I've been fiddling around with the idea of making a true roleplaying game on byond. Besides the fact that I probably lack the coding ability and the raw time to do this, I still enjoy planning things out and thinking about how things would work.
In case people don't know what I mean by a true roleplaying game, the basic concept of it is that roleplaying would be strictly enforced. The easiest thing to say from there is 'think Hedgerow Hall', but some people haven't played it and getting away from mimicing Hedgerow Hall in all but its basic concept is exactly what I'm trying to do.
The economy would be completely player driven, and there would be all the manner of basic craft skills. Technology would be middle ages-esque, so there would be plenty of professions to go around.
Now, what I'd actually like to discuss are the basic elements of such a game that would make it feel and play well? What do you people think that anyone who would risk setting out on an endeavure like this should keep in mind? What are your deepest, most innermost thoughts on roleplaying games?!
That is all.
ID:153122
 Dec 27 2004, 5:27 am
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You can have NPCs, however, said NPCs cannot have a role in the economy.
Plus, the thing that generally trashed roleplay is shopkeepers. By creating a shopkeeper with unlimited money, and towns that aren't affected by the infinite cashflow players are dumping into them, you create a major problem that willprevade throughout the entire game: BAD ECONOMY. A true roleplaying game is hard. All it requires is a good staff of selected people to moderate and deal with the trolls. It's like killing by example. A troll isn't going to stick around if he is banned enough times, no matter how good a game. Of course, there are a ton of bad roleplayers out there. People who seem to think "Bob the destroyer" is a great roleplaying name. These people also tend to create characters that are "time travelors from an alternate reality"... You almost wonder if they do this intentionally to piss you off... The idea is good, but the implementation is where you have to watch out. A lot of people played HrH just to accumulate items. This wasn't so bad, because usually these people were nice and just walked around and scrounged for food most of the time. I had the happy experience of meeting five such players. Unfortunately, they didn't have the scrounging skill. They beat me into unconsciousness and then robbed my burrow --which I was in. I began to starve, as I was having a bad row with scrounging, and couldn't find any food, so alltogether I was having a rough time with unconsciousness that day. To make matters worse, a "Thieves' guild" was erected close to my burrow. I wanted to kill all of those people. Point is, any game, no matter how simple can be ruined by trolls. Not that all HrH bandits were trolls, but a lot of them were mute --but abused the emote to talk, thus creating a problem. Just make certain your players KNOW that "lol" is not acceptable in roleplay conversation. | |
Wizkidd0123 wrote:
Also, if you want roleplaying, you simply can't have NPCs. Unfortunately, if you want it to be much of a game, you simply must have NPCs. Piles and piles of them. Otherwise you'd need an exceedingly tiny world or an exceedingly large playerbase to keep the world populated, and even then you'll run into problems. You'd end up with a top-heavy society--you'll have tons of business moguls, independent adventurers, famous wizards, etc., and virtually no butlers, clerks, janitors, and other menial workers that keep the world running, because no one wants to sit there and do that all day. I've never really aspired to make a 100% true roleplaying game, but all my ideas for... hmm, how should I describe it? Self-sustained games, maybe? Anyway, my game outlines for that sort of thing tend to center around a master-servant relationship for players to NPCs; NPCs exist almost exclusively as extensions of players. I think this is an acceptable trade-off; it does sacrifice some of the "authenticity" of the experience, but I think it should keep the game world running much more smoothly. | |
Wizkidd0123 wrote:
Don't make it a MUD. Plenty of developers think that turning it into a MUD will make people RP, but they're wrong. Just please, don't do it. On the contrary, in my experience, roleplaying in a text MUD environment is better because it lets you use more imagination, while playing in a tile-based world tends to remind you that you're in a stat-based game. Between games like HrH and some of the roleplaying text MUDs I've played, the text MUDs defenitelly turned up a lot more roleplaying. But then, in my experience, typical combat RPGs are better served with a tile-based environment, because playing text-based stat-increasing combat games just isn't as much fun as playing a tile-based stat-increasing combat game. But neither a tile-based game nor a text-based game nor any other game for that matter will result in much roleplaying if it isn't well designed to support it, or it doesn't have a playerbase willing to support it. -- I don't really have any experience in designing a roleplaying game, but a few things I would suggest based on the ones I've played would be:
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Leftley wrote:
Unfortunately, if you want it to be much of a game, you simply must have NPCs. What about Hedgerow Hall? That didn't have NPCs. I mean, it had its trainers and its food-giving shrew (Sylas was his name, I think), but not the type of NPC that you're talking about. | |
Foomer wrote:
On the contrary, in my experience, roleplaying in a text MUD environment is better because it lets you use more imagination, while playing in a tile-based world tends to remind you that you're in a stat-based game. Between games like HrH and some of the roleplaying text MUDs I've played, the text MUDs defenitelly turned up a lot more roleplaying. Personally, I've never had the patience for text MUDs. I can't think of one time when I've played a text MUD that doesn't make me think that I'd might as well read a book. Actually, I like reading anyway, but that's not the point. What I meant when I said that, however, was not that text MUDs shouldn't be used (Well, now that I look at it, I did, but that's not what I meant to say <_<) but that many developers think that by turning their game into a MUD, they'll attract RPers, and this is usually not the case. It takes alot of work to make a true roleplaying game. This is largely due to the lack of people willing to roleplay. It is not due to the graphics, or in the case of a MUD, the lack of them. | |
Wizkidd0123 wrote:
Leftley wrote: Yeah, and I'm sure everyone just loved spending countless hours in their shop making cups. Just because HrH did it doesn't mean it should be done. :P | |
Wizkidd0123 wrote:
Personally, I've never had the patience for text MUDs. I can't think of one time when I've played a text MUD that doesn't make me think that I'd might as well read a book. Actually, I like reading anyway, but that's not the point. Makes me wonder if you have the patience for roleplaying. :P | |
Foomer wrote:
Makes me wonder if you have the patience for roleplaying. :P I used to play HrH for hours: that's not it; I love roleplaying. The problenm with text MUDs is that they create vicious cycles: MUDs generally don't have people on since most people don't play MUDs. Therefore, when I log onto a MUD, it's usually empty, and in a game geared toward roleplaying, there's nothing to do when it's empty. | |
Foomer wrote:
Yeah, and I'm sure everyone just loved spending countless hours in their shop making cups. Just because HrH did it doesn't mean it should be done. :P Yes, but Leftley said "Unfortunately, if you want it to be much of a game, you simply must have NPCs." He didn't say that you should, but that you must. I was talking about HrH as prove that a game can do without NPCs. :P | |
Well, if HrH had had more NPCs doing menial tasks for players, then maybe the players could have spent more time doing something fun, like roleplaying.
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Wizkidd0123 wrote:
Yes, but Leftley said "Unfortunately, if you want it to be much of a game, you simply must have NPCs." He didn't say that you should, but that you must. I was talking about HrH as prove that a game can do without NPCs. :P You can have a roleplaying game without NPCs participating, but it will suffer from it--just as HrH did. Bajillions of shops everywhere and no one to run them. Round-the-clock policing was unheard of. It's no surprise that a lot of players turned to being isolated and self-sufficient, because there was no reliable way to maintain character relationships and interactions while offline (which was, for most players, most of the time). | |
NPCs and moderating aside, what other elements do you think would really make an online roleplaying game? One thing I've been thinking about is combat.
I think that it would really need to be dangerous. In some games you can play today you'll have a trillion health and only deal a few hundred damage per hit. This is definately unrealistic, and does nothing but encourage combat. As fighting is frequently nothing but an outlet for 'bandits' or 'grievers', in my mind it needs to have two real phases: the running phase, and the if you continue you risk dieing phase. So, any non-npc or moderating thoughts to be put on the table? | |
I think that it would really need to be dangerous. In some games you can play today you'll have a trillion health and only deal a few hundred damage per hit. This is definately unrealistic, and does nothing but encourage combat. I think you're missing the point. People don't do combat in a game directly because of the fact that it is unrealistic or safe but because that's generally the only part of the game with enough depth to be any fun. If you want people to do other things you have to make it enjoyable enough for people to want to do them :P. And if you don't want people to fight why implement it in the first place rather than go out of your way to make it unfun enough so that people won't do it? | |
Every choice has a consequence. I see no reason to not punish a player for joining in combat for no reason. So what if he loses an arm, or for that matter bleeds to death. He shouldn't have initiated combat.
As for those who get attacked, it sucks, but if the developer implements the capability for people to be killed, that's their decision --even if it is a dumb one. | |
Illarion. Before it got big, there were "hoarders" who played. The sole reason they played was to get money.
They never roleplayed, they never did anything except dig around for ore. If you put an item on the ground for half a second, they'd run up and take it. Since at that time, the combat engine was NPC only, you couldn't do anything about it. When the "application process" was implemented, they ALL disappeared. The best way, in my opinion, to keep roleplay is to take player applications via e-mail. | |
With respect-
What IS roleplaying? I'm not quite sure what it really is. Also: The game I'm developing has no combat (it's based around exploration). I've realised that combat really isn't that important, at all. (although you can, very rarely come across a wild animal, and have to throw something to distract it, etc.) | |
Well, I'm going to say that there are three levels of "roleplaying".
The first level is what you see around here. People playing RPGs or "roleplaying games" where you get a character with stats, find weapons, slay monsters, yadda yadda. Basically a combat system with some extra frills added along with a chat system. But you're still a character, playing a role, and so on... The second level is a mix between player interaction and a game system, usually including combat. More like your typical D&D game, I'd say, but with more emphasis on interaction between players and less emphasis on combat and numbers. The third level is basically a big game of "who's line is it anyway?", where everyone is playing on-the-spot acting as if they were writing a book realtime. These kind of roleplaying games don't really need anything more than a way to talk and act, and numbers are mostly useless. Anyone can play the first level. You'd need a group of players willing to play along for the second level, and it'd take an experienced group of roleplayers to make the third level work. I find when people speak of "roleplaying", they're usually refering to level two, while speaking of "RPGs" refers to level one. I've never even seen a level three game in action, I've just read some of the resulting "scripts". Search for "What is roleplaying?" on Google for more information. | |
Also, if you want roleplaying, you simply can't have NPCs. I mean, HrH had its trainers and, of course, that food-giving animal (I forgot his name. Was it Sylas?), but they never had story NPCs or anything like that.
Finally, roleplaying games completely depend on "atmosphere", meaning that you shouldn't have "[Player] has logged in/out" messages, and that any kind of non rolep[laying needs to be quickly and efficiently dealt with.