Hey,
I'm planning out a Star Wars game and I'm thinking about going into the role playing area. I'm thinking about what should happen when a player is killed in a Role Playing game. When push comes to shove...or when you get low on hp, your hearts starts to pump and fear sets in, you worked hard on your role playing character's skills, development, and creation! You don't want to lose him now, you've just begun, or you've come so far! The player blast you knocking your health down to 0. What happens?
1. Should the player just lose hour of play and development and start a new? (Most of us wouldn't like that most of time.)
2. Should the player just respawn? (Hard to fit that into an rp game. “I thought I killed you...twice!”.)
3. Should the player have Saves? (A last minute rescue that protects your characters life. Basically like lives and you respawn. Sudden rescues from your NPC Party Members.)
-If they somehow gain their life back, should they keep their stats, or even their name (According to the star wars universe, a Clone, but you'd eventually get a defect of some sort.)
Choose one you'd like, or suggest anything related to the killing of characters. It'd be nice to hear some new ideas.
(How should killing be done in a role playing game? What are you used to? How would you like to see killing done? What are the mistakes of other games?)
-Thanks a lot for the suggestions.
ID:151404
 Feb 22 2011, 3:31 am
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If you want a successful game, do not make the punishment of any action so much that no one will want to come back to it. Since you are making a rpg keep in mind that people will probably have hours invested in their character. Don't do anything that will prevent the gamer from growing an attachment to their character.
A good solution to allow for respawn with some punishment, (lost stats or items, something not that big of a deal), but then disallow the person from reentering the area they died in for a while (but even an hour seems like much). You want to keep people in front of their keyboards for as long as possible. Assuming this rpg will encourage team play, also keep in mind how death would affect a team. In general, you probably want to make it easy for the dead team member to find their way back to their team. Another option that I have considered before is to have a heaven and hell type area where they would have to work their way out of it and back to the land of the living. Not sure how this would fit in Star Wars though. However, this probably isn't a good idea for team play. Just remember, gameplay should always come before realism. | |
s a side-note, this really shouldn't be in classified ads.Sorry, saw Design Philosophy had a topic with code so I automaticly skipped over it : ( Can an admin move it? Thanks | |
Since it's starwars, why not just have it so most times, they'll need to get a robotic limb.
If it's really bad, admins can intervene and make cyborgs out of them (vader, greivous.) But, I do feel perma death is appropriate. I mean, if everyone just keeps coming back and keeps coming back from beyond the grave, then thats sort of retarded... I mean, there's always force ghosts. | |
As this is an RP game you will need to develop a system that stays true to RP but also stays true to the story and plot of the game.
1. When players "die" I am a firm believer that if this is a RPing game dead players should not just pop back up a few minutes later. This makes no sense. In real life and in most fantasy worlds when a person dies, they are dead. Now there are a few exceptions if there are ghost or ways to reincarnate a person so they can come back to life. However as this is a starwar's game it would make more sense that people who die actually die. 2. However a good game does not equate death to punishment. Just because you died doesn't mean you were bad and need to start over completely. You could offer some sort of reward for players who have unlocked special abilities or have lived for a certain amount of time. for instance, if a player lives through 5 days of RP maybe when they do die they can retain some of there stats in there next life. OR if the player kills 500 enemy NPCs they might unlike a special weapon so when they do die there next save can use a really cool upgraded weapon. 3. Because this is starwar's you could always go the clone route and just say that they player has come back as a clone and even still use some of the same aspects as what I explained above. Players should be allowed saves but when they are killed they should auto save so they cant cheat there way out of death. Of course if they were killed wrongly then you could always allow moderators to to revive players before they make a new character. If characters somehow do gain there life back then they should have some sort of explanation and most likely lowered states. I think someone else mentioned cyborg parts? I think that might be a good idea. | |
Permanent death. Make sure player characters count for something. If a player defeats a giant which was threatening some city, have the city council award the player with a statue or somesuch. Let the player break into the royal mint and become overpowered and rich. Maybe let him share some of his riches with the player's other characters, such as through a bank. Then provide ample opportunity to kill that very character. Permanent death just allows you so many more roleplaying opportunities, not having to worry about fairness or balance as much.
http://eve.klaki.net/heist/ - if you can do this in a game with just 'clones', permanent death is justified. | |
I would argue that permanent death in most online games breaks any balance. In effect you create a game where people who have been playing for a while have all the power and can kill new players easily. And no matter the game, there are always those people who will be the jerk to do so. It rewards the original players while preventing anyone new from getting into the game.
Any effort to prevent this reduces the realism factor anyway. Eve doesn't have permanent death. Having clones is just another penalty system. Also, according to my quick research right now, Eve allows for insurance to be taken out on your stuff. This is just another means of punishment. Instead of taking money away after the character dies, you take their money away before they die. | |
I don't think a game with permanent death needs balance - it needs opportunities for creativity. Having an overpowered character is fun. Allow characters to eternalize themselves by doing something grand, if they're daring enough. Allow a player to become a terrifically powerful lich by stealing a tome from an ancient archmage, if he is cunning enough, and if he dares take the huge risk of losing his character to do so - and then have players and NPC factions group up to kill him, perhaps. I don't like balance and I don't agree with the amount of consideration it gets from game designers.
If you are concerned about PKing - simply discourage it. Have factions chase players who PK, so that those players risk their hard-earned powerful characters if they dare do so. This is something that can be solved through clever game design, there's no need to abolish permanent death because of FUD like this. And I am aware Eve doesn't have permanent death - that's not the point. The base philosophy is this: the more you might lose, the more you stand to gain. | |
I prefer the "lose half stats, start over as a relatively unknown character" approach for games where death should be unavoidable.
If the strongest player in the game dies, you either would need to reset his stats, or explain the plotvoid of where this new god-tier character pops in from. It's why I hate the idea of stats in RP games, especially if Death is involved. In a more "Casual" form of Death (IE: Competition things, think G Gundam), I could see no loss of stats, but this involves certain gametypes and a very set style. | |
Moussiffer wrote:
As this is an RP game you will need to develop a system that stays true to RP but also stays true to the story and plot of the game. I like this idea, you'd die, but you wouldn't feel as bad for losing your character because you'd finally get your hands on this weapon, or even just to retain some of your stats. But to add another depth to it, what about Certain deaths (Like a saber slash from a sith) allow you to get the EXP or whatever of your previous life and using it to re-level their new character in a different way than their previous guy. | |
I like that idea. I think that with a perma death system there need to be limitations to what people can do after they die especially when it comes to getting stuff back because lets say I was a wizard and really powerful but was killed. Most people will just remake as another wizard and get there stats back to keep playing as that same character or the same type of character with a different name. My theory is that instead when the player goes to remake you block the wizard race from them and block that name that they used so that they have to make a new character and new name. This way players have the chance play as all of the races, instead of just choosing one and sticking with it. This way if they do keep there EXP and remake they don't remake as the same player with similar or the same stats and just continue that life. This is a great way to make sure that RP is continued, and is a lot better than killing someone and then them coming back to life 5 minutes later looking for revenge.
Normally I would say that if you are going to give back stats when a player dies it should be 1/3 - 1/4 of the stats they used to have. This way there new character isn't extremely over powered unless there last character was extremely over powered. And, at that point if the person when the person remakes they have time to establish the new character and only have to train a little before they are able competently play with others. | |
For a Star Wars game such as this, you can do something like the stat reduction, but to save you all that trouble of explaining why a character is still alive, simply use this approach. Feign Death. When your character is reduced to 0 hp or whatever, he/she falls unconscious and wakes up a few minutes later in a hospital. Stats are reduced slightly, but it brings the penalty of death down slightly. ALSO, How your character is when you revive is different based on the level. Say you lose a level every time you die, this allows stronger players to be able to survive near-death experiences several times. Lower level players, whom are weak and still growing, will die relatively easily. When your characters Level falls to 0. They die permanently, this allows balance to take hold. More experienced players being able to keep their best characters, even after multiple defeats. New players characters can be killed easily, and being that they're not very important as is, this allows the player to be less attached. Knowing that they can get right back to their previous height in power in just a few hours again.
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1. A noob killed you in a non-RP way, just to be a douche.
2. You were outdone by a better player.
3. You spent all those hours developing your character in the wrong way.
4. You had a bad day and got killed in a battle that you could have won.
Now how do you solve each of these problems?
1. Have some sort of back-up of some sort in case you were killed in an... illegal way. So to speak. Whether you store dead characters in a savefile, and have players ask admins to restore those characters, or you do it some other way, is up to you. However, this can lead to people constantly asking for characters to be restored when they die.
2. Nothing. You were outdone. Deal with it.
3. Nothing. You learn from your mistakes and make another character, trying to solve the mistakes you made in the dead character's development.
4. Nothing. If you were having such a bad day, you shouldn't have gotten involved in the battle.
I hope some of this helps you solve what you were trying to achieve. As a side-note, this really shouldn't be in classified ads.