Your RPG concepts, theories, ideas, mechanics, etc.

[jrrtoken]

Simply put, list your own ideas about everything and anything dealing with RPGs; setting, dialogue, classes, feats, yadda, yadda, yadda.

 

I'll break the ice:

The party is one of the pillars of RPG storytelling and gameplay. I believe that in order to have a more human understanding and immersion into the game, there should be deep characters that reflect the current setting. By this, NPC party members should have individual and unique habits, obsessions, tics, and backgrounds, which can all be investigated by the protagonist. Additionally, the NPCs should interact with each other, rather than conversing with the player alone. The NPCs can then develop rivalries and friendships, and through this, reveal more about themselves towards the player.

 

To be continued...

[DeadYorick]

Storylines are all well and good for Roleplaying games. However I believe fashioning the storyline through your own experiences is far more rewarding. Having your character enter a bar and actually imagine he/she is speaking to NPCs and having an actual conversation feels much better then the conversations the game gives you

[Samuel Dravis]

I've always wanted an RPG with a really complex magic system. I was thinking along the lines of rune-based magic, where you would make spells by combining various symbols like:

* Fire

* Water

* Air

* Earth

* Power/Energy

* Protection

* On Self

* Projectile

* Homing on Target

* Vision enhancement

* Number of projectiles

* Knowlege

* Nature

* Constructs

* Strength

And many more besides those. These combination spells should be bindable so that you don't have to do rune-hunting every time you want to cast a spell. I also think it would be awesome to have spells that are too powerful for you to cast (at least, without severe and possibly fatal damage-- you should be able to attempt any spell you want) until you cast a lower-level personal protection spell. Basically, I want a magic language.

 

Just a dream, unfortunately. Besides being very difficult to make the spell effects behave in a coherent way similar to traditional RPG magic, it would be a nightmare to figure out how to make graphical effects appropriate for the spell you're trying to cast without limiting the system to the point that you might have just as well used pre-created spells. I guess my idea is similar to the way that alchemy worked in Morrowind, although I'd want many more possible spell effects.

 

(Yes, this is partially a reaction to Oblivion's complete and total lack of a worthwhile magic system)

[mur'phon]

See the game through the eyes of the protagonist all the time. I.E do it in first person, because it helps imersion by a lot. Look at Dark Messiah's death scene, instead of the standard "you die" you get helplessly picked up, flung across the room and can only watch as a spike stabs you through the gut. Imagine if this had been in third person, you wouldn't feel helpless and you definetly wouldn't cringe as you looked down on the spike ramming through you.

[Rabish Bini]

Play as the bad guy hell bent on conquering everything, and actually being able to do it, like blow up planets and stuff, not just being mega-evil.

[Jvstice]

Storytelling is always a must for me. If that's not good, then don't even bother for me. I like the open ended ones, where you can choose several different paths and it feels highly tailored to your choices specifically, but I've seen osme good ones that don't let you have as much freedom in that respect.

 

What I'd like to see tried with an rpg would be instead of spells your character has, it would be telepathy and or telekinetics, but then elementals or other beings that you could form psychic bonds with to give you different kinds of magic specializations based on their strengths. Anyway, it would be something not overdone and a new direction.

[Ztalker]

A nintendo ds game with real-life casting by touch screen.

 

You'll actually have to find, memorize, train yourself in various skills that you can activate by using a certain touch screen combo.

The result would be world devastating. Gandalf-like orso.

[Ctrl Alt Del]

The perfect balance between freedom and restriction. I want to have more liberty than in Mass Effect, but definetly less than in Oblivion.

[Sabretooth]

A nintendo ds game with real-life casting by touch screen.

 

You'll actually have to find, memorize, train yourself in various skills that you can activate by using a certain touch screen combo.

The result would be world devastating. Gandalf-like orso.

Now this is an idea I can get behind. May work with Wii too, or any other future motion-based controlling system.

 

Some of my own theories:

 

Slow-Motion Action Gameplay

Inspired by 300, SMAG works like so:

 

Camera is loose, but intelligently positions itself to give the best view. During action, the player can select the enemy to attack and which attack to perform. The attack is performed in full cinematic glory and the game reverts to super slow-mo, like in 300 where the player gets some time to select the next attack. The camera intelligently zooms in and out, pans etc. so that the player requires minimal control over it.

 

It will work well with KotOR-styled games, especially action-oriented, melee-based RPGs.

 

Procedural Generation

The technology made famous by SPORE, Procedural Generation and related technologies can be used to incredible effect in video games. Rather than have a hundred different NPC textures packed in the game, the game would create variations over a handful textures, allowing for an infinitely varied game population.

 

All weapons and objects can be made to look different by having an engine that specifically assigns certain randomly-generated visual attributes, such as chinks, scars, carbon scoring in Star Wars, different colouring etc. The possibilities are really endless.