Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Game Master Trigger Effects

Very excited for this mode, it looks hecka impressive. Basically the whole reason I backed hahaha.

The one thing I noticed absent, and admittedly I haven't been through the whole video, was some sort of triggered effect, some sort of "Scripting Lite." The GM was able to cause the same thing to happen but had to manually do so, which could be tedious... adding a simple effect trigger on an interactable could drastically reduce some of that tedium. Even if the trigger is one single effect.

I'm thinking of things like locking a door, and adding an "Unlock" trigger with a specific DC. When a player clicks the door, they are prompted with the appropriate dice roll check. The DC is the amount greater or equal to which the player must roll for the Trigger to react "positively." If fail, the trigger reacts negatively.

Each trigger would essentially have properties in an object-like structure.

Trigger:
{
DC: number
AssociatedAttribute: string
PositiveEffect: EffectObject
NegativeEffect: EffectObject
}

A DM would only need to provide these four fields. Of course it's simplified since it would also probably be connected to an interactable object. Potentially track the repeatability of an effect in this Trigger versus in the Effect itself, for modularity.

Effects could be modded into the game, but could also exist as the "conditions" as they already are in-game (e.g. Petrified, Poisoned).

I've heard scripting is out of scope of the GM Mode but a simple trigger set may positively benefit the approachability of GMing.

Right now it seems they have not implemented it.
But i would imagine they add something similar later on.

This should at least be scriptable through the engine. But something as simple as a lock should be able to automatically prompt a roll and unlock on success. Other simple object interactions could display text (loremaster check, for example), apply statuses, grant items or permanent buffs, etc.

Repeatability should be a base part of the properties. Something like a lock would probably be done once (though you could maybe make it lock again on closing), whereas some kind of shrine that grants blessings/curses could be repeatable a few times.

I can see your point, but I think effect level repeat control leaves an "effect designer" the responsibility for predicting how that effect would be used. By leaving it in the hands of a "trigger designer," the decision point is closer to the execution... a trigger has a good idea how many times it wants to use (or allow reuse of) an effect. An effect does not inherently know how many times it could be reused.

EDIT: I reread your post and I actually think you and I agree on this... hehe.

Thinking back to my beloved Pen & Paper experiences as both player and DM it was rather important that the DM could change his mind on just about anything according to how the players behaved and how he as DM wanted to run the game.

One example that comes to mind is one of my players kept bashing down doors by throwing his considerable bulk against them.
Every damned roll he made allowed him to bash down the door and roll out of harms way of any traps and surprises I had planned. Not to mention that he kind of ruined the game for the others with his brash behaviour.
In the end I changed the level of a room making it into a basement room.
When he bashed through again on his ridiculously lucky throws he fell down a run of stairs and harmed himself severely.

My point is, that if I have set a trap on a chest, and I want to keep the player alive even if he has forgotten to heal himself, the trap could ruin the game flow. Especially if I have forgotten that it is there.
Likewise I want to be able to invent one very promptly if need be.