Just because it's a reference doesn't make it a good name.

Eh, I was responding to Azba's desire for more references. As far as what makes an objectively good name, I guess something else could work but I'm not sure what precisely (though the two suggested alternatives don't thrill me a whole lot). The main thing I cared about is getting the idea of a sword that knocks down physical stats on the table.

The sword of chaos. A decent artifact weapon, but with a chance to explode/burn/acid/generally screw your oponent, and a chance it backfires and screws yourself. And chances of random effects, like the monster becomes friendly, or you get a random state, or you autopray to a random (known or unknown) god. I remember there being a curseblessed sword in a d&d campaign, and hell it was fun. "Shit! I'm backed into a corner by three greater demons! In a desperate attempt to save myself, I attack!" *rolls d100 = 50* "The demons sit down and invite you to debate the conflict. You convince them that you have done nothing wrong, and they depart"

Voodoo doll.
'Nuff said.

(e.g. alternative to BDR's Minus sword)

Also, a completely horrible addition - Midas' touch. Either a status effect or something permanent upon consuming or equipping a certain item. Turns everything you touch into gold. All your inventory, enemy body parts that are struck, walls being dug - the floor under your feet? etc.
Should probably be temporary to stop it being a nuisance.

- The voodoo doll would be different from the Minus sword in that it would be a ranged attack instead of melee. (Actually, what would happen if you smack the head of a voodoo doll in the groin of the victim? ) Another fun thing to do would be gathering small items to apply to the doll. (i.e. on one hand, pieces of victims so the doll actually works on them, on the other hand: needles, matches, razor blades, ...)

- I love the Midas's touch idea. If it's worked out some more it's very reasonable. In your example of digging out a wall, the wall would not change into gold (except if you touch it by accident, and then maybe you'd just get a gold brick or something), on the other hand, one of the first things turning into gold would be your pickaxe - Problem is, you'd have to be very creative to get certain things done like eating, handling items, and... pushing your FINGERS down your throat to vomit.

*You push your fingers down your throat and vomit.*
*Your throat turns into gold!*
*Your tongue turns into gold!*
*You vomit gold nuggets!*
*You panick!*

We could definitely use fire and a burning status ailment in this game. Drowning too, but then there'd have to be more water.

Drowning exists. Vaguely. Perhaps the ability to learn to swim? Also to prevent abuse, maybe you should get tired quickly and "fainting" leads to drowning. Maybe a giant sea monster on the world map to prevent swimming between New Attnam and the outside world. Areas previously only accessable through teleportation or levitation (Like Genefourx's lair in LIVAN) could have the water replaced with lava or acid or radioactive sludge.
I second the "more water" idea.

Swimming and drowning exists. Dolphins and frogs can swim, and I think rats can too. Anything that can't swim, if it happens to fall into water, drowns.

However, players cannot currently swim or learn to swim (nor does water generally enter into the equation of living and dying). I think a water-themed area would be a nice addition.

In general, and I think most of you are familiar with it, I think IVAN would eventually turn out much like Dwarf Fortress (Adventure Mode), especially concerning skills and stuff. Not that that's not normal. I think DF pretty much has every skill you could imagine.

Has random encounters on the overworld been suggested? It would make it interesting.

I don't like the idea of random encounters. But it would be cool to be able to "enter" every single space on the map, so you could enter a forest or mountain area (I guess a mountain would just be a forest covered in snow) which is basically a small map with randomly placed trees and some natural wildlife. That would also make starvation less common among noobs.

Night/day actually having an effect would be nice (like making undead and nocturnal creatures appear at night, and general wildlife during the day). Also night/day on the world map. And Attnam if it hasn't got that already (it hasn't changed from snowy day in my experience).

What a horrible night to have a curse!

Battleguy waits for somagu to slowly say that last line.

I'm not really for random encounters either. But in my childhood I've played many oldschool rpg's, and one of them had a (imho) nice solution for that. There were random encounters, but you could see them walking over the map, that way you could estimate what creatures the random encounter contained, and eventually engage or evade them.

The battles themselves are, a bit like Capristo said, resolved in an extra pseudo-randomly generated piece of ground.

Serefan played Exile?

Yeah, loved those games. That was the one I was talking about.

Baldur's gate had a similar "random encounters" system which I wasn't too fond of. You had a chance of being "waylaid" between areas, which consisted of a fight in a generated zone.
IMO as previously suggested you should be able to ">" anywhere in the wilderness, and have a chance of critters appearing (and maybe unique encounters too...)

Maybe random encounters are kind of hokey, but I like the idea of the overworld having a challenge. Because really other than starving the occasional Knuub to death,and making you go into the UT early on it serves no purpose. Also Random encounters (or some form of overworld conflict be it random of monsters you can see) would give the game a new way to kill you.

Maybe have the overworld contain random low depth dungeons with treasure/higher chance of an an artifact or valuable item? so that early on you have a chance to do a quick 1-3 level out of depth monster run to get good items, but once you leave it dissapears?

Also, some lovely music to provide ambience. Use MIDI for that authentic "old game" feel!

I think the biggest deal-breaker IMO as far as random encounters are concerned is that in tandem with permadeath life becomes even harder for newer characters and players. The jRPGs with random encounters all have some kind of save system (not necessarily in the dungeon, but it's there all the same) so that you don't get *completely* screwed over if an encounter proves too much to handle. However, I like the idea of > providing randomly generated wilderness that may contain items, as then it becomes up to the player whether they want to risk going in or not.

If there is a random wilderness generated by > I think some tiles should be marked as 'containing a temple/dungeon', in the same way the other levels are marked. That way, you don't end up searching several levels of jungle before you find a dungeon.

ADOM (My personal favorite of the rougelikes) has permadeath and random overworld encounters that are handled very well. they have the difficutly scaled by location (how far you are into the wilderness from the stasrt of the game) and by game time, so early on in the game you get goblins/kobolds etc, but as the game clock runs the monsters get more difficult. it occaisonally causes an early charecter to get killed ,but in general adds a nice flavor to the game.

Why not all of them?