DoubleBear ZRPG Design Updates
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Category: News ArchiveHits: 1509
So in a lot of traditional RPGs, even in terrible, monster-caked dystopias you've got cities full of people and a lot of those people give quests. Some of them can die, but most of them can't or at least not until you get the dialogue choice to kill them. So, anyhow, the streets are filled with people who you can't attack for fear of guards who are there to save you from yourselves - your progress will break, you see, if you kill all those people with exclamation points or names over their heads. A good number of these quests are going to be fetch quests sending you out of the Town of Incredibly Safe People into the wilderness where you will risk life and limb and werewolf rape for someone's missing hat. Find the hat, kill the endless spawns of the monster that's slightly higher than your level, return the hat, get some kind of reward and selfless/dick response we're all familiar with this setup, yeah?Thanks, RPG Codex.
Okay. So, #1 difference in our game there are no towns full of people with nothing better to do than stand under a lamp losing hats and sending out mediators to negotiate petty differences with the guy across the street. Those people are dead (and hatless) and most of the people that you find in a town are either going to view you as competition and open fire. Others might be properly hiding in their basements or boarded up Kenny Rogers' Roasters and are going to be quite unhappy about you busting in and exposing them to the dead and scavengers outside. There are very few people who haven't chosen a side or a plan of action by the time you've stumbled upon them, and you'd be kind of a chump to waste time and resources on people who aren't going to contribute to your group's overall survival chances.
No random quest givers what options did that leave us with? Well, we could have allies initiate quests, right? Well, sure, and quite a few of them contribute to (missions) and finding new locations, however, one problem with assigning quests to allies is that they can die. In other games, companions can get resurrected or temporarily KO'd when they die, so it's not a big problem when they kick-off, because their quest just becomes temporarily unavailable.
BUT, being set in the real world, true to our setting, when people die they die permanently (or maybe come back as a zombie). Which means companions with quests become liabilities lose them or piss them off and you lose precious experience, and we don't want people to necessarily think (reload) when a companion dies, leaves, or gets infected. Also, I'm right tired of having to make nice with everyone to get the maximum amount of experience from them. These people also aren't old friends or fellow adventurers with ancient destinies or towns to avenge they're normal (and sometimes abnormal) folks that are throwing in their lot with you for basic survival, which is the only thing most of them have in common. You might like some of them, you might hate some of them, you might need some of them, and you might need to use some of them we don't want to tell you which is which, and so we also don't want to tether you to them until you've milked them of every skill point.
