Character Specific Game Goals (SP RPG)

AJ · 2009-11-22T00:20:09

Rather than a game having an overall goal, what do you think about players designing characters which have goals that complete the game for that character?. You have a persistent world that (ideally) runs like some sort of organic simulation. Times change, nations rise and fall, and you get to live out a kind of RPG / life sim experience through it all. But what's the ultimate point? If you can master one general game goal, like kill the evil wizard in the tower of whatever, then you may get closure but having the world continue on may undermine it. Even games that let you play after you've beaten them acknowledge that you'll no longer do anything important-- and an organic simulation implies that new threats will rise again. What would motivate you to want to see how the world changes (and even change it) yet provide each character experience with closure? What about goals that are highly specific and personal to the character you create, and which can evolve as you play? In one game, for instance, you play a wealthy merchant that gets murdered by bandits. In the next, you get to play a sibling, spouse or child that gets character bonuses and goals directly related to your first character's death. That game ends with your victory and peaceful death, but your next character suffers a curse from a mysterious ring taken from the corpse of the first character's murderer. The game journals all of this. Players can pick up new goals from objects they find or special interactions with characters. But the goals either are random (like Life Aspirations in The Sims) and part of a character creation process which rewards the player with character building points the more they accomplish the goals. They also might work like a skill tree, in that past action influenced future choices. So a bloodthirsty pirate, for instance, might have his wealth and pillaging goals turn his heart away from the arts and sciences. Thoughts?

Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by Wavinator November 14, 2009 01:28 AM

19 comments, last by Wavinator 15 years, 3 months ago

Wavinator

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2,020

November 22, 2009 12:20 AM

Quote:
Original post by Alpha_ProgDes
Character classes have general goals

This is a good start. Maybe it could be extended to a character building system where you assemble traits for a class or something like it. I'm thinking this just so you don't have the boredom of automatically knowing that if you're the Warrior class there'll always be a Black Knight in the game world.

Or would you be more of the mind to keep it simple, maybe as a means of giving the player the ability to select their game experience? This has merit because there'd be nothing worse than selecting a class that's not suited for the world (e.g., warrior with nobody to vanquish)

Quote:

Enemies/bosses are determined based on path

I like this because it's amenable to a sort of "it is your destiny" (cue epic Star Wars music [grin]) motif.

If you go with the idea that these guys would be obstacles to your character development I think you could balance open-ended world freedom with strong personal goals. Maybe the advancement is along a particular dimension, as well-- that is, maybe you have a goal to get rid of the Black Knight but that doesn't preclude you wandering about crafting or doing side quests.

Quote:

Characters CAN be the goal

Definitely agree with this. As I've mentioned before, I'd like to embed the characters firmly into whatever strategic or simulation mechanics I can create for the world. Faction leaders are a great example: I'd like to see them expressed as characters which enable the faction to do specific things better than if the leader wasn't there. An Al Capone, for instance, might radically grow a mob faction and give it special abilities. If the player then has methods of affecting that character (such as killing them, influencing who they ally with, or even converting them to a different character type) then you can make the characters goals in and of themselves.