I became a moderator yesterday Nazrix
( Tuesday 18 July )

Anyway, ON topic:
Having the player''s role-playing affect the plot is not necessarily a good idea. It should affect reactions and the way the world looks and responds.
I think we should separate the role-playing from decision-making. Okay, sometimes the role will influence decisions, but it''s the decisions that change the path of the game.
The role-playing is just something that adds another layer of abstraction and emotion-candy ( eheh, as opposed to eye-candy ) to the game. This is what we should play on.



Hmm, this just occurs to me:
How far are the player''s ( or character''s, I guess these are sometimes a bit interchangeable ) emotions tied up with the plot? Does this vary from story to story?

What I''m talking about now, I guess, is having ACTUAL emotion in a game. If you don''t have emotion, are you really playing a role? ( even a stone-cold character needs to be set in a world with emotion, or it will make no difference, cfr. quake. )



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Here are my suggestions ( for the moment ) for emotional states within actors of the game ( NPCs and players ):

If you want it simple, just have the one state:
Happiness
The problem is, where do angry and afraid fall on this scale? You simply go from very positive to very negative, but it''s hard to translate.

For more complex I''d go for
Security, Energy, Positivity

Some examples:
High security, High energy, Low Positivity = Livid.
Medium security, High energy, Low Positivity = Annoyed.
Low security, High energy, Low Positivity = Terrified.
Medium security, Low energy, Low Positivity = Depressed.

Etc....

Think this is a workable system? I''m looking for contra-examples, and reasons why this might not work very well.



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So we have the next problem:
- How do we represent ( visually or otherwise ) emotion?
( see "You have an ugly (inter)face" thread I guess )
- How do we manipulate it?
By that I mean, how do we give our player character emotions without taking over the roleplaying, AND, how do we let the player character influence NPC''s emotions!


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quote:Original post by Paul Cunningham

IMHO i don''t think that emotions need or should be graphically displayed by a character. I think this is more likely to add a new type of powermaxing to the game. That is, people will build character that "kiss everyones ass" in order to get through the game as quickly and easily as possible with minimal problems.

Possibly, indeed...
but shouldn''t they be displayed by the NPCs? ( I''m still talking single-player only ).
If they aren''t displayed by the NPCs in some way, either graphically or through text, you are not really interacting with it.

However, before you go graphical, go text first. I think text-based is the best way to try out ideas, after all, it seems to work in books!

Another thing to keep in mind is that "kissing ass" may actually anger some NPCs if they are programmed in a way that is detailed enough. The ''brave warrior mayor''( aka moderator ) of the town may find you a wimp if you do not oppose his views, and decide not to give you the information you need to progress along your sacred quest.






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quote:Original post by Paul Cunningham

From the players persective, how would one create a role for their character. As i see it, the first step of bringing back role-playing is to emphasize the role you wish to play. Then you (as the player) would understand your role.

I suppose I am arriving a bit late, because it seems you have all drifted quite far from the topic, but anyway.

Does any of you around here ever played Pencil&Paper Roleplaying Games ???

If not, there is a brilliant technique to create character, and help newcomers to get an idea of there role.
First give them an appearance. If the player (I will assume hereafter, that we talk of a beginner, and someone who actually CARE about playing a role) see his character, it helps him a lot.
Then create a story with bits and pieces, Multiple Choices Questions. I think Daggerfall had something like that, but it didn''t create an actual story, rather it geve you a class of character. Same in Ultima IX, when you have to choose between different attitudes.
I think the first time I saw this "background story generator" in effect it was for Cyberpunk (the RPG), some ten years ago ... and no one from the computing RPG seem to have noticed ? Otherwise why are you asking the question ?

Allright, I just browsed through my books, and here is an example of such system :
1. How old is the character ?
2.Depending on the age, you have lived more or less significant events in your life. You may have only skills, or a real job, more or less money, etc. (this is done in another section)
3.Choose your past : (depending on your age, throw the dice, and you get a type of event, then another dice to get the event, on a 2D6 system, a 2 or a 12 usually gives you a really cool/uncool event, while a 7 might be just casual situation)

ex : I am 36 (this gives me 6 events)
-event 1 : (I get a 7 then a 2)
You spent most of your childhood in a gang (this gives me a free skill related to Gangs)
-2 (7, then 12)
Same event ... I must have spent a reaaaally long time in this gang.
-3 (7,10)
A gang lord has a debt towards me, he owes me a service. (those three events gives me the ability to know one NPC from a gang)
-4 (3,7)
You have realised a video from a bomb attack on a corporation, this video was played on a Network. (You get money, you have the possibility to choose Reporter as your job).
-5 (10,10)
You have a debt towards a Ronin (a killer), he can asks you a service anytime.
-6 (9,9)
The Yakuza (the japanese Mafia) has a reward for your head ...
(you can''t choose a job in the Yakuza)

Then, YOU create a little story with those elements... anyone wanna give it a try ? Well, here''s mine with thse elements :
"
I spent my childhood in a gang ... until I was 21, the Gang was my only family, and Crusher, the boss, was quite protective with me, especially after a took a bullet he was supposed to get. But I was tired with all this violence. I wanted to become Reporter, bring those bastards from the Corporations to the Justice, destroy them with the only weapon effective against them, the media. So I got a little camera, and started practising. I got lucky, so to speak. I filmed a bomb attack on the Matsushita corp. What I didn''t know, is that minutes before the bomb exploded, the local boss for the Yakuza was meeting the CEO of Matsushita in this building ... and there I am filming him. When they saw the film on the Network, they weren''t sure that the visage had been noticed. But there is no place for such a risk, the tape was "recovered", and now there is a price on my head, jsut in case ... so I went back to the Gang, to hide. A team of Yakuza killers attacked us, but Hiro, a ronin our gang rented, defended me. I owe him big time ...
"

So there. 5 miutes to create a nice storyline for your Cyberpunk character, this gives us 2 NPC to relate to the player, a goal in life (escape the Yakuza), and endless possibilities for the skilled GameMaster.

Now how do you apply that to computer RPG ?

(I am sure the post is a bit long, but I''d love to see comments on that one)

youpla :-P

I thought of a way to limitate players maximizing their characters ( in france we call this type of players Gros Bill as in Big Bill for example during a role playing session the master asks to roll a d10 for initiative, the usual Gros Bill response would be 15 due to his sword +8 against green scaled dragons and his belt +2 against dragons in general )

It is about stories : will the NPC loves more a character wich handles any fight single handed or will they prefer an heroic fight were at the last second the character step out of the wall, grab the sides of the wall to prevent his fall and his opponents overbalance and fall to his death at the bottom of the wall.

Furthermore maybe the apothicary daughter will be very nice with our hero while mending his wounds...

If there is one thing Life thaught me in the recent years, it''s that you CAN''t change people ... you can try as hard as you can, but there is no way people will stay very long away from their path.
Why do I say that ... well, it''s because when I use to play RPG with people, I actually witnessed people who weren''t there to play (act) but rather to ... mmm ... I dunno, ego trip ? just waste time, I really dunno. But the fact is still there. There is a vast majority of people out there who don''t know what roleplaying is. I won''t start a Jyhad about what roleplaying is or isn''t, I''ll just stick to the words ... roleplay -> play a role. magice isn''t it, how some thing can be so self explanatory. well . not.
I still think most people seem to think that online RPG (I am talking the non textual ones) are massive frag fest with a twist. "yeah you see, I bash orks all day, but I got a role, I am a ...uuuh ... druid. Yeah, My favorite is to kill rabbits, I whack them, skin them, and make money. Waddaya mean I can''t piss on that tree ?"
I love that.
Anyway, I think, as long as you try to make a RPG for the "public" ... it just can''t work. People don''t naturally want to act, they want to have fun. Acting is NOT fun, it''s ... well ... fulfilling ?
I still remember my first RPG convention. I had never played Vampire RPG, and suddendly I am here with a team of 5 other people I had never seen before, we spend 30 minutes each with the game master for a private introduction of our characters, and we spent the next 12 hours playing ghouls. I didn''t know the system, I didn''t anything about the powers and stat system, but heck I never had such a brilliant night of RPG. Our characters were utterly ridiculous compared to any decent vampire, or even compared to the horde of soldiers after us. We got shout upon, beaten up, tortured, but in the end we saved the day. And there is nothing better in roleplaying than playing your role !
The people next door who were playing the exact same story actually finished in two hours because the guys had very difficult roles and just couldn''t do it ...

Ah well ... maybe you see my point, maybe not

youpla :-P