This is strictly in regards to NPCs or PCs in a multiplayer environment... In the combat system I'm cooking up for a science fiction RPG I was looking at adding an assortment of interesting status effects. It would be based on the percentage of damage you or the NPCs had taken in any one hit and depend on the type of weapon. Some choices, such as a bleeding status which constantly drained hit points, seemed acceptable since gamers have seen them in other games. Others, like being internally injured, were much more suspect. I could imagine having an NPC ally with special conditions attached to their injury might pose enormous strategic tradeoffs, particularly if there was an integrated personality and morale system governing the party's reactions. For example: You're in some alien ruins when your group is attacked and your most developed and beloved NPC ally is hit with a grenade weapon. But because he took massive damage in one shot, rather than being able to just heal him, you can see that he's got something like "Injured (Internal) -5% if moved" status over his health bar. Theoretically, the status would tell you that the NPC is internally injured and if you move him without treating him with a field surgery kit (which takes time) and a medic you'll injure him even further, possibly even kill him. So in this situation you'd maybe pause the game (and talk to your mates if it were multiplayer) and decide whether or not you can hold off the onslaught while he's patched up. If you skimped on a field surgery kit to hold more grenades you might find yourself in a Black Hawk Down situation, waiting for a medivac with enemies all around. The upside is that you could get into some intense situations and have to make really hard tradeoffs, especially if morale depended on who was left behind. The downside is that the interface would have to be crystal clear and it would be a real shift from what most RPG gamers are used to. I think the toughest thing we normally deal with is poison or paralysis type effects which can be remedied with a single recovery item. The player would never get such a status effect in single player because I don't think being debilitated is very interesting. What do you think?

I like the idea. I can see it only working where the 'team spirit' is fairly high. Some people may get annoyed in having to stop because someone's taken a shot and plough on regardless. I think that in a multiplayer environment it would really help people's own characters to emerge within the game. I mean, imagine the situation...

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Capt: Smithy's taken a shot, every hold back. Defend the position and wait for backup. Smithy: Go on without me guys, I'll be ok - this mission is too important Jones: F*** Smithy, I'm going on alone - who's with me? Capt: Stand down soldier, that's an order Cooper: Jones back down, we're a team - we should work together Jones: Screw you guys, I'm going on - who's with me?! Soldier X: Yeah, I'm with you - let's go *** Jones & Soldier X sulks off into the action leaving the others behind

It could potentially slow down action sequences, having to stop what you're doing to help someone heal - but if it's realism you're looking for, it could really add some strong teamplay 'emotion' and decisions.

Anytime you focus on making your game more realistic, you take time away that you could be using to make your game more fun.

Back in my younger days my friends and I designed a pen and paper RPG, based on modern conflict, using realistic damage models and realistic attack styles. The pen and paper version was obviously slow to use because of the effect calculations, but my friends loved it. There was nothing like coming up against some street urchin, getting stabbed in the head with a knife, the blow landing squarely in the eye, and dying from the wound. The attack style was based on a multiplier approach where the more successful the roll was the more powerful (or precise) the attack was. Because of this approach characters had to always be fearful of combat in the event the enemy got a lucky hit and killed them instantly. To counter this potential of having a character killed by a fluke event characters were issued luck points that they received when they got a best roll for actions, they then used these to reduce or improve actions done by themselves or done by others that effected the player. Obviously there were other skills that could also be used aswell to offset other actions (eg blocking a melee attack, physical toughness slightly reducing blunt force damage etc).
The whole system was convoluted as hell, and it took quite a time to balance everything out, but when we did, there was no going back to the ol' damage vs HP rubbish. And all players new what the potential of actions could be because the effects were realistic.

ups forgot to put in my password

I think this concept wholly depends on the tools given the players to counteract all the potential game-bogging down situations that could occur. Like evolutional pointed out, it could lead to situations where the core design of the game is lost due to too much flexibilty in the conditions that can arise.
What can you do for an injured teammate if you don't have something like a field surgeon kit? Will there be an abundance of options for the players to deal with the situation that keep the game fun and maintain the extra layer of realism? Is this a fantasy RPG with magical solutions that can be fallen back on? A sci-fi genre where there is a readily avaible technological solution? Will the survival of the player depend on the loyalty of the party he's with? Will players find themselves at the mercy of the group they play with to survive encounters like this? Evolutional's senario really made me laugh, because I know all too many players who would just leave the bleeding guy on the ground and keep going, precisely because it is not real life.
In that sense, I am a firm believer that realism comes second to fun. If an extra layer of realism lessens the fun of a game, then it should be discarded. Though realism of this kind could add a lot to a game, but it all depends on what tools the players are given to cope with these types of situations and if they add to the stragety, fun, and immersion of the experience or take away from it.

What Drew said, plus this: play MechWarrior II. You will design a wonderful, fun mech, then spend 90% of the time lumbering around half-dead armed only with the few weapons you could fit into the centre torso and head, waiting for someone to deliver the killing blow.

Debilitating damage is a positive feedback loop. Whereas its more fun if a fight is close, or intense, it is less fun when the first couple of hits are all that matters and the rest of the fight is simply wiping out the wounded enemies. Fights should get more intense as time continues, not less. Instead of trading blows to the death, you get a guy making a good first blow, leaving his opponent to make weaker and weaker blows until he can't fight back at all. The gap between the weak and the strong widens.

Its a bad idea for anything except a hardcore realism game.

However, rescuing friends would be cool, provided that, if backstabbing is possible, there exists a way to create game-binding contracts between players - something MMOs have needed for a long time. That way, a groupmate can say "if I die, you boys all take my body back to base or die yourselves, or else I get a chunk of your loot", enforced by the game itself.

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Original post by DrewCaliburClark I think this concept wholly depends on the tools given the players to counteract all the potential game-bogging down situations that could occur.

Thank you this is great food for thought. I notice that most status effects aren't considered to bog down the game because they can be handled instantly. You get poisoned, you take some remedy.

These status effects are added to games to make you think about what you're carrying and how you approach certain enemies. You don't normally get poisoned as a result of just walking around a level, for instance.

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Like evolutional pointed out, it could lead to situations where the core design of the game is lost due to too much flexibilty in the conditions that can arise.

But here's what I don't understand. If a game has a scripted sequence where this sort of thing occurs, most players would be fine with it because it would create a tense strategic situation (Starcraft had several of these little sequences in its missions, for example).

Yet if the conditions arise naturally, some would feel that its burdensome. Is it because the scripted sequence was hand designed, and therefore a player knows that it was supposed to happen, versus having a wide variety of conditions that can arise naturally?

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What can you do for an injured teammate if you don't have something like a field surgeon kit?

What else should you be able to do? Compare to getting poisoned in your standard RPG. No antidote? Better hope you can make it back to civilization fast.

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Will there be an abundance of options for the players to deal with the situation that keep the game fun and maintain the extra layer of realism?

Should you always be able to remove a status effect whether you have the proper equipment or not? I'm trying to think of what this would feel like in the player's shoes. Do you accept it as a dramatic situation and do your best, or are you focused solely on winning and losing, in which case such a situation can be take as unfair.

I could make status effects very dependent on NPC and player skills so that you can always do something to lessen the effect or delay it. But even with this situation, if you didn't have the skill, you'd be in trouble.

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Is this a fantasy RPG with magical solutions that can be fallen back on? A sci-fi genre where there is a readily avaible technological solution?

It's an open-ended science fiction RPG hybrid with nanotech as a solution for growing items, but that growth can only happen in special areas (like your ship). In this situation, if you've wandered into the bowels of some ruined base without bringing something on your ship, you can go back, but only if there is no opposition between you and the way out.

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Will the survival of the player depend on the loyalty of the party he's with? Will players find themselves at the mercy of the group they play with to survive encounters like this?

Loyalty plays a major role with NPCs, and in some cases can lead to outright betrayal via a mutiny system. If this happens, though, it should clearly be the player's responsibility for not managing their crew properly or taking a risk on shady characters.

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Evolutional's senario really made me laugh, because I know all too many players who would just leave the bleeding guy on the ground and keep going, precisely because it is not real life.

In multiplayer scenarios I'm much less sure because I don't know how people are going to play together. I never play with anyone but my friends, so I haven't experienced this.

Everything depends on what type of mentality would be attracted to an open-ended co-op RPG experience. Deathmatchers who leave you in the dust? Probably not. But even still, those who aren't hardcore role-players would need some real, tangible reason not to leave teamates behind.

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In that sense, I am a firm believer that realism comes second to fun.

Let me be VERY clear about this. I don't give a care about realism, I care only that status effects create interesting situations for you to deal with. If it's realistic but boring, it's gone! :>

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Though realism of this kind could add a lot to a game, but it all depends on what tools the players are given to cope with these types of situations and if they add to the stragety, fun, and immersion of the experience or take away from it.

Excellent points, again thanks!

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Original post by Tube Anytime you focus on making your game more realistic, you take time away that you could be using to make your game more fun.

I think your response is reflexive and not considering my intent, so I strongly disagree with it, but I would like to gain more insight into your perspective.

Here's how I see it: RPGs give you a bunch of stats like hit points, strength, dexterity, etc. These stats are strategies and the strategies create choices, which is the only real reason to play.

Now if I introduce, like in tons of RPGs, a status effect called Poisoning, which some monsters can do, I have added an element of reality. I also introduce Antidote, which adds even more realism. Antidote, being an inventory item, creates an tradeoff in what you carry and makes you think about what problems you're going to be facing, which is also more realism.

If I want this poison status effect to have more detail, I can introduce varieties of poisoning. I can also offer varieties of remedies. At some point, though, I have to limit this not because of realism but because you won't know what to bring and there'll be more strategies than you can defend against.

I get the impression that your response was a negative reaction to a realistic concept that you may not have intuitive knowledge about, and that is a deeper concern. If your character has a bleeding status, intuitively everybody knows exactly what to do. But only if you're first aid trained might you know what to do if someone has internal injuries, even if the interface tells you what will happen.

So consider this: What if I introduce a completely science fantasy status, like "Phased" which now means an NPC can't pickup any inventory? I'm certainly not adding realism. Is this okay?

What I was thinking of, when I ask what options are available: here are some examples. Take poisoning, and you don't have an item on hand to deal with it. First, are there items readily available for dealing with it in the area in which you are likely to get poisoned? Is the only option at this point having to return to your ship and grow a remedy? Can the player trade in some type of skill points or technique points to attempt a "cut an X and suck it out" type of operation to slow the poison? Can the effects of the poison be counteracted by using other means of healing to keep oneself alive until a remedy is found/manufactured? This is what I mean by flexibility. If there is only one way to deal with the situation, and you don't have it, you're screwed, and that's no fun. The other options create great tension, while not screwing the player completely.

As far as scripted vs. situational, I could only forgive the scripted event if it was vital to story progression and fit with my character's known intelligence. I would be very angry if a game forced me to get poisoned, just to add an interesting twist at a certain point. Like, if I had already encountered several situations where I might end up poisoned, and countered it effectively, then all of the sudden a cut scene shows my character getting poinsoned, because a particular stage called for it. My character would have known better, since I knew better, why force that? That would just be terrible design.

Another option, is good story telling. Forshadow that a certain situation is very likely to arise, such as snipers, poisonous plants/enemies, parasite infested area, etc.. then make the countermeasure readily available to the player before getting into the situation. If the player finds themselves unprepared, then they are a poor player, and can only blame themselves. Even in that case, flexibility can still make a good game great.

Multiplayer and group loyalty is a whole other can o' worms. Pxtl's idea for binding contracts is interesting, and could lead to all sorts of situations, where the player is forced to care about a man down like a real soldier would. But, that would take a very careful hand to implement in a way that wouldn't cause hard feelings amoungst players who weren't as good as others. That, or some other way to force dependency on each other could really help or hurt a game, depending on how it is structured.

Wow, this has really got me thinking...