quote: Original post by DM

Firstly, JSwing, just because every member of a race has a particular type of weapon, doesn''t mean they are worthless. If every goblin had a cutlass, but 1 in 20 had broadswords, would that make all swords worthless?

From an economic perspective, the supply is so high that the individual unit price is effectively zero. If every goblin has a sword, and there are a lot of goblins, then both swords and steel must be commonplace. Goblins are traditionally not traditionally wealthy, but they all carry weapons.

This means either the steel and weapons are easily obtainable (by anyone), or that all goblins carry weapons as a matter of survival. the latter means that all of the player''s species will also carry weapons as a matter of survival or that more goblins carry weapons than the player''s side. Either way means supply is equal to or greater than demand, ergo cheap.

Does this preclude goblins from having a whiz-bang wonder sword? Of course not. But those should be treated as rare (quest) items.

Remember, we''re talking about a player spending his day trucking swords from a battle field to the local weapon merchant to try and get some cash.

The only way the weapons would have value is if the player''s side was scavenging off the goblins, and then only until everyone on the player''s side has weapons equal to that of the standard goblin.

quote:
If the player finds it fun, does it matter if its being a hero, or something much more mundane? After all, the player''s enjoyment is the prime imperitive, is it not?

No disagreement. My argument for avoiding the details of the mundane job assumes that the player wants to be a larger than life hero, saving the world and whatnot. Thus my discussion of the role of hero vs society at large.

(Sorry I have only glanced at this thread.)

More social interactions might make a very good addition to some games if it was implemented properly. For instance giving instant feedback on your characters actions could occur. Ie. If the party members disapproved of you stealing that baby tiger cub, or breaking down a door. This would all depend on their attitudes and beliefs. It would help to add a greater human frame of reference to the game. (Although if handled badly it would get annoying, handled well it could be funny think Joe Pesci''s character in Lethal Weapon ?).

Party members could also give feedback on gameplay possibilities that the player hasn''t yet considered, ie. chuck a grenade at them Chosen One !
-Though this isn''t the type of social interaction that you mean.

...But I don''t want to be a hero!

I can see JSwing is not a very big advocate of Diablo.

I think we're having some confusion here between the words "hero" and "adventurer," because in my book they are most certainly not the same thing. I have enjoyed characters who adventured for a living but had zero heroic motivation for doing so. One such character captured souls and put them into magic items just to see what kind of neat weapons and armor she could create. So, we'd better clear up this whole ordeal.

I agree with Wav's comments. Maybe I was on drugs or something that night. You may improve the setting however you see fit. Whether it's fantasy or future, our underlying objective remains the same: JSwing wants to desegregate heroes back into society.

Let's clear up the first point: Heroes and adventurers are NOT the same thing. I've created a game world that emphasizes this very statement by establishing two distinct and opposite factions with completely incongruous beliefs. Being a hero of one faction effectively makes you a villain in the other, so I don't think we can safely use the term "hero" from this point forward.

Now the question becomes: How does an adventurer remain connected to the general public? Depending on what he does for a living, an adventurer might not have any reason to deal with the public. And this is pretty much where the whole discussion starts over. Let's take some examples:

Warrior, "kills orcs for a living and sells the loot."
Well, his means are certainly not very heroic, but if orcs are public enemy number-one, then your average joe will look upon him in a favorable light. He might very well be a hero to any nearby villages. The pawnshop owner buys all the hero's merchandise and sells it to other businesses, who can then rework it into something useful and make a profit. The hero dumps his hard-earned coin on beer and prostitutes. The economy is booming. That orc murderer is one helluva guy!

Sorcerer, "studies magic in his tower all day."
Nothing heroic here. We've got a fat guy who makes his own food and water with spells. Anytime he's not eating or sleeping, he's reading books and throwing fireballs out the window. He has no attachment to public life whatsoever. He's just a bum wizard in a tower.

Baker, "cooks and sells muffins."
(I chose muffins for you EverQuest addicts.) This guy is not a hero. He sweats over a stove all day, baking goods and selling them to the local populace. What he does makes him integral to society at large, because many hundreds of mouths rely on his muffins to survive. But that doesn't make him a hero, not in the conventional sense of the word.

Monk, "travels the world looking for the meaning of life."
Here we have a guy who wanders the backtrails of the world, analyzing everything he sees for what it is. His sole purpose is spiritual: he wants to learn the meaning of life through understanding alone. He's every bit of an adventurer, but he's nothing of a hero.
__________

Rather than force adventurers to lick the boots of society by becoming dependent on it, I would recommend finding ways to turn mundane characters into not-so-mundane adventurers. Players take the easy way out because it tends to yield greater rewards. In Diablo , people slaughter monsters because monsters drop magic items. They don't do it because monsters threaten the sanctity of life. I've never once seen a monster wander into town and eat Deckard Cain. That's the kind of thing you need to make the common folk open their eyes.

I guess the solution to both of our goals would be "complete and unadulterated interaction with the world." That means the world has to fight back. Things have to happen around the player, rather than just to the player. This has always been one of my biggest gripes about modern games.

Edited by - Tom on April 26, 2001 2:34:45 PM

anyone played Fallout 1 and 2?
it uses somer social standing

How about charitable deeds (** Quests **) / donations. The player could feel that they were positively contributing to society by helping that home for orphaned Kobolds...

Wow, I must say that there are many interesting ideas here. I like the idea of a social status, it could make for some cool game dynamics. I also completely agree that ''monsters'' in general shouldn''t ''poop out gold.'' There should be multiple options of how to earn money within a game. Quests could provide a great way for an adventurer to earn money or items. He could also sit in bars and listen for rumors about the locations of "treasure" (as in anything of value). Or, for those who only have fun by killing things and looting, let them. One goal of a game designer is to provide a broad spectrum of ways for players to *have fun*.

One reason players going around killing everything is because everything tries to kill the players. Let''s not make everything that roams around in our game worlds attack the player. I find it very annoying to have to wade through a bunch of stupid monsters just to explore the world or perform a quest.

The player isn''t always a hero, is he? We could make the player into a villain if we really wanted to. We could also make "hero" a social status, rather than a label for the player. I do believe that the player should be able to do pretty much whatever he wants. However, there should also be repurcussions (sp?) for certain actions. I wouldn''t make the game engine block a player from killing people in town, but because of that he could become an outlaw (and lose a lot of social standing), or get attacked by local law enforcement. If he wants to loot bodies for money, let him. We could always knock off points from his social standing for doing so (there are a ton of other options here...). Maybe the player is playing a thief, and that looting would increase his status within the thieve''s guild. The options of what can be done with social status are far reaching. Let the player shape his character into whatever he wants.

_rpg_guy''s post brings to mind the reputation tree in Daggerfall, a feature that was unfortunately never used extensively in the actual game. I''ve been yearning to implement a fully-functional system like this, and that''s exactly what I plan to do with my Project.

Every province, faction, guild, order, and key figure in the game carried an opinion of the player-character, which was rated as a reputation between 100 (favorable) and -100 (hateful). This reputation determined whether or not that particular province/faction/etc. would talk to you, and how much information they would be willing to divulge. Like I said, it was never fully implemented in Daggerfall, which is a damned shame. The reputation tree contains a lot more information then the game actually utilizes (enemies, allies, power level).

If anyone wants to take a peak at it, download a utility called The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages and download a saved game (doesn''t matter which, they all contain reputation trees). If you''re developing an RPG that uses this kind of system, it will be well worth your time.

Sorry about that last post. Must be something in the air.

_rpg_guy''s post brings to mind the reputation tree in Daggerfall , a feature that was unfortunately never used extensively in the actual game. I''ve been yearning to implement a fully-functional system like this, and that''s exactly what I plan to do with my Project.

Every province, faction, guild, order, and key figure in the game carried an opinion of the player-character, which was rated as a reputation between 100 (favorable) and -100 (hateful). This reputation determined whether or not that particular province/faction/etc. would talk to you, and how much information they would be willing to divulge. Like I said, it was never fully implemented in Daggerfall , which is a damned shame. The reputation tree contains a lot more information then the game actually utilizes (enemies, allies, power level).

If anyone wants to take a peak at it, download a utility called Dagged, and then visit The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages and download a saved game (doesn''t matter which, they all contain reputation trees). If you''re developing an RPG that uses this kind of system, it will be well worth your time.

Ah. Ok. I meant hero in the sense of say, Greek myth. Or even modern entertainment (movies, books). Someone who accomplishes larger than life deeds or is involved in great escapades.

This doesn''t mean that the player has to be moral, or even nice.


Likewise, social status doesn''t necessarily imply morality. There are plenty of corrupt rich people. I have no problem with a morally bankrupt player (a villain) with a high reputation gaining a high social status.

I''d be happy to change to a different terminology if to avoid confusion.


Personally, I think baking bread is pretty dull in real life. I can''t imagine repeatedly doing it in a game. I thought Diablo was a fun game (even though I pick on it all the time) but I want better drama.