Chaplain Additions suggestion (Again)

[WhatMG]

Back here again.
As a preface, this is the second attempt at this. The original post can be seen here, and there's a large post in the player projects section of the discord. 

The goal behind this post is to suggest several additions that can be made to chaplain to improve the general quality. The focus will be providing on tools that can aid with roleplaying as chaplain is primarily a roleplaying focused role, but there is space to discuss limited gameplay changes too. The original project had several new outfits, holy books (that could be opened), several props, and a vending machine to obtain these items from. It made it to the early PR stage but it was decided that it would be best to cancel the project for the time. All of these assets still exist and are readily accessible.

In total, there were about 5 outfits (1 jumpsuit, 4 robes), 3 hats, 2 masks, 14 books with opened and closed states for both inhand and objects, and 3 props. There were also an extra 3 weapons (A webley revolver, a censer, and a big ole' stick) but they lacked a place and inhand sprites.

The largest issue with the original project , I believe, was a lack of clear direction and purpose for these items. It's nice to have the extra choices from cramming them into the game can ultimately create unneeded issues. I'd like to use this thread to both see if the community is still interested, and to get a clearer design down moving forward. 

The big things to consider are how these additions will be introduced into the game, how a chaplain might obtain them, what mechanical (if any) benefit they may have, and if real-world religions should be represented. If there's any huge and obvious flaw that I'm missing please point that out, too.

Thank you for reading, again.

[Largeamountsofscreaming]

(This isn't going to be very organized, just a fair few thoughts from someone who has played and loved chaplain for a fair amount of time)

Admittedly despite playing chaplain a lot, I have a fair bit of difficulty thinking about what it needs and what would be best to enhance it as a role. I don't have much of any idea on how to add "more purpose" to the role that wouldn't just either step on the toes of antag roles and/or other roles. I do, however, fully support simply adding more ways to give the chaplain ideas on what to do.

A vending machine full of different types of clothing and spiritual items would be a great and simple way to show off different ideas and organize what would likely be a very expansive list of wearable items. I think even better, you could have "packs" for the different types of chaplains (Fire pack has fire robes and a censer, honkmother pack has clown clothes and bike horn, not expansive list but you get it).

I think that another gun like the Webley could easily be a job reward. Simple as

As for real world representation, it's a bit difficult. I will say beforehand that the chaplain (as it stands now) Is very inherently based around Christianity. You have the bible, holy water and the wine you own, the protection against "unholy" antags, the fact you start out in reverend's clothing, mentions of God and the Lord. Just respriting the bible wouldn't disconnect it from all the other Christian-themed items and mechanics. If at some point it is decided to remove any reference of Christianity from the chaplain's gearset, I don't know there would be any practical way without a full redesign of the role's mechanics. While I personally am in favor of enabling both real world religions and fictional ones, I would understand the choice not to. Even if I did have to hang up the ol' Space Christian faith.

The issue with adding mechanical benefits to the chaplain as far as different faiths go (assuming no real-world religious ties left or otherwise) is that it would add more mechanically sound options and maybe even metas to a role designed around RP. I also do find it to be impossible to appease everyone in that even if each set got its own powers, as people are very creative and might have faiths in mind that scope outside of the offered sets. If we did ever propose the idea of abilities for chaplain, I personally think that using the faith's holy book as a spellbook of sorts to access a large list of universal abilities scaled off faith would be perfect. It allows you to tailor your chaplain's abilities based around the faith you choose and would allow everyone to customize to the character they see fit. It would even give the chaplain a cool goal of getting enough congregates to access their higher tier abilities.

Even with all of this said, I wouldn't want to put too much effort into making the chaplain "mechanically unique". It's already a special, niche role and even with these abilities I don't foresee it getting much playtime over roles with much much more depth gameplay-wise. The chaplain, despite being christian themed at a base level, is a role I have seen customized already so much despite the limitations. The chapel is also a perfect place for almost any form of sermon, event, hymn, you name it. I enjoy chaplain as is, but I wholeheartedly support anything that makes it more fun and accessible for people

Plus I realy like being da Holy Cow I fink it's funnee

[WhatMG]

snip

Yeah, I don't really think adding more ways for them to valid hunt is really the call. I also really like the packs idea, and the job reward isn't a bad idea either. The packs seems to be the best way going forward. Gives you a good bit to play with and also keeps the vending machine clutter down.

The biggest issue i feel really is real world stuff. Leaving it as-is is probably the best bet, thinking on it. Not removing or changing anything but also not adding anything new.

[KolIsDumb]

As an off-and-on again chaplain player, I don't think chaplain needs any major alterations or changes to mix up the playstyle. Chaplain, in my opinion, is a "Find your own fun" role and doesn't *need* any defined goals. I'm perfectly content with doing laps around the station looking for excuses to rant about space-gods or decorating my chapel to fit whatever gimmick I have in mind for the shift.
Adding non-antag items for chaplain should compliment the loose playstyle of the role, not bind it to a strict formula of "goals" or "progression." Give chaplain toys to play with, not objectives to complete is what I'm getting at. Clothing sets and items themed around the sets are the best way to go in my opinion.

Alternative bibles are tricky. I've sprited one myself and the general consensus I've seen is that people want to be able to immediately identify an item as a bible (Obvious farty gibby reasons) and the clear definition of a bible gets a bit muddied when it doesn't have a giant gold cross on the front. You could make the alternative bibles do something different than instant-death so that people don't feel cheated for the first few months of a new bible being in the game or give them custom gib effects and let people learn the hard way that there's other dangerous books besides the good ol' crossed one and maybe they should stop farting on literature in general!
I don't think the fear of "but what if I gib on accident?" is a good enough reason for us to not have *any* new bibles. I'd love to see some variety.

I think the christian motif is perfectly fine. Zealous christian clergymen/witch-hunters are a staple of fiction and deserve a spot in space.
Like what the screaming guy said, I like playing holy space lizard, I think it's funnee.

[WhatMG]

Snip

I agree that there doesn't need to be any major changes. More toys to play with is great, and that's mostly what i've been working towards. Whatever enables more fun scenarios, right?

Yeah, the bible gib stuff is tricky. Should all the books gib? Should only one? I'm personally of the mind that if you have access to many books from a vending machine than the vending machine books should be just props. The old chaplain book should still gib though.

[Largeamountsofscreaming]

Yeah, the bible gib stuff is tricky. Should all the books gib? Should only one? I'm personally of the mind that if you have access to many books from a vending machine than the vending machine books should be just props. The old chaplain book should still gib though.

Real talk, I'd be perfectly fine with gutting the fart mechanic for the chaplain's bible they are using if copies of the book become much more common (a copy that still gibs could stay). It's by no metric a vital mechanic and isn't gonna harm the identity of chaplain if the book they're holding doesn't make you explode when you press F. There's other ways to funny die

Counterpoint, you don't really need it to be that obvious "which books are bibles". A bible isn't important enough to where you need to know immediately it's a holy book, and if you do, it already has a fairly large sprite and unique cover. There aren't that many books as is (if any), and as little as a bit of flavor text saying "It looks holy" and a cover design would be enough imo. If you're farting on books, you're asking for it to gib you at that point. You don't need to change it from instant death because if you're going out of your way to fart on books you clearly want that to happen (though I think unique effects based on certain bible types would be cool).

[Solenoid]

TL;DR Loadouts could be cool, perhaps out of scope. Robes all look nice and give me confidence that the community will find gimmicks for them, also diversifies the chaplain into more of a spiritual guide and moves them away from the "Space Christian" motif. All the props look nice, and could create gimmicks, player intrigue, or some more atmosphere for certain gimmicks. Shove it all in a vending machine, maybe with a token system to prevent "holy book spam". Generally, good job! Adds to possible gimmicks and increases roleplay options while being unobtrusive- exactly as intended.

Coming from a non-chaplain-main, I ultimately think the toolkit of the chaplain is pretty well rounded, but I would love for something like the "loadouts" system that Screaming mentioned to become a reality. Adding new books and robes would be a good way to open up a new system that can be "easily"(in terms of PRs) added to over time, and would invite new contributions based off of that one. Maybe that's a little out of the scope of your current PR idea though, so I'll just try to comment on what we have now(based on the most recent spritesheet from the discord thread.)

The robes all look quite nice! I think all of them could create some new roleplay moments for certain players and they cement the idea of the chaplain being more of a "spiritual guide", instead of explicitly a Christian priest. A clown chaplain trying to give life advice to other clowns and convert non-clowns to the Honkmother, or a nature chaplain doing a gimmick with Botany could be really fun to see! All the different masks also really add character to the different robes(and possibly intrigue, for antag chaplains)! The little golden idol would be super fun, and I love the idea of different forms of tablets for storing scripture/divine laws. All of the provided books look nice for the different possible gimmick faiths! I do think the cluwne one would be best as an antag item(you fart on it and become a cluwne, can be slid inside other books to disguise it), but I know that's outside the scope of this PR and so it's irrelevant. Also! I love the crystal ball, though maybe an on/off state where it's swirling and lights up a bit would be cool for those dark, secluded corner fortune readings.

Mechanically, introducing these could be done via a vending machine(a la most other departments these days), and we could remove the "holy supplies" lockers from the chapels to consolidate everything. Tokens like the ones security gets could be used to redeem 1 book, I'm not so worried about people mixing/matching holy clothing sets, or having multiple out at a time since that's all flavor. 

On the question of real-world religions, I think it'd be best to avoid making any changes in the current PR given the current global climate around issues primarily focused on religion. I'd personally be in favor of removing most content affiliated with serious representations of real-life religions to avoid any scandals involving them in-game, but I know that such a change may be unpopular and will instead say it'd probably just be best to look at them later on. 

Overall, nice work! I'd love to see these in game, some mechanical features to certain books/items could be nice as traitor items, but I figure that could be in a different PR, and would love to share my ideas privately with you, should you need them! I'd be fine with the bulk of the items in the "main" PR being just flavor as initially proposed, and would like to say you've succeeded in my mind on adding to the roleplay options with chaplains through the contents of this project.

[babayetu83]

imagine if the chaplain could bless weaponry and armor to make it more affective against supernatural creatures

[Kotlol]

imagine if the chaplain could bless weaponry and armor to make it more affective against supernatural creatures

Unless that Chaplain is also a traitor.

[Frank_Stein]

If anything, I at least love the Webley. Feels very appropriate. Lovecraftian, in my mind.

I think you can lean a little into that with the abundance of new holy book sprites. Have the Chaplain as some kind of religious scholar.

There was that rune ritual magic stuff from before, I feel like that could be tied to the books somehow. Maybe each book would have randomized messages that were lore and useful spells in coded text, and the default Chaplain Bible acted as a codex for deciphering it.

[WhatMG]

@Solenoid
Yeah, I'm pretty fond of the idea of having "loadouts" in the vending machine. Matching sets of items in boxes that you can grab, with some extras. I'd need to work out what the particular sets would be, and I may need to make some things to flesh out some sets. Need to test that more

@Frank_Stein
And yeah, the Lovecraftian vibe was exactly what I was going for with the Webley. And I like the concept of the chaplain being a religious scholar, generally educated on matters of faith. Players could chose to specialize if it suits their goals, naturally.

Little edit, but I'm also wondering at what point this becomes too much.

[Largeamountsofscreaming]

@WhatMG

Tbh I think before scope creep starts to kill progress, I think an official first step goal would be good.

Just a large set of robe sprites, bibles, and possibly some other religious tools (censer, candles, donation box etc.) in a vending machine. If the vending machine doesn't work, have boxes with the robes and some items. A token system might be good to only have one copy of the bible, and possibly a resprite of Faith so it doesn't clash with the other holy books. I can't wait for this to be added, so I don't want it to be lost in what-ifs about if chaplain could cast fireball lol. This is just a thread about whether or not chaplain could use more sprited objects (not about more mechanics), and I think everyone thinks yes!

[TDHooligan]

now chaplains have Faith to expand upon, i think there's a good precedent to look at runes again. perhaps you could sanctify areas that aren't the Church (like the Bar) and gain faith passively as long as you and other people are there.

Then, faith can be used to channel other runes to do other miracle-like things. maybe. it's worth some thought.