Computer RP Software

[GenericAnimeBoy]

It seems to me looking at computerized RPGs that many of them have static gameplay which revolves either around action and leveling up or around the development of a preprogrammed, linear plot.  Other games have now come out which allow you to do whatever you want to do or be just about anyone you wish to be (eg. Morrowind), which is alright except for the fact that it scares off more casual gamers.

Most human-controlled RPG's are text-based (at least all the ones that I've seen), which is not a good medium for people who are very visual.

Obviously, true RP is inaccessible to some people because of either their lack of imagination or lack of patience, both necessary virtues in RP.

I would like to begin an idea for the middle ground--to reach people who otherwise would not play RPG's.  The game would be a sort of real time world managed by players at various levels.  Strictly as an analogy, I would compare it to SimEarth + SimCity + The Sims--sort of like one player manages the world on a large scale, others manage more detailed workings of the mid levels of the world--cities and such, while having to respond to the decisions of the first type of player.  Still other players would be able to inhabit the world and interact with one another, responding not only to each other but to world events caused by the other player types.  This could create more focused gameplay while avoiding static plots, characters, and/or worlds.

This concept interests me, and my friends as well, but I would like the opinion of some more experienced gamers.  Am I on the right track here?

[Mark Johnson]

It sounds interesting.  It sounds like something I might want to play.  It doesn't necessarily sound like an RPG though.  Your description is too vague, so I can't really give you any good advice.  You have two options:

1) Write up a short mock-up script of how you imagine a play session being conducted in your mind and post it here.

2) Write a playable "rules-lite" version of the game and post it here.

This forum is for developing games, not ideas for games.  Otherwise you might want to have Clinton or Ron move this over to the RPG Theory forum.

Talk soon,
Mark

[anonymouse]

I'm going to question this. Your ground is very, very shaky.

There are no games that allow you to "be pretty much what you want to be." Tabletop roleplaying has this possibility, and no other games. I play and have played an excessive number of console and PC games over the years, and can think of nothing that fits that utopian ideal.

Certainly not Morrowind; or the other too-often-cited example of the Fallout games.

For the uninitiated, these are commonly billed as "non-linear roleplaying games." What this basically amounts to is a near-nonexistant plotline, with an abundance of "side quests"; that is, slayings, Fed-Ex errands, and the occasional bit of puzzle that have nothing to do with aforementioned plot. They exist to give your character experience/skills/levels/whatever, and somehow increase in power or ability. Many of these might rely on some of the more random skills you have (a Basket Weaving quest if you took points in Underwater Basket Weaving). Mostly, however, it's just killing things.

The trick is that the big boss at the end of the game must be defeated by combat. Always. Always always always. The one exception I can pull out of the air right now is Arcanum, which I know only by hearsay. Supposedly you can Diplomacy your way past him, but playing through the rest of the game as a pure talky-charismatic guy is difficult to the point of frustration.

If what you want is a combat game, excellent: these types of games have that. They usually have a few different kinds of combat, (melee, ranged, sword or polearm, magic, so on), in fact, so you can feel like your character is progressing down a unique path. It's total illusion.

Because if the programmers didn't code it in, you can't do it; and none of them have ever managed to simulate all of reality.

This is not to say that your core idea may or may not be the next great thing. I'm rather concerned about the viability, however, if something like Morrowind is your baseline for possibility.

---

On to the core idea (since I imagine this will get moved to Theory shortly, and best to proceed like it will be)..

What, exactly, differentiates this from the normal GM-Player setup? That the players are managing cities instead of individual characters, at some level? I can see how you could get a couple of Player tiers out of this, but I'm not sure that's really workable.

Or, for that matter, the purview of a roleplaying game. It sounds more like you'd be better off playing or writing some combination of board or computer games, and stringing those together with the usual Crime Fighting and/or Dungeon Crawl.

[xechnao]

Actually what you have addressed the guy had summed it up allready, at least as I understood his post. And to answer your question

What, exactly, differentiates this from the normal GM-Player setup? That the players are managing cities instead of individual characters, at some level? I can see how you could get a couple of Player tiers out of this, but I'm not sure that's really workable.

from his post:

Most human-controlled RPG's are text-based (at least all the ones that I've seen), which is not a good medium for people who are very visual.

GenericAnimeBoy,
I think that your thought is very cool but I don't know if and how it could be possibly made in practice.
One point for your post I wanna make is that while you addressed various levels of players by traditional rpg terminology only the "first" type you are talking about is the player. The other are sort of game masters. This I think could confuse what you are talking about right here. Although I understand why you called them all players.

Do you and your friends know how to make computer programms? If you know programming and can go on with this project then do it. About scripting you could ask then around here but till then you should post to a programming forum. :)

[GenericAnimeBoy]

Thanks for the advice.  Sorry I'm not very familiar with RPG terminology as I haven't done a whole lot of RP myself.  Also, sorry about posting on the wrong forum--this thread should be on theory.

I do appreciate the comments, though.

[Ron Edwards]

And into the RPG Theory forum it goes!

To continue - G.A.B., I'm very interested in your followup to Mark Johnson's options.

Best,
Ron

[Andrew Norris]

We started discussing Neverwinter Nights in the GNS forum a few days back, but the thread didn't really get momentum. I do think that based on your criteria, it might serve your purposes.

To get everyone on the same page, Neverwinter Nights (by Bioware) is a 3D isometric tile-based system using the D&D third edition rules. It differs from traditional CRPGs in that a user may log into a running server as a GM and modify the course of play. In the majority of the sessions my friends and I run, we use it as a client for traditional roleplay sessions.

However, a number of players use it to access "Persistent Worlds", servers which run on a long-term basis and allow for long-running plots. If a group of GMs were to divy up responsibility over a large server, it would begin to approach the type of environment the original poster envisions. In fact, some server operators do just that -- they encourage users to log in and play in a Gamist mode, but have GMs busy in various social groups or geographical areas to stir up 'quests' or other situations in which roleplaying is encouraged.

[GenericAnimeBoy]

Please feel free to ask questions if you want more specific information about this concept, as I am still forming the concept in my head.

Note: References to 'GM' in the following post refer to participants in the game who control and/or affect the game world in order to guide and focus gameplay.  Since I am not very experienced with traditional RP, I am not familiar with the power and responsibilites of the GM, but these participants would not necessarily have the same power and responsibility.

The game of the following type would be massively multiplayer--needing at least 100+ people in order to work effectively and be fun.

A session would be started out by the 'GM' who guides the game a the world level, heretofore referred to as the WM or World Master.  The WM would define the parameters of the world and would create the world's natural laws and game mechanics either by choosing from a set of predefined systems or by scripting their own, then create a world map using objects (and their associated artwork, eg. pictures, sounds, etc.) either preassembled and shipped with the game or his own custom pack.  The WM's tasks in game would be few other than to guide gameplay through his setup of the world map.  His actions would mainly affect the SM's because his power would include such things as natural disasters/acts of God and the distribution of any natural resources used in the game.

Next to join would be the 'GM's who control smaller regions of the world--could be a city, a nation, or whatever subdivision of the game world the WM sets forth as the way the world would be divided.  These participants would be known as SMs or Subworld Masters.  SMs would design their subworld map using their part of the package of objects chosen by the WM.  Their tasks, upon completing and starting a Subworld, would be to guide the gameplay by interacting with characters--for example, an SM in charge of a City would act as a sort of mayor.  SMs would be more involved in the game, and they are probably the closest thing to a traditional GM in this game, but their power is somewhat more limited as control of some gameplay aspects lies with the WM.

Finally, the Players.  Players would be able to create characters from an appropriate selection of races, defined in the game rules chosen by the WM.  The players would be able to choose abilities to learn and would gain skill in their chosen abilities by using them, eg. disarming a trap successfully might give you 2 skill points to Theivery, and disarming a trap unsuccessfully would still give you 1 skill point.  Players could choose the course of their character's life--living as a merchant or a businessman, and even a guard or policeman would be just as feasible as being an adventurer.  The possibilities would depend on the scope and mechanics of the Game World.  Heck, even adventures have gotta have a day job.

There.  The world would proceed from there, with the SMs and Players creating plots, quests and conflicts as needed to keep things interesting, and the WM seeing to it that the SMs do not become abusive--in theory anyway.  In some cases it might even be feasible to have an option of SMs to start wars over each other's subworlds.  In this case the WM would be able to exercise some control over the conflict.

Its a pretty epic scale project, and more of a basis for creating your own game than an actual single game concept.  I know that the create your own adventure game has been done before (Forgotten Realms: Unlimited Adventures, etc. ad nauseum) but this game would be different in that the world's characteristics are predefined, but the story is created by the players.

Other stuff:
--Expansion packs would be easy--just toss together extra object packs and world scripts for WM's to play with, which would make the game an easy sell with the publishing company which distributed it.  Provided that the game

--Given my current limited experience with programming, I probably would not be able to pull something like this off from basic code to completion at present if my life depended on it, especially from a graphical standpoint.

--Chief among the difficulties of the game is the fact that WMs will have to be very patient people in the beginning days of their world, as SMs are not likely to be very plentiful.  That and meaningful play really can't take place without at least 4 people--1 WM, 1 SM, and 2 players.

I think that about covers it.

[xechnao]

The possibilities would depend on the scope and mechanics of the Game World.

So why do you need worldmasters? You could cover their task through this couldn you? Or I could pose this question the other way around: why do you need a scope and mechanics when they fall under world masters task?
I think you could handle a script where it wouldn't be necessary to have worldmasters in your concept to make it functional. For instance the computer could calculate the total negative magic being used around py players and create phenomena as weather by the rules of meteorology. You could do the same about earthquakes if you could design the tectonic plates, their tendencies and their frequencies of movement every 50 years for example and the propable scale of the force of their movement. Computers can do this stuff and it ain't that hard as it seems. All you need to do is make the script and then programme it. For each of it you need work but over here you could only address questions of opinions and tastes about the scripting of the world and its mechanics. But to do this means you should make specific questions: for example about the type of the terrain of the world and its resources, races,
civilizations, cultures, technology levels and the likes and how could all these balance to various approaches of playing. When you have a question of this type you can address it here. About the rest I advice if you are serious about it to find a team that is capable of doing this programming and make it working on the script you want to make.