What kind of goblins can you have in a Sci-fi crpg? I was thinking of things like genetically modified nasties that have gone walk about and remote cyborg guards. But these just seems a little too mediocre and boring. What''s a new idea for a nasty enemy in a sci-fi world. I''m trying to work out something to do with nano technology as well. Let''s skip the T1000 for now what crazy things could you do with nanotech stuff to make new and cool enemies? Any thoughts? "So you're the one that designed that game are you?" *Gulp* "Umm, yeah"

Hm...what about an enemy who uses some kind of "Nano-disassembler-thrower", which is basically a weapon that launches some kind of grenade filled with little nano-robots who take apart atom for atom every object they are fired upon (or at least corrupt the molecular structur, which should be quite lethal for every sort of organic lifeform)? The effect is sorta like acid, and it can disassemble objects of basically every size and material given enough time; the nano-machines stop disassembling when they come in contact with any other other material then the one they were originally fired upon, or can be deactived with the launcher (to prevent them from munching away a whole planet .

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Ghosts crowd the young child's fragile eggshell mind...

You could have big cyborg goblins. Like genetically engineered and have wires and metal sticking out of thier body. Like in Turok 2, Those gigantic beast thingies with wiring sticking out. Just a thought.

Ok. If I had only read your whole post I''d have known you did''nt want cyborgs. How about psycics? That would be inovative.Psycic goblins would be cool. They could affect your character ability to take accurat aim and cause xtreme preasure to the characters brain meaning his health goes down. Or mutating goblins. They could turn into another enemy in the game to counter different things you throw at them. Like if you use fire they change into a water type goblin to counter so they won''t be affected. Just a couple more thoughts.

You can have any kind you want, seeing it''s SciFi. That, BTW, stands for Science *Fiction*.

Use some creativity.

I quite liked the greasels from Deus Ex... vicious & quick moving, with a venomous distance attack.
I'm also fond of the many genegineered creatures from Simon Hawke's books. A pack of dobras (body of a doberman pinscher, head of a giant cobra) or an engineered gargoyle could make great guards, for example.
Depending on the game, a lot of different effects could be used:
1. Enemy creatures might mimic everyday objects. This could result in a lot of ammo being wasted as the player shoots at every piece of furniture in a room, just to make sure.
2. Enemies could come from unexpected places (dropping from the ceiling, crawling out of the drains, etc).
3. Enemy creatures could be indistiguishable from allied or neutral creatures. That rat might be a mobile spy camera, or it might be a rat... are you going to waste a bullet to make sure you aren't seen? Which rat do you shoot when there are hundreds?

Edited by - halfgold on October 12, 2000 1:06:43 PM

Edited by - halfgold on October 12, 2000 1:07:38 PM

I'll make this my moto, someday : "read some books to get an answer"... But I guess that would be as rude as a RTFM answer.

So take the example of Shadowrun : this game did what no game designers ever dared to do in RPG, it crosses to game genres, and actually sold millions ! Take cyberpunk dark future, insert trolls, orks, elves and dwarves (not to mention dragons), and you get a cool example of what you can do with some imagination.

Now some ideas ? Read again William Gibson for a start.

A cybernetically enhanced, genetically boosted, drug dependant dolphin, formerly used on naval battlefields as a deminer, that can talk to humans through a LED panel.

The classic wandering AI on the Net : Muetdhiver (I think it would be Mutewinter in english).

Flatline, the hacker that died and was reborn as an AI.

The poor souls that get too much cyberimplants can go *real* bad sometimes, usually the only solution is to shoot them down before they make to many casualties (think, walking tank enter in a commercial center and suddenly turn berserk, or think about the preacher in Johnny Mnemonic).

Gangs, gangs, and more gangs !
The Poseurs, in this gang, thx to plastic surgery, everybody look like a deceased famous star...
The Wampires, with the progress of science, surgery is now able to exchange practically any piece of your body with a brand new one, provided there is any free body part . But greed has no limits, and plastic surgeons are ready to pay a good price for fresh material, wherever it comes from
Cult of Speed, mmm, did you ever read Akira ?

Psionists. Magic may have dissapeared, but science never stopped progressing, and discovered quite a few things about the human mind. Now if the rumours of people being able to read your mind were verified ...

Street samurai. Take some old archetypical character, put it back into a modern context. Head hunters with a code of ethic, and an attitude

Genetic manipulations. Did the military really make experiments on water breathing modifications for their navy commandos ? The last holo reporter sent on their trail never reported ...

And, *WHAT* is the Matrix ?

now come on Paul, go back to your room, and READ !!!

youpla :-P

Edited by - ahw on October 12, 2000 4:47:04 PM

"Sandman:" Ever see the old Michael Jackson video using morphing where he instantly turns to sand and blows away to evade Egyptian guards? What about a foe made of cohesive nananite particles that can rapidly reassemble and disassemble themselves in order to travel under doors, through porous surfaces, and through air vents?

"Plague of Locusts:" Nanites that rapidly dissolve __EVERYTHING__ in their path. Could be pretty gruesome, and you''d need charged magnetic fields, jamming, or EMP to hold these little monsters back.

You could extend these two concepts to devices and weapons. What effect on laser fire would a swarm shield of reflective nanites have? Could you stand on a rising column of millions flying nanites? Just a thought.

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Just waiting for the mothership...

re:ahw; Imagination is more important than knowledge - Albert Einstein.

re:roderik; I forgot that the nanotech stuff could be used for weapons aswell. Good point! Time to give this some more thought.
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I wanted to aviod all of the mimicing stuff with nanotech. Things might not be that advanced in this game world. I was thinking of nanotech implants, things that adjust to your body so they don''t get rejected. Also enemies/people/things made entirely out of nanotech. The idea is to have all the cyborg jazz but they can heal like a human. But what i''m really looking for is tech that has become intelligent and created their own race. It''s very much along the morals that we played god making them and they percieve us a superior until they learn what the story is. Then they (nanotech life) reject our presence or worse, think that they can help us by making us like them.

The idea as a whole is that nanotech has become a sort of genology for these different life forms. They use biology to give themselves conciousness but thats the only value it has for them. Where as humans see things the other way round. But deeper into the game it is discovered that nanotech can be converged with biotech and genotech to make a new life form again. This is the type of critters i''m really looking at. What can you do with this idea?

I''m not looking for book material, anyone willing to share there imagination with me? :-)

"So you're the one that designed that game are you?"
*Gulp* "Umm, yeah"

Howzabout LatterDay Daemonic Forces? Humans created a cybernetic consciousness, but the consciousness needs bodies, so they form symbiotic relations w/ the host, but the catch is that they have to be asked. . .of course the host/daemon gains god-like omniscience and flash-fast reflexes through the "augmentation" but the individual''s will is surrendered to the hivemind. w/o a host, the consciousness is confined to electrical circuitry, but in this realm, it is all-powerful. Of course, the humans at this point rely on digital technology as much as oxygen, so its really a reversal of the host/daemon symbiosis.

Or the race is physically created by a petty dictator out of nanogoo to be ubersoldiers, but the dictator created them to be dependant on a chemical substance, w/o which they slowly decay. The ubersoldiers rebel and take over the gov''t in a military coup, only to discover that their bodies are rotting away, and they killed the only man who knew the formula for the antidote. So you have NanoZombies.

Or you have nanomachines built for some benign purpose, perhaps to function as "smart" glue that automatically expands to fill gaps (in bridges and wotnot) & is stronger than concrete. Problem is, someday f*cked up at the factory and the smart glue is a little overenthusiastic. It begins work on that nasty little gap known as earth''s atmosphere.

Or the nanomachines revolted generations ago, but have been keeping it under wraps. The player first learns of a wacked out cult w/ all kinds of nasty augmentations. It appears that when these humans first made contact w/ a nano-consciousness, the humans mistook it for a god. Kind of a twist on the history of the Americas, w/ Chris Columbus & all. Now the nanomachines'' cult is sufficient in numbers to stage a revolution. . .ba-da-boom.

If you see the Buddha on the road, Kill Him. -apocryphal