on skinless wolves

you land the first and final blow, killing the wolf after a short scuffle.  they aren't much of a challenge anymore; you're probably one of the greatest swordsmen on the continent.  the beast dispatched, you pull out your trusty knife, preparing to skin the animal.  oops; you put a large gash in it's hide.  no problem, it's still salvageable.  oops.  there goes another bit; still, you can make two small hides.  or three; oops.  make that four.  before long, the hide is completely unusable.  you went from a green adventurer to master swordsmen in less than a year, but still can't skin an animal without mangling the hide.

it's a trope so common that calling attention to it has almost become a trope in and of itself: you get sent off to collect ten wolf pelts, or a dozen goat hooves, or twenty bear asses, and seem to encounter nothing but skinless wolves, legless goats, and assless bears.  to mention nothing of the fact that by your second week, you've decimated the local wolf, goat, and bear populations.  unlike the one i posted yesterday, this has a very simple practical solution (infinite wolves), but making it thematically sensible is the hard part.

i've already sort of gone over this, but i don't like the idea of the brave hero of the land wantonly raping and murdering half of everyone they meet.  or at least, not seeing any consequence for it.  so, i decided that the combat system was an abstract one; rather than actually connecting with every attack, health represents an abstract of the character's stamina, combat ability, luck, and training.  it's why it goes up with your level, when you don't actually grow extra flesh or redundant vital organs.  the fight doesn't end when one person falls dead; it ends when they reach the point of exhaustion, realize they can't win, and surrender.  the same concept can be applied to wild animals - sooner or later that wolf will realize that it's outmatched, turn tail and bolt.  obviously killing wildlife is more acceptable (and arguably necessary for a healthy ecosystem; preventing overpopulation of predator of prey species) than killing people.

so, you'll still get your wolf pelts, and you'll even get them from every wolf you kill - you just won't necessarily kill every wolf that you encounter.  of course there are still a few (minor) issues; if you get jumped by a bandit and they surrender, do you tie them up and let them get devoured by all the wolves you've pissed off?

going to be streaming until about 11 tonight.  more coding, more work on organs.
http://www.livestream.com/uldegoagogo
done a bit early.  programming lists make me want to tear my hair out.  assuming that what i have is working (which i think it should), tomorrow i just need to go through and finish all of the reporting functions (that return things like organ length, type, color, etc).  it's not terribly difficult busy work, but it still needs to get typed.