Playstorming ;)

[Callan S.]

Hey, I was thinking of when I have GM'ed table top roleplay I'd make up mechanics/mechanics use as I went along and was thinking I could perhaps use that springboard here to make up some stuff.

Taking a sort of wilderness game where your out in the wild, pretty much got nothing to start with (except for what you could make out of common materials), with some monsters lurking around in the forest (they haven't seen you yet) which you have no hope of beating (raptors) and some others which are the automaton drones of various badguys, which you could beat with even your bare fists, but it'd hurt and if there's alot of them at once you'd get beaten. So your kind of surrounded by forest that's teeming with bad guys! But they don't know your there...yet!

What would you do if you had a character in that situation? And what would it involve in game terms? Ie, if you said you scout, what do you do, click on a link marked scouting and the comp handles the rest?

If anyone wants to do this as well for their own game and replies here, I'll return the favour

[hallsofvallhalla]

depends on the character and his abilities. One major thing is, it is hard to find players in this call of duty and battlefield era that will take it slow. Most just want to charge in and kill everything and be a hero. I see it in pen and paper players too.

If I had a scout/rouge then I would want to be able to build traps and have a hide ability.

If I had a warrior then I would want a berserk ability or a mass attack ability, along with a weapon craft ability

If I had a Scholar type I would want some good defensive spells and maybe a teleport, along with crafting skills.

[Jackolantern]

One thing that would be nice to do, and even a good starting place in real life as well, is to climb a tree to get your surroundings and to survey possible dangers. I have only seen one game that let you do this very basic, yet all-important task and that was Achaea.

[Callan S.]

Thanks guys!


Halls, well rather than class abilities I'm asking what normal human abilities do you think you'd have and which of them would you do? I'm kinda thinking of a character before they've been trained in a class at all. I think it's interesting what a character would get up to and how they'd survive before they'd learnt any class. So rather than class abilities, what natural born abilities do you think you'd have to use?

Jack, would you expect that to involve clicking on a tree climbing link? If you saw no danger in the immediate area around you, would you climb down the tree again and do something, or is there something else you'd look for while up the tree?

[hallsofvallhalla]

that brings up a interesting idea. Clickable things with a pop out menu with a list of things to do.

Tree
-Climb
-Lumber
-Harvest

Rock
-Create Fire
-Mine
-Make Weapon

Plant
-Eat
-Harvest
-Urinate on...hehe j/k

[Jackolantern]

Jack, would you expect that to involve clicking on a tree climbing link? If you saw no danger in the immediate area around you, would you climb down the tree again and do something, or is there something else you'd look for while up the tree?

If I didn't see danger, maybe I would check for food in the tree. Then maybe climb down and make a map of the area from my immediate memory. Then make a small shelter to come back to.

[Callan S.]

Thanks Jack. Though I'm not sure how to impliment that as a game. I don't mean in raw programming terms, but click to climb, report the local area, click to look around the tree for food, click to climb down, click to get some branches for a lean to. Is that what you were thinking of in terms of interacting with the game?

[Jackolantern]

In gaming terms, if you have a game setup in a "room-like" way, where each area has entrances/exits west/east/south/north, the player could get a basic map (in text form, probably) telling them where major landmarks are.

[Callan S.]

Thanks, I think I get it - but I mean there's basically two stages here, in terms of what you'd imagine you'd do, and what your doing with the physical game. Climbing the tree is what you'd find fun to do at the imagination level - in terms of interacting with the game, clicking on a climb the tree link would also be fun? Probably sounds pedantic to ask, yet it is pretty important to make sure interacting with the games interface and mechanics is also fun.

[Jackolantern]

It likely would not be fun to climb a tree in a game, which is why you would want to make it quick. Selling items to a vendor in a graphical MMO is not fun either. Instead, it is both a tool for immersion, and it is a function to allow the player to become involved in more fun activities (by having more money). So in that case, developers try to minimize the time spent selling those items by giving players options to sell all trash items in one button-push, allow for buybacks so players can carelessly sell items without having to stop on each one and think about it, etc. In this case, climbing the tree is the same. It provides immersion and can be used to allow the player to get involved in more activities (exploration). So make the climbing of the tree a fast activity, maybe let them quickly search for food while they are in the tree as well, or do any other activity you want them to be able to do. Then let them get the benefits of having climbed the tree quickly and let them get on their way