Computer Role Playing Games: How would you design one?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by loinburger
My (extremely limited) experience with P&P campaigns is that they allow very little freedom in character development, at least if the DM is incompetent. Our DM was constantly penalizing my Neutral-Evil Fighter-Mage and my friend's Lawful-Good Paladin for not killing one another, when in fact our characters were just two sides of the same coin.

That's why AD&D is such a pain in the posterior. Just this alignment thing alone can drive a person batty. More so when the DM has a different interpretation than yours.

I would recommend campaigns based on more "free formed" systems such as Champions, DragonQuest, or GURPS (Generic Universal Role Playing System) [even though it's not all that generic].

The best campaign I have ever played was a superhero one in which my character evolved from a somewhat shady and nasty person (more like a super-neutral type) to have a more positive outlook on life.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by loinburger
The game's story would be partially time-driven, not just event-driven. So, let's say your character spends all of his/her/its time selling ice cream; while you're doing so, Mon*Star or Mumra or whoever is still enacting plans for world domination. Unless you can stop them with the healing powers of ice cream (or possibly hot fudge), then some other hero will have to dispatch them. Or possibly they will conquer the world. Tough to say.

I contemplated time-driven games but it's hard to coordinate, more so now that the games are continuous, having the clock running all the time regardless whether you are doing something or not.

How would you have the "bad side" and the "good side" paced? The PC and the NPCs need time to develop, which is the core idea of any RPG. Now, some players can develop characters faster due to luck, experience, or both.

Originally posted by loinburger
Also, you wouldn't be restricted to being "good" or "evil", or "lawful" or "chaotic", or whatever the hell else you might get pigeonholed as. Maybe you want to kill Mumra in order to vanquish his evil, or maybe you want to kill him in order to steal his powers and conquer the world yourself. Maybe you're selling ice cream out of the goodness of your heart, or maybe you're selling ice cream because you're a capitalist swine. It's up to you.

That's why I asked about the moral/value system. My view is what the PC does should have an impact on how others view him. If he is a nasty character good people will avoid or even oppose him.

Originally posted by loinburger
Finally, you would be able to lead armies into battle and whatnot, either through being hired as a general by a king, by becoming king, by becoming an evil warlord bent on world domination, or whatever.

That would be difficult. Systems designed to handle a few people/monsters/entities will have a hard time handling battles, unless those are very small battles.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
How would you have the "bad side" and the "good side" paced? The PC and the NPCs need time to develop, which is the core idea of any RPG. Now, some players can develop characters faster due to luck, experience, or both.

The clock probably wouldn't so much be a "countdown to apocalypse," more it would be a measure of how powerful your enemies are becoming. If you wait a hundred years to kill Socko the Arch-Lich, then be aware that Socko will have had an additional hundred years to increase in power.

That's why I asked about the moral/value system. My view is what the PC does should have an impact on how others view him. If he is a nasty character good people will avoid or even oppose him.

I very much liked how Fallout II handled this.

That would be difficult. Systems designed to handle a few people/monsters/entities will have a hard time handling battles, unless those are very small battles.

There'd probably have to be some abstraction going on. Maybe only important parts of the battle are actually fleshed out (like everything in my LOS, f'rinstance, or the area around the enemy commander), and the other areas (the places where my side's cannon fodder are fighting the enemy's cannon fodder) are abstracted into the combat.

[Lemmy]

Finally, you would be able to lead armies into battle and whatnot, either through being hired as a general by a king, by becoming king, by becoming an evil warlord bent on world domination, or whatever.

That would be difficult. Systems designed to handle a few people/monsters/entities will have a hard time handling battles, unless those are very small battles.

maybe large battles can be handled by a different engine, the time of large battles is predictable, then when you hear that an invasion force is coming to your town in 2 days, then you have 2 days to prepare your army and then when it's time, you're automatically taken to the battlefield, which is somewhere outside the city and then the battle starts, off course if you choose not to lead the army, and just flee the town, the battle would still take place off course, only it will just be calculated, maybe depending on the charisma/leadership of the replacing commander
I think pausable RTS would work nicely for these battles.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Good points all around .

I wish that any good RPG has the ability to play as evil. And has people to assist you if you wish to be evil. This was one of the good things about Baldur's Gate II, you could create an evil party and play that way. It might get a little harder (more dragons to kill for one), but still possible.

Of course I always play a Paladin well almost always

[loinburger]

Another thing about the whole "good vs. evil" deal is that it shouldn't be readily apparent which you are, unless you're so powerful that your reputation precedes you. Let's say that I'm a Necromancer, and I'm in a region where necromancy is frowned upon (in other words, it is punishable by death). However, unless I'm extremely powerful and have built up a reputation as a badass necromancer, or unless I'm being ostentatious about my necromancy (wearing armor made out of human bones, or travelling with a zombie escort, etc.), there's no reason why the local guards/clerics/whatever would attack me on sight. Even if my reputation precedes me, I'm not going to be such an idiot that I just waltz into town without some sort of disguise. Same deal if I'm thief, or an assassin, etc., or a paladin-type do-gooder in a region where do-gooders are frowned upon.

The recognizability of your reputation was not a problem in Fallout II, IMO, because tribals wearing power armor were quite rare and so your reputation would precede you. You also wouldn't become a child-killer, for example, unless you killed children where everybody could see you. This was the same in Daggerfall, where you could murder to your heart's content so long as there was nobody around to see you. However, I consider the instant recognizability of your class/reputation to be one of the dumber aspects of, say, Everquest. If I'm a level 1 necromancer there is absolutely no reason why my reputation should precede me wherever I go...

[Urban Ranger]

loin,

I agree with you to a large extent that there should be no automatic "we vs they" kind of thing. However, after you hang out for awhile people may notice things that are out of the ordinary.

Take your necromancer example. After awile people may notice that graves were dug open with corpses missing, or you could have been seen stealing dead bodies or even grabbing people. Once that happens news will start spreading.


Irman,

"And has people to assist you if you wish to be evil."

I thought about this for awhile. It seems to me that evil types don't get along because they are evil. Each of them have some kind of ulterior motive, so any cooporation will just be temporary.

[Imran Siddiqui]

UR:

It's Imran ... anyway, there are groups of evil that stick together, with one as the leader. Think about the Nazis. Hitler as the leader and then Gobbels and Goering as evil people but definetly under Hitler.

loin:

I liked how Fallout 2 handled it. Different reputation for different towns.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Take your necromancer example. After awile people may notice that graves were dug open with corpses missing, or you could have been seen stealing dead bodies or even grabbing people. Once that happens news will start spreading.

Oh sure, if a stranger wanders into town and unpleasant things start to happen in the town, then the stranger is probably going to get blamed (whether or not he is responsible for the unpleasantness). Johnny Necromancer would still need to be discrete about his dark dealings if he wanted to avoid acquiring a sordid reputation and/or becoming the target of a lynch mob. At the same time, Ezekiel Do-Gooder, another stranger in town, might find himself accused of necromancy right along with Johnny Necromancer if Ezekiel doesn't prove his innocence (by, for example, dispatching Johnny Necromancer).

[CygnusZ]

Good lord man, Ultima VII's world depth is greater than any other game ever produced. And yes, the RTS combat _IS_ annoying. But I love how you can travel the countryside and find all sorts of neat crap.

Xenogears is probably considered the best Console RPG because it does away with the pretense of freedom. I guess Japanese RPGs really became the extension of the "interactive fiction" genre. Not bad at all, but different. They tend to be long, fun and sometimes surprisingly deep. I also maintain that they have developed an excellent combat engine.

Bah, I just can't get the attraction with fallout. The feel of that game drives me batty...

[Urban Ranger]

Those wouldn't be much of RPGs then, those console varieties.

BTW, if you are looking for a fun CRPG, try Superheroes of Hoboken. Hilarious stuff. Runs on DOS only, IIRC.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by CygnusZ
Good lord man, Ultima VII's world depth is greater than any other game ever produced. And yes, the RTS combat _IS_ annoying. But I love how you can travel the countryside and find all sorts of neat crap.

I vaguely remember wielding the Hoe 'o' Doom for quite a while Maybe I'll dig it out of the cupboard and put it through its paces again. Its been ages since I last ultima'd so perhaps meeting Iolo and all the same NPC's in all the same towns again won't bore me. Having played through from the very first game I think the "hello Avatar we seem to have screwed up and need your help again - by the way we sold all your invicible goodies so heres 30 gp and a rusty dagger to start all over again with" peed me off.

[CygnusZ]

But in some ways the forced Console stories more RPGish than the forced generic nature of Computer RPGs.

Computer RPGs suffer from being way too generic and Console RPGs suffer from being way too linear. As of right now, it's a question of balance as neither of these issues really have a hope of being resolved. I still think its arrogant for one group to claim superiority of one or the other calling it more like a "True" RPG. They're just different.

[CygnusZ]

Oh man... where'd you find that Hoe of Death? I looked all through all that trash on the riverside...

Anyway, I think you asked for good RPGs availible from the Underdogs, and I noticed they have a couple of rare games called "Worlds of Ultima" which are quite good.

Also, if you could find it, Ultima Underworld is excellent and worth a try.

Also, try getting an SNES emulator and locating the ROMs for Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy IV/V/VI (2e/5/3e) and Dragon Quest V and VI. Chrono Trigger comes with the highest reccomendation.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Grumbold
Having played through from the very first game I think the "hello Avatar we seem to have screwed up and need your help again - by the way we sold all your invicible goodies so heres 30 gp and a rusty dagger to start all over again with" peed me off.

There's really no other way to go about it, though. Either the game weakens the PC initially, or the baddies would need to be 10x as tough

It's the same way with Wizardry 6-8. Got through the first one with all the awesome stuff just to find somehow I lost them in the transition

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by CygnusZ
I still think its arrogant for one group to claim superiority of one or the other calling it more like a "True" RPG. They're just different.

The thing is the console "RPG's" have a lot more in common with traditional computer based adventure games than P&P RPG's.

[loinburger]

I agree with Urban. I'd hardly call it "arrogance" to say "this is more like an RPG than that." I would by no stretch of the imagination classify a game like Hexen II as a CRPG, but that doesn't mean that Hexen II was not a fun game. It's not saying that console-type RPG's like Final Fantasy are necessary better or worse than computer-type RPG's like Fallout, only that console-type RPG's like Final Fantasy are more similar to computer-type adventure games like Indiana Jones, Stonekeep, or Full Throttle.

[CygnusZ]

Still seems like two different sides of the same coin to me. While I do agree that console RPGs do seem to be heavily influenced by the old PC Adventure games, they also reperesent many elements of the old style P&P style game that is poorly represented by computer RPGs. Maybe it was the way I always played P&P games though (not much emphasis on combat, but there always was a huge story).

It's like computer RPGs have the "gameplay" right, but console RPGs have the "feel" right.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
The thing is the console "RPG's" have a lot more in common with traditional computer based adventure games than P&P RPG's.

Too true. I've been p'n'p RPG'ing for 20 years and it only took a couple of those to mature enough that the group were refusing to allow the DM to run his campaign on rails without the players having a choice. None of the DM's ever had the temerity to tell me how I felt about any of the other PC's or NPC's unless a charm or curse spell was involved (nor did I when I was in the hotseat).

I think its this long tradition of being able to choose my own path that makes me unhappy with most modern PC RPG's because they are still quite limited, but absolutely reject any console types or old "gold box" games where the linear plot isn't absolutely perfect in leading me the way I would have gone had I been given a choice.

I can't remember where I found the Hoe it was so long ago. There *must* be walkthroughs still surviving in dusty corners of the web if you really need to find out. I loved Ultima Underworld 2 but didn't play UU1. Another one to try out sometime when I'm in a retro mood.

[mactbone]

I, for one, would rather have a superb story and characters, rather than generic everything. Generic everything is what you get in most CRPGs. At least with a console RPG, I can *feel* my character's motivation, I can interact with various people and I can choose, or not choose to accomplish various side quests. I still say FF6 is THE best and for those who have no clue, there were only a handful of characters you HAD to get in the World of Ruin, the rest were optional, but had fun little plotlines on what happened to them after the cataclysm. Plus, there was no MAIN character. All had almost equal time in the spotlight, and a specific reason for doing everything.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by MacTBone
Plus, there was no MAIN character. All had almost equal time in the spotlight, and a specific reason for doing everything.

Thats one of the things I dont like. You're not playing a role, you're following the lives of many characters rather than identifying with one particular one.

[mactbone]

Why identify with one, when you can identify with 11?
(Gogo, Umaro, and Mog had no actual plot lines)

[Urban Ranger]

I don't see how it's possible to identify with 11. I have never seen it done in p'n'p campaigns, not even in ones that explicitly allow mulitple characters per player. I have never seen it in any novels, even say Lord of the Rings, or the Foundation series.

[Sandman]

My RPG:

Try to develop a combat system based on firearms, rather than a mix of all melee weapons ever.

Try to find an unconventnional setting; NOT a generic magical kingdom. An alternate modern-day world might be quite cool.

Multiple realities, like some of the Zelda games, is very cool. Doesn't have to be a nice happy 'good' world versus a dark dreary 'evil' world. How about a hot world and a cold world which are otherwise the same?

A non-elemental magic system.

No distinct 'dungeons' or 'villages'.

People ignore you if you try to talk to them. No useless dialogue which you have to sift through to find a clue.

A twisting turning plot, with good characters turning evil, and evil characters turning good (that's always interesting).

More bosses; less hordes of wimpish beings. Only bosses give experience points.

[Urban Ranger]

Unconventional setting could be something like Arcanium, where there is a mix of magic and technology.

Multiple realities can be interesting, but you must have a good reason why the player characters have to travel through them.

Dungeons vs villages: I think the distinction is necessary. Dungeons is the generic term for areas characters explore while villages are places where they rest. Sure, dungeons are not necessary evil and things can take place in villages, but the point is the party must have a place to rest and train.

People should not ignore you when you try to talk to them. However, the player should have a way to tell whether they are extras added to make the locale more lifelike.