Hi, for the crpg I''m making I''ve been presented w/ a pen&paper rpg rules, which consist some skills that I just dunno how could be implemented. Well, frankly, I''ve had some ideas, but when the programmers heard of them... you don''t really wanna know. Any ways, I''ve got skills like Lip Reading, Imitate Sounds, Escapism, Light Sleeper and so on. Any help is appreciated. Thank you in advance! Boby Dimitrov boby@azholding.com

This is one of my older posts that generated no interest.
In addition to the skills above, I have to add Windwalking and Blind fighting. Still can''t figure a suitable implementation for those and the previous post ones.


Boby Dimitrov
boby@azholding.com

I''ve got some ideas but i dont know if they apply, if you would be willing to give a little more detail on the type of RPG your trying to make. If you dont want to post the idea (for privacy reasons) you can email me at WorkboxJones@netscape.net and maybe I can give a little insight.


"There is humor in everything depending on which prespective you look from."

Chronoslade, you can post here if you don''t have a problem with this. I have nothing to hide. Also you can contact me by email or icq: 7894961.

Thanks!


Boby Dimitrov
boby@azholding.com

>skills like Lip Reading, Imitate Sounds, Escapism, Light >Sleeper and so on.

It seems that you could go two ways here. One is that you would have to have a world that is interactive enough to implement some of these skills. Therefore you would have to provide an area to use this skills outside of "combat".

Another way to implement some of those perks, is just as another way of being able to modify/increase stats in relevant areas.(Increased damage, less action points, etc). So you could have a creative way of modifying the player''s statistics at less. So in this perspective, you can say: Escapism, +30% chance of fleeing fight. Light Sleeper, +2 points/per hour healing, and +30% chance noticing when a threat arrives during nighttime. Now, these are very your game play dependent on how such things could be implemented, more details would have to be given on type of game,etc. One problem with some of these skills is that it might be found to not be really useful because the gameplay didn''t provide the chances to use them in the game in a way that satisfies the player.

I think to get something like Lip Reading to work, you would have to give the player enough incentive to use it by providing serveral instances in the story to use it. For example, the player can stand near two guards gossiping. If the player gets too close, the guards can become agiatiated, and attack the player, arrest him, or chide him away. The alternative could be to stand further away from the guards and use the Lip Reading skill and find out very important information. The player could learn of a secret gate, and get into the palace through there instead of having to use a less desirable option, or an option that would be diffucult to perform because the player lacks the skills needed to perform it.

Using these skills should also provide "experience" because they are perfect alternatives to combat.

Honestly I think someone has handed you a screwed up game design. Unlike real world apps, games are self contained. This means that the numbers, objects, properties, and whatnot are only significant in how they relate to each other. The need for a particular skill (datum) should be defined by an interaction or circumstance that requires that skill.

Put simply, if there are no circumstances where a lip reading skill is useful, then you don''t need the lip-reading skill.

Computer game design should, IMO, start with the things a player is going to do while playing, and then create the skills (stats, whatever) to support that. If you go the other way around, and define the skills without a place to use them then you end up painting yourself in a corner.

The second problem is trying to balance obscure skills vs generally useful ones. If you don''t have the game''s interactions clearly defined ahead of time, then trying to balance the skill costs versus usefulness will make you pull your hair out.

If the game is going to be politics, mystery, or intrigue, then lip-reading might be valuable to invest in for both the programmer and the player. If the game is a dungeon crawl, it''s bloody useless. If it''s both then you have something very strange

So take that RPG back to the designer and ask him to define how they apply to the specifics of the adventure (even if it''s randomly generated). If they absolutely require a GM to interpret then either toss them out or fake it.

quote: Honestly I think someone has handed you a screwed up game design…. Put simply, if there are no circumstances where a lip reading skill is useful, then you don't need the lip-reading skill.

Anonymous, the design is not screwed up, it is very good, only it’s pen and paper game, not suited for computer variant. And yes, those skills have real use in the game! I was not going to post that question here if they hadn’t! And Anonymous, I know about all those problems you talk about, and many more. That’s not stopping me, though.

quote: One problem with some of these skills is that it might be found to not be really useful because the gameplay didn't provide the chances to use them in the game in a way that satisfies the player.

Gameweld, yes it is a problem, that’s why I posted the question here in the first place. To get some ideas on gameplay that provides chances to use any of the skills. Your example of Lip Reading is nice, I’ve come up with similar thing too, but the major question that comes before discussing the effect of the skill is How do you use the skill in the first place?
How do you make your hero lip read this or that person? Point and click? And that means the NPCs have to converse with each other all the time, so you have to have hundreds of dialogues running in the same time. Other way is just say the player “You didn’t learn anything useful.”, when the dialogue is not important. But that’s filtering and pointing the player the solutions, like with the menu-based conversations and showActiveObject_overonmouse() in adventure games.
And Escapism, it’s about getting out of locked boxes, like Harry Houdini did. It’s like getting through a gate of steel bars by passing between the bars, using only his extremely flexible body. Or getting ones hands untied, or unlocking without tools, just by pressure applied to specific parts of the lock. And how could you implement that?! Just don’t give me the result example this time !

In that game we’re trying to provide the player at least several ways to solve any problem he come to. Not just fighting/killing. In fact, combat is one of the most inefficient ways to progress, unless you’re a extremely skilled fighter. So one more time: those skills have use in story and off-story “quests” (we call those problems)., and also could be used anytime the player wants. I.e. using your Telekinesis skill in a pub to make some glasses float around could provide you money from the spectators, or you could be banned from the town for the people don’t tolerate “magic” and so on. I could rip them off the design, but it’ll lose it’s uniqueness and become yet another Forgotten Realms (BG 1,2, IWD, etc.) game.


Boby Dimitrov
boby@azholding.com

Edited by - BobyDimitrov on June 21, 2001 5:21:17 AM

There is also the problem of balancing the price of purchasing these skills, or even selecting from a list at the beginning of the game. If one skill is not as useful and not as frequently applicable as another skill, then the player will feel that choosing the skill was a waste: and that they should have chosen "steal" or "archery"...

Sorry I havent replied to you yet I have been swamped at work and it has overflowed a little into my off-time. I will try and post a response to you on Friday or Saturday.

"There is humor in everything depending on which prespective you look from."

Some thoughts on a lip-reading skill and how best to implement it within a game...

First, it should be an active skill, not a passive skill. This simply means the player should be required to state, I''m using my lip reading skill on this person here (the in game mechanics of performing that task are up to the interface designer). You don''t need hundreds of NPC dialogs going on all over your game world. You don''t need any going on. Dialog for an NPC is only generated when a player activates his lip reading skill on that NPC.

Now, there are several ways of generating dialog. The most tedious method is to create specific dialog for every single NPC in the game, and if your storyline is set up such that every single NPC has important information that can be gathered from lip reading, then maybe that''s the path to take. The other option is to just generate a big list of random dialog, and when a player uses his lip reading skill on a filler NPC, dialog is selected from this list. If the NPC has useful info, that info is used instead of random dialog, or perhaps a percentage chance of selecting one or the other. This could be expanded a bit by categorizing the dialog based on NPC type, such that soldier NPCs would have military like conversations, barkeeper NPCs would have gossip like conversations, and nobility NPCs would have aristocratic conversations, etc.

Beyond how to implement the given skills though, your first step should be to flesh out the entire storyline and all it''s possible branches, documenting what skills can be used where to provide what solutions. Get a first draft fully completed, start to finish. Then review it, evaluate the usage of all the skills you want to provide. Look for skills that don''t have many opportunities to use and look for ways to expand the storyline to provide more usage of said skills. You should go through at least several drafts. Once you have the storyline fleshed out in relative detail, you can better look at how you need to implement all the skills you want to use, and evaluate how effective and valuable each skill is going to be. Without a fully documented storyline, there''s no effective way of evaluating your skills.