Building a better RPG.


Role-playing survival game is willing to take risks

Corvus’s recent post this week on the side quests in Ultima has jump started my brain on my RPG idea. For once I have more of the story figured out and less of the actual game play. At this point I don’t know if this will be a RPG enjoyed by fans, or just by me.

The story follows one of two sons of the most famous and powerful knight in the land. A year before the game takes place the other son, who has always been the stronger of the two left the land to fight a war overseas and has left the player with his mother. After a few major plot events (that I can’t say if the game ever gets made), the player decides to find and drag his brother back home with the help of his three friends. Along the way he’ll see what the world is like outside of his village and deal with a lot of bad blood in his family. Corvus’s post on sidequests touches on an issue I have with them in most rpgs.

Having never played any of the Ultima games I can’t speak with first hand knowledge about them, but their ideas of side quests is something I want to (and should have) seen in more RPGS. I believe you know what’s coming up next … I blame Bioware, in the rpgs I’ve played from Bioware side quests are nothing more then more errands for the player. A good side quest should show more of the world behind the grand epic plot the designers have created, not just be more about the plot or provide the player with a few more trinkets for their inventory. An example of having good side quests in my opinion would be from the game Chrono Trigger, which expanded the world and locales allowing the player to see more of the various eras. In the RPG I have in mind, the main quest itself is a set path, but for players who like the main character want to explore the land there will be plenty of things to do. One underlining concept of the story is the character seeing the world for the first time and the effects his father and brother have had on it. He knows as much about the various cultures of the land as the player does (without the blurbs on the locales in the manual).

Combat is another issue that will be polarizing the gamers, as it will be different from anything out there. The first change is that unlike just about every RPG ever made in the last 15 years, each character starts out the same skill wise with everyone else. Each character can follow certain disciplines and basically create their own custom class . Combat will be real time and all four characters will fight at the same time, the AI will have to be intelligent to understand and use all the skills the player has given to each member. I would love to have opt in co-op with other players. Interaction between the characters and the environment is another big deal. Since each character starts out with roughly the same abilities, they can each interact with the environments and each other the same way. Such as using a party member as a stepping stone to leap into the air to attack a large enemy. Or pushing a boulder down a hill at a horde of foes . One problem with RPGS is that they advertise the ability to create a unique party, but if you dare build one without a medic or healer you will never win, and it’s more of a way of allowing the player to handicap themselves.

The reason why players will create their own classes for the characters fits into my philosophy on what RPGS should be like (in my opinion of course). The characters should not be defined by their skills, but instead by their personality. Each character will be different compared to the other 3 and will set up their group dynamic. I want to develop moments where the group comes together or splits apart and that can’t happen in RPGS where one person is set up from the start by the game as the only healer. One problem I have with rpgs that let the player make all the choices is that it dilutes the impact of the story. In the way that it’s hard to tell an emotional thought provoking tale if the player will just make choices that avoid those topics. To me, the player’s effect on the story should be learning more about the world, not telling the story. Not to say that all RPGS should be like that, but we need to see more diversity in storytelling. The player will not be able to change the outcome of the story, but instead will have leeway on how side quests will be handled. The big lesson to take from this entry is that not every RPG should be designed the same way either in story telling or general game play. I think CRPGS need to break away from their DnD roots, and JRPGS have to stop trying to imitate Final Fantasy (emo kids and all).

As a point of reference, my favorite Rpgs are those that have their own way of doing things, such as the Shin Megami Nocturne series. The only CRPG series that I can remember off the top of my head that deal with mature issues and forces the player to choose their opinion on them would be the GeneForge series.

Josh , level 2 game designer, chaotic lawful (because an entry on RPGs wouldn’t be complete without a little satire on Dnd)


  • mwc

    Well, you’ve certainly set yourself a challenge here, particularly by proposing to combine character flexibility with real-time combat. Since you want to make the characters central and the skills pendants, do you see yourself producing a different AI for each character that takes that character’s personality into account, or would you have each character treat a given skill the same way? Have you considered that non-customizable skills can be a form of characterization?

    It seems to me that the central motif of the game you’re proposing is exploration. How would you integrate this motif into the combat system? What other game systems could be informed by the idea of exploration?

  • You’ve never played… you haven’t…

    Hrm. Perhaps you need to email me and we can talk about how we’re going to correct that oversight. 😉

  • Re: Mwc, I would love to tell you that this entire game idea is all written up and ready for a company to publish it, but it’s not. Usually when I reveal a game idea I wait until I have all the gameplay mechanics down (as they come easier to me) then work on the story later. This is the first case that the story itself has come first.

    I’ve been thinking about for the last few years on developing a real time RPG that has greater complexity then the hack and slash genre. The same concept that has appeared with each attempt is to develop a flexible combat system similar in effect to the virtua fighter series. In which the A attack for one fighter will produce a different attack with another player.

    For this title I believe the AI would need to be develop that it will scan all available skills attached to said character and will make its choices from that. So lets say that a character that focuses on archery and dagger skills would react differently in a fight compared to someone who knows archery and bomb throwing for example. I think having characters grow stat wise (strength, dex, etc) is the wrong way for this title. As the central element would be the group dynamic and building their skills.

    For exploration, the path to the main conlficts in the game will be easy to follow, but exploring the country side for side quests is where the player will have the most effect on the adventure.

    Re: Corvus, I have not been too kind to the CRPG genre. The 90s were all Final Fantasy, EarthBound, and Chrono Trigger. I didn’t try Baldur’s Gate until 2000I think. I’m still waiting for our chat on American Megee’s Alice 🙂

  • A few more points that I forgot. On the subject of having the party group and split up. I want the characters to be strong enough that if for story reasons someone or someones are not in the group, then the rest of the members can make do. Which requires the downplay of having healing or medic skills.

    My first idea for a real time RPG was a game where you have three fighters each one belonging to a different style of martial arts, and combat would play out as each brother doing their own thing against the various enemies. The brothers could come together for specific combo attacks. I do understand that a real time RPG cannot have the same tactical complexity as a turn based one as the player would never be able to keep up.

    I can already tell you that the game will be split up chapter wise which allow events from previous chapters to have an effect on future chapters.

  • mwc

    I think a game that takes this approach might benefit from tuning AI to character, then. This would still allow the player flexibility to choose what character has what skills while applying an element of strategy to the skill distribution. It’s perfectly fair to make all skills available to all characters, but it’s not unreasonable to say some characters will have better aptitude for given skills.

    To supply a common fantasy archetype, a hot-headed young man in the group might have an AI that gives precedence to aggressive actions, always pressing for the kill no matter what skills he has available. You could even use the AI tuning for character development. Let’s say halfway through the story our hothead has a brush with death. After this point his AI might operate in a much more conservative and balanced manner. Obviously this multiplies the programming task but it could be quite effective.

    Do you envision yourself having parties larger than the battle group, or would you prefer to have every character engaged in the fight?

  • For now I think I like the group to stay at a max of 4 characters(maybe this will increase as the idea develops), I’ve been thinking about the idea of splitting the game up by chapters and how that could figure in. The first person in the group is the main character, the 2nd and third are childhood friends. The fourth one could be someone who joins the group and is based on the choices and interactions in the first chapter. Each chapter will have a point of no return that marks the player will have to go on. I still don’t know how to handle this part.

    One idea was to have the player pick on a map where they want to go, similar to a choose your own adventure. Each choice opens up more choices until the player reachs the point of no return and moves onto the next chapter with more choices. The only concern is that it does segment the world which could hurt realism.

    I’ve been thinking about what you said about the exploration concept, and an idea came to me. While the groups’ stats will not be altered by the player, they will be increased among other things for completing side quests. For example for saving a village from an evil giant, they could reward one member of your group with a protection spell that would increase defense. Or the group finds a rare amulet that will make the wearer’s strength increase by 3. Some rewards could be transfered to other members but others are a one shot deal.

    The only thing that I’m afraid of with having characters who start out better with some skills or learn faster from them, is that it could pigeonhole players to only let them advance that one way, which would hurt allowing players to create custom classes.