Edit: Shoutout to Mining and the other posters who had this idea years before me. Taunts are one of the elements of Dredmor’s whimsy that always stuck with me. Seeing little “I hate you so much” messages pop up is fun. The Death by a Thousand Taunts mod makes for even more fun. What I think would add an EXTRA layer of FUN to Dungeons of Dredmor and enhance its structured randomness roguelike character is divvying up some of the taunts to only be thrown out when using a particular skill/associated gear, facing a certain enemy, or taxon/genus (to clarify, Vegetable is the taxa because the game files use the plural of taxon, Pumpkinn is a genus, the sprites it uses. Currently the game takes a peep through text.xml and drags out insult text. I propose there be an extra step in this process by way of: (A) taking the seven skills of the run into account and (B) checking what monster is doing the taunting, with bonus points for (C) checking what floor you're on currently. Some examples from the original text.xml: <insult text="spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace" skill="Astrology"/> <insult text="you do know i'm at least five levels higher than you are, right?" floor="1"/> <!--this taunt in particular would be great to have for monsters appearing out of depth, like Deths on Floor 1 when they're native to Floor 2, and while I know branchDB has the first floor as Floor 0, CotW made the Pocket Dimension Floor 0, so henceforth I will refer to floor numbers as they are shown on the minimap, i.e. starting with 1--> <insult text="strength in numbers, boys, strength in numbers" monster="swarmy"/> Some examples from Death by a Thousand Taunts: <insult text="my heart is now in high gear" taxa="Construct"/> <insult text="alms for an ex-leper?" taxa="Undead"/> <insult text="show me your moves" skill="Unarmed Combat"/> <insult text="and me without my holy water..." skill="Demonologist"/> <insult text="peek-a-boo" invisible="1"/> <!--this would fit either for an invisible monster, or for a diggle freshly erupted out of the earth--> Examples for specific monsters: <insult text="for all things that live must die, unbroiled in the sempiternal war" name="Molluscus"/> <insult text="the jolly elf and I are obviously separated by denominational differences" name="The Great Pumpkinn"/> <!-- this and other taunts from invisible monsters should only show up when they are visible or outlined--> <insult text="i’ll make you eat those words!" name="Deep Diggle Chef"/> A few of my favorites I’ve come up with: <insult text="so YOU have my sword!" skill="Burglary"/> <insult text="thou art a comedy of arrows" skill="Archery"/> <insult text="pike a card, any card" skill="Polearms"/> <!--ideally the weapons taunts are only strewn when both skilled and equipped, just like the stat bonuses from the trees--> <insult text="i will forge Flametongue in your pyre" skill="Promethean Magic" name="Deep Diggle Smith"/> <!--adding two tags makes for an AND condition--> <insult text="gold isn't all they've lead you to believe" skill="Alchemy"/> <insult text="you smell this bad when you were alive?" skill="Vampirism"/> <insult text="you're a fraud, a swindle, a forgery if you will" skill="Smithing"/ <insult text="you're going to Brazil" skill="Tourist"/> <insult text="you look rodiculous" skill="Wand Lore"/> <insult text="deez nuts and bolts hah gottem" skill="Tinkering"/> <insult text="double double toil and trouble" name="Witchy" <insult text="time to Dewey Decimate this fool" floor="5"/> <insult text="freeze!" floor="7"/> <insult text="we live in a dungeon society" floor="11"/> <insult text="there is no safe arbor here" floor="14"/> <insult text="Dredmor would like to access your echolocation" skill="Vampirism"/> <insult text="let's not put the dart before the horseshoe" skill="Thrown Weaponry"/> <insult text="say goodbye to your kneecaps, chucklenuts" monster="diggle"/> <insult text="enough chit-chat, let's get some grub going" name="Hungry Diggle"/> <insult text="i terra cotta bone to pick with you" monster="gnome"/> <!--gnomes should USE ALL CAPS when the Gnomish Cap is equipped--> <insult text="sorry, old me can't come talk right now" monster="mummy" Suffice it to say I have pages more! This post I hope serves as a good enough proof of concept.
