I was reading some of my RPG rules yet again, when I started wondering ? When I hear or read about cRPG, I see that the difference between them and adventure games is the evolution of your character. Traditionally, this evolution is translated through the evolution of stats. But the great mistake (IMHO) of cRPG is to stop there. After all, if you think about it, what else evolve ? The plot ? Well, yeah, but that doesn''t really do anything to your character. What about the mental part of things ? what about the psyche of your character ? Another thing I am thinking about, and that could be linked to the previous idea, is taht of the motivation of the characters. I was tinkering the idea of a XVth century cRPG when I asked myself : "Why on Earth would they go on a quest ?". I based my idea around an open game, that is, no linear plot that involve the player. Of course, if you choose an involving plot, the question is void. But think about it, if you are a normal person, with some sort of activity, the relative safety of a home, and not much to worry about, are you really gonna leave everything and wander on the roads for the sake of raising your stats ??? So, we need motivation. In fact, this motivation should be the plot itself, or at least the main quest, the personal quest, if you prefer. It could be fame achieved through the use of your skills, e.g. a warrior acquiring glory through his deeds and gaining ranks, or a craftman becoming renowned for his skills while he travels to learn new techniques. It could be romance, or a romance related motive; e.g. a noble travelling the country to find a mate, a peasant taking the arms to avenge the death of his family ... It could be a quest for power, either in the form of open politics, or in a more shadowy manner, through the accumulation of wealth and possessions. e.g. a noble from a small family decide to make a name for himself by going to the court, a merchant trying to gain as much money as he can to rival the nobles, a religious gaining ranks in the clergy. It could be a spiritual quest. The alchemist realising the Great Opus, a religious reaching illumination, an erudite learning more and more knoweldge, becoming a teacher, or looking for a specific and very rare book, a witch mastering her powers... It could be simple exploration/discovery motives. A merchant decides to find a new road to the East, an explorator wants to make the best map ever of a region, a banned man travels aimlessly, a kung fu artist ... err, no, that would be something else... Well, that''s a few motivations. Of course you could mix a few. When one is achieved, you could consider that the game is "won". Or you could switch to a new motivation : the peasant has avenged his wife and children''s death by killing the corrupt tyrant, now he has become a powerful warrior respected by his kins, but someone has to take the power (quest for political power). Classic quests would happen and add variety to the adventures. To make a parallel with Pen&Paper RPG, they are like adventures and campaigns. They last more or less, but it''s not what make the player keep playing. It''s only when the character has achieved his personal quest (that can have spawned several adventures and campaign), that the player can consider playing with another character, this one becoming an NPC (most of the time). Well, these are just some thoughts I am having. I''d love to see what they make you think about. Especially, how can one achieve this more personal aspect of a character. How can one do this "on the fly", without making monolithic plots ? I have some thoughts on the question, of course, but this would make a too long post, so I''ll leave it for later, after I see if there is any interest on the subject. Sancte Isidore ora pro nobis !

Nice post...

Although, there is an audience for those "raise your stats for the hell of it" games as we all know, I definitely like your thinking on this and I know that I would enjoy this type of game much more than the ones usually released.

As for a workable solution that is "on the fly", I believe that what Wav and I had mentioned in the past about Strategy as Plot would be a great solution. Of course, I haven't finished my prototype of it yet because school & work are killing my time lately.

A CRPG in development...

Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself.


Edited by - Nazrix on August 29, 2001 7:03:37 PM

Of course you could just change the stats to reflect personality values rather than physical attributes. A player could work to maximize ''nurture others'' or ''greed'' or ''friendliness''.

Of course this means changing the nature of the obstacles they face too, but at least it would be different. I think it rules out monster mashing and equipment hoarding almost by definition.

JSwing

focusing on trying to get rid of stats is IMHO a non-problem and the wrong way to tackle the problem.
Stats are necessary to translate vague notions into notions that can be treated by the computer.
Whether you show the stats, and in which way, is something irrelevant to my thinking here.

What I am suggesting is indeed to make more stats, if you will. But for a good cause
Characters should have stats to show their mentality, are they greedy ? quick to anger ? fat ? tall ? etc.

The main solution I see is to change the dialogues.
Rather than work in a direct mode, work in a narrative (indirect) mode.
This allow you to use descriptions, and sentence templates that could be modified on the fly.
e.g. "Arnolfe greets you". "The fat man greets you". "The fat merchant, Arnolfe, greets you in a friendly manner". These are all based on the same "idea", but show different level of perception. They are not that hard to build on the fly, and are much more diverse than the same guy saying "Hello" everytime he sees you...
etc... (I am not sure what I mean is that evident, so please ask if you don''t get it).

A side effect of using descriptive mode in dialogues is to be able to use languages ! Rather than have some random way of translating from one language to another (IN game), the descriptive mode can be used much more nicely.
e.g. "The goblin stops you and ask you to leave your weapons at the door". "The goblin stops you. He looks nervous and gestures towards your weapons". "The goblin stops you and seem to ask for your weapons". etc... of course if a party member can understand the language, he would do the translation, otherwise you would be left with you own skills and gesturing.

Also there should be what I call meta-dialogue. That is, the non-verbal communications, totally unused (AFAIK) in cRPG.
Simply said, there is a need to take into account the context of the discussion. For instance, 6 adventurers in full armour and wielding weapons in a tavern *should* have a different effect than a erudite with only his robe and books in a the same low-life infested tavern...
Actions should be taken during the dialogue in a seamless fashion. Examine the body language of your protagonist to guess if he is lying (that would be on the Top Ten of the most asked questions to a Game Master during dialogues in RPG ), diagnose other conditions such as being charmed, being ill (you could offer your services as a healer). Being able to basically use your character skills during the dialogue.
Also party members would use their skills and eventually report the result during the dialogue ("He is lying", "From his accent, I''d say he is from the South", "He is tainted by Chaos!", etc).

All those little things are only possible if more depth is used in characters, if they have more stats, if you will...
Also, I am convinced dialogue is the key.
After all, if any of you ahs ever played P&P RPGs, dialogue is what it''s all about, most of time. Yes, we hack and slash, too, but the second activity is talking, trying to extract clues from uncooperative NPC, trying to be diplomatic with morons who have much more power than you, trying to convince authorities that you are not just as dangerous as the people you chase, etc.
I think their is a problem of interface for the dialogue, but more importantly, a lack of all this non-verbal communication.
I guess it''s a tad Off topic, with my own topic, but then again, I think this is more the core problem to solve.

If personal quests and motivations are to be expressed in a more involving manner, we have to be able to express ourselves in the first place !


Sancte Isidore ora pro nobis !

Ahh, finally, a post that I feel like replying to

Reading these few posts, I''ve had a couple of ideas with regard to the implementation of a more advanced dialog system.

Ahw, you mentioned sentence templates. I like the idea - specially when you generalise it into something that''s very adaptible. Like you said, different languages would be possible if all you have to do is substitute the right words for the right stats.
Then you could add another level to it: perception. The templates could be based on how perceptive the involved characters are. An unperceptive character would get a sentence like "The fat inkeeper greets you as you walk in", while a perceptive character would possibly get something like "The overweight innkeeper greets you uninterestedly. He seems to be a westerner, and he''s eyeing the easterners by the fireplace nervously.".

Of course, implementing that would be more difficult. One possibility is to have the game-writers make a template for every situation at every perception level. A lot of work, but implementation-wise the easiest to program. Another possibility is to attach a "difficulty to notice" to the various stats that can be displayed (with modifiers for distance, how well you know a person, etc. etc. ), and construct the sentence out of a bunch of mini-templates, depending on which elements you perceived and which you didn''t.

Some of this would have to be non-verbal communication as well.. which I''m now going to think about a little

quote: Original post by MadKeithV
Ahh, finally, a post that I feel like replying to

Ooh, I feel warm and fuzzy inside

I am glad you seem to understand my ideas.
There is just one point, though. When I mention languages, I mean that the system of descriptive dialogue (rather than direct), is easier to use than direct talk.
For instance, if you had 5 languages, that wouldn''t make a big difference in terms of what the writers have to do, because most of it would be descriptive stuff anyway.
As in, "The goblin salutes you in a despising manner", rather than the exact goblin-speech dialogue...
As you mention, there would need to be different dialogues depending on the level of perception of characters, in this case, the level of understanding of goblin language...
Can you see the advantage compared to direct speech ?!

I''ll let you think about non-verbal communication, if you have ideas I am more than interested.
As I mentioned previously, there would need to be ways to use your character skills (especially the social skills), directly during dialogue.
Also different skills owned by the speaker would make corresponding options appear in the dialogue interface.
e.g. A dominican monk could use a "Convince the guard that you are an Inquisitor" option during the dialogue to boss people around and frigthen them (of course, you would be wise not to get caught...)
Indeed, all those neat little additions would make the work of the writers all the more needed.
But honestly, it''s easier than developping some revolutionary AI, isn''t it ? And it would probably give much more results, too.

My main source of ideas here is P&P RPG, really. Just imagine the scenario. Now imagine, "if I was playing, what kind of actions would I try". Usually, in RPG, people try tons of different things that a Game Master wouldn''t think of, but there are some classics, though. And implementing those classics would be a good start, ''cause honestly, we are still very far from it, IMHO.

I am also convinced that there would need to be some sort of script language behind dialogue, in order to allow this meta-dialogue thing I am thinking of.
You''d have to distinguish the actual dialogues from their meaning; e.g. A "welcome" sentence is the same thing for every person in the game, for every race, etc. But the way it is expressed can vary greatly. the manner to say it (warm welcome, fearful), the intent(scare, threaten, make at ease), the language (goblin speech, common, merchant lingo, soldier jargon...), etc

Also one might ask what the heck is the relation between language and the initial post I made. Basically, it is this. If motivations and personal quest are a way to express personality, the main way to reflect their importance is through dialogue.
The dialogues, at every opportunity, should reflect the *personality* of your characters, their motives, their behaviour, their beliefs, etc.
More technically, the dialogue system should allow the playerto use the characters skills and abilities in a more direct and controlled way during dialogues.

Anyway, let''s see what you can come up with ?



Sancte Isidore ora pro nobis !

Okay, taking an analytical path:

Central to the idea are characters. Without characters, there is no dialog, and characters are what make role-playing games fun.
These characters have various "attributes". This is a very broad word, and doesn''t really give any indication of what an "attribute" can be. There are things like strength and constitution, but what about clothing, posessions, wealth, assertiveness and so on? These are also "attributes". Previous knowledge or rumour about a character is also an "attribute" of that character, but the values of these depend on the observer.

So I can split "attributes" into three categories:
1. Innate properties: everything the character has when wearing a birthday suit, and there is no previous knowledge of the character. Things like intelligence, temper and muscle strength belong in this category. Almost all RPG "character stats" belong in this category. Skills belong in this category too.
Another set of properties to go here is the mood of the character, though that can vary from day to day or even minute to minute.

2. Worldly possessions: things the character owns or pretends to own, clothes, etc. These can say a lot about a character, and it can influence the reactions of other characters (just see how friendly shop-keepers are if they think you have money to spend!)

3. Previous knowledge/experience/rumours: This is a toughie, because it relates to the observer of the character. If you know the person in front of you has killed your family, that makes a big difference in your reaction - so this needs to be stored too. Each character needs a store of information about what they''ve heard or experienced from each other character (this can be optimised to the player characters only, because the other relationships can be fixed in a scripted game).


I think that just using the vague descriptions above, already we''re defining WAY more data than any cRPG so far has ever used. I don''t think any of it can be left out with little effect though, they seem necessary to allow for proper dialog.


So, nonverbal communication: when two characters are in contact with eachother, each "communicates" their "attributes" to the other. How strongly they are communicated should depend on a number of factors:
- Distance the characters are apart
- How many times they''ve met before (with less effect for more times)
- How well the character can hide certain attributes
- How well the other character can perceive certain attributes.
(Possibly even more factors...)

The last two in that sum are also "attributes" really, of the "innate property" kind, which incidentally leads to the interesting situation that a character might perceive how well another character can hide their attributes...

This communication should be stored in each character''s "previous knowledge" store - so that they will remember next time they meet.

CHARACTER MOTIVATION

I think that the number one, end all, motivation for a character to undertake a task is the physical one.

If a character PHYSICALLY NEEDS to do something in order to survive, he WILL do it.

The most basic motivation for a living being to do anything is hunger. You gotta eat to survive.

You probably don''t want ''food'' to be the main motivation in your game, but there''s a bunch of other types of ''physical'' motivation than just food.

Think of vampires. In order to survive, they must drink blood.

Create a type of being that needs something in order to survive and put this ''something'' at the end of a quest.

Of course, this physical motivation can be applied to more than just a single character. In my RTS ideas I usually try to implement this ''physical need'' idea as well. To give armies a reason to fight, you can tell them ''you''ll gain skills, gain money, gain anything''... they''ll fight. But if you tell them instead ''if you don''t fight, you''ll die''... you better believe they''ll fight.

quote: Original post by MadKeithV
Ahh, finally, a post that I feel like replying to

Hey, what''s that supposed ta'' mean!?!?!?!

(j/k!!)


Seriously, this is a huge amount of work, but I think stat heavy objects and locations would add a ton of depth if they are not only connected to text exposition and dialog but to the cRPG rule system as well. You have to create the stats, endow every NPC / object with them, create a very well integrated rule system that references them, add variable text for each stat entry by object, and design some kind of engine that constructs sentences based on all of this. All but the last seem comparatively easy to creating the sentences.

I can see the NPCs and objects being stored in a database with their attendant stats. You might then have a seperate database crossreferencing stat values and categories with a list of words. A key like "Clean", for example, might have a value and then a bunch of synonyms for clean. It''s probably useful to further break this down by Person (clean, sharp, well-groomed, etc.), Place (clean, well kept, sparkling, finely appointed), or Thing (clean, sterling, sparkling, squeaky-clean) and General (clean, spotless) as well.

quote:
3. Previous knowledge/experience/rumours: This is a toughie, because it relates to the observer of the character. If you know the person in front of you has killed your family, that makes a big difference in your reaction - so this needs to be stored too.

I think yes and no on this. You could go to the trouble of coloring based on past relationships (which is tricky), or you could leave this to the player, relying on the fact that they''ll react emotionally in a different way to the same stats. "You see Carlos, decked out in his spit-shined new shoes and spotless business suit" weighs differently in your mind based on whether or not you loathe or like Carlos. If Carlos is a blood enemy, then you might be inclined to view those attributes negatively (that no-good pretty-boy punk ) vs. if he''s a trusted ally (my man Carlos, the international spy and lady''s man! ) So maybe the player''s own reactions can do some of the work?

For social relationships, though, I do mixing history and stats. "You see your trusted confidante , Nikitta, lounging in the back of the cabaret" holds a lot more weight than "You see Nikitta." It''s also good for orienting the player, especially when there are a lot of NPCs or the player hasn''t played in awhile.

quote:
Each character needs a store of information about what they''ve heard or experienced from each other character (this can be optimised to the player characters only, because the other relationships can be fixed in a scripted game).

Would be nice if this wasn''t scripted, though, and instead determined by an array of stats. More work, yes, but also more flexibility. For ex, when Nikitta beats the crap out of Carlos, it''d be nice for him to switch from referring to her in private as "la bonita lady" to "that bandito b**ch"

What do you guys think of starting a list of NPC and object attributes and words? I volunteer to plunk them into an excel document, if we can agree on the parameters we''re interested in and the approach. All it would take is just a bunch of posts on attributes, words associated, and recommended gameplay effects.

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Just waiting for the mothership...

I like Silvermyst''s ideas about physical motivation. I think you can get away with this when your cRPG is more sim like, but also when the motivations are far more dramatic. Needing blood from victims or a diet of heavy metals to survive makes your character very exotic, and is much more dramatic than, say, having to go to the bathroom as in The Sims.

But closer to ahw''s original post, what about the psychologica aspects. I might have said this before, but I''m curious how a feedback and reward system with escalating consequences would work.

Let''s take an interesting psych motivation: Revenge. What if we triggered in the character a Revenge motivation every time something really bad happened to him. Say the Synicate wipes out your entire colony. Through subtle stats we''ve tied the player to your colony, your NPC family, and your NPC friends. Now they''re all dead.

IRL revenge drives you to act against the cause / source of your pain. Failure to act can make you miserable, or even drive you mad. But in a cRPG, there''s no mind, no pain, only numbers and faked motivation.... unless we use Needs, like in The Sims, but make them more dramatic.

The feedback & reward system, then, becomes harming your enemies. Like The Dark Knight, you have a rising need to strike back, which is temporarily quenched every time to damage your foes.

Plot comes in because of the escalating consequences. Arresting / slaying / sabotaging a few Syndicate personnel and assets goes unnoticed; but further acts against them bring greater and greater responses, until you get to the big guy himself, the cause of your need for revenge.

Other factors come into play as well. For example, maybe your need to strike back is moderated by bravery (you''re a coward); or wisdom (even tempered vs. hotheaded); or cunning (infiltrate & destroy vs. attack from the outside).

Because they''re tied directly to the game, these motivations now really mean something. I think the tricky part (I''m having trouble with, anyway) is in coming up with a way to penalize the player when he doesn''t meet his character''s needs, but in a way that leaves room for different gameplay. Rather than ending the game, your needs should help drive you into different gameplay should you not meet them.

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Just waiting for the mothership...