This could go somewhere. Having the player choose by himself when and how much to "delevel" his character would make for a SMASHING moral dillema.

Let's assume the game has side-quests. In some of them, people will be cursed by this "serpent". And yeah, to complete the side-quest, the player will have to read a passage of the book, do some stuff, and help the character. The character might die before he reaches the main objective -- whatever that is, but I'm assuming it's leading the girl to a point where she can be reuinited with her mother or something (after all, the mother wouldn't want a husband who is near death, aye? So the romance part is dead in this scenario.).

So, we have a lot of moral brainwashing, and the player sparingly using the book, whereas he has to strike a ballance between the main objective, some side-quests (would have to have some significant rewards to that, like helping the player in the final battle or smthing, providing some key item or whatnot) and the increasing difficulty of mobs. Huh, that speaks as a trully player dependant game for me -- although my idea with side-quests would make for a lot of frustration, due to players making bad decisions and the game becoming way too hard to finish it at some point, or the player not feeling compelled to do anything about the side-quests. But adding a scaling enviroment that would stay on the right level regardless of player decisions would be nice.

But as Konidias said, you are still doing the same scheme, save for the grinding (the story will advance the player's state). The story has to be really tight if you wish to pull this mechanic off -- give it a good thought

I agree with Zethariel. Given the additional clarification regarding the book and the actual story reasons for doing this de-leveling, it seems to have potential. The important thing for me, I think, would be that I must have the choice of whether or not to accept the weakening based on the rewards it would offer. It would provide a trade-off, and trade-offs are what good RPGs are about. However, if I had to accept the weakening at any given point, ie there being no choice but for me to accept it in every situation, that would be nothing but annoyance for me. The trick will be in making the player feel like he actually is progressing, even with the accumulation of age from reading the book.

So, basically, a ticking clock element?

[quote name='FLeBlanc' timestamp='1318612970' post='4872590']
It sounds to me like you just don't like RPGs. So why are you making one? Who says that doing things like "getting armor or buying items" are frustrating? I certainly don't think that, not by any stretch. I also love the thrill of leveling up, of getting new toys to play with, not having toys taken away; we are all just kids inside, and what kid likes to have their toys taken away? Maybe the idea does have merit. Personally, I just don't see it.

I love RPG. My only concern is to convince those who hate rpgs.
[/quote]What for? There is enough playerbase for RPGs, I would understand if it was fishing simulator genre or something even more niche. But for RPG you don't need to convince those who hate that genre. You just have to make a good RPG that appeal to those who already love that genre.

Personally, I don't believe in the "convince others to play the X game type". Those who are willing to love that genre already love it and these who dislike it will dislike it no matter what you do. The only small exception is for making the interface more accessible and things like that.

The story so far reeks (for me) of eastern mythology. I mean, 100 children, just to get one woman? That would sound like a great japanese hero story.

It sounds a bit rushed, not thought out -- as a sketch or outline, passes, but barelly.