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[ductape]

I am going to start this out here in Other Games for now. I may move it over to Creative Projects at some point though. Essentially I am thinking about designing a CRPG that is more like a tabletop experience than other games currently available.

here what I want to do:

• discuss how CRPGs diverged from the old school RPGs they were trying to emulate
• discuss how we can emulate (as close as possible) a tabletop experience in a video game environment for a single player
• get down to brass tacks and design the game (this is where I would move it to Creative Projects)

so, a little explanation:

I have been working just a bit on a design plan for a computer RPG that is quite a bit different than anything out there, as far as I know. Essentially I feel that somewhere way back, CRPGS (computer role playing games) went down a different path than the tabletop games they set out to emulate, this may have been due to limitations of the time. Now-a-days it seems the video games industry seems content to continue on with their own set of tropes and conventions that have grown along with them. What I want to do is try to create a single-player computer games that looks and feels closer to the tabletop experience, in a nutshell, a tabletop RPG sim game of a sort.

Gameplay would involve a world map of a campaign region, you can travel on this map and get random encounters, search and explore for hidden locations such as ruins, all sorts of things you would expect on the world map. Still debating on a hex map to get that hex crawl look and feel or go with a hand drawn style map.

There will of course be towns and many NPCs about with lots of stories to tell and ultimately do a large part in provided the impetus for adventures. I want to try and avoid explicit quests like we see in so many CRPGs, but I need to figure out a way still to make it work without making it seem the same as all the rest of the games already. I mean sure, at the tabletop we get quests of a sort but it feels different, I want to try to make it feel this way. At any rate, I plan there to be complex factions that players can interact with, gaining favor with some and losing with others will be central to how the campaign plays out.

Dungeons of course, lots of em. The gameplay in these will be on a dungeon map that reveals itself as the players move through it. You wont be walking around by pressing move buttons or clicking to where you want to walk as in most games we have gotten used to. It should go like this: you enter a room or passage and the map reveals that portion, the map is hand created with art assets to look like our tabletop maps. You get a description, some images of things you see, similar to a visual novel type experience. From there you have choices on what you want to do in that room, including using the doors to move to the next area.

Next is combat, and this is where I am inspired by Redbox Hack, Old School Hack, and some of the derivative works following after that including Fictive stuff. I think this type of combat system would be very nice in a computer RPG. Each arena almost plays out something like a Japanese style RPG, except we can move among arenas here, an exciting tactical mechanic that I think will translate well.

Old School Hack can be found here: http://www.oldschoolhack.net/

The whole game, top to bottom is an homage to old school gaming. Some elements I would use:

- old school B/W line art
- awesome atmospheric music
- hand drawn maps of dungeons, towns and regions
- hex map for overland adventure
- maybe some random dungeons, done smartly with geomorphs (you can tell they are geomorphs on the game screen.)*
- old school sensibilities when it comes to adventure
- ability to load in new campaign settings and new modules within those campaign settings READ: expandable and custom content ahoy!
- multiple independent and interwoven branching plots set in a sandboxy campaign world

*I have a big running debate in my brain right now about procedural content and written content. I feel that to create a good tabletop experience, there needs to be strong story with many many options available. This means thoughtfully written content. Also, the tabletop RPG world does involves some off-the-cuff materials such as dungeon geomorphs and one-off type adventures. I think I may be able to include some procedural content in the form of dungeons, but these will not be the center pieces of the game. They will simply be there for added activity and they should be fun above all. Of course random encounters are not truly random, the table they are rolled on is often specific to the dungeon or terrain type, so in a sense this is procedural and not simple randomness. These concepts need to be developed further and it is perhaps one of the main questions I wrestle with now, to "procedural or not to procedural".

So...

Does this sound fun? I have lots of design ideas that I just wont put in here at this time. Obviously there will have to be modifications to the game for it to actually work well in a computer setti8ng, for example I am still scratching my head about how to implement awesome points in a single player game, but I am hopeful a good solution will come up.

Let me know what y'all think!

[Levi]

Just wanted to say I'm a fan of B/W line art as well.

[ndkid]

I am getting the impression, based on the feature-set you've described above, that when you talk about "tabletop RPG", what you're actually thinking of is "DnD with heavy dungeon crawl elements".

The reason that I see most often cited as why tabletop went in a different direction from CRPGs is that CRPGs have never been able to encapsulate the myriad of choices that players sitting around a table throw at a GM. CRPGs solve this problem by greatly limiting the decision space that a player has in any given situation.

The recent AM kickstarter provides a good example of this. AM the tabletop game has a concept of Spontaneous Magic, where a character can generate a spell completely on the fly. To implement that capability in a game would require thousands of permutations, and, in every situation where the character acts, arguably, each of those permutations would have to be handled. ("Well, what *does* happen in every social interaction if the PC strikes the person s/he is talking to blind?")

Once you accept that such flexibility isn't within the scope of your game, I think you've made the same fundamental break generations of CRPG designers have made before you.

Which may just mean that what you think of as the "feel" of a tabletop versus a computer RPG is completely different from mine.

[ductape]

I appreciate that, but I do disagree to some extanet about choices possible in a CRPG. If we go with a visual novel style presentation, we can offer many many more options in a single dungeon room than you would have ina  game like say, Baldurs Gate. Yes, I concede that theres no way to emulate the freedom of action available with a human DM, but we can make available the standard options that players choose to do in a dungeon. IN most dungeon crawls, theres really a finite set of standard things that players try. Its a big list, but its a list I could type up in an hour or less and that includes the time i need to think about it. That list opf possible actions is way more rich than any CRPG I have ever played, but I wager we could implement that in a CRPG if we move away from some of the standard conventions.

At any rate, the goal is to move closer than anyone else has, and by dropping some current conventions and choosing a different way to present the adventure, I think its possible. Ideas?

[Thexor]

This sounds a lot like those old gamebooks - I'm thinking "Warlock of Firetop Mountain" here. Limited-to-no artwork, detailed textual descriptions of environments and situations, multiple-choice-based options for progression.

It's a neat idea, but I don't think it's one I'd play. I'd definitely call it 'feasible', though. The programming side would be trivial; the real challenge would be content creation. Randomly generated content wouldn't suit the game's style - you're going for interesting choices over mass-produced content. What you'd want is a core engine and then a selection of game modules, each containing a vast array of hand-crafted content.


In effect, a choose-your-own-adventure book, displayed on a PC.

[ductape]

This sounds a lot like those old gamebooks - I'm thinking "Warlock of Firetop Mountain" here. Limited-to-no artwork, detailed textual descriptions of environments and situations, multiple-choice-based options for progression.

It's a neat idea, but I don't think it's one I'd play. I'd definitely call it 'feasible', though. The programming side would be trivial; the real challenge would be content creation. Randomly generated content wouldn't suit the game's style - you're going for interesting choices over mass-produced content. What you'd want is a core engine and then a selection of game modules, each containing a vast array of hand-crafted content.


In effect, a choose-your-own-adventure book, displayed on a PC.

not really. Imagine you have a hex map that is a region of the world within your campaign setting. You have several towns. When you go to a town, you get the town map with numbered location of places in town you know about, and you can visit any of these at will. At these locations, you might shop, interact with NPCs, delve the sewers, whatever. At some point, you will get rumors about some ruin or some sort of dungeon lead-in.

You go out to the hex map, party geared up with supplies for travel and dungeon delving. You set you destination and set you parties marching and camping rules which will take a part in how the random encounters play out on your journey. Day and night cycles pass which also affect the encounters. EVentually, you reach the hex of the dungeon. You jump back to the party screen and set up you delve party, maybe your leaving some henchmen and your pack mules behind.

You enter the dungeon and are now presented with a new screen, it has just the first room drawn in a style that looks like an old school map. There is a text description that comes up, along with some flavor art presented at the side of the text, that flavor art may be generic filler as is common in fantasy books, or it mnay be specifc to the room e.g the mosters there or mayber a sketch of the statue on the wall...

You have choices now, in the form of a menu. You can search the room and you need to decide for how long, all the while the clock is ticking. The clock ticking is key, your food runs out, your torches run out, and if you alert the denizens, they just may send reinforcements...you cant just search and search endlessly. You must pick your move wisely, you will have fights, puzzles, traps, each room is hand crafted in such a way that it fits into the dungeon whole. Poor choices lead to failure. Theres lots of ways to make the ticking clock add pressure and seriousness to your decisions and prevent gaming the system. Maybe when you grab the loot, the place begins to fill with water and the only way out is filled with obstacles.

You make it out, the McGuffin in hand. Back to the camp, you gather your mules and head back to town. BUt there were bandit waiting for you to come out with the treasure, better have some fight left in you! Back in town, people hear of your exploits and they begin to talk about you. Maybe this brings the attention of allies, and maybe thatof some unknown enemies. Best to get a good room with a door that locks well and a good window for a quick escape just in case...

So, while your in a module or a dungeon for example, the game may feel a bit mroe like a branching story or fighting fanatsy book but I think we can get way more flexibility in a CRPG than a book with the limitation of physical pages can do. OUtside the module, you have a sandbox world that plays more like a fantasy party sim with freedom to move around the world and interact with NPCs. You pick when and how you engage with the dungeons. Also, i use the term dungeon loosly, it can be alll sorts of things. Basically an old school D&D module type thing.

I hope the narrative description of play illustrates the idea more. So far the comments are a bit like, "yeah but... you cant do this or that." LEts open our minds, I dont think the above description is that hard to imagine, is it?

[itisnotlogical]

Of all the CRPGs I've played, Dwarf Fortress Adventure Mode feels the most like tabletop RPGs that I have played in the past. I think this has to do with DF's design, in a broad sort of way.

Every development in a DF adventure emerges naturally as a consequence of gameplay. Rather than your companion dying Because The Script Says So, your companions often die of the same things that kill you: fire, suffocation, bleeding, etc. which is often how it works in tabletop RPGs.

For a narrative example, say you and your mates Joe and Mac are raiding the evil wizard Billy's tower. They are almost at Billy's throne room, but Joe takes a sword in the gut. You can save his life if you rush him to town right away, but Billy might flee before you can launch another attack (because that's what Billy is programmed to do, not Because The Script Says So). Since gameplay in an RPG never really stops, it doesn't make sense to have elaborate story-centric cutscenes in a game that means to replicate a tabletop RPG.

For when you need to tell the story, I can't think of any better than Knights of the Old Republic's dialogue system. You get a wide range of choices, and also the opportunity to use skill checks to influence a conversation.

[neotemplar]

This concept is of interest to me.

[Sonlirain]

Well in tabletop a GM MIGHT want to keep a certain NPC alive only to get him slaughtered by someone or something just to prove how serious things became.

I remember playing a P&P style RPG game on a computer a long time ago but can't tell for the life of me what was its name.
I think it was a shareware game from somewhere around 1999-2000.
It had pretty basic graphics (2D sprites only). I can't really talk much about the game rules but i think it was based on D&D and was complete with things like prompts with things the "gamemaster says" at various points.
Someone with some talent could potentially make a entire campaighn based on this game... or even in it because i thing there was a campaign editor.

[ductape]

I just love these images of maps: Google Images

anyway. a short list of possible actions in any dungeon room:

-camp (duration)
-search (duration)
-examine object (use text input for objects in the room, better yet, hyperlink anything in the room description you can examine (uses up time)
-party utility (heal, make arrows, whatever. See camp above)
-fight (duh)

The ones that need more elaboration will be search and examine objects. We need to provide a reason for the player to not waste time examining everything. In fact, thats a style of gamin I think I very much want to discourage. Trying every single combination of manipulating and searching objects and elements in rooms is tedious and gamey and just not fun. A couple ideas I have to prevent that is first off to have every one of these take some amount of time, all the while the players are in the dungeon they are burning through resources and potentially the fuse on some other hazard, known or unknown is burning down as well. Another thing is to throw in lots of red-herrings, such that every object is discernible to some degree and not all of them yield anything useful. If the player persists in doing this kind of thing, they will eventually suffer the consequences.

The right things to pay attention to in the dungeon should be discernible by clues in the text and even imagery of the room description as well as hints from other rooms, encounters and so forth. I have been thinking a lot about how to make a traps and other puzzle type elements fun for the player in this type of game. In my opinion, no CRPG has delivered traps in any interesting way like we get at the tabletop. I hope that a new approach will add some fun to them, in the end hand writing them will probably be the way to go.

Here an example of a room description:

6. Burning torches in iron sconces line the walls of this room, lighting it brilliantly. At the room's center lies a squat stone altar, its top covered in recently spilled blood. A channel in the altar funnels the blood down its side to the floor where it fills grooves in the floor that trace some kind of pattern or symbol around the altar. Unfortunately, you can't tell what it is from your vantage point.

my general idea is that the text there will have any object that is actionable hyper-linked, maybe just underlined. BY clicking the objects word in the room description it opens a menu to the right of the room description box that has all the verbs you can use. By clicking a verb, it further opens another box to the right with the results as well as using up some time. This can be performed for any object in the room by simply clicking the words in the room description box. Major results from any of these actions will append the original room description with new text, perhaps called out in red or italics to show they are new. Don't take too long though, reinforcements are coming because you had no idea you set off a silent alarm in room #1, it might have been a good idea to check that room a little better.

thoughts?