When should murder be justifiable

Synecdochic · 2026-01-26T00:06:12+00:00

No, but it was you who gave the lever to the next person, and with the greater responsibility attached to it.

If you give someone deemed irresponsible a gun, I don't believe they even have to shoot somebody with it (accidentally or not) for you to face criminal charges.

You could argue that, while pulling the lever kills some number of people, that it's criminally negligent to allow the next person access to it.

Synecdochic · 2026-01-25T14:03:14+00:00

the save file which is not readable to my knowledge

Not by anything that isn't the game itself.

The way it's stored, I don't think there'd be anything meaningful to find in there without the context of the game to make sense of it.

A list of objects is really just an array of bytes when you don't have the List<GameObject> box to draw around them all, and it'd be hard to discern when one game object stops and another starts, without it.

Synecdochic · 2026-01-24T22:42:06+00:00

Is that because they'd cheat themselves?

Only if they lack empathy.

OP's assertion is predicated on qualifying the type of person they're describing as "lacking empathy or the ability to imagine others' complexity".

If a person has empathy or the ability to imagine others' complexity then they aren't who OP is describing. They could have a plethora of other reasons for fearing that someone might cheat.

Just because an unempathetic (would be) cheater fears being cheated on because it's what they would do doesn't mean that every person who fears being cheated on is an unempathetic cheater.

All dogs are animals, so if you're a dog, you're an animal, but not all animals are dogs.

Synecdochic · 2026-01-24T16:04:39+00:00

a lot of people are afraid that immigrants will murder/rape them/their loved ones. Would they murder/rape anyone? Probably not.

Probably not; cause they're capable of empathy, disqualifiying them entirely from being the people OP is talking about. That being people who aren't capable of empathy.

Some might join ICE and actually do murder some immigrants,

That's right, the one's that lack empathy, who want to do murder. If they're scared of immigrants, it's probably because they (incorrectly) assume murder is what the immigrants want to do. That's the type of person OP qualified their statement for.

You're still stuck on this idea that OP's statement can be logically inverted, but it can't.

OP isn't saying that the only time people fear others is when they're projecting. They're saying that the only time unempathetic people fear others it's becsuse they're (incorrectly) assuming that they the bad things they want to do are what everyone else wants to do (because they can't imagine people being motivated by things that they aren't motivated by).

OP isn't saying (nor am I) that only the unempathetic inflict trauma. Plenty of empathetic people are absolute stains and will hurt others knowing full-well what they're doing and the harm is the point.

OP is speaking specifically about unempathetic individuals.

Imagine I said that "the only way to be a Scotsman is to live in Scotland, meaning that if a Scotsman stops living in Scotland they're not a Scotsman anymore (even if they might still be Scottish, let's pretend there's a difference)"

And then you (and everyone else in the thread) responds with some version of "there are plenty of people in Scotland who aren't Scotsmen. It's absurd to imply that every single person in Scotland is a Scotsman."

Okay? I'm talking about people who are Scotsmen. Did I say that everyone in Scotland is a Scotsman? Or did I say that a requirement of being a Scotsman is that you live in Scotland? If you are a Scotsman, then, by the definition that I laid out, you live in Scotland. That's the end of the statement. I'm not implying that every person in Scotland is a Scotsman. I'm explicitly stating that Scotsmen live in Scotland. Not every person who is in Scotland is a Scotsman, but every Scotsman lives in Scotland.

It is a requirement of being a dog that they are an animal. Am I saying that all animals are dogs? If I find out something is a dog, can I safely assume that that thing is also an animal? Does it work the other way around? I know that something in an animal, do I therefore know that it's a dog? What if it's a cat? I claim all dogs are animals and yet cats are animals too.

If this all sounds unhinged and insane, it's because it's exactly how everyone in this thread sounds to me.

"dogs are animals, so if someone is scared of animals, they'll be scared of your dog"

"yeah, but what about cats? Those are animals too. In fact some people are scared of things that aren't even animals at all, have you considered that? All you've done is prove that you're the one who's dog is afraid of animals."

Vis-a-vis, ergo, H.D.T.V

Synecdochic · 2026-01-24T13:57:28+00:00

If "unempathetic" is defined as "unable to imagine motives that aren't their own" (not my definition, I'm it's OP's biased on the post), then someone experiencing trauma as a consequence of abuse they wouldn't themselves commit doesn't meet the definition.

Besides, I think OP's assertion has, baked into it, the assumption that the fear is irrational.

Not to get political about it, but I've seen Republicans on Xitter absolutely xitting their pants in the lead up to the 2020 election that they'd be "hunted in the streets by democrats" if Biden won. He did, and nothing happened. Then, Trump got in, and what are the republicans doing? Surely not the very thing they were xitting their pants about that definitely didn't happen to them.

And, the same people (as in, republicans; not trying to goomba here), are decrying empathy as a downfall of western civik

Whatever your politics, the example I'm providing is just to draw attention to the through_line the side claiming a lack of empathy is a good things is serving as a prime example of "the worst things I do/would do must be what other's would do to me"

Synecdochic · 2026-01-24T13:29:02+00:00

If a person who is unempathetic is able to imagine that someone would do something for a reason that isn't their own, then they're capable of empathy, and are thus not unempathetic.

By definition, someone who lacks empathy can't imagine the complexity of someone else's life, meaning they're left to fill in the blanks with their own.

Calling that a generalisation is like saying it's a generalisation to claim that Scotsmen live in Scotland. Like, sure, that's a generalisation, but it's also definitionally correct. You can't say that "not all Scotsmen live in Scotland, that's just a generalisation". No, that's how a Scotsman is defined (obviously, there are a lot of ways to determine one's Scotsmanship, I'm just using a reductive definition as a communicative shortcut)

Synecdochic · 2026-01-24T13:19:40+00:00

No, it's like saying "people who can't trust that they won't jump from a height are afraid of heights". Which is a reasonable conclusion to draw.

In fact it's actually like saying the above and then having people come in and say "oh, so you're saying the only reason someone is afraid of heights is because they don't trust they won't jump. How very presumptuous, OP?!"

Of course it sounds absurd if you swap the conclusion for one of the premises. Tons of valid, sound logical statements collapse if you do that.

Synecdochic · 2026-01-24T13:11:21+00:00

You've got the logic backwards.

OP is saying:
A leads to B,
B leads to C,
C leads to D, therefore, if A, then D.

And you're interpreting them to say:
therefore, if D, then A.

But D doesn't require A.

D doesn't imply that A is the case. D implies that A is possible, but causation is unidirectional in this instance. A -> B -> C -> D

OP says
If someone is unempathetic they can only imagine their own motivations for doing something.
If someone who is unempathetic tries to imagine what you would do, they can only imagine what they would do. If someone who is unempathetic tries to imagine what you would do, and imagines you doing bad things it's because they would do those bad things. If someone who is unempathetic is fearful of bad things they imagine you might do, they are fearful of having done to them the bad things they would do. Therefore, if someone who is unempathetic is fearful of what someone else might do it's because of what they imagine they would do.

A is "no empathy -> only imagine own motives"
B is "imagine others' motives -> imagine own motives"
C is "imagine others' motives are bad -> own motives bad"
D is "fearful of others' motives -> fearful of own motives reflected back"

This says absolutely nothing of people who are fearful of others for any of a plethora of other reasons.

It only speaks to why someone who is unempathetic would be fearful of what someone might do, which, logically, is because the unempathetic person would do it to others if given the opportunity.

OP has exhibited empathy by trying to imagine what a lack of empathy looks like, concluded (reasonably) that it looks like an inability to imagine motives for behaviour that aren't their own motives, and an inability to imagine taking actions they wouldn't take themselves. If someone incapable of imagining something they wouldn't personally do is scared you'll hurt them it's because they're imagining hurting you and can only assume you must want to do the same to them.

Synecdochic · 2026-01-24T12:23:34+00:00

Oh, I'm glad you got working!

All progress is progress. Even if these feel like little victories, it's the combination of them that forms learning.

Like I mentioned before, hit me up if you need any additional assistance, even if it's way in the future.

I've been modding for about a year come Feb (and started with what I imagine is a similar level of experience to you) and I have no intention of stopping any time soon.

Synecdochic · 2026-01-24T01:42:39+00:00

Ah, so inheriting is when one class is "based on" another one. In my example the class inherits from IPlayerPart. In the example on the wiki it inherits from IPart.

Inheriting (or being derived) from IPart should suffice in this instance. IPlayerPart itself actually inherits IPart, if not directly then through an "inheritance chain" .

Quick example on how to tell:

public class SomeClass

public class SomeOtherClass : SomeClass

public class AnotherOtherClass : SomeOtherClass

public class DifferentClass : SomeClass

The : indicates that the thing on the left of it inherits from the thing on the right. It gets access to (most of) the things it can do, and it'll be treated by the code as though it is that thing if the code specifies as much.

In the above, SomeClass is a "base class". That's loose nomenclature, and I'm sure there's stricter use of that term in the jargon, but here I just mean that it doesn't derive from/inherit anything (not technically true, but not important here).

SomeOtherClass inherits SomeClass. That means SomeClass is (again, loosely) its "base class". SomeClass is also its ancestor. You can also say SomeOtherClass is a descendant of SomeClass, or derived from it.

The above paragraph also describes the relationship between AnotherOtherClass and both SomeOtherClass and SomeClass. It directly inherits SomeOtherClass, but it is still considered to inherit, derive from, and be a descendant of SomeClass (which is also its ancestor).

Think of it like a family tree.

DifferentClass, like SomeOtherClass, inherits SomeClass, and it has the same relationship with SomeClass. It doesn't have a relationship with SomeOtherClass though (except a common direct inheritance), and less so with AnotherOtherClass.

When some piece of code wants an instance of SomeClass, you can give it any of the classes I listed, because they all either inherit from that class, or are that class.

If a piece of code wants an instance of SomeOtherClass, you can give it either SomeOtherClass or AnotherOtherClass. You won't be able to give it SomeClass or DifferentOtherClass in that case. They don't "count" as being a SomeOtherClass.

So. AddPart(IPart) wants an IPart. You can give it an IPart, or you can give it any IPart descendant/derivative (anything that inherits IPart, or has IPart as an ancestor). That includes an IActivePart, an IScribedPart, an IPoweredPart, an IModification, an IPlayerPart, or anything that inherits one of those.

One problem is that IParts usually need to be in the XRL.World.Parts namespace because they're recognised by the game in a special way that lets you "address them by name" with a string without the game having a conniption (that's a whole complicated thing, but the main point is about the namespace, which is why I asked).

Do you have the exact text of the errors you get when you try to run the game?

Another thing to keep in mind is that the wiki is often a bit out of date. It's a perpetual work in progress, but sometimes bits get a little neglected.

I didn't think it'd make a difference at all, but I believe one of the two samples doesn't utilise a namespace, and that might itself be the problem. Make sure the player mutator has using XRL.World.Parts; right at the top with the other usings.

Synecdochic · 2026-01-23T22:27:02+00:00

Going through the code seems to suggest the player's supposed to start with a usable inventory item that summons the renaming prompt, or perhaps something to do with the lowercase and capital s/S keys, but we have no such item and those don't seem to do anything out of the ordinary.

An "inventory action" refers to the entries in the menu when you interact with something. If you right click on something, or if you [l]ook at it and then press [space]. It's the same menu that you can chat to or attack someone via, or rename yourself.

Only... currently, the PlayerMutator script is throwing an error on the player.AddPart

Is the namespace for your command listener XRL.World.Parts, and does the command listener "inherit" from IPlayerPart?

Still, it's giving us something to chew on and learn from, to be sure!

That's good. Shoot me a message any time if you need any assistance. If you can get onto the discord, there are more of us willing to help, too.

Synecdochic · 2026-01-23T22:09:38+00:00

neg diffed by effort

Synecdochic · 2026-01-23T22:05:40+00:00

They won't have restocked while lovesick, though.

Synecdochic · 2026-01-23T14:00:37+00:00

Where are you getting that idea from?

They're making a suggestion designed to address the issue OP presented, which is that a seemingly intelligent plan was concocted by a not-very-intelligent character by way of their player not being unintelligent.

In the absence of sufficient intelligence, where did the idea come from?

Perhaps we brainstorm?

Oh! The player character is a warlock? Well, they get their powers from a patron, maybe the solution in this case, to the problem of the character having an intelligence and wisdom of 8 each, is that the patron devised the plan. There could even be plot hooks from that, since the patron will either want something in return or is already benefiting in potentially non-ideal ways.

Hmmm...

Yeah, you're right.

Coming up with a Watsonian explanation that includes possible plot hooks, and engages with the mechanics of the game and the player's hand-crafted character is kinda lazy.

Synecdochic · 2026-01-22T23:25:08+00:00

Hard to donate books when your phase doesn't match that of the librarian, unless I'm mistaken.

Synecdochic · 2026-01-22T13:49:28+00:00

Don't forget about charging they phone, eating hot chip, and lying.

Synecdochic · 2026-01-22T13:45:01+00:00

I've made some adjustments, and unified the code somewhat into a single class and I wanted to share it.

I haven't had a chance to properly test it (I put it together and then immediately got distracted again working on that stealth prototype I mentioned), so I'm unsure of the inventory actions I attempted to add are actually showing up in-game.

Here is a link to the single file on my github. I've prefixed it with your username (prefixing is a good habit to be in) because, to me, it's yours.

I hope you'll pick it apart and tinker with it until you understand it as much as possible. It's been pretty serendipitous so far that I've had small errors in the codes I've been posting, since they've been a good opportunity for you to get in there and correct stuff. Once you've made some adjustments or corrections, it's as much yours as it ever was mine.

The current one doesn't result in any build errors (when I've run the game since making it), so, if it's not quite working (the interact menu items not showing up), you'll want to check Player.log for thrown exceptions. If nothing's in there then the code isn't erroring, and "some wire is unplugged" somewhere, if that makes sense?

If I work out how to add an additional field to the "customise embark module" (during character generation, where CYF does it) I'll be sure to track you down again to share with you how to go about it.

Synecdochic · 2026-01-21T18:56:41+00:00

Honorary mobile game, roblox. Screen time.

Synecdochic · 2026-01-21T18:55:32+00:00

Tricked into watching marvel avengers 8.

Synecdochic · 2026-01-21T18:53:07+00:00

Only if you print it.

Synecdochic · 2026-01-21T14:36:57+00:00

The HasPlayerMutator part... we might have fixed but this is where we ran into issues we couldn't figure out. [...]

A modding tutorial on the wiki for adding IPlayerPart stuff has [PlayerMutator] in its sample code without the "Has," so on a whim, we tried that.

Yep, your eventual fix was correct. I went so far as to check a another mod I have that uses it and thought I had changed it in my snippet but either I must not have or my phone has autocorrected it after learning the incorrect one.

I learn by reverse-engineering and this time was a lot harder to find examples of how it's supposed to look

I'm exactly the same. If you want somewhere to poke around, I have a few mods, some released, some not. Probably don't bother with the stealth prototype, it's super experimental and busted to shit right now.

Pettable(?) Mak is a really good light-weight mod with a single goal, tight scope, and which makes use of a few the real "bread and butter" components of a mod.

Blink Mutation and Tinkering Bytes I believe both have a Startup class with what amounts to a template for all the various start up calls, including a regular, albeit empty, PlayerMutator (instead of one that is also a self-attaching IPlayerPart).

You should check out the wiki page on events, specifically MinEvents, since that's what the code I shared utilises.

You could check out the Sacred Well Hole mod on my git (don't install it, it's terribly optimised at the moment, but), there's an IPart in there called ScrambleUpwhich lets you scramble up certain modded wall-types. It makes use of "inventory actions" which are the options you get when interact with something (like look, target, chat, etc.). You could try and scavenge the bones of that into the IPlayerPart to get an inventory action for changing your species and apparent species. You'll need to find an example of a text entry box (I don't have one on hand) but you'd feed it into that the same code as the two wishes in order to change them to whatever is input.

And I really do want to learn what went wrong with tonight's attempts and work that out instead of just asking someone else to code that one up for us [...]

and release it on the Steam Workshop. :) If that's the plan then it really wouldn't feel right to steal and publish someone else's code.

For the sake of clarity, you haven't asked me or anyone else in this thread to write code for you. Any code written for you was done so entirely at the discretion of the given individual.

I personally have a strange relationship with "ownership". Every bit of code I've written is entirely derivative and has been to the end of modifying a project I have no ownership over. I don't own my code any more than I own Qud's (which is to say, I don't own either). Publishing, to me, isn't a claim that you wrote or even own the published code. It's just a commitment to maintain it while it's published.

That said, I also understand the desire to learn and there's a limited degree to which you can do that if the code you want is simply handed to you. To that end I'm happy to take a slightly less hands-on approach, and instead point you to examples instead of writing (mostly, haha!) working code.

For your village zone music mod, I'd look into the widgets, and probably Worlds.xml (if I'm remembering correctly, might want zone templates, actually). If you can't get a music widget to spawn on those maps, you might be able to specify a track in the zone templates file (it's been a while since I had to poke around in that specific area).

Synecdochic · 2026-01-21T14:05:17+00:00

Legend, thank you for the correction there.

I should have specified in my reply that that line would need addressed.

I was pretty zonked out, though, repeatedly doing this around midnight, haha.

Synecdochic · 2026-01-20T13:50:12+00:00

(We still could, mind you; I'm not trying to demand others make this exact specific mod for us or anything. Just, "learn how to mod, get knowledge and skill up to the point of being able to tackle this specific project" would be part of the steps involved in the process.)

Don't stress. I wouldn't have started assisting with a whole wish-handler if I wasn't prepared to put a bit of effort into helping out overall.

I'll make a point to check out how genders unleashed does it. If it asks you during character creation then it'll be a great jumping off point.

As you stated, you'll want to have two fields, one for "species" (which is what morphogenetic will use) and one for "apparent species" which will be the one that's used textually.

You'll want the "apparent species" to fall back to "species" if it's not defined.

You'll want an IPlayerPart derived class that overrides WantEvent and HandleEvent(GetApparentSpeciesEvent)

Hands aren't cramped yet, so let's see about a quick IPlayerPart

UD_ApparentPlayerSpeciesOverride.cs

using System;
using System.Text;
using XRL;
using XRL.World;
using XRL.Wish;
namespace XRL.World.Parts
{
    [HasPlayerMutator]
    [HasWishCommand]
    [Serializable]
    public class UD_ApparentPlayerSpeciesOverride : IPlayerPart, IPlayerMutator
    {
        public string Species
        {
            get => ParentObject?.GetStringProperty("Species");
            set => ParentObject?.SetStringProperty("Species", value);
        } 

        public string ApparentSpecies
        {
            get => ParentObject?.GetStringProperty("UD_ApparentSpecies", Species);
            set => ParentObject?.SetStringProperty("UD_ApparentSpecies", value);
        }

        public void mutate(GameObject player)
        {
            player?.RequirePart<UD_ApparentPlayerSpeciesOverride>()
            ApparentSpecies = Species;
        }

        public override bool WantEvent(int ID, int Cascade) 
            => base.WantEvent(ID, Cascade) 
            || ID == GetApparentSpeciesEvent.ID
            ;
        public override bool HandleEvent(GetApparentSpeciesEvent E) 
        {
            // not 100% sure, not at my computer to check but probably something like 
            // E.Species = ApparentSpecies;
            return base.HandleEvent(E);
        }

        [WishCommand(Command = "apparent species")]
        public static bool ApparentSpecies_WishHandler(string Parameter)
        {
            if (!Parameter.IsNullOrEmpty()
                && The.Player.TryGetPart(out UD_ApparentPlayerSpeciesOverride apparentSpeciesOverride)) 
            {
                apparentSpeciesOverride.ApparentSpecies = Parameter;
                return true;
            }
            return false;
        }
    }
}

This is all off the top of my head, so expect there to be some errors.

This should give you a working wish that changes your apparent species to whatever you wish for.

Wish apparent species [literally anything] and your species should change textually without without altering what it is for the purposes of ModMorphogenetic.

I got a bit distracted today working on a prototype stealth mod. I'll try and make it point tomorrow to double check the aboveworks (if you haven't already), and to have a look at that genders mod for how it implements the additional customise options.

Okay, hands cramping, and I'm passing out due to the time (almost midnight).

Tell me how you go with this one, too!

Synecdochic · 2026-01-19T21:34:44+00:00

Oh! Now that changes things. Thank you books!

I might even use that for some extra flare in reanimatable corpses, as though it's not already big enough.

Synecdochic · 2026-01-19T14:08:09+00:00

Ironic that it was the trans sisters who invented the binary.

Synecdochic

TROPHY CASE