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Original post by Tangireon Run your own company/guild/organization/store.

Wait, I take my suggestion back.

In my opinion, while I believe there are some activities that could pair pretty well with RPGs, I just don't think large-scale sociological activities (such as my suggestion of running an organization that deals with a particular sector of a civilization) belong in there - it would then become more of a simulator game than any other type of game. You'd have to have simulator-type interfaces to deal with simulator-type gameplay; having an RPG-type interface to deal with that just won't be so effective.

As well as that, if you don't make it so that your gameworld responds to your actions (either yourself personally or your organization), having an organization in a static gameworld won't provide any interesting gameplay (in Oblivion for instance, I believe that the activity of taking control over guilds is more of an achievement than an avenue that provided more gameplay). To be able to have good organization/guild-based gameplay you'd have to have a dynamic gameworld to which evolves according to every action that you dish out - this we see more in the city-building or god simulator genres than in RPGs definitely.

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For RPGs, I think, in my personal opinion, that the most fun to be had, that the main focus of the fun to be had, is in its dungeon-romping and the exploration of dungeons (where I say dungeon I mean a location that has enemies to fight and loot to collect) - the possibility of finding loot, the fighting of the guardians of that loot, the discovery of traps and secret areas, the meeting of characters & cultures. That, I think, is the main staple of activity in RPGs, possibly that and the literal role-playing of your character(s) while doing this.

These other things mentioned that you could do in a RPG should be optional, in my opinion, but could also be there to bolster a greater sense of open-ended gameplay. But I have a hunch that if you aren't having fun with the main activities of that RPG due to however it was designed, then these optional side activities wouldn't help the game's fun-factor either.

I believe that if you take any of these side activities and flesh them out, you could potentially end up with another genre on your hands - for example with my suggestion of running an organization, you could have something like The Guild (a cool medieval European trading-economic game played very similarly like an RPG). But then, that would detract from the main gameplay of the RPG, which is the fighting, looting, exploring, and role-playing of your characters in strange new lands/worlds/universes - it wouldn't be called a RPG anymore just like Wavinator said (they called The Guild a Life Simulator game despite it having many RPG-ish elements in there including RPG-type interfaces, perspective, character classes, etc).

So I would say that one should focus more on fleshing out the fun-factor of one thing (the core staple activities in RPGs - exploring, fighting, role-playing) rather than present a wide array of things you could do outside of that, especially if you have a limited set of resources (which you will always have), but this applies as well if you have lots of resources at your disposal: If the main gameplay isn't very fun, the things on the side you could do won't help the game at all.

[Edited by - Tangireon on October 1, 2008 12:53:55 PM]

Ultima 7 was pretty interactive.

I don't think you should bind every interaction to a skill, though. That's sort of silly.

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Original post by Tangireon Quote: Original post by Tangireon Run your own company/guild/organization/store. Wait, I take my suggestion back. In my opinion, while I believe there are some activities that could pair pretty well with RPGs, I just don't think large-scale sociological activities (such as my suggestion of running an organization that deals with a particular sector of a civilization) belong in there - it would then become more of a simulator game than any other type of game. You'd have to have simulator-type interfaces to deal with simulator-type gameplay; having an RPG-type interface to deal with that just won't be so effective.

I've been thinking about this one for awhile, as it's the element that gutted a design I'd been putting major effort into some years ago.

What I learned is, I'm somewhat ashamed to say, embarassingly obvious. An RPG doesn't bother to simulate the entire lifecycle of an orc tribe, the ecosystem of a forest, or the psychology, planning and movement of a badguy within a vast interstellar empire. Why should it be required to do these things just because the subject matter has changed?

In good RPGs, we're presented with set pieces drawn from the narrative situations that are supposed to reflect the game's larger world. Somebody's dog is missing. Drugs are getting into a town. A thief has stolen a magic helm. etc. etc.

Why can't we do the same thing for being the guild leader? Abstract the running of the guild and tie its success to player quests/missions: One of our scouts is missing, and finding him will stop an evil NPC from gaining power; our members are being poisoned by some drug, find and destroy the source; a thief has stolen a quest item given to our guild by a dying king, find him before we lose face.

It's important that the player feel in control, yet I think it's perfectly legitimate to use the ancient notion that the more power you have, the more bound you are to the office (in effect, losing personal power). I'd change the quest givers into advisors to do this, and put in really simple RPG related missions / rules for the guild, such as "We make X a week, but if we take on this challenge and win, we'll make X plus Y, at least until the other guilds catch up in Z weeks."

I think every aspect and type of guild could be run this way. Let's say your selling something. The quests are all about getting a series of things to market. Bandits could block a road; an inventor could require a side quest; rare ingredients might require the negotiation of a treaty and the capture of a wayward prince / princess. But ultimately, you do no micromanagement and the guild unfolds as a result of quests. (Morrowind did this very lightly, in the building of Ravenrock in Solsteim).

In terms of wandering, exploring and vanquishing challenges, this could be tied into spreading the guild and getting services as a result. I've seen RPGs where there is no shop until the player does something to cause one to be set up. Player guilds could do this, providing say free ammo of a certain type and a place to lay your head while you recover.

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As well as that, if you don't make it so that your gameworld responds to your actions (either yourself personally or your organization), having an organization in a static gameworld won't provide any interesting gameplay

This I agree would be a problem, but I think it's a problem anyway with RPGs in general. What I would like to see is the most bare bones reactive world. If the world and the story are good, I don't think you have to do overkill here-- it just has to be the semblance of change. Spawning more pirates / monsters / etc., then spawning more guardian class NPCs and less soft, non-combat NPCs, for example, would go a long way to telling me that something is happening in this part of the world.

That's an excellent idea there. You could also have guild/organization gameplay be purely about having more story lines being made available to you, without any of the dynamic gameplay you see in simulation games - you'd actually "role-play" the story about being a guild master and his aides.

There could be a number of ways to do this, but I guess my personal preferences about this topic would still be to keep the pure simulation-type of gameplay you find in economic trading games separate from RPGs. You could mix and match, boil it down to more simpler mechanics and find happy mediums, but I seriously doubt the end result could appeal to either group of people seeking rich experiences in either role-playing or simulation, for one thing, I could see people who are more familiar with simulations might complain about the limited fixed amount of things you could do with your guild and its reoccurring scripted material (I know I would be one of them). But then again, the end result might be that it appealed to lots of people who found the system to be extremely enjoyable (I might be converted if I actually got to try such a game). Who knows, who's to say.

I do know that in some of the well-known Dungeons & Dragons computer games such as Baldur's Gate, and etc, do have dynamic worlds in some form or fashion where new situations and circumstances spawn later depending on your actions before (mainly driven by its morality system). If one could adopt this type of mechanic into a guild-based gameplay (where instead of morality you replace that with money), then you could probably and possibly end up with creating an interactive enough guild-based gameplay in an RPG.

[Edited by - Tangireon on October 4, 2008 2:03:10 AM]

Having guild, or other things change due to events the player caused earlier in the game would be great. We need to get away from the model of either the plot is linear and to fail is death, or the plot is branched and each branch has to lead to new content. The first is restrictive and the second becomes prohibitive in giving each branch enough of the designer's thought and creativity. Instead we need to allow minor changes that dont necessitate a major plot shift, but can have effects on the environment the player is playing through this plot in later in the game.

Perhaps a fail at a quest doesnt mean reload, and it doesnt mean a change in plot, maybe it just means the guild doesnt have resources to help you in future quests that it would otherwise, or that your enemies have resources they wouldnt have had.