Nighthawks - Chains Of Blood And Money

A new dev diary for Nighthawks looks at the currency of blood.

Chains Of Blood And Money

Posted by Richard Cobbett (Collaborator)

Hello! Richard here again, with your monthly not-actually-Dave developer diary!  

So.. many... things...

At the risk of making them sound just a little too sexy, most RPGs boil down to economics. I don't just mean money here, though I think we can agree that the bandit driven marketplace of most games is often pretty questionable. "Hello, traveller! You've levelled up enough that we all have swords containing the trapped souls of demons and wear armour that can withstand nukes! Give us 10 copper or else." I mean the often complex interplay of currencies, real and metaphorical, that underpin much of the adventure - reputation, for instance, is essentially a currency, as is health, mana, and many other bits and pieces. The overall game economy is then a multi-dimensional balancing act, played out with potions and gear and the availability of choice.

Nighthawks is no different, but one of the currencies is particularly important - blood. Something I wanted to avoid from the start is what a few games in the past have done, which is to make it basically just a mana bar tinted red. Blood is core to your existence as a vampire, and needs to - pardon the pun - feed into rather more of it than just letting you deploy some cool abilities. Though those are needed too. At the same time, the need to keep the internal larder stocked up can't become too much of a chore. 

The system I've been designing... usual reminder that everything in these updates is subject to change, etc, etc...  is intended to find a good balance, where you never forget that being a vampire can be a pain in the arse, but also get to enjoy the power fantasy part of it. Blood serves three key mechanical purposes - healing your non-critical wounds at the start of a day (critical wounds require special treatment elsewhere), powering your vampiric abilities ("Gifts"), and powering certain combat abilities.

At the start of each day, your blood pool lowers, and if it runs out or you haven't fed for a couple of days, you get a 'hunger' flag, which prevents you regenerating. Going hungry for too long is... not a good idea. This is basically to model the fact that you couldn't eat a large meal on Monday and expect to still feel satiated by Friday. You're also only really going to be at full strength if you feed on people, rather than having the occasional swig from a bottle, since doing that is expensive and not super satisfying. Depending on your origins, you may have some other restrictions, like not being able to gain satisfaction from tainted blood, or having to feed from the living, not bottles.

One key factor though is that while your Gifts are tied to blood, they deliberately don't draw from your main blood pool. Instead, you have up to four points of 'Will', which are spent on attempting things like hypnotising people or turning into fog. Like health, these regenerate over time as long as you're not Hungry, with the idea being that you shouldn't just be able to brute force every problem with vampire magic (it's intended to be relatively subtle but powerful), but nor should you feel like you can't choose the fun options or flex your power in combat for fear of being screwed later on. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm always loathe to use limited abilities in RPGs. This still keeps an element of strategy to it, but fits with the general vibe of an experience meant to be seen as a day-by-day series of decisions versus minute-by-minute.

The result - fingers crossed - should be a suitably morally grey approach where it's possible to be a 'good' vampire, but hunting/spending influence is the best way to be a powerful one. Of course, doing that comes with its own problems. As said, RPGs are interlocking economic models. And Suspicion is a currency too...

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Thanks Farflame!