I was churning an idea around in my head and i thought id throw it out to public and see what you guys think.
I was playing an RPG today and the character creation screen started to bother me incredibly...there was just too much to do such as assiging individual points to stats and stuff, WAY too much thinhking for me. So i thought, why not have it randomly generate a character for you and you play that guy out.
example: Ryan joins the game for the first time and gets assigned a mage trainee. so what would happen would be ryan is put into the "mage" school for whatever race he was assigned..and the background is that he was put into there for his potential in magic or the town he was born in was a big magic oriented town...then he lives out his life going to school there and learning the crafts until he is given his diploma and set out upon the world.
now some of you are thinking hey...what if ryan doesnt want to be a mage. Hes got more options, one is grow up as a mage and hate it (like real life) or run away from mage school and follow his true passion...and goto bard school and everything plays out normally. If he wans to get real crazy he could even run away from mage school and live on the streets learning what he can to survive (remind anybody of any class?)
So please leave your feedback on this system
ID:152794
 Oct 10 2005, 12:21 pm
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Oct 10 2005, 12:51 pm
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National Guardsmen
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the idea is goos but been done befor in some game cant rember
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I like the idea, and I actually came up with something similar for an experience and ranking system for my game, which has not been created yet due to it's complexity.
If it is a game that is different from others, people are not going to instantly learn everything about it. The game should give the option to be different from your predefined class, or merely have a class as more of a guideline than a rule. What I thought up myself was that player's pick their 'specialty', which is like a class here. The specialty is what your character is supposed to be good at, but it doesn't limit you. In game, you would be able to select any job you can choose. Early on, it is more of a guideline for the job you choose. Later in the game when you establish your character, your specialty will somewhat determine what 'path' your character can take, and restrict certain things. For example, you choose your specialty as doctor. You can choose any job you are applicable for (have enough skill points from the host) in the beginning, but after a certain point you cannot do jobs like commanding the ship or maintaining the engines, because your character is now specially trained to be a doctor. | |
I have a system like this in place for one of my games. It generates the character for you. Its based heavyily on real life by way of only allowing players to select certain qualities that can be changed in real life such as hair color. The rest are all generated based on genetic principles (i.e. people with lighter hair are more likely to have lighter eyes and vice versa). I think it will allow for players to be more attached to their characters through pride in appearance etc.
Body type is another generated facet. No one is born knowing what they will look or be built like. Having it generated effects the characters statistics and generally effects the characters ability to do certain tasks. Rather than an adverse "But I want to be what I want to be!" reaction, I'm hoping that people who are serious about playing the game will become their character and develop a deeper connection to it. So in short, I think generating characters is a good idea. - GunRunner | |
You should have a look at the PlaneShift character creation system, it's quite amazing at least to me.
A general overview is you select your race, modify how you look, and then you can have it assign the points for you, or you can go through and choose what options you want. NWN also does this, but unfortunately a system like this just feels abnormal. You sit there thinking "Erm will the computer do a good job for me, or will I regret letting the computer do it for me at level 30?" Given these points, I suggest you play through every possible combination and see what works and what doesn't, document it, and let future players know what works well and what doesn't. | |
thanks for the ideas. Though im still unsure about general skill assignment. I know people would complain saying hey but i didnt want to start out in mage town or with x amount of magic points. So i was thinking giving the option to change according to what you do during your "lifetime" just as justin said this would be more of a guidline than a restriction...but then i come across two problems:
One of these problems is how Ybom said would i regret who i am at lvl 30? then i thought this part could represent the real life fact of either mid life crisis or regretting what you do in you past life MAYBE even developing a way to allow the user to persei go back in time and changing an event in their life? The other problem is that of advantage. Say a guy is born with potential in magic and learns some magic..then gets smart and leaves magic school and goes and trains in the opposite art/school in order to create "the ultimate character", but all of this can be countered with simple balancing and such. Another idea i thought of was say in each server the person was only allowed to create ONE character and has to live his life and after a certain amount of time passed by (depending on race) the character "dies" and then all of his money/stuff and (maybe even experiences?(or certain skills.)) are then passed down to the next character as if he/she would be a child of the first thus giving them a chance to create a different character to live as the child. This will allow people to ultimatly make a family line that they can build up fame for. Now your thinking people would get angry to have all of the time spent making their character go to waste but with this program the only thing to goto waste would be the experience points gathered, but it would represent the same as if the person actually created two seperate characters. And combat death would be representitive as the person being transported to either "heaven" or "hell" (sorry im a christian.) where they must find a way back to surface life (maybe even just live in this astral plain?) so please leave thoughts again | |