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+----- Thread: RPG Design Thread 1: A Whole New World (/thread-8366.html)
RPG Design Thread 1: A Whole New World - GrooveMan.exe - 08-07-2009
Welcome to the first (of many) RPG Design Threads for the Let's Make a RPG project!
To explain how this works in short, here we'll discuss an aspect of RPG game design (which will change every thread) as both a device to make game design easier for all participants, and encorage input from those not directly participating.
As most who are familiar with the genre probably know, Role Playing Games were originally based on pen-and-pencil role playing games; where the game story was made up on the fly by a storyteller/dungeon master/game master; and a bunch of players created and acted through characters who adventured through this spun world.
Of course that means that successful RPGs depend on good storytelling, in both how the fantasy world of the game is represented, and how well the game master gave feedback to the player's actions. That's relatively straightforward to do in real life, as we humans are completely adaptable and have imagination (yes, even your lazy sibling who watches TV all day).
In a digital medium, things become a little more difficult. Computers can only do what you program them to do, so making things up on the fly isn't possible. With that kind of player interraction and immersion not available, RPG videogames have to think up other ways of being immersive and entertaining in their story.
The earliest games had limited memory and processing power, so all the 'flavour' of the game world was shown in text, as are the player interactions. These days we have the wonderful inclusion of graphics, sound, and cutscenes (!), so representing your game world is as easy as ever.
And if that's the case, you've got to make good use of it! It's why many RPGs these days try to wow us with flashy and dynamic renderings of the fantasy world everything takes place in. But by that same vein, the old text-only games got something right too; they had to really put an effort into describing the game world in order to be immersive.
So as RPG designers in the making, before we get into making characters, doing number-crunching, or deciding how much gold Owlbears should drop; we need:
- To visualise what out game world looks like
- Be able to write about our game world and make it sound interesting!
To help get us started, I've got a .rar full of settings art, and a few abstract items. See if any of it matches the ideas you've got floating around.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=C0D475PU
Or if you're *really* stuck on a setting, why not have a play with a Random Generator? Seventh Sanctum is an awesome website, and they have generators for a lot of different things.
http://www.seventhsanctum.com/index-sett.php
As for an example, here's my Setting idea.
Your game setting needn't be so... wordy, though. :V
![[+]](images/collapse_collapsed.png "[+]")
Warning, Long Description AheadSo, what do you think of my idea? Are the resources I've posted useful to you? What cool RPG worlds have you thought of?
RE: RPG Design Thread 1: A Whole New World - tsr moderation staff - 08-11-2009
Isodroid (early name)
In the far future sentient robots are created. For one reason or another these robots rebelled against the very humans that created them, forcing all the human nations to unite against a common threat despite of former grudges. This caused the largest scale war known to earth. The few remaining humans formulated a plan to survive. They built a massive cloaking device to hide their energy signatures from the robots and, with their few remaining resources, transported all the remaining humans to the moon. One thing was unknown by most of the human population, another backup plan was set into motion by the human leaders. A human baby was left on earth with an extremely advanced device built into his spine which gave him a smaller scale cloaking device and gave him near immortality. The humans planned on integrating him into the robot society and using him to tear it apart from the inside. Unfortunately the device they used to stay in contact with him was destroyed on the flight out of earth so earth's leaders agreed to let the plan die as they did. Every hundred years the humans sent a small scout ship with up to five passengers to check on earth. Two thousand years after their exodus to the moon something happened differently.
Dunn Dun duuuuuuuuuun...
RE: RPG Design Thread 1: A Whole New World - GrooveMan.exe - 08-12-2009
That sounds pretty solid, Tuna. Although I was focusing a bit more on the game world rather than the plot. That's for a different thread~ :V
Although it's the future, is it apocalyptic, or did the robots leave all the buildings intact? Does the RPG take place within a single city, or are the players gonna be globe-trotting? Despite my limited knowledge of megaman games outside EXE and Starforce, why does that sound REALLY similar to the shit that goes on in the ZX games?
RE: RPG Design Thread 1: A Whole New World - tsr moderation staff - 08-12-2009
A lot of buildings would've been destroyed but the robots had a fair bit of time to rebuild any damage. The game takes place over the world. Also, thats very little like ZX. ZX has humans with robotic implants and robots with human limitations but thats more of a side story.
RE: RPG Design Thread 1: A Whole New World - Vipershark - 08-12-2009
In the original planning, me and Tuna decided that it would be a sort of "robot apocylapse". So yeah, earth was pretty much destroyed, but the robots have since rebuilt.
RE: RPG Design Thread 1: A Whole New World - MagikSage - 08-12-2009
Joyous. A world building thread.
My first comment for the Robot Apocaliptic Story is about plot, so I'll ask that later in the post. For your world, what is the level of space travel? Are any other planets populated? What level of wild life is on Earth? Do the Robots care about deer and trees, or has life that doesn't support industry been wiped out? Are the robots the basic box and wire sort, or were they designed to look like humans? If they do look like humans, do they have metallic bodies or some sort of nano-tech biology stuff that allows robots to have an exterior that feels like skin, but is manufactured?
PLOT question time!: Do the robots' still hate humans, and do the humans' still hate robots?
For my main RPG world I will describe the Roland Saga. (This would has multiple stories over multiple time periods).
For today's post I'll sum up the shape of the land. Let's see... the best way to describe the lay of the land would be to find a comparable land mass here.
Think Southern Europe and Africa. Africa is home to the High King Nations which are at war with Sol. Sol started out on an Island like Madagascar, but the island would be at the tail of Africa--not the side. However, Sol has grown into a trade Empire and the War isn't going so well for the High King Nations (who started the war).
The Middle East Region is occupied by Osta, and from the East to North-ish are peoples who's material culture is akin to traditional Arab/Islam. The land connecting Africa to the other continent doesn't lead to the Middle East, but heads strait up to...more around Italy. The Italy area is contolled by the Housewise Confederacy (most of whom settled from the High King Nations, but some are from Osta as well). North and West of Italy are people that you can akin to Lamanites/Native Americans/Amerindians/Indian/what ever those people should be called. (ADD Moment: what should "Native Americans" be called. Lots of people are Native to America). I could add in some Gaulic culture (Unless I errror, these people are those who populated the mainstay of Europe during Roman times). Spain area is also populated with Venishians, these are the American Indian Culture...I just forgot to mention their name, but they have been conquered by Iggarot. Iggarot can be found North of Spain (in this world land, not sea is north of Spain).
In the vague, but imminent future, I will start an account on a media site. Then I can show you the map I made.
RE: RPG Design Thread 1: A Whole New World - Vipershark - 08-12-2009
Quote:For your world, what is the level of space travel? Are any other planets populated?We haven't really planned for other planets per se, but the remaining humans do live on the moon. Who knows, maybe we'll decide to add something.
Quote:What level of wild life is on Earth? Do the Robots care about deer and trees, or has life that doesn't support industry been wiped out?I'll have to talk with Tuna again to be sure, but I think we decided that they just killed humans.
Edit- After talking it over with Tuna, he reminded me of an important part of the plot. I won't say what it is, but while deer and trees weren't exactly the robots' targets, it's definitely possible that some of them could have been killed with what was going on.
Quote:Are the robots the basic box and wire sort, or were they designed to look like humans? If they do look like humans, do they have metallic bodies or some sort of nano-tech biology stuff that allows robots to have an exterior that feels like skin, but is manufactured?A mixture of both the "boxes" and humanoid, I think. If I recall correctly, the most common type will look like a human but have metallic plating instead of "skin", but don't quote me on that. I know for a fact that there are robots with "skin", though.
Quote:PLOT question time!: Do the robots' still hate humans, and do the humans' still hate robots?You'll just have to wait and see.
The human-robot relationship is actually an important part of the plot and I wouldn't want to ruin anything.