In most RPGs the player character is an adventurer. He lives from the loot he gets by killing monsters or bad guys. What if this was not an option? What if the player could be anything but an adventurer? Can a game still be fun if the player has to earn the money for his equipment while following some other game goal? What jobs could the player character take that do not involve the usual adventure-stuff? ------------------------------ There are only 10 kinds of people: those that understand binary and those that don''t. Bad Entertainment

You could make stuff, open up a shop, be a delivery boy (well, that one''s a bit overused), mow lawns, clean chimneys, enforce the law, become a bounty hunter, etc. Hell, you could get payed to take the place of a tired NPC, and stand in the middle of town repeating the same line every time an adventurer talks to you (somebody please do that last one - I''d love to play it).

If you''re going to force the player to do something other than adventuring, just make sure that it''s fun.

-Anonymous Poster.

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Original post by Anonymous Poster
If you''re going to force the player to do something other than adventuring, just make sure that it''s fun.

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I''m not going to forbid adventuring, it''s more that adventuring will not be the goal in the game. Of course jobs would have to be fun, that''s what I''m trying to think about here...

I like the idea of opening a shop - even though it seems my world''s inhabitants would all be merchants. The player might even hire someone to do the actual selling in the shop, if he gets tired of it. Mowing lawns or cleaning chimneys might be a little difficult to include in the game and not that fun for the player.

Law enforcement and bounty hunting are more traditional professions - maybe their range of duties could be broadened a bit. Crimes would have to be investigated, criminals to be caught (alive) and put under arrest. People would have to be localized first, before they can be caught.

So far we have got: Law Enforcement, Bounty Hunting, Merchant/Shop, Delivery Boy. Anything else that could be made interesting for the player?

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There are only 10 kinds of people: those that understand binary and those that don''t.

Bad Entertainment

There could be engineers, who build new things to sell to the merchants. Then that merchant would sell your inventions (you''d get royalties of course), and eventually you might even see your inventions on the other side of the game world. In a fantasy game these could be new potions or weaponary. A cyberpunk game might be more interesting with the player creating their own programs and hacking together cyberware.

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Original post by Anonymous Poster
Hell, you could get payed to take the place of a tired NPC, and stand in the middle of town repeating the same line every time an adventurer talks to you

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Yeah, it''d be great if you had to dress up in a big yellow chicken suit /pink bunny suit, or something equally embarassing :blush:

You can catch fish, pick fruit (in a haunted forest ), compete in races for prize money, take dogs for a walk (and they might discover something cool hidden in the bushes, or trigger a cool story line, or help you meet men/women, or frighten off burglars, or break crockery, or run away and get lost, or knock over the mayor and put muddy footprints on them!

Anything that adds a bit of humour would be great

dungeon digger.

the player could be commissioned by evil wizards to create a dungeon, with certain constraints depending on how much the job was for.

So far we have got: Law Enforcement, Bounty Hunting, Merchant/Shop, Delivery Boy. Anything else that could be made interesting for the player?
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You can expand "Delivery Boy" by making it 'Transporter'. Taking a cargo between towns via wagon or ship, avoiding thieves or pirates along the way.

You could add "Hunter" to the list. And I'm not talking about 'Orc-Hunter'. Just a guy with a Bow who goes out to hunt deer and rabbit, and then maybe sells the carcasses to the town butcher.

Earlier, the AP mentioned picking fruit, and actually something like that isn't a bad idea. Have special types of herbs, fruits, and mushrooms in your world that are used for dining or medicinal purposes. Have your player be the guy who goes out to find and collect them (in the wild) and then sell them to chefs or apothecaries.

Soldier could be fun also (though it might be the same as law enforcment). Assuming there's no active wars going on, you'd be deployed in towns or strongholds, and be told to patrol and protect them. You'd most commonly deal with thieves, but every now and then a wild beast might have to be kept from entering the town.

Finally, what about being a criminal yourself? A Thief who robs shops, houses, maybe even people on the street. Might be a good way to start off an adventure, when you're driven from the town and being chased by the law.

Edited for formatting

[edited by - Veovis on April 28, 2004 11:51:25 AM]

First off, you have to be careful to avoid bordeom here. While the ideas are nice enough, a highly realistic implementation could quickly get boring. After all, how long do you really want to watch a character on patrol duty, digging ditches, spinning pots, ect... The thing is you either have to make the job itself a minigame or find some way to speed through the less interesting parts. Let me give you some example of how I''ve seen this handled.

Ultima Online: I actually played this as more of a wanderer. I was more interested in exploartion than combat. The thing is, I''ve played a lot of adventure games, so when I saw things lying on the ground, I naturally went to pick then up. This lead to me collecting a lot of herbs, so I ended up doing alchemy in my spare time as a way to make some cash. The fun came from exploration. The alchemy was just a side job so I could buy stuff, but it arose naturally from what I was doing anyway.

Quest for Glory: First off, only humanoids carried coins and even then, the only ones carrying a sizable amount of cash were brigands. When just starting out, monster fights were tough enough that you couldn''t do too many without resting. However, resting any place besides an inn was dangerous (due to thieves, monsters, ect...), which costs money. You also had to buy food or start starving. As you can see, cash flow was definetly needed, and you couldn''t rely on monster for much until you got pretty tough. However, there was a job at the stables. It didn''t pay much, but it would cover a night''s rest. Besides, you could "fast forward" though the actual stable cleaning, so it didn''t slow down gameplay.

Princess Maker: This is basically a character developement sim. By setting up the character''s schedule, you could affect their skills, reputation, and interests. In addition to raising money, jobs increased some stats while decreasing others, which in tunr determined what kind of ending you got.

Yikes.

Hasn''t anyone played the Shenmue series?

You are required to get a job in those games.

-Hyatus
"da da da"

Archaeologist. That could be fun.
IMO, games are mostly fun because of the risks you have to take. In sims, its losing everything, in FPSs, its dying. So having a job might not be that fun unless there is some risk or difficulty involved. (Which is why mowing lawns may get tedious.)

How about a miner?