Top Mud Sites Forum - View Single Post - Developing RP MUD Seeks Java Coders and Designers

Nutai · 10-10-2005, 06:22 PM

Because it was requested elsewhere, I'll provide the text of one of my sets of reasoning behind creating a system to support RP:

Measures of what abilities a character has access to are an important aspect of any game. In a roleplaying game, these measures are often tied around concepts of levels and classes, the latter providing the type of ability and the former providing the basis for power or expertise. A more recent trend among games focusing heavily upon roleplay has been to remove classes and levels, thus allowing for a more personalized selection and measure of abilities that more closely fits an individual character, rather than a general archetype.

Here at the Project, we aim to take this progression one step further by not only rejecting levels and classes, but by allowing skills themselves to be customized and personalized by characters within the game. Our more advanced abilities will include a myriad of options and tweaks that will ensure that new and unique forms of skills can always be developed. Furthermore, these skills will be learned and taught between characters under the heading of different schools of training that will be as varied and unique as the skills themselves. Non-combative skills as well as combative ones will be highly developed for those looking for all kinds of roleplaying experiences.

The benefits of such a system are multitude. First, it clearly provides a lot of variety to a game world. Swordsmen throughout the world won't be learning the same twenty skills. Fire mages won't all have the same fifteen spells at their disposal. Individual players won't get bogged down with too many choices or much confusion, as each one would have a much smaller number of attacks or spells at their disposal. However, a fight between two swordsmen would not play out as a battle between two clones. One combatant might use larger blades and be focused upon strength and whirling-based attacks while another might use smaller blades, be faster and jump around more often, and employ a series of quick, successive stabs at vulnerable areas.

Another benefit to this system is that more advanced players have a real chance to substantially affect the progression of the world itself. A character might learn both the slower, whirling school and quicker, stabbing school of swordfighting and advance to the point where he could create a hybrid school that includes the aspects that he personally favors. In this case, he might develop a quicker, dual-wielding style of sword fighting that heavily employs whirling, smaller blades. This player would then be able to go out and recruit other characters to help him gradually develop the individual attacks found within the school and help teach it to all manner of other characters. Within a few years, an entire city full of characters (PC and NPC) might be exclusively using this new hybrid style.

From a roleplaying perspective, not only are opportunities created through the development and teaching of schools of abilities, but natural conflict will develop that will lead to even more roleplaying situations. Say that you've created your hybrid sword fighting style and are making a healthy sum of money teaching it to the locals. Maybe a group of instructors from across the world arrives at your city to start teaching their own style of quarterstaff-based fighting. A few weeks later, a local iron mine shuts down due to an apparent accident and the city's top blacksmiths go missing. All of a sudden, your potential students can't find swords to fight with and start paying to learn to fight with quarterstaves. What do you do then? Confront the quarterstaff instructors and challenge them to a duel to the death? Help rebuild the mine and post sword-fighting guards at the entrance? Try to find the missing blacksmiths or recruit talented smiths from the next town over?

We already have the major design work completed for such a system, and it should be apparent by now why we believe that it will help us to create a more engaging and entertaining roleplaying game. This, however, is just one aspect of our design. We believe that by examining each aspect of a system to an extent such as this, we can create a game that utilizes its roleplaying potential to a much higher extent than any other game out there.

10-10-2005, 06:22 PM	#2
Nutai New Member Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 21	Because it was requested elsewhere, I'll provide the text of one of my sets of reasoning behind creating a system to support RP: Measures of what abilities a character has access to are an important aspect of any game. In a roleplaying game, these measures are often tied around concepts of levels and classes, the latter providing the type of ability and the former providing the basis for power or expertise. A more recent trend among games focusing heavily upon roleplay has been to remove classes and levels, thus allowing for a more personalized selection and measure of abilities that more closely fits an individual character, rather than a general archetype. Here at the Project, we aim to take this progression one step further by not only rejecting levels and classes, but by allowing skills themselves to be customized and personalized by characters within the game. Our more advanced abilities will include a myriad of options and tweaks that will ensure that new and unique forms of skills can always be developed. Furthermore, these skills will be learned and taught between characters under the heading of different schools of training that will be as varied and unique as the skills themselves. Non-combative skills as well as combative ones will be highly developed for those looking for all kinds of roleplaying experiences. The benefits of such a system are multitude. First, it clearly provides a lot of variety to a game world. Swordsmen throughout the world won't be learning the same twenty skills. Fire mages won't all have the same fifteen spells at their disposal. Individual players won't get bogged down with too many choices or much confusion, as each one would have a much smaller number of attacks or spells at their disposal. However, a fight between two swordsmen would not play out as a battle between two clones. One combatant might use larger blades and be focused upon strength and whirling-based attacks while another might use smaller blades, be faster and jump around more often, and employ a series of quick, successive stabs at vulnerable areas. Another benefit to this system is that more advanced players have a real chance to substantially affect the progression of the world itself. A character might learn both the slower, whirling school and quicker, stabbing school of swordfighting and advance to the point where he could create a hybrid school that includes the aspects that he personally favors. In this case, he might develop a quicker, dual-wielding style of sword fighting that heavily employs whirling, smaller blades. This player would then be able to go out and recruit other characters to help him gradually develop the individual attacks found within the school and help teach it to all manner of other characters. Within a few years, an entire city full of characters (PC and NPC) might be exclusively using this new hybrid style. From a roleplaying perspective, not only are opportunities created through the development and teaching of schools of abilities, but natural conflict will develop that will lead to even more roleplaying situations. Say that you've created your hybrid sword fighting style and are making a healthy sum of money teaching it to the locals. Maybe a group of instructors from across the world arrives at your city to start teaching their own style of quarterstaff-based fighting. A few weeks later, a local iron mine shuts down due to an apparent accident and the city's top blacksmiths go missing. All of a sudden, your potential students can't find swords to fight with and start paying to learn to fight with quarterstaves. What do you do then? Confront the quarterstaff instructors and challenge them to a duel to the death? Help rebuild the mine and post sword-fighting guards at the entrance? Try to find the missing blacksmiths or recruit talented smiths from the next town over? We already have the major design work completed for such a system, and it should be apparent by now why we believe that it will help us to create a more engaging and entertaining roleplaying game. This, however, is just one aspect of our design. We believe that by examining each aspect of a system to an extent such as this, we can create a game that utilizes its roleplaying potential to a much higher extent than any other game out there.