[16 Bit] Fundamental Questions

[Evan Anhorn]

Hi all, this is my first post here but I've been watching these forums on and off for a while.  I have, in my opinion, a great set of rules for a roleplaying game I want to publish.  The inspiration is there for me to go forward with this project, the mechanics are largely worked out and are very tight and clean, I am only lacking one thing, which I was hoping I could pick your brains about...

The game I am designing is called "16 Bit" and is a roleplaying game about all those classic 16 bit console RPGs we used to play as kids on the SNES and other systems.  It takes a lot of inspiration from such classics like Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy 3, Lufia, Lunar, Crono Trigger and even a few later ones like Skies of Arcadia and Grandia II.  The mechanics are largely in place and are very evocative of these old school games.

It's hard to really describe what it is I am lacking.  I really have no answer to the most fundamental questions... like, why am I doing this?  How is it going to differentiate itself from standard dungeon-crawl RPGs?  How is it going to feel like one of these old cartridge games and still be tons of fun for a group, and something they look forward to trying out?

The old 16 bit RPGs are very linear in their story, how should my game be?

Players had no control over dialogue in the old games, how should it be in this RPG?

The characters were always on one, overriding, epic quest in the old console games, how should it be in my game?

Traveling every where on foot was important in the old games, but in pen and paper RPGs groups tend to "teleport" between encounters.  How should I handle this in my game?

What do you guys think?

[Ry]

Wow, sounds like you and I have a lot in common in terms of interests. 

But my approach is really different; I'm trying to take other games and play them in a 16-bit-esque setting. 

Those games have linear plots and I'm not sure that's the thing you want to channel.  That'd be like strapping your game onto the weaknesses of those games instead of playing with the fun bits.  If you want to encourage playing to the genre though, look up one of those rpg cliche lists, boil them down to a dozen or so key elements, and reward the players for hitting those notes.

As for "what is my game about"?  I would recommend getting In A Wicked Age by Vincent Baker and playing 5 or 6 sessions of it.  If you don't have a strong player base, if you pick up the game you can play with me in the Play Now group (Skype and Maptool gaming). 

[Evan Anhorn]

I think my main problem is that those console games were so mechanically utilitarian, looking back.  They stole most of their mechanics (hit points, levels, classes) from the original D&D, and even the setup was ultimately pretty bland (you go on a big quest, you fight monsters and gain levels, you save the world).  Yet because of the smooth gameplay, great pixel art and evocative soundtracks, one really felt immersed in the game while playing it.

Well those things are not always easy to capture in pen and paper games.  I know that a successful RPG has to be oozing theme at all times, and I really need to capture this in the play-style somehow, even though the console games "oozed theme" mainly in their graphics and soundtracks (I mean there's a reason you can say "16 bit" and people know immediately what you are talking about).

To steal a line from another thread, the players definitely need "some kind of engaging action that requires some activity or compels interaction with the setting and its interesting details".  I guess linearity has to be done away with so that they players aren't just "along for the ride".  Dialogue has to be somehow interactive yet structured.  The old games were so functional that if you weren't running around and fighting, you were either buying equipment or watching a dialogue cut scene... dialogue with unimportant NPCs was restricted to them simply repeating the same line over and over.

Would it make sense to make a distinction between combat and social encounters (instead of D&D's combat and everything else?).  What I have in mind is something like Burning Wheel's distinction between Fight! and Duel of Wits.  One would be like boss battles, the other would be like dialogue cut scenes.

[Ry]

Well, you don't have 16-bit graphics or evocative retro soundtracks.  So it sounds like you're asking how to capitalize on the strengths of tabletop play to make up the gap caused by the difference of medium... while still capturing what you loved about those games.

I have some other thoughts on this but I'd really like to know what you're trying to capture from the old 16 bit RPGs. 

[Evan Anhorn]

Hehe I guess that is one of my biggest questions, what am I trying to do with this game?  I think I'm not being generous enough about what made me play those games.  Certainly the graphics and soundtrack pulled me in, but I stayed for the character's personal stories.  A lot of those games featured themes like "growing up" and being idealistic and brave, something which resonated with me and my friends in elementary school (whether we knew it or not).

I guess I am trying to capture the epic, Japanese-style quests, where the story always focuses on the dramatic and never the mundane.  Where there was always an overwhelmingly powerful enemy that you had to keep struggling against, and get stronger until you could finally face him.  Where the balance of life was always at stake, with the mystical forces of the world were threatened and unable to defend themselves.

On another note, I think the idea of cut-scene style dialogue encounters is a good step, and perhaps gives me a place to break up the linearity of the game.  In console games, you just watched these scenes, but you had to love them.  The funny, creepy or touching dialogue provided a striking difference from struggling to beat boss monsters and managing battle tactics.  What if my roleplaying game took an entirely different route there, in that it gave control over to the players and GM equally to collectively determine the flow of the dialogue scenes?  With some creativity, players and GM would really connect to the plot through the communal story telling process.  In this way, players could make up the consequences for their own actions, perhaps a dialogue after defeating the enraged and berserk Mana Dragon went like this (warning, classic cheesy dialogue to follow!):

P1 "The old Mana Dragon is finally defeated, but now the Mana Tree is imperiled."
P2 "But without the Mana Tree, the floating kingdoms will certainly fall!  We have failed our families back home!"
P3 "No, I refuse to accept this!  There has to be something we can do?"
P1 "Well we could restore the original Mana Dragon by uniting the Mana Seeds..."

And so on, the players and/or GM have just continued the story line.  The GM would set the scene for each dialogue (with hurdles, so nothing is readily achievable), and the players and the GM would run with it.

[Ry]

It sounds to me that you're looking for a game that makes stories where world-scale conflicts are immediately relevant to the emotional struggles of the player characters, and vice-versa.

[Callan S.]

Hi Galadrin,

Isn't this a little odd? When you first went to play those games, it wasn't to have a classic 16 bit experience, because it was the first time you'd ever played them. You'd never played them before. To make a game who's feature is being a classic 16 bit experience is to make a game entirely unlike the 16 bit RPG you played. It's actual feature was entirely different, since it couldn't have been offering you a classic 16 bit game. You'd didn't even know what that was at the time. Some other feature must have drawn you at the time.

It's speculative, but are you sure you didn't find something special there in those games and go with that, instead of what the game went with? But it's hard to articulate what that special thing is, so your reconstructing the game simply to find that special thing? Just a speculative thought, given the bredth and depth of roleplay, it's probably way off.

[Evan Anhorn]

Well I think the initial pull of having ANY kind of RPG as a kid was certainly attractive (and the flashy graphics and soundtrack only deepened the effect), but there was also a level of storytelling there that was really unique to the JRPG (Japanese RPG) that I want to capture.  It really was different than the western style RPG, that tends to be more gritty, more calculating and more individualistic.

Before this, I became pretty excited about the release of Anima RPG (being published in the US by Fantasy Flight Games).  The more I read about it, the more I realised it was a manga-style roleplaying game... that comes really close to what I want, but anime is ultimately very different than the old games like Final Fantasy and Lufia.

I think you're right, Ryan, I'm after a type of RPG where the characters are intimately involved in something that is also way bigger than them.  Characters are not so individualistic in these games (in D&D, a chaotic neutral character could just say "Save the world?  Naahhh, too dangerous" - in a JRPG, this would be unthinkable).  It's like Star Wars, were the characters are really just functions of the epic plot, rather than carrying on their own free willed lives in a "realistic" setting (which is why dialogue is so brief in those moves, and scenes are cut very quickly to keep the film moving).

I think it makes sense to make it at least partially a communal roleplaying process, so all the players work out the plot to a consensus (although in-character, without making it look like bargaining).  I think it's important that the players sometimes control their characters and sometimes just watch their characters, as all characters are at least a little bit the property of the group (as devices for the story).  The GM should have equal authority in these isolated encounters, no sense in leaving him out, but he shouldn't have total authority like in D&D.

[J. Scott Timmerman]

Hi, Galadrin.

Like you and many other Gen-Y'ers, some of my biggest inspiration for RP comes straight from several console RPGs you've listed right there.  I find, however, a linear story and fixed dialogue kinda takes away from the beauty of pen and paper RPGs.  Whereas music and pretty 65k color sprites can help us get attached to the setting in console RPGs, these things are a bit harder to implement at the game table with current technology.  It might take other means to get players invested in the setting.

The characters were always on one, overriding, epic quest in the old console games, how should it be in my game?

That's perfectly fine!  Of course, it's always good to build up to the quest.  The players don't have to know what/who the big bad is in the first session, or even how the world might be threatened by it/her/him.  I say make the idea that something ominous will eventually come up inevitable to your game.  Promise the players, through cover art and even the rules of the game that they will be dealing with some godly force.  Note that not even the GM needs to know who that is at first.

Traveling every where on foot was important in the old games, but in pen and paper RPGs groups tend to "teleport" between encounters.  How should I handle this in my game?

Cutting out the unimportant stuff, or "Scene Framing," does help keep games from becoming monotonous.  However, you've expressed a strong desire from the world color that comes from exploration and being forced to walk from Point A to Point B continuously.  Of course, there's a difference between cutting out what needn't be said like "Nothing happens that night" or even "my character eats breakfast" and cutting out "The sandy desert wind makes your lips chap as you catch a glimpse of the mechanical towers of Figaro castle; a picture warped by the heat." 

When you're Scene Framing, you can still frame the time in-between!  Describe the color of what happens between Point A and Point B.  Don't go over every stupid detail, like how they set up camp and where they're sleeping unless it's important to the story.  And get the players' permission before you fast-forward time.  They may wish to do something first.  Hell, you could even let them describe the color once in a while. 

Lastly, introduce the detail in sub-plots.  Yeah, you can think up all these awesome scenes, and frame them with eloquent prose, but unless something relevant is going on, the players might not be listening.  A sense of immediacy is hard to achieve with just one overarching big-bad, and looking at your source material, you've probably got dozens of little-bads to deal with before getting to big-bad.  All these little encounters provide the best opportunity for color, because you know you'll have the players' attention, since something is going down.

If I caught what you were saying in that last post right - that the party as a whole is property of the group - I think you're headed in the right direction to get the feeling of communal play going.  Players should be cross-invested in each others' characters.  So something about that other character being in the group contributes directly to my success as a player, in a way more immediate than just strength in numbers.

To go a step further and get them invested in the world so they want to save it, perhaps you could explicitly treat some stats of the world as character assets.  I.E., the more peaceful the world is, the easier it is to travel.  The more Mana/Mako the planet has, the easier the players can use their Magic.  And so on.  If the players see the world itself as the source of their character's happiness and power, they'll surely do everything to keep that resource.  And that ties in to the little discussion you were having with Ryan: that things that happen to the world matter to the PCs, and vice-versa.

-JT

[OnnoTasler]

How is it going to differentiate itself from standard dungeon-crawl RPGs?

I think you already answered this question in one of your own posts:

- character's personal stories
- themes like "growing up" and being idealistic and brave
- Japanese-style quests, where the story always focuses on the dramatic and never the mundane
(and so on)

To achieve this, you should create mechanics who incite the players to act according to this topics. Being idealistic and brave has to be rewarded. You could use black and white Bennies for this purpose - whenever the player do something good, they get a white benny, which they can use to improve their own deeds or hinder the villain. If they do something bad, they get a black one, which the villain can use any time against them...

Also, if I remember correctly, those games always had "special attacks" when two characters worked together. Like, Arkham's "Sword Flurry" and Mila's "Lightning and Thunder" combine, by Mila levitating and Arkham starting to spin, turning his sword into lightning and rush through the enemies like a whirlwind. (In fact, those cool combined attack modes where one of the things I extremely liked in those games) Every character should have a special attack with at least two other characters.

[Evan Anhorn]

That's some really great stuff!  You guys have nailed some very important issues:

-A lurking, ominous threat that becomes more and more real and more and more powerful (and only eventually revealed).  At the same time the players become more and more connected to it (as the only one's who could stop it).  There definitely has to be some mechanism that makes the players the only possible heroes.

-Scene framing will be very important to capture the old aesthetic of the 16 bit genre.  Hand-drawn pixel art was (and still is) quite stunning and took you where you needed to be.  That Figaro castle description by Jason is perfect ; )

-Multiple hurdles should make the campaign feel like they are chasing after the big bad enemy.  Things like little bosses the bad guy throws in their path are great... it shouldn't feel like the players are weakening the big bad guy with every success (he has to seem as if he gets more powerful every day) - only that they are getting closer.  Writing the actual mechanics that reinforce this play-style should be interesting.

-Cross-invested player characters, which intertwine both in their personal stories and destiny, as well as their fighting ability (like the combo moves Onno describes).  It should be clear that these characters belong in each other's company.

-A black and white approach to good and evil, where the environment changes noticeably as the bad guy gets closer to the culmination of his plan.  Player success can liberate some areas, but it can't really be a set back for the bad guy.

In a way, these games worked sort of like the Fellowship of the Ring, when the little successes of the Hobbits did not slow down Sauron, but their perseverance let them ultimately defeat him in a race against time.  Of course the Lord of the Rings introduced much more "grey" area in the characters than a JRPG would, but there is some similarity.

[Ry]

Andy suggested something great at Story Games which would work as the mechanism by which PCs are crucial to stopping the enemy:  (This was me grappling with conceptualizing a world where portals existed but weren't massively important to military machines)

Maybe make the portals only able to be controlled by people of certain breeding or background, or ones with the "spontaneous magical birthmark" (the PCs and major NPCs), or the ones with rigorous magical training, the likes of which are hard for the military to track down.

They're whimsical, and thus most likely have their destinations set, and can't be changed. So you can't will into existence a portal that will take you to the king's chamber to kill him. Thus, military simply ignores them like an uncontrollable fluke. And thus giant space/air battles still go down, in a world where a select few can pop in and out of portals leading to other realms.

[chronoplasm]

Suppose the players don't have any dialogue at all, but rather, role play through their actions? One of the most iconic features of many JRPGs (as well as american games like Half Life 2), is that the main character never speaks, but still drives the plot.

Perhaps the storyline doesn't have to be linear exactly, but branches out in a distinctly binary sort of way? That is, "Do you go left, or do you go right?" I wouldn't stop there mind you, but I think I would build a story around the idea of choosing diametrically opposed opposites such as fire and ice or chaos and order, and ultimately, everything is just zeros and ones when you get down to it.

[Evan Anhorn]

Very nice suggestions from everyone, thanks!

I started working with the idea of a "branching story line" that chronoplasm mentions, and I worked it into "save points" in the game:

Save Points:  When a party uses a save point (the golden mana goddess shrine), they save their progress.  This means that, if the party falls, or begins a new session, they start at the last save point used, with full HP and MP.  Whenever they use the save point, however, the forces of darkness are advanced one more step.  Alternatively, if no save point is available, players can end a session where they are with a regular save, although they do not start the next session with full HP and MP and the forces of darkness are still advanced one step at the beginning of the next session.

Forces of Darkness:  As the forces of darkness advance, the world becomes even more imperiled.  The first consequence is that new monsters appear, stronger than the previous ones.  Less frequently, the story line is advanced with evil's progress and new dungeons with boss monsters appear (with new kingdoms affected).  As the forces of darkness continue to grow, the party will be unable to manage all threats.  Here they must make critical decisions on who to help, what battles to fight and what path will take them quickest to the heart of the evil powers.  The players should feel personally involved in this struggle, not just because only their actions can defeat evil, but because the choices they don't make allow evil to grow in the places they neglect.  Furthermore, each character should have a strong emotional tie-in to one or more locations, making for difficult decisions during dialogue scenes.

I also have come up with my leveling system, including 21 careers, 60 character levels (and 10 career levels per career), new ability advancement and so on, if you guys wanted to see that?

[Jarrod]

Galadrin, I'd love to see a playtest doc if you have one, particularly to see how your career system works out.