Handling Roleplay. in Design Philosophy

ID:266042
 
Aug 14 2011, 9:34 pm
I have been around a few fan-games and a few original roleplay games. From my experience it seems most of the roleplay games either have a form of stats which involve no roleplay talent to throw around and win a battle with. Or they have no stats at all and players with the most influence in the game seem to win all the fights. Recently I have been thinking of methods to have stats involved along side roleplay.

First Idea: Have the basic stat system with no issues but have a unique battle system TBE(Turn based Emote) which would be like the basic final fantasy games but when you finish picking what technique/spell you want an emote box would appear. When you finish typing your emote in the box the opponent would get the message of their *attempt* roleplay which would bring up that player's *Counter* options in which afterwards they would be able to put in their emote. The game would calculate the outcome of if the counter fails then it would tell the person countering to rewrite their emote in the scenario of failing to do what they wanted. After that person gets hurt or succeeds to dodge,block,counter whatever it would post the two emotes to the world. Even as the game starts to get "Cleaned" up have some sorta system to boost a roll by word count or by use of special words.

Second Idea: Warning Ridiculous Idea!: Having like an Icon/MUD hybrid. For instance in order to move your character at all you would need to roleplay the action and your mob using pretty much only findtext() would follow the command. For instance, I have a characture sitting at a table I would emote * Stands up from the table and begins to walk towards the door* findtext("stand") would get my char of the chair findtext("walk","door") would be noticed and the character would head towards door if only one existed within view() else multiple doors character would stand up then go ? above his head. Battling in this system would be like the above system but there wouldn't be an input("options") it would simply be using findtext() to find the keywords you where given when you learned a technique or spell.
#1 Aug 15 2011, 10:40 am
The best way to handle roleplaying, but to keep stats, it to hide the stats. Don't even tell your players that the stats exist, just tell them that if they train hard, they'll get stronger. Players would have different ways of testing their strength, running speed test, bench test for strength, ect. They'll be able to see the effects of their training, but won't see their stats. When two players fight, you can use the turn based fighting system. Players pick their attack out of an ability list, and emote with that attack. Players can't immediately judge each others strength, so combat starts to become a challenge. You never know when the next opponent is going to rock your world.
#2 Aug 15 2011, 2:59 pm
In response to Danbriggs (#1)
I see the sense in what you say, but my opinion is the exact opposite. I like to have all the game mechanics be as transparent as possible in order to allow deep strategization.
#3 Aug 15 2011, 3:03 pm
My approach to the issue you described is to keep the stat growth fairly low. If I spend hours on end fighting the same enemy, each vital stat should grow, at the very most, as the square root of the time invested. The cube root is probably better. That can be done by having all vital stats depend linearly on level, and the experience required to go from level n to level n+1 be on the order of n^2.
#4 Aug 15 2011, 4:22 pm
In response to Pepper2000 (#2)
Pepper2000 wrote:
I see the sense in what you say, but my opinion is the exact opposite. I like to have all the game mechanics be as transparent as possible in order to allow deep strategization.

At that point, you cease to have a "Role Playing Game" as discussed, and have an action RPG with a slight focus on emoting. If numbers are shown, people will play with the numbers, not the Roleplaying. A proper RP shouldn't NEED all of the numbers displayed for all to see because it should be able to rely upon the imagination and actions of the players.

And thus we arrive at the issue of Roll play vs Role play. The first being Pepper's preference, where everything is based on numbers and such, the second being "true" roleplay, in which everything is based on the emoted actions of the characters and depends upon having honest roleplayers who won't try to cheat the system.

Most RP games these days have some balance of these two, but it tends to be akin to a slider with Roll on one end and Role on the other, with the developers picking a spot somewhere in the middle and saying it will be X% roll play and Y% role play.
#5 Aug 15 2011, 4:36 pm
In response to Robertbanks2 (#4)
That's a good point. What it really comes down to is different styles, and though I've stated my preference on the spectrum, by no means do I think that is the only choice.
#6 Aug 15 2011, 8:38 pm
In response to Danbriggs (#1)
Danbriggs wrote:
The best way to handle roleplaying, but to keep stats, it to hide the stats. Don't even tell your players that the stats exist, just tell them that if they train hard, they'll get stronger. Players would have different ways of testing their strength, running speed test, bench test for strength, ect. They'll be able to see the effects of their training, but won't see their stats. When two players fight, you can use the turn based fighting system. Players pick their attack out of an ability list, and emote with that attack. Players can't immediately judge each others strength, so combat starts to become a challenge. You never know when the next opponent is going to rock your world.

Neither of my ideas would have had the stats visible to players. Thank you for your suggestion but I am looking at gameplay elements I already have my own established vision of how stats and mechanics will be handled thank you for your input though.
#7 Aug 15 2011, 8:48 pm (Edited on Aug 15 2011, 8:53 pm)
In response to Robertbanks2 (#4)
Robertbanks2 wrote:
Pepper2000 wrote:
I see the sense in what you say, but my opinion is the exact opposite. I like to have all the game mechanics be as transparent as possible in order to allow deep strategization.

At that point, you cease to have a "Role Playing Game" as discussed, and have an action RPG with a slight focus on emoting. If numbers are shown, people will play with the numbers, not the Roleplaying. A proper RP shouldn't NEED all of the numbers displayed for all to see because it should be able to rely upon the imagination and actions of the players.

And thus we arrive at the issue of Roll play vs Role play. The first being Pepper's preference, where everything is based on numbers and such, the second being "true" roleplay, in which everything is based on the emoted actions of the characters and depends upon having honest roleplayers who won't try to cheat the system.

Most RP games these days have some balance of these two, but it tends to be akin to a slider with Roll on one end and Role on the other, with the developers picking a spot somewhere in the middle and saying it will be X% roll play and Y% role play.

I already am 100% sure that players will not be able to see stats. To be honest in either idea showing stats doesn't seem like a good idea since they won't really change from the start of the game to when your epic much. Both games will have it so player's advantages will be based of their skills, techinques, and powers. These will grow as players use them and the more they learn, discover, create the better they will become rather then just their stats.


The first idea talks about using a method of using the word count in the emote (this is limited to 300 words max going towards stats they can write more but won't gain anything but a good story of course) to add a boost to the combat element. The emoting would just be there for looks you would actually gain an advantage if you put a bit of effort into your roleplay. Emotes would all be logged so if a player is repeating the same things to much or is just typing giberish they could be punished accordingly.

The second idea which like I said is a bit on the strange side and I didn't think many people would understand it would actually have no stats at all. The roleplay would be read by the game via findtext() and the game would have the character do actions. Since in a roleplay you never actually connect with attacks it would pop up with a (combat) sysmbol over the players icon to let the other play know that they will be damaged if they don't emote back. Battles in this second idea would be won by emoting skill alone...And junk you collected via missions, farming, learning.