Deus Ex already implimented this system.

Hey that''s not such a bad idea.

Perhaps, however, instead of direct prayer, the player earns favor by doing quests (so the player must participate in the story/random quests in order to have his uber heal). This would also enforce some roleplaying

As they start to go with one deity''s will, the opposing one begins to hate them...

And magic could stem from the deities...

The implications are great...the more I think about it the more that sounds like a good idea.

I can picture it now...the PC vs an evil NPC, each with favor from their respective deities...

A potential minus here is that a player caught without favor is SOL...

Moo.

quote: Original post by Srekel
First, The papercut analogy isn't to be taken literally.

Yes, I know. But don't assign 1hp papercuts is what I was saying. Someone said "Put it this way, in an hp system a player can be killed by 1 hp papercuts." And I was saying this isn't necessarily true. It's a distortion of the hp system because not all of them do that.

quote: Original post by Srekel Second, I think the knife-in-eye example is meant to illustrate the fact that there is noway - in HP systems today - that a boy could deal 500 damage to a level 40 knight, because even IF the damage was multiplied with 10 for hitting the head, and multiplied with 10 because it was a surprise attack, no little boy in an RPG would deal more than 3 points of damage => 300 points of damage which would be completely pointless.

If the example seems dumb, imagine YOU being a level 1 fighter, and you wanted to kill the merchant next door because he has a lot of goodies with him, but to do that and survive, you need to kill his level 50 bodyguard first. Which simply isn't possible in a HP system, unless the programmer specifically scripts that you can do these kinds of things - but what if he doesn't think like you do, what if he never has the idea "maybe the player would wanna be able to rob this guy from the very beginning".

In a realistic system, however, if you DID get into the room, and DID manage to sneak up to the L50 fighter, then killing him wouldn't be a problem, if the game is designed correctly.

Again, a distortion of the HP system I was referring to. As mentioned previously, there are different ways to implement it, and I say that it can be modified without resorting to something entirely new.

quote: Original post by Srekel Third and fourth, are you SURE it wouldn't be fun to play a game where there were realistic damages - even in a medieval / fantasy setting?

It really depends on the game, but generally no. Delta Force? Sure. I can deal with one shot and you're generally dead. But not in an RPG. I play an RPG for the story, not for the realistic combat.

quote: Original post by Srekel Fifth. Are you serious? Do you really think that a character (not equipped with a magical armor of anti-gravity or being a magic user himself) should be able to fall 200 feet and survive? (200 feet= 60 meters)
Well, true, I guess it's possible, but should he be able to just stand up, walk to the nearest town and buy some healing potions?
I'm thinking his legs shuold be broken...

My bad. I wasn't really paying attention. I was thinking meters, but wrote feet. I was envisioning the D&D system where you take 1d6 per 10 feet fallen to a maximum of 20d6 where you hit terminal velocity. At that rate, a very high level fighter can leap from sub-orbit, land face first, and get up and walk away. Great teleportation trick to use against the less powerful, FYI. That's if you're strictly adhering to 'THEIR' rules though.

quote: Original post by Srekel Sixth.So, your saying that the computer shouldn't roll all the dice, it should just think "hmm, there are 500 of those. He probably won't make it, so he dies."

Sort of. It really depends on the world you are playing in and the circumstances. If the rules say you get an automatic dodge roll for every thrown weapon and you have a very high dodge skill, and all of those weapons are thrown in the space of several seconds, isn't it a bit unrealistic to assume that someone can actually dodge that many times? Not every shot will go to the same location. You have to dodge not only out of the way of everything that was thrown, but also out of the way of what would have missed and is going to be going where you are dodging too.

quote: Original post by Srekel I agree that there are several fun RPGs that aren't very realistic, and they probably wouldn't have been fun if they were, because a realistic damage system changes basically EVERYTHING about what an RPG should play like.

"If I know that taking out your sword arm will render your attacks useless, why wouldn't I?"

If you're talking MMORPG, then ignore what I have said. I haven't played and MMORPGs, so my comments should only be applied to singleplayer games (and coop, and perhaps some kind of DM or TM)

"Kaka e gott" - Me

I was referring to both single and multi-player. I think that the rule set should fit the way that it is played and I think they should probably be different. In a single player RPG, you're generally on a grand quest of epic scopes. As a player, do you really want to have to restart every so often because some random goblin cut your head off with an exceptionally lucky shot?

Co-op/multi-player I think depends on whether it is player vs. player, or players vs. computer or both using bots.

Don't get me wrong, a strict HP system can have its problems. My example with the spear chuckers is just to say that any and all realism should be tempered by circumstances and how much fun it is to play. If the guy has magical armor and all of the spears were non-magical and he's immune, then fine. Let him walk through unscathed. But at least have a storyline behind it as to why he can do that and what purpose it serves in the game.

I mean, these are games we're talking about. People play games to have fun. You don't play a game unless it's fun (or have a bet/tournament, etc). My main point is that I want to strongly caution against adding realism just for the sake of adding realism. If it doesn't add anything to the game, then what's the point other than the joy you get out of it as a programmer?

ElAntonius' first comment was "here's the system that I'm working on that should eliminate that horrendous hp system". I just got the impression that he didn't realize that not all HP systems are the same. I'm all for realism, but not at the expense of the Fun Factor(tm). I completely agree that the original D&D HP system was riddled with flaws. Just remember that it was the first one I ever heard of and until I learned other games, that's what I was used to.

ElAntonius, you should take a look at RuneQuest by Avalon Hill. They did a lot of the things you're talking about with their HP system. There are different wound states for the different body parts, and they affect you differently. Leg wounds decrease how much you can carry and how long you can carry it, armor has pass through damage and the ability to become useless. If an arm gets hit, you can be assigned penalties to either attacks or shield use, etc. It might help you implement your new system and give you some new ideas.

That prayer system sounds really cool. I'd love to see that in a computer game. Not sure how you'd incorporate praying into the game to still make it entertaining for the player though. Something to think about I guess.

[edited by - mtaber on April 4, 2003 1:09:34 PM]

[edited by - mtaber on April 4, 2003 1:10:38 PM]

Actually, this led to far more complex things than you might imagine...

These spirits (they were called the ''transcendent'') usually granted an unlimited amount of prayers, but one could only have so much at a time. To increase this maximum amount, and also to shorten the required prayer length, people had to do more than just praying and going to church. Few were ever granted with higher levels because they had to accomplish hard quests to do so.

Magic did derive from these prayers in a fashion close to Edding''s Jewel Trilogy. However, these prayers had to be done live during the fight (although one did not have to stop defending oneself) and were only available to the more favored ones. This also allowed thriving civilizations to develop under the rule of mighty and adored gods who provided food and water and everything in return for prayers.

It happened once that one of the characters lost her deity - killed by a rival. When such things happen, the very life force of the follower declines. However, another character who was in love with her offered her his faith, so they were both using the same prayer stock (once could pray while the other would use these prayers ).

Some people were so faithful that they became champions. They could pray during any fight, and these prayers took but seconds, so they were effectively indestructible. The only thing that had to be done would be to either kill him and run away while he was ressurecting (a matter of minutes if the blow was reaaaaaaly hard), or to lure him into treason of his faith - in which case his deity would abandon him. Such a system is, however, roleplay-based and thus impossible in Computer "R" PGs.

Each man and woman is taken in charge at birth by a deity, preferably the one that protects his or her mother. If he ever disapproves her, he will be left without protection until another deity (think Mephistopheles) lures him by promising great advantages. Usually, champions were highly skilled individuals, and when thrown out by a god, another one (an enemy, usually) would hire him, because he was a great addition to any army. Most transcendent would do all their possible to get their enemy''s followers under their orders.

Deities live on the same plane as their followers, being former humans that had led a life of extreme good or evil and were forsaken by their gods when they died, that reincarnated in a symbol (a ruby, a tree, or - happened once - a pork sausage), seeking revenge (this is why there are always wars between gods). They are destroyed along with the symbol. They have no power over humans besides simple telepathy, and can only use their powers on, or through, humans that pray them. On their last stand, when the symbol itself is threatened, they might grant maximum powers to their followers and if the defense (or attack) is successful, turn them into worthy champions.

A design flaw that appeared early is that ressurection is not instantateous, but takes some time instead. So they could kill all the enemy party, and just put their swords in their chests so they''ll never get up again. So when a human dies, he has the choice to come back into its original, regenerated body, to appear in a new body next to a consentant being, or to appear in a new body at the nearest temple of that deity (or an allied one).

Not to say that since there were so many different deities, a temple was usually days or weeks away from the place where the fight was, so there were plenty of people who got paid to serve as ''beacons'' - to be consentant when someone would need ressurection, so they could be ressurected in the nearest town, and not far, far away. Also, world culture was massively puritanical (think Victorian) but ressurected people were brought back without clothes... So these ''beacons'' would be staying blindfolded whenever they had a contract, fed by their prayers, and spending their money when on holidays.

This system had so many implications on the outer moons of that world (godless), on the Sar-Kei ''god hunters'' or the etherworld, of the ''money'' that was actually bags of soul dust, from dead gods that Sar-Kei fed on, etc... that I don''t have place or time to list them all, but this made for 2 helluva years of roleplaying, with me as Game Master :-p

ToohrVyk

Wow, that is a good system.

It handles player death in an acceptable way, and would allow for a more realistic wounding system without creating too much frustration.

I think that some parts of it might have to be toned down in order to be adequate for a cRPG though...hmm.

You don''t mind if I borrow from that, do you?

Moo.

Sorry, I guess I was posting rather negatively - I tend to react aggressively to apparent hypocrisy or personal attacks.

With the ressurection system, an alternative to having to choose where to come back would be to have any foreign material expelled from the body as part of the healing process - of course, you''d want to include some sort of temporary invulnerability - the healing energies persisting for a while before they dissipate - to discourage the killer from just sticking around to hack up the victim a little more...

Or, of course, there''s using the system as described, and integrating the save-game system into it - saving requires a prayer (so not plausible in heated combat), but maybe only brings you back at temples or beacons (probably the nearest to where you saved) but you get to keep your gear. When you die, the game autosaves.

You can borrow parts of it - but not borrow it all. Besides, I''ll ask you to keep it for your own games, and not talk about it to someone else. I''d like to be aware of who heard of these Ideas and could use them.

Of course.

I actually didn''t intend to take all of it, mostly just the general idea of divine protection for heros (IE, some form of divinity granting heros protection/healing)

Moo.

And the prayer system wouldn''t be too hard to implement. Just keep score for your character''s piety, and award a 1up every 5000 points. Heck, that system was around in the seventies.

i like your idea, elantonius, but i thinka little of each, kind of a mix or middle ground would work better, be easier to do, and still seem more realistic. if u ever get a site for your game post it