Programmed or Face to Face?

[FzGhouL]

Alright, so I'm working on an RPG that will most likely be the RPG I spend the rest of my life working on, Speed and Spirit.

One of the key aspects of Speed and Spirit is the world is an integral part of the game: I can play any time period with my current system, Fantasy, CyberPunk, blah blah, everything. The system can you know, be put into any world...expect now.

I am thinking it is better to have a world chiseled and everything defined, so the mechanics of the game are more thoroughly defined, being in the context of a world with history and etc.

Unfortunantly, if I do that, I get "Greedy" with my RPG. -> No Other Game Masters Allowed. The players of course write a lot of the story, but it makes me squirm to think of any one else writing a majority of it, because the World is so important, and stuff...that it seems to twist it. It would be like playing a Tolkien derived RPG. If you try and use that as a supplement to the Set LOTR World, it sucks.

So, the World in Speed and Spirit...is being defined by me slowly over time, its hard without much freetime + too many other addictions.

But the culminating point of the post is: I have a lot of freak'n awesome plot ideas that are thorough, powerful, and VERY CRITICAL to the World. Notice this makes it very strict...But I still want room for player input.....

So, should I just jot down my ideas, and play with my players?
Or should I take my ideas, and program a computer RPG, using the system an story?

My current stand point is:
The Four Main Stories will be played with players, recorded, and then converted to a computer RPG.
The Eight Side stories will be directly made into computer RPGs.

Why do I want to make a Computer RPG? Because my "Greediness" as a GM makes me HATE the idea of exporting my system without a plot, but I like my system so much, and my stories so much that I would like to export them. A book wouldn't do it justice because an RPG modelled combat system in a book would be weird...And the system by itself can't be published because of the "Greediness"

Now, for length...hehe...
Combat System Rules are 46 Pages long, with no examples, no repeating of the same rule, no Magic included yet, nor no plot...yeah. (I am writing a more friendly version of it, but though its that long, its really not too overwhelming, I have 5 players, and people tend to pick up on the system fairly fast because it is intuitive). This length makes me want to put it in Computer RPG format, because then it would be a bit more simple for players to understand...
Stories: The Four Main Stories Outlines are around 11 Pages each for a fairly skeletal outline, each story if written as a book, would most likely be over 300 pages.
The Eight Side Stories are about 5 page outlines, maybe 200 pages if they were stories.
And the Myths, History, Politics, Economics could be summarized in a 50 page book.

If I were to translate that to a Computer RPG, I'm expecting each page to be about 30-45 minutes of gameplay (Maybe 5-20 minutes, I'm adding in fill time for walking around, failing to do things right, etc). The combat system, though it runs smoothly in a human mind, is...devilish to program.

So yeah, with all the said stuff...


So, should I just jot down my ideas, and play with my players?
Or should I take my ideas, and program a computer RPG, using the system an story?

Like I said, this will be basically my life time hobby, so I'm ok with using up a lot of time on it, but if it loses sight of one of my goals: Story, System, and Personality, then I need to think of a way to present it better.

By the way, if you are wondering, I'd be using RPGMaker XP to program (Indeed I have started with one of the Side Stories, and the battle system looks like it will be...50,000 lines of code. I'm up to 1,000.)

[Selene Tan]

What role do you see the mechanics playing in the plot? You say that "A book wouldn't do it justice because an RPG modelled combat system in a book would be weird." That suggests that you consider the combat to be an intrinsic part of your storyline. How important is the combat system to the plot? What would happen if you took it out?

I have a lot of freak'n awesome plot ideas that are thorough, powerful, and VERY CRITICAL to the World. Notice this makes it very strict...But I still want room for player input.....

What exactly do you see players contributing to the game? Why does your story require an interactive medium?

In my opinion, you should revise your storyline so it doesn't require an RPG system and write a novel, then take another stab at your RPG system on its own.

[FzGhouL]

Basically, the world defines the system and the system defines the world. I mean, I could just narrate battles, but, that loses alot of the flavor.

Players contribute ALOT...
1) Their Characters are the main characters, they are VERY well defined.
2) This generates ideas for me, so, it gives me alot of extra input.
3) It gives it a personel feel when I think of how I played through it with friends and the fact that the characters decisions were made by the character, and not the story writer, makes everything more believeable.

But yeah, its pretty much decided I will keep my current path.
I will most likely finish programming the side story in August. But yeah, your questions helped justify my thoughts in my mind.