Cult rework - Corruption cult

[Doxxmedearly]

Here's my detailed thoughts on it. There is a lot of good feedback already, and some of what I have to say will echo it.

Corruption

Spoiler

 

Your main mechanic. It's a solid skeleton to work on. The link between horrors, cults, and insanity is a prevalent one in fiction and a recognizable theme, which makes working with it easy.
Your current draft does come with some questions and problems that need to be addressed. I'm not asking you to reply to these, I'm asking you to think about them while you move forward with the project.

-How does passively corrupting a person generate RP?

Can area-of-effect items be limited or replaced in a way that prevents more interaction?
If I have an amulet that drives people slowly insane, what is in place to stop me from just hovering in a crowded area and corrupting people without a word? Nothing, and people WILL do this.

The idea of cultist objects, like pylons, slowly corrupting others, for instance, is good. It's obvious and avoidable, but will affect anyone who wants to study it or is dispatched to clear it out.

-What means can cultists use to corrupt others?

You're working on this with items, and I like what you have: reading cursed tomes, metabolising the blood item, holding cursed objects, etc. Are there other, direct ways a cultist can inflict corruption? Can these objects benefit the character in some way (by giving them powers, messages, buffs) so they may be inclined to hold on to them?

-How can corruption be countered? A mechanic with no means of healing is not usually a fun one. 
How can we get chaplains and psychs involved? Each have a plethora of tools to work with. Use them.
How can others mitigate the effects of corruption, without curing it?

-IPCs and Dionae: how can we involve them in this rework of cult? 

-Insanity RP is rarely fun. This is the crux of the issue with the current draft. Being forced to RP in a certain way for a game mode will be tiring if it doesn't have flexibility or variety. People already respond poorly to forced conversions (thralls, cult) because it makes you RP a certain way. This doesn't immediately make it bad on its own, but it's something you must be careful about during implementation.

• Any effect you do will be meta'd. This isn't such a concern, but minimizing it where you can will go a long way.
• How can we add variety to the effects of corruption? Sky's the limit when it comes to effects you can put in. Hallucination code may be a good inspiration for how effects are handled. The trick here will be balancing effects so that they aren't ignorable but aren't annoying/obtrustive.
• What options does a character with high corruption have? Treatment? Promises from a cultist that they can make the madness go away, leading to a conversion? 
• What about physical changes? A person might take it more seriously if they begin mutating or develop strange abilities or disabilities.
• As people have said, simply going insane does not create as much RP as you feel like it may. At least, not how you seem to envision it in this first draft.
• Most importantly: How can we make corruption facilitate interesting, engaging, and fun roleplay for the character and people around them?

-What about the cultists? Do they gain benefits or powers from corrupting individuals? Do they have goals other than corruption? How can they use their tools during RP? Can they grant powers to a corrupted character? Can they make initiates like how wizards can make apprentices?

 

Detection

Spoiler

Without any means to detect the sources or antags causing the conflict, the game mode will fall flat. This is just a truth of game design; if you don't add some way for people to solve a problem, people will grow frustrated or bored. Right now, there doesn't seem to be any means of singling out a cultist. What can we do to detect them that:
A) Doesn't depend entirely on one job (Like chaplain, but can perhaps make the job better at it)
B) Gives the antag flexibility in how they may defend themselves as innocent or otherwise escape 
C) Can be done in late-game, but doesn't dead-giveaway early game unless they're super duper unsubtle. 

Just like other antags, conflict should rise slowly. Subtle at first, but then people who investigate the issues should be rewarded for their work by allowing them to find the source of the issue.. or at least, making it possible to find it. Think about how people might discover the corrupted nature of items... and what role their own corruption may play in their investigation.

Flexibility of Gimmicks/Goals

Spoiler

Right now, cult doesn't have a lot of gimmick flexibility. You're a cultist of Nar'Sie. You want to convert or kill. There's not a whole lot of CHOICE. Off-station antags, AIs, tators... they have a lot more freedom in gimmicks, and so are fun to play and less predictable (usually...)

A rework is an opportunity to work with that. Where can we give cultists choice? What they worship? How they worship? What tools they are granted? What powers they can choose? Can they have another goal on station beyond corrupt/convert/kill (For example, does their god for this round worship machines, which they want captured?)

If corruption is a goal instead of their strongest tool, you risk the gamemode getting stale. What means do the cultists have in terms of tools, gimmicks, abilities, and freedom to create an engaging story for the round?

Overall, this is a very interesting take on a cult rework, and one I feel could be a vast improvement of what we have, but it's far from finished in terms of where it needs to be. Reworking an entire gamemode from basically scratch is going to be a huge project, and one that will likely require collaboration from others, test merges, and big changes to the initial pitch (as it is with all large undertakings.)

[Nero07]

Thank you for the detailed (and well structured) post. It was a very interesting read and changed how i think about the direction of this rework. I'll think about it more and come back with an improved overview over the mode and its features.