Ahhh now I see your problem pacman

First things first:
Yes you can use the child idea, it''s just something me and a few guys came up with while playing paper roleplaying games.

About the skills:
I said:
"If you''re trying to solve a lot of the obstacles using strength, you''ll have a strong character."
You interpreted:
"If you''re trying to solve a lot of the obstacles using strength, you''ll have a character with high strength."

There''s a subtle difference - "strong" is a fuzzy definition of a feature of your character, while "high strength" indicates a statistic. Now, I haven''t really thought through exactly how I''m going to do the technical side, but I''d like to keep it as "features" and not as "stats", so that besides being "strong" your character could be "fat", and "lazy" as well, without having to say "my character''s 6 foot tall and ways 200lbs, and the Energy stat is low".

You might be right though, Pacman, in suggesting that I''m only defining alternative stats. I think that myself sometimes. But I keep believing in a better alternative!


Give me one more medicated peaceful moment.
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You know what, the important thing is to keep the dream alive, and do what YOU want, other people be damned. I think you have some great ideas, so don''t let me or anyone else change or mind about these.

About the technical side, why not make these features bool statements? That way, either your strong, or your not. Or, to broaden it a little, make the vars have three settings, extremes on both ends and a middle setting. That way, you keep these as features, which aren''t measured.

BTW, when I use your idea, I''ll put your name in the credits, ok .

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"What's the story with your face, son?!?"

Here''s something a little different. How about not showing the player their stats until they are used and then only the stats that are relivant to the exercise are shown. This way a player could have over 2-3 hundreds stats which are all being used within a game but they will only see 1-10 of those stats at a time. You could call it a "semi-viewable stats system" I guess.

Just in case i haven''t explained this as well as i thought then here''s a small elaboration.

There is possibly some blank spaces (boxes) in the in-game gui for displaying stats when they are needed.eg When the player is travelling through a forest then stats such as Alertness, Reflexs etc are shown in these blank boxes. So in a sence, every area on the map would have markers incoded into it which decide which stats are shown in each area of the map. Then you would also need a table which holds "Circumstances" which also acts as a database for deciding which stats to shown in a situation like fighting, armwrestling, climbing, swimming running etc.

... I now see why some of these posts get so massive :-)

I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!

quote: Original post by pacman
Finally, although this deserves it''s own thread, what the role is is a very good question. I''d like to say something about Keith limiting the roles. This is a game for the player. It''s a way for them to be something they are not. Just because you think combat isn''t a plausable solution for things doesn''t mean that the player will want to play a role like that. I personally like roles were I let my sword do the talking, but that doesn''t mean I''m a "bloodlusty goblin slayer bastard". My chars never attack without a reason (except for one of my chars, hehehe...), and there can be nobility with combat. Do you think it''s fair to limit what the player can and cannot be?

Well i like killing every little goblin in every RPG i play too but "I" also realise that the main reason why I like this is because it''s the only thing it most rpg''s to do. So i enjoy doing it today but if RPG don''t go futher then that then i''m going to end up getting bored of them. So with my forsight i''m backing the argument to get more in RPG''s then just hack n slash.

quote:
I seem to recall you didn''t like stats. Am I wrong? I''ll have to comb over a few of Landfish''s threads....

I don''t like the way stats are used. eg the fact that a player starts a game with 15 str and ends up with 3,597 str. To me, stats are a part of the character, i don''t like seeing them treated like shattle. Because then i have to treat the game like shattle ie CD drink coster :-)



I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!

Paul, you''re getting dangerously close to understanding what I''m trying to do

The "partial stat visibility" thing is not a bad idea. But how about communicating it to a player as a kind of self-knowledge instead?
You''ve just pushed that big stone away from the cave entrance, and all of a sudden one of the NPC henchmen next to you says "Damn, Tingwftwfizzle (you know how people choose dumb names for their characters), you''re a pretty strong guy."

That way, your "stat" (or rather internal tracking of your ability in a certain direction) is relayed to you, in a fuzzy yet pleasing way. I hope.


Give me one more medicated peaceful moment.
~ (V)^|) |<é!t|-| ~
ERROR: Your beta-version of Life1.0 has expired. Please upgrade to the full version. All important social functions will be disabled from now on.

These notions about stats reminds me of a paper role playing game named Castle Falkenstein where you build your personnage upon his story and give him abilities like athletic wich during the game allowed you to make athletic things just role playing them. Then you had a hand of cards the colour of wich allowed you to make heroic actions. For example you would use your cards to swing from the balcony, grab the candle holder, get the pretty maid under your arm and cross all the room above the guards heads to land at the door. This way you only use random to build heroic actions. Duelling was done with a set of cards for defence rest and attack. Each turn the opponents would choose what action they do by putting the appropriate card. Note that if each played attack each touched, whatever the value of the card.
Maybe such a system could be given for a computer role playing game ?

Paul, I think you missed the point of my post. I DON''T like killing every little goblin. I also would like a new kind of RPG, or else I wouldn''t be here thinking of ways to make them better. What my post was about was that something Keith said sounded to me like it would limit the players in a way, that if THEY wanted to, THEY could kill every little goblin in the world. Of course, if I made the game, there would be serious consequences for this.

I agree with you on the stats. In some of these games, you wonder how the player doesn''t destroy the planet when s/he misses and hits the ground with their str being in the millions.

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"What's the story with your face, son?!?"

quote: from MadKeithV
That way, your "stat" (or rather internal tracking of your ability in a certain direction) is relayed to you, in a fuzzy yet pleasing way. I hope.

(Racking Brains) In a sense your allowing players to know how powerful they are but not letting them get a grasp on how they can go about powermaxing their characters/yes? Or i should say, this is the way your planning your CRPG system!?

I kind of get the impression you're relying on the graphics side of the game interface to do this. If you are then maybe you are prefocasing before solving to issue! I could caution you here. But then again, maybe you're not Don't take me too seriously


I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!

Edited by - Paul Cunningham on July 22, 2000 2:26:54 PM

Argh - I just wrote a humungous post only to realise that it had no point other than to state the bleedingly obvious but with way too many words.

I think it all boils down to good solid balanced design with a strong idea of what you are trying to achieve without trying to do too much, take the downfalls with the benifits of your approach to a problem and make sure you suit your game to it.

If you do this, then any idea can work. Fir instance, MadKeiths approach to all his design solutions will work well if he designs his game and the mechanics of it as a story to them. Or a non stats approach could work if you focussed more on story or puzzle solutions and consequences/actions. Or a full stats appraoch could work if you presented the player with many puzzles requiring different skills each that had little bearing on the game, but still relayed accomplishment to the player.

Edited by - Maitrek on July 22, 2000 11:43:23 PM

So many great ideas, I am now considering the Child thing for my RPG . Stats really do end up making a kill-fest. I think that if you are going to go for a stat oriented game, dont allow the stats to be increased ONLY by killing. Since when can you up your Mana if you are hacking people to death with your sword? Maybe you should just be given an increase by casting then. It should be based on what the stat is and what you do to up it.

Personally I would prefer not to have stats, but it seems like one of the easier approaches to the problem, so I think I will try that first


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