I know the title sounds funny but think about this. The whole RPG staple of leveling up, collecting money or items to purchase new items etc, has worn thin IMO. Why not take a page from Yu-gi-oh and have strategy based on magic types, environment, and other factors. Instead of being able to beat monsters by just leveling up RPGs could have competing magic styles that work better or worst based on the environment, player strength, spell knowledge, etc. The card thing is stupid but what if a player defeats a mission he receives a magic item that has very specific powers and weaknesses. Then he must use the item strategically. The players with more experience have more items and therefore an inherent advantage, but creative play and careful studying of the rules can tip the scales and allow a less powerful player to prevail. Thoughts? It is more complicated than leveling up but think of all the kids who play card games and LOVE the complexity.

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Original post by stevelat The card thing is stupid but what if a player defeats a mission he receives a magic item that has very specific powers and weaknesses.

If you don't like the card thing, then either you wouldn't like a game like the one you described, or you just havn't thought about it and realised that in such a game the items would effectively be the 'cards'.

The trick in such a game is to have the correct 'cards' ready for the situation you're in, and then to use them correctly. Translated to a non-card-based CRPG, this means you'd need to be wearing the correct armour, wielding the correct weapon, and have the correct magical items ready to use, as applicable to the design. There might be more than 1 possible set of items that could allow you to prevail in any given scenario, and for it to work well, there should be no set of items that will guarantee success in any scenario; Using the items correctly should also come into play.

It's not really an original concept, but it's definately one that's been underused in comparison to the more popular model of having levels as the major deciding factor. I think this could definately work, but your work would be in creating and balancing a wide range of items, and coming up with enemies/puzzles that would require players to have/use items in various combinations.

I think that, for it to work, the "stash" of the adventurers should have limited countenance, and would only be able to hold, say, two or three of each needed items, in order to be able to toggle, thus leaving out AT LEAST as many possibilities of lacking an object related to your problem.

I first thought that the "levels" could be replaced by objects having more than one "color" if I can speak in "Magic: The Gathering" parlance. But since there is no "Mana" needed to cast those objects, then, they would be awefully powerful in regards to lower ones. So unless you can come up with a "zero-sum" balance on EACH object, then you are screwed.

Let's say you are that you FIRE sword does double damage on a given ICE creature. Let's say that you have an ICE shield. This shield reduces ICE damage by, say, two units. WHat if you could get a sword that dealt twice as much damage? Would you use it? Probably, yes? Then you have a Sword of Frozen Flames. This sword does Twice as much damage on creatures that have a fire weakness, but do HALF damage on all ICE creatures. This Sword of Frozen Flames indeed deals twice as much damage on, say, WOOD creatures, and on WATER creatures, maybe, but in fact deal EXACTLY the same amount on ICE creatures.

Now what if it was a SHIELD of Frozen Flames? This shield reduces damages dealt by ICE Creatures by two units AND deal an additional two damages to creatures with FIRE weakness. But it also multiplies by two any FIRE damage.

If you want to have bigger perks, you also need to add bigger losses on the SAME objects, in order to maintain the balance. And the Bigger the level, the bigger the perk, and the bigger the accepted loss.

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Original post by stevelat Thoughts?

It sounds quite a bit like GuildWars (as far as i understand how GuildWars is going to work, anyway) ... the levels are few there, and the focus is on characters "unlocking" various abilities by winning missions, defeating monsters and whatnot ... which they can mix-and-match into custom set. Much like getting new cards and then building your deck out of selected number of them in the card games.

The "frozen flames" idea reminded me of something I was fiddling with a while ago. I was using the standard paracelcian four-element system, so I'll stick to that parlance here.

You could have "properties" and "nature", which would be two different features. If your armor had the property of fire, then it would be highly resistance to water attacks, but would not repel other attacks well. If it had the nature of fire, then it would absorb fire energy, increasing its strength, but it would be highly susceptible to water attacks. Same thing with weapons or magics or whatever.

An iron sword with fire properties would still be a piece of iron, and would cut well. A sword of fire, on the other hand, would burn furiously, but wouldn't do so hot (haw!) against fire-resistance materials.

Just a thought on balancing.

On topic, I'd say that the spirit of action/reaction and counters that card games are generally based on are not very practical in RPG games. The major problem is timeframe.

In a card game match, you're looking at a tactical deployment of cards, the effects of which interact in interesting ways. Eventually, someone comes out on top and the match ends. You reset, shuffle the decks, and play again from scratch.

In and RPG, you cultivate a player for hours and hours, fine-tuning their skills and abilities unti they can be your avatar in conflicts. You meet an adversary, use the skills at your disposal, end the fight, heal, and repeat.

The difference is that the character is an actual thing-in-the-world, whereas the deck of cards is a constellation of relationships and effects that simulate a thing-in-the-world. I can totally recreate my deck of cards any time I want to, and the old one is lost. The character, though, is persistent. That's the role you play. Card games are played between players directly. RPGs are played between characters that serve as player avatars.

Imagine an MMO version of StarCraft. Heck, imagine coming into a game of StarCraft five minutes after the other guy started. There would be no hope, no chance to win. You couldn't play the game that way, because the game is based on episodic fights between you and the other guy, requiring equal starts and opportunity. Same thing with a card game. In and RPG, though, you have to be able to inhabit the world, and have organic relationships with other characters. You might finish fighting one guy, and turn around and have to face another before you get a chance to heal up or buff your gear.

The card system would fail here. Maybe some elements could be carried over, but the fundamental difference between "match" play and roleplay has to be considered at all times.

Last time I checked most RPG games were match-based. At least the console ones, or the ones that aren't action hybrids.

What would probably be bad here would be changing armour just before each fight. Unrealistic. But hey, could be fun. Choose Armor(5 slots), Weapon (2 slots), etc.. then begin the match.

I don't think that time frame is a problem. Fighting games are real time, yet there is anticipation and strategy.


You can implement card strategies in an RPG like this:

When the character engages in a fight, instead of being able to use all of the spells available, you can only use a handful of them. Everytime you use a spell, that spell is put in the used deck, and you get another spell from the unused deck. Just like Yugi-oh, there are also 'trap spells' or counter spells. Every time you succeed in casting a spell, you get time reduction for casting more powerful spells of the same affinity in your hand.

This means that you can't have your whole deck full of slow, powerful spells, since you won't be able to land one without getting intercepted. And if you fill your deck with fast, weak spells, you may not have the powerful spells ready when you have an opportunity.

If your whole hand are slow, powerful spells, just attempt using one and get hit to draw a different card, or charge your enemy and hit him with your fire rod to charge up the affinity. Melee abilities are used the same as spells.

Note that there is still Mana. You can still go OOM. The fun thing is now 'healing' is also a card in the deck, just like any other cards. Outside of battle you can always choose and cast whatever you want and whenever you want.

very interesting use of imposed figures...

Estok is describing the closest idea that I had in mind.

The weaker "minions" would have one large glaring weakness that the player can exploit, but only if they have defeated a certain quest and obtained a special spell to defeat them. This could be one way to "guide" the player through the story.

The bosses would be more difficult, they could have multiple forms that require creative use of magic.

Trap magic and defensive magic could be a big part of the game as well. Also there would be the ability to gain new spells by finding hidden uses for each magic power (when combined with other items or button combinations).

The objective is to move away from managing hp and mana through an mess of menus and focus on cerebral strategy based on your knowledge of the rules of magic, your knowledge of the enemy, and your knowledge of your own items. The interface would be simplified but the cerebral battle would be heightened.

This won't appeal to everyone but it would to me.