New Background: The Heir

Back Room Game Design Discussion
1

Context (feel free to skip down to the idea): I’ve had an idea kicking around in my head for a few years now that has finally solidified into a background that started you off with a big spike of inspiration in a given direction. The initial idea is inspired by something the deckbuilding roguelike Slay the Spire does at the start of a new run: you get a choice between a few different pro/con options. (i.e. lose all your starting money but get a great card, or gain a cursed card [bad] but remove 2 starting cards from your deck [good]). This can add a lot of character to a run by giving you an unexpected and strong idea of how the run might take shape. I would contrast this to the normal choice of background which does give starting direction to the player but isn’t surprising. I would also contrast it with the wanderer which can give unexpected direction, but can also be directionless and vague.

High Level Idea: The “Heir” - a rich kid with relatively little in the way of practical skills, but they inherited something grand that they hope will let them conquer the dungeon.

Goal: A background choice that gives a strong, spikey initial direction to a run, ideally with some player choice.

Version 1: simple version
Start off with +4 in each stat, no starting skill points, and no starting gear except an XP potion and a scroll of acquirement.
The idea here is simple. Players can open with a fun acquirement choice and use the XP potion to support that choice. This may be quite overpowered of course, since having 7-9 in one skill (even at the cost of 0 in all other skills) is possible with an XP potion and could be wildly powerful in the early game. Players can easily grab missing body armor and simple weapons on the first floor, so starting with no other gear might not be enough of a detriment. Essentially starting at level 2 is also quite helpful. This could be balanced by giving fewer than normal stat points (most backgrounds give 12 total, this could give less), or somehow starting you off at “level 0”. There’s also the possible downside that this likely favors martial builds more than spellcasting.

Version 2: A-B Item Choice
Player is offered a choice between 2 (or more?) non-randart pieces of gear. Then their skills and stat points are distributed in some rational way based on that choice. They still have no other gear, but they have a single cool item to start building around. Caveat: It is very likely that the list of non-randart gear that is good and fun to offer but not gamebreaking is some curated subset of all the non-randart gear. For the sake of discussion, let’s assume we can come up with an appropriately constrained list.

Version 3: A-B Hand-Crafted Choice
This is like version 2, but with options that aren’t always a non-randart gear choice.
Ideas include:

  • A nice chunk of gold (maybe 1,000 or 1,500 or something, enough to buy cool things when you find shops)
  • A single non-randart item
  • An xp potion and a mid-tier spellbook
  • A staff and spellbook that match type
  • A permanent level 3 mutation
    As in version 2, skills could be distributed accordingly based on your choice, including only putting in “generic” skills like fighting/dodging/stealth if you choose something like “only gold”, or the logical spell schools or weapon skills if you get something in line with that.
    This version of the idea is perhaps the easiest to tune and adjust. If a level 3 mutation is too much, make it level 2. If 1,000 gold is too little, make it 1,500. This version of the idea is also certainly the most work to implement, though I personally think would likely result in the most interesting run starts.

Overall thoughts:
I’m hoping something like this can provide a type of very focused launching point for a run that isn’t covered by existing backgrounds. I worry mostly about the power scale of it. There’s a world where in all of these versions the “downside” is that you get little to no starting skill points. In any case I’m excited to start implementing it on my own and seeing if the reality is as fun as the idea sounds to me.

Please let me know your thoughts! If you see problems with this idea, I want to hear it. If you have ideas on how to improve it, or options that you’d be interested in seeing, I can’t wait to read them!

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Option 1 strikes me as absurdly good.

I think in general you’ll find there’s considerable resistance to backgrounds that can have hugely variable kit out the box, akin to NetHack’s Wizards, not least because they encourage startscumming.

This reminds me slightly of Gooncrawl (and others) have Archaeologists who start with a manual and a box. When you finish the manual, you can open the box, which has an artifact which uses the skill. (If memory serves).

3

Oh that’s really cool! I had an idea today that is similar to that, and which could still fit the theme and the desire for a strong starting concept. The idea is for “puzzle box” items that can only be opened if you have a certain level in a specific skill. These items could exist in any context in the dungeon, and if you already have the required skill you can open the box immediately. Then a background like this could start with 1 or possibly even 2 of those items. There’s still some “variable start” to it, but hopefully start scumming would be less enticing if you don’t know the exact reward yet.

I might pitch even something like this:
Always available choice between the following:

  • Minor Melee Box (unlocks at skill level 7 in any melee skill, gives a relevant randart melee weapon) + Major Armor Box (unlocks at armor or shield skill 12, gives a relevant unrand armor or shield)
  • Minor Stealth Box (unlocks at skill level 7 in stealth, gives a randart item with stealth relevant property) + Minor Evocations Box (unlocks at 7 evocations, gives either a leveled up evocable or a piece of equipment with an evokable property) + 500 gold
  • Minor Spellcasting Box (skill 7 in spellcasting, gives randart gear with spell school boosting effect) + Major Magic Box (skill 12 in any magic school, gives a relevant mid to high level spellbook and a cache of magic + brilliance potions)
  • Minor Jewelry Box (XL 7, gives randart jewelry with at least 2 beneficial properties) + Major Aux Box (XL 12, gives usable unrand aux armor)
  • Minor Spellsword Box (unlocks at skill level 5 in a weapon skill and 5 in spellcasting, gives a randart weapon with a spell school boost) + Major Learning Box (XL 12, gives 2 manuals in skills already invested in, weighted towards more highly invested skills)
    Or something like that. I don’t know if it’s more interesting to me to have the choice always be consistent like that, but I can respect the design sense of the community in this and it definitely lets people have a better sense of what build strategy they’re interested in.