ToME WikiWearing the one should appear to be the best idea ever. To this end, it should have lots of obvious advantages. But the disadvantages should 'all' be hidden, and even lied about. In fact, the game should lie to the player about the advantages, and even lie about disadvantages (Why, no! The One never drains mana! And no one will ever know...)
The One as uber-artifact
The one ring looks ordinary, and though it's full powers are great, they aren't instantly appartent to even one who knows what he's looking at. Instead, they are only hinted at.
Make the One a leveling artifact, that gains resistances and immunities steadily (once per level?) to eventually gain them all, plus massive bonuses to all stats, HP, mana, spell power, etc. Make sure to tell the player that it will do this.
In addition, make it a book with a new spell school consisting entirely of zero mana cost but powerful spells. Change the world, swap position, genocide, mass genocide, wraithform, teleport to dungeon level, etc etc. at least seven or eight spells here. Note that there shouldn't be a skill associated with these spells - the spell level depends on the level of The One. Note that the descriptions of these spells should be extravagant, and possibly blatantly untrue. But at least some of them need to work as advertized, and even the ones that don't should to something. Possibly a toned-down version of the more powerful spell that we're promising. Or, better yet, make the interface blatantly lie about the fail rates. (You'll get >2% fail with these spells! Honest!)
This simulates the player's increasing familarity with it. The longer you've worn it, the more access you gain to the benifits of wearing it. But the potential should be evident from the begining, and should be exagerated as much as possible.
The One as trickster
Frodo wore the ring, at least once unintentionally. But that's different from declaring yourself it's master, as Frodo did atop mount doom.
So we'll simulate this with a chance that the One equips itself, but if the player knowingly and willingly wears it, it's a different story.
When it equips itself, the player should be able to take it off, and shouldn't be given a message letting them know they're wearing it. They should get most of the penalties of wearing the one when this happens, including the chance of a ringwraith stealing it, but the chance that each new level is generated with a wraith should be less.
Balance with evil galore
Now, what could we do that might balance these extravagant, if mostly unrealized, promises? Well, we've made wearing the one almost irresistable, so now we need to make it almost unsurviveable. And note that the player should never be told about any of the disadvantages of wearing the one. After all, evil lies - it's almost it's defining characteristic.
The one should drain life, mana, and experience almost from the start - but make sure that the player isn't told about this even after fully identifying the ring. After all, the special sort of induced insantity and obsession caused by wearing the one causes it's wearer to be blind to the problems it has and causes. In fact, tell the player outright that it doesn't do this. Also give it an invisible luck penalty.
The one has a penchant for atracting ringwraiths, abandoning it's user at inconvienent times, and otherwise doing odd things just when you don't want it to. So...
The One may periodically abondon the wearer, especially when low on hp/mana/surrounded by monsters. Fall to the floor at least one square away from the player. Since the player is obsessed with the ring now, disallow recall and leaving the level via any means whatsoever (stairs, probability travel, teleport level, etc) until the one is picked up again. Give a message about not being able to leave because something is missing, but don't say what. Note that as soon as the player picks up the one, he automatically wears it again.
Every time a summon is cast, check if it's a "Greater" summon targeted on the player. If so, and if at least five or so powerful monsters are next to the player, abandon him. Might want to disallow teleport for a few turns too, just to be evil.
Every level has a very good chance to be generated with at 'least' one ringwraith. Add more the closer the ring gets to level 50 experience. This should include towns and the wilderness. We're trying to simulate here what Frodo did atop mount doom - he declared himself the rings' master, which was instantly evident to sauron. So now that you've deliberately and knowingly accepted the one, Sauron knows exactly where you are at all times, and gets increasingly desperate to retrieve the one again.
Every time a ringwraith hits you, there is a chance that they steal the ring, and start running. If they reach the edge of the level or a stairs, they escape and give the one to sauron. Note that any ringwraith that steals the one should get a few bonuses, like passwall and some extra speed. Make sure the AI has them fleeing towards the nearest stairs. Use a pathfinding algorythm to make sure they don't get stuck behind a permenant wall. Sauron should also be able to steal the one as well, but he should be even better at it.
If sauron gets the one after you've worn it, he should get about 5x hp. Make sure he also gets disintegrate to make stone prison useless. I'd also like to give him the ability to destroy some dungeon features, like glass and lava walls, that are normally permanent that might get in the way of his summons. In fact, give him a combo spell - destory walls and summon ringwraiths at the same time! Give the same hp bonuses to all the ringwraiths, which he'll summon. They are, after all, mere extensions of his power. Also make him able to forbid teleportation if the player is close to him, within 2 squares or so, just to be extra evil. I think that covers all tactics the player might use to defeat him, or even survive an encounter, right? Sauron getting the one should make winning next to impossible.
Also, Sauron and the ringwraiths should be permanently killable only AFTER the ring has reached level 50. This'll give them an opportunity to steal it back, and kill the player using their uber-bonuses.
Chatter
NeilStevens: How would the One gain experience and levels? I can see how making the One gain power would be interesting, but right now the only mechanism we have in ToME for artifacts to level is for a weapon to be used to kill monsters. What might you suggest as the new mechanism?
Oh, and note that lying only works once, of course.
DarkGod cackles evily!
JohnGilmore: You are correct, the current 'level gaining item' code just wouldn't work. There is a gain_xp (or something, I forget exactly what it's called) flag that works in the general case (it's what alchemists use when creating artifacts in 2.x) and I figured that would be used as a starting point, but that everything after would have to be scripted afresh.
Basically, I was thinking that we'd use a hook_player_xp (or simular) and check to see if The One needs to gain a level. If so, add the flags specific to this level. Dump them in a massive table, and we could make the actual code very generic.
For lying about what flags it has, we'd grab HOOK_OBJECT_DESC to remove flags we didn't want the player to know about, and HOOK_CALC_BONUS to add removed flags back. That should work. I don't know about hiding it from the character info screens/char dump. Maybe leave it in there?
For the specific spells, I don't know how that would work. Maybe a hidden skill that doesn't show on the 'G'ain screen, and that is incremented by the hook_player_xp thing when The One gains a level.
And The One doesn't gain power per se, the player just gains more access to the powers The One already has. You'd never get the 5x hp bonus that Sauron gets though. 
Lying does only work once. And it won't work on spoiled players. But it's still evil. Even for spoiled players, I think it'll give the ring a feeling of being untrustworthy and treacherous. Which is exactly the point, right?
Actually, I especially like the idea of the ring equiping itself. It's always kinda bothered me that Frodo got to wear it and I don't. We should probably also have a 'turns wearing The One' counter, and if the player doesn't notice that the one equiped itself again and wears it for too long, then when they try to throw it into the fire, they wear it and announce themselves the rings' master instead. Just like Frodo did. Smeagol won't be on hand to save the day, though. Or maybe make it so that if the ones gains more than X levels rather than simply time worn, which might pass too quickly in the wilderness. This factor would make carrying The One dangerous in and of itself, and more of a burden. It might (or might not) be a good idea to make The One start with a flag with an obvious effect, like multipy hp, to make it a bit easier for the player to notice that their wearing it.
TheFalcon: I'm not sure that lying to the player (especially unspoilt ones) is such a good idea. If you say: "The One Ring won't drain life", and they then find it does, it might make people rather upset, once they've managed to get that far... I can see that it might be beneficial to "hide" some of the powers, and simply not mention them, though.
NeilStevens: Right. This is a game, it's supposed to be enjoyable for the player. It's not a book, where you can be as mean and unfair to the character as you want.
ElIott: Oh, but having traps of Switching work on the One Ring doesn't count as mean and unfair? What if Galadriel, when giving the player the Sauron quest after the Necromancer's death, also warns the player that Ring is an item of vast power and deception. If the player is warned that the One Ring is dangerous to carry around and constantly plotting to return to its master, so they need to constantly be on guard against it, then they have been fairly warned. Especially if you add little response part after, like when attempting to wear the One (Galadriel - "Blah, blah, blah", "You're aware that the One Ring is powerful and not to be trusted, right ? (y/n)" (player enters "y") "Really, really tricky and dangerous, right? You'll be on guard? (y/n)" (player enters "y"), "Ok, just wanted to make sure you were warned.").
The player won't know exactly what's coming, so the surprise won't be too spoiled, but they certainly won't have grounds to be upset by the Ring doing evil things to them.
NeilStevens: Try reading up on the numerous times I've worked on fixing that bug before you rant about it, heh.
As for warning the player like that, I think it's insufficient. If the screen tells the player X, and the game does Y, and in the process ruins his first character with a good chance at winning, that's going to be an unpleasant experience for the player.
The goal isn't to make the game as faithful to the books as possible. The goal is to make the game as fun as possible. The one is a lot more fun as a really powerful artifact. If we take that way, we might as well remove the whole option of wearing it instead of destroying it, because the fun of it will be gone.
Now, I like the idea of the One starting weak (like Bilbo's ring of invisibility + slow digestion) and getting strong. In fact, DG already put that into CVS, apparently. The rest, I'd hate to see go into ToME.
Atarlost: I'd remove all the negatives the One currently has and replace them with a custom TY or DG style curse that can summon hostile nazgul, summon hostile greater undead, corrupt the player, jump to inventory if not cursed, and add flags (both good and bad) to the ring subject to restrictions (most importantly force it to get curse, heavy curse, and auto curse in turn before perma-curse) Town loss and sauron vulnerability would occur when the ring develops a permacurse. .
ElIott: Neil, one sentance counts as a rant? I'm certainly aware of the work you've done there, but I also remember you defending that particular effect (still hunting for the link) on grounds that the effect is less severe, than, say, death, so people don't have grounds to complain.
Along similar lines, while I recognize the difference between failing to provide information and outright lying, finding the entrance to MtDoom for the first time without resorting to spoilers is pretty darn aggravating, and until you find it, you have no way of knowing Sauron might be at the end of it, which is an issue if you're looking for him.
JohnGilmore: I agree that the path to winning is difficult to find without spoilers. Impossible, I'd say, if you also aren't up on Tolkien lore.
The quests should have more explicit directions, and especially should have more explicit directions in the quests summary screen. For instance, how the heck to I find the prisoner of Dol Gulder quest? It's in my screen, but even examining the code I can't find it. If it doesn't exist anymore after you take action X (killing the necromancer, killing sauron, killing X wringwraiths, whatever) then it should be removed.
Having killed the Necromancer, we're supposed to talk to Galadrial. Where the heck is she? It doesn't say in the summary screen. Same deal with the narsil quest - go see Aragorn. Yah, right. Who is he, where is he, and how do I find him? It's not at all obvious that I need to go to minas anor (or whatever that city down by mordor is called) and THEN I need to go see the high bru-ha-ha of that city, which is apparently Aragorn. And then, how do I find Mt. Doom? It NEVER says, and only one familiar with Tolkien would even guess it. I, for one, had no idea how to even go about starting to search for the One before reading LordDimwit's guide. Much less that the access to Mt. Doom was at the bottom of the mordor dungeon. And I've explored that dungeon several times! There really should be directions on these things. And the directions should be sufficent to actually do the quest. Which most of the quests right now are definitely 'not'!
Just for referance, the above counts as a rant.
EricDerKonig: I've always found it odd that the ring, which is supposed to tempt you into wearing it, gives so many warnings when you do try to wear it. I personally think the ring should look like a very good, but should have steep "hidden" costs, or at least the drawbacks should not appear to be obvious. I have really have no ideas on the best way to do this, though. ![:\](/wiki/tome/img/ohwell.png ":\"){kind=small}
*SPOILERS* An additional thought: Instead of destroying all the towns when you wear the ring, the player should have to attack and subjugate the major cities of Middle Earth. As an example: you go to Minas Tirith and fight Faramir, Boromir, and Aragon, as well as a large number of (high-level) city guard, Guards of the Citadel, etc. This could be made to be one of the requirements for the ultra-evil ending. *End Spoilers*