: 1d4
To-hit: +0
Skill: quarterstaff
Base price: TBD
Weight: 25
Material: Wood
Uses:
- Has wetness function similar to towels that can slightly increase damage and provide other effects
- Applying a wet mop can wipe your square or any adjacent square clean of engravings and make them "wet floor" squares - these will dry out after a few turns, and applying a dry mop on a wet square will remove any wetness/grease. Greasing the mop and applying it at a square creates a "slippery floor" tile with a higher chance to make monsters slip, but a lower chance of remaining afterward
  - Applying a wet mop at monsters can wipe grease off their armor or remove cream pie glop from their face - this will subject the mop to passive attacks, such as burning from a fire elemental or rotting from a brown pudding. Doing so to a peaceful monster will anger them.
  - Attacking a b or P with a wet mop does double damage and scares them
Other traits

New-to-the-variant artifacts

All artifacts that have a "complete" draft blah blah you get it.

Wildfire Fists

Base item: Gauntlets
Alignment: Undetermined
Intelligent: No
Associated role: Monk (first sacrifice gift)
Properties
- Improved power regen while worn
- Bare-handed combat can damage hostile monsters behind a target
- Force-fighting does a fiery uppercut with 2-4 hits but lower damage
Notes
- ...I don't know if I'll stick with this or the other Monk gifts. That all depends on a few things, including how easy the two-weaponing fists is to lift from GnollHack and how easy it is to tie a first gift candidate to something else besides just alignment.
- I also edited this specific one a bit from the original, as a form of trying my hand at "fighting styles" - this was originally the "Lightning Fists" and was gonna be the faster counterpart to the "slow and powerful" Thunder Fists. Problem there is, I need at least three artifacts if I'm gonna do it this way...

Mountain Fists

Base item: Gauntlets of power
Alignment: Undetermined
Intelligent: No
Associated role: Monk (first sacrifice gift)
Properties
- Half physical damage while worn
- Bare-handed combat can drive enemies down into a pit on their square
- Force-fighting can break boulders
Notes

Tsunami Fists

Base item: Gauntlets of dexterity
Alignment: Undetermined
Intelligent: No
Associated role: Monk (first sacrifice gift)
Properties
- Very fast speed while worn
- Bare-handed combat allows multiple strikes as if two-weaponing
- Has a chance of automatic counter-attacks on a miss if safe to do so
Notes

Storming Fists

Base item: Leather gloves
Alignment: Undetermined
Intelligent: No
Associated role: Monk (first sacrifice gift)
Properties
- Displacement while worn
- Bare-handed combat can knock monsters back one or more spaces
- Force-fighting can knockback at will but creates a loud noise
Notes

New-to-the-variant traps

"Wet floor"

You and monsters that move onto a wet floor square have a chance to 'fumble' and slide in the direction you were moving in - the victim may take damage, become stunned, or be immobilized for a few turns.
- Pray you don't end up sliding into the drink!

Full Credits-and-other-thanks-so-far

In no particular order:

aoei: Funny, entertaining and overall willing to tolerate my nonsense more often than not.
Luxidream: His knowledge and highly-skilled play is always a joy to experience.
aosdict: He was willing to archive all these YANIs in the first place, and his work on xNetHack is stellar. (Still due to try newer versions!)
amateurhour: Good-natured chap with a decent sense of humor that helped me appreciate Monks.
Amy: Yeah, yeah, I know, just listen. Even wacky off-the-chain ideas have their limits, whether in terms of practicality, tastefulness, taboos, general all-or-nothing lenses, and/or otherwise. But the girl's actually had some pretty good ideas that've interested me in a vacuum, and while I'm not as interested in testing boundaries on player sensibilities (because I'm not entitled to a playerbase and that's just Not Me And My Vision as a person end of the day), I do wanna see where I can eventually push this variant, and I won't lie and say she hasn't been an inspiration in some manner.
K2: Good guy with a good variant, also very aspirational in terms of what it makes possible. Also hardfought server runner, does so much for us as it is.
The DevTeam members past and present: They created a wonderful thing that people've turned into a wonderful playground and we should all appreciate that at the end of the day.

User:Umbire the Phantom/YANI

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