On Character Development In RPGs

Thanks to IGN RPGVault for their continuing series quizzing videogame creators about single-player RPG character development. Respondents include Chris Avellone of Black Isle/Obsidian, who rants on CRPG spell conventions: "Almost every spell system I have encountered in an RPG has done wonders for sucking all the mystery and enjoyment out of magic", and Star Wars:KOTOR producer Mike Gallo, who suggests: "I think that somewhere, at some time, a type of stat-less main player character development will make it into an RPG."

Comments

Don't blame us!

[DAldredge]

Blame yourself. Such spells have been in OD&D/AD&D/3E for over 20 years. It's your, and other game developers, fault that you do not program your games with a wider range of spells.

From the linked article...

"Long story short, I know as far as character development goes, I wouldn't mind seeing other avenues of magic explored that are not solely designed to buff your character and destroy an enemy... anything to give magic that element of mystery and exploration. Spells that commune with spirits, provide psychometry of objects, or anything that goes beyond "3-18+2 Electrical in a two meter radius." Spells that make you wonder what the hell they're going to DO when you let them fly."

Re:Don't blame us!

[Anthony Boyd]

Spells that commune with spirits

...are in Planescape Torment. I found it to be slightly interesting at first, but it got far more interesting when I returned to the morgue and spoke to every dead thing there. I was impressed to find that they had bothered to script dialogues for something that very few people would use. Arcanum also has this, but they did skimp on the dialogues. The spell is almost worthless in Arcanum -- even when a major NPC was murdered and I was tasked with solving the mystery, communing with his spirit did nothing. I thought to myself, "wow, even in obvious places they neglected the spell, why even have it?" But Planescape used it well. It was enjoyable.

Spells

[Lord_Dweomer]

Personally, I would enjoy a spell system where you had to research the spell on your own, perhaps in books, where you would have to figure out the somatic, material, and verbal components and figure out how to make the spell on your own.

If they could come up with a way to make it dynamic enough where you wouldn't see a website with the list of all possible spell combinations within a week.....*cough*Asheron's Call*cough* I think it could be incredible.

If you want just a broad range of out of the ordinary spells.....check out a MUD called Dragonrealms by Simutronics. It's $10/month, but I've been paying it for years......simply the most engrossing game out there. Don't believe me? Check out their spell list.

Re:Spells

[IIRCAFAIKIANAL]

Personally, I would enjoy a spell system where you had to research the spell on your own, perhaps in books, where you would have to figure out the somatic, material, and verbal components and figure out how to make the spell on your own.

Try out Arx Fatalis. It has a magic system where you combine mouse gestures. There was also a game for the NES where you combined runes and created spells. There were a ton of possibilities. Morrowind also lets you create spells, though the spells you create aren't that different from standard spells in other RPGs.

These aren't quite what you are after, but they are better than most rpg systems.

Re:Spells

[gl4ss]

ultima underworld had a rune system too. you would find runes needed for the spells, and needed to arrange them in the correct order to cast a spell. the manual had a list of spells, but not all.

imho it was pretty good system. however, just a ton of spells doesn't make a game good, those spells should also have their uses.

Same Magic, but Different Situation

[Black Mage Balthazar]

The "over rated" argument aside, Black & White had sort of a free form magic system. Depending on where you used certain spells different things would happen, which may sound pretty simple, but you could get pretty inventive.

ex. You could pile up some lumber, put rocks on it, and cast a fireball on the lumber. This would start a fire and heat the rocks up, the practical upshot of which is a batch of little mini fireballs.

But for the most part magic is pretty rule based; targets: enemy, enemy all, ally, ally all, all. Some games, like Secret of Evermore, have tried implementing an alchemy system, mixing items together to create different spells, but then you are usually limited to what the game designers pre placed in the game as far as effective combinations go.

The other side of the equation is Robotrek, a game that was pretty limited, but let you design techniques(basically magics or attacks) based on button combinations. Mind you there were only 3 or 4 buttons, so you couldn't get too inventive, but at least there was an effort.

Planescape: Torment

[stardeep]

The remark about spells that let you commune with spirits was made by Chris Avellone, lead designer of Planescape: Torment. The guy clearly tries to make games he would love to play himself.

Oh, what I'd give for another Planescape CRPG!