Your dream RPG

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[V_K]

The lack of imagination in this thread is mildly disheartening.

 

[conan_edw]

It's already out and called Grimoire

 

[Vlajdermen]

A tongue-in-cheek RPG titled "Rule the world!" where you play as a bunch of cartoonish villains inspired by Aku, Bill Cipher, Viggo Grimborn, and guys like that. The objective is to take over the world, and there'd be many different ways to do that. Think of the gameplay as Arcanum with better combat and more overall polish. The world reactivity, character system and C&C would be there and accounted for.

If not that, then something grounded, well-written and biopunk-themed that plays like Baldur's Gate 2.

 

[Falksi]

Dragon Age: Origins 2 - pretty much like the original but with better graphics obviously, more exciting Warrior combat moves, and any remote SJW bullshit removed.

The Witcher 2.5 - build upon where the franchize was headed with the first 2 entries & try to fully capture the actual feel of being a Witcher with mosters who are undefeatable unless various oils, traps, signs etc are used. Instead of just having a shit combat system which is based around "llevel up to win". Start the whole scenario with a custom character who's skills are developed through learning via questing & actioning.

X-COM Human Invasion - Band together with other species to defend your natural habitat against human invaders who have come to rape the natural resources of your environment.

 

[Piotrovitz]

Dragon Age: Origins 2 - pretty much like the original but with better graphics obviously, more exciting Warrior combat moves, and any remote SJW bullshit removed.

That feeling when you're not sure if someone fails at joking, or is just retarded.

 

[Zanzoken]

Takes inspiration from Mount & Blade, Sid Meier's Pirates, Battle Bros, and CK2

M&B style overworld
Low-ish fantasy with some magic and monsters
Complex relationship dynamics between player and NPCs / factions
Fire Emblem style turn-based square-grid battles but units have 3 to 5 abilities, initiative, and fatigue

Goal is similar to M&B -- start as a nobody, learn to fight, then become as famous and powerful as you can
Games are on the shorter side ~20 or 30 hours with randomized NPCs, events, etc and designed for replayability

 

[Lurker47]

-Desert biome.
-Consequences more interesting than the choices themselves or even the initial conflicts (obviously, I'd like them all to be interesting to a degree)
-Turn-based (maybe something to do with a TCG system)
-No voice acting.
-Unique take on sci-fi. Actually give bullshit made up elements some weight, functionality, and identity and create a plausible scientific environment revolving around the stuff you just pulled out of your ass. Everything else is realistic.
-Journal system.
-Open-ended character progression- lots of number-crunching and trees per level.
-A built-in alignment system.

 

[Valky]

Like Heroes of Might and Magic but with Mount & Blade style exploration and fighting when you visit locations and have battles.

 

[Piotrovitz]

The lack of imagination in this thread is mildly disheartening.

In the last two decades there were so many crpgs that had some potential but failed miserably in execution, that it's understandable people are just longing for same old stuff, but more polished and refined - nothing wrong with that.

Instead of some highly original new worlds with convoluted ontology, imaginative pantheon of gods, Dune or LOTR level lore that was never rehashed before and can serve as a basis for several novels, Dostoyevskian NPCs, constructed languages, ultra immersive novelty gameplay and all that, I just want my goddamn FO3 like it should have been done. Or BG3. Or Arcanum 2. Or Wiz 9.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

I dream dreams of things that never were, like RPGs where the dialogue system has as much tactical depth as the combat. The goal would be high stakes conversations with lots of moving parts where you need to exercise judgment rather than relying solely on passive stat checks (there would be lots of checks, but they should control the options available to you rather than functioning as an instant win button). I'm not sure I have the imagination to envision what this would look like if done well, but presumably it would require a lot of writing so that unlimited budget will come in handy.

Unless Robert Kurvitz is Estonia's greatest con artist, Disco Elysium seems to be on the right track here: you can equip ideas, your skills provide you with information during dialogue, but that information is often unreliable, and every skill is what we might call a social skill in another game. In fact, he expresses all of this better than I can:
http://zaumstudio.com/2016/09/19/on-skill-checks/

http://zaumstudio.com/2016/10/06/active-skill-checks/

Another example: Titan Outpost is coming at the dialogue tree problem from a total different direction, and I like the look of that, too. http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/update-5-negotiation.120346/

Spoiler

What I’m doing is new. I thought about how human beings have conversations and how you decide what to say in a P&P game. Usually, you have something you want out of a conversation, a goal. You also have a few things to say to get there, but what and how you say them depends on the other person’s actions and cues. So I ditched the tree structure in favour of a parallel interrupt system for negotiations.

You can interject with leverage, you can change the goal of your conversation, you can select pushy responses or backpedal and you can influence the dialogue in other ways. You can finally cover the flanks in a battle of words instead of always taking it head on with a couple of options. There is a lot more player agency involved. This is much harder to program, which is why I think most developers don’t bother. Getting every writer to a programming level where they could set up a conversation like this is not viable for most studios.

The downside? It’s a lot of work. So a lot of dialogue in the game is still a traditional tree system. For flavour, exposition and story progression, the tree system works fine. Whenever negotiation or trade is involved, though, I switch to the interrupt system. Let me walk you through it. At the 3:50 mark in the video, the negotiation begins.

In the negotiation screen, in the top left you can set your goals. This negotiation only has one goal, to convince Karen to do your work for you without mentioning it in her report. This goal is not binary, there are multiple levels of success or failure. If you are convincing enough, your goal will be met. If you barely convince her, she will do as you ask, but mention it in her report, hurting your reputation. If you fail to convince her, she will refuse. There is another, more complicated outcome but that is beyond the scope of this update.

After setting a goal, the negotiation difficulty is set. This determines how your negotiation skill stacks up against the potential danger or reward of each line you utter. To the right you can see the character portrait. Below the portrait is the disposition tracker. This player character has average awareness, so it can roughly estimate how the other person feels. With higher awareness, you can see the actually numbers involved here. A higher disposition will make it easier to convince this person. You can increase or hurt disposition throughout the game, by being nice or helping someone. High charisma helps here. Below the disposition is the stat box. Here you can see the relevant stats, in this case your negotiation skill and the other person's skill, which you can't see because you need really high awareness for that. Below that is the 'sway' indicator. This determines how convincing you've been so far. If it's green, you're usually fine.

In the middle are lines you can use to convince the other person. They have a risk value and a reward value. Risk determines how much of a disposition hit the character will take towards this person if the line fails, reward determines how much the person is swayed by this argument. Failure or success is determined by the negotiation stat and current state of the negotiation in progress.

To the left is the 'charm' button, which you can use once per negotiation if your charisma is high enough. If it's not high enough or the disposition is simply too low, though, this charm line will backfire. This character has Charisma 10 and high negotiation skill so it's a breeze.

Below that is the leverage area. Right now, the player has no leverage in this conversation, but leverage is a trump card you can use to increase sway without risk. You can gain leverage by finding some dirt on the character, for example.

I doubt either of these games will nail that perfect tactical dialogue system, but for the first time in twenty years someone is finally going in the right direction.

 

[Valky]

I dream dreams of things that never were, like RPGs where the dialogue system has as much tactical depth as the combat.

Having to talk to girls?

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

The Elder Scrolls IV: Cyrodiil

Building on the success of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, TES IV: Cyrodiil will ameliorate its weaknesses while retaining, and perhaps even improving, its strengths:

• Dungeons will be larger and more complex generally, with more on the level of Arkngthand or Kogoruhn
• A much larger amount of unique dialogue, especially for important NPCs, and no voice-acting in dialogue mode
  
• More quests will have alternative outcomes, with story-based C&C
• The setting will be the Imperial City and a limited section of the Imperial Province around it, allowing for a reasonable scale (architecture: Roman, Romanesque, Byzantine, Gothic)
  
• 3 political factions will be joinable and offer a large number of quests, while not being particularly suited to any one character type
• Aside from the political factions, there will be the Imperial Legion, Imperial Cult, Fighters Guild, Mages Guild, Thieves Guild, and Dark Brotherhood as joinable factions
• The main quest will follow directly from the resolution to the main quest of Morrowind, will actually make sense, and will be substantially less than completely linear
  
• The system of character progression/customization will be expanded and improved
• Even less creature/item leveling than existed in Morrowind
• More logistics, to enhance exploration
• Some improvements to the combat system, without making it action-based
• Stealth will be considerably improved by modelling it on the Thief games, with more interesting quests for the stealth-based factions/guilds than existed in Morrowind
• As in Morrowind, there will be no minigames, no quest compass, at least 27 skills, an interface designed for computers, statistics-based combat, etc.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

I dream dreams of things that never were, like RPGs where the dialogue system has as much tactical depth as the combat.

Having to talk to girls?

But if serious, yeah, real life seduction would be a good model, although seduction in an RPG is typically cringe inducing. As a general outline, though, sure: you have a clear goal with various degrees of success or failure, you have a wide variety of potential approaches that can become available based on your stats/skills, the whole enterprise depends on being able to read the person you're talking to (with the info you get filtered by your stats and skills), and you will inevitably say the wrong thing forcing you to make a backpedal roll, or a change of subject roll or a distraction roll or a shameless pandering roll to save your bacon.

Set it in a time and place where words are especially dangerous. Maybe the Byzantine imperial court, or a totalitarian state, maybe an espionage RPG.

 

[Reinhardt]

I won't tell you about my true dream rpg game. Original content. Do not steal.

 

[Egosphere]

The lack of imagination in this thread is mildly disheartening.

Brace yourself, big post incoming.

Arcanum 2 - 80 years after the events of the first. Following in the proud footsteps of its based predecessor ( which was about the fall and subsequent rise of an elf ethno-nationalist and the evils of gold-worshipping gnomes), the game will once again revolve around the darwinian struggles of arcanum's races and nations.

Following the rebuilding of Vendigroth by Arronax, the small nation prospers due to its high iq and work ethic, creating a 10 year tech gap in both science and magic with the Unified Kingdom to the south, as well as wedding the two fields together to create an unstoppable, symbiotic whole. Now in possession of a formidable navy (submarines, heavy cruiser warships) and air force (magical bombers etc. ), it's new ruler, governor Merwin Scanlan, embarks on an ambitious project of colonizing the plains north of the Grey Mountains. For the next five years, the Vendis incessantly erect new settlements and military fortifications in the underdeveloped region.

Meanwhile, the Bedokaans have multiplied their numbers 100 fold living under the wing of Qintarra. A false flag attack on their lands orchestrated by Tsen-Ang leaves the killer crocs incensed, and they brand all elves as sub-croc. They wage a separatist campaign, but begin to falter due to the superior magickal arms of Qintarra ( who have now shed their pacifist pretences after the passing of the Silver Lady ). Scanlan sees the Bedokaan as a comfy buffer zone between the Vendis and the elves, and so he enacts a clandestine weapon shipment program to help them. The region turns into a bloodbath, as the Qintarran forces are thinned by the brutal guerilla warfare.

Contemporaneously, Merwin Scanlan's nephew, a young journalist, is visiting Tarant to investigate the lurid rumours surrounding its gnomish Industrial Council and a certain 'Half-Ogre Island'. His investigation leads him down a long rabbit hole that irrefutably links the modern Tarantian elites with a kidnapping/slavery ring that operated in the city two centuries prior. Aghast at the revelation, he telegrams the information back to Tulla, but is assassinated in his hotel room at Molloy's that very same night. The Vendigroth authorities make the telegram public, exposing the industrial council as illegitimate, and accusing them of murder. The bombshell leads to condemnation from both Deirnholm and Caladon, the latter annulling all diplomatic, trade and military agreements with Tarant and expelling Tarantian representatives. Others, such as Blackroot, Ashbury and even the citizens of Tarant proper, accuse Vendrigoth of sensationalizing the past in order to destabilize the region, pointing out their role in the elven-bedokaan war.

Vendrigoth is branded a rogue state and Tarant mobilizes its troops, bombing all bridges on the river to the north and thereby setting up the Morhiban Plains as the only possible entry point for the Vendis army. The combined forces of Tarant and Ashbury, numbering several hundred thousand, entrench just south of the Grey Mountains on the Morh. Plains. Even though inferior in quality, its mages are armed with surface-to-air magic missiles that prevent the Vendis air force from encroaching on their air-space, whilst the sheer numbers of (primitive) tanks and artillery are enough to render the Vendis sitting ducks if they try to cross the mountains directly. Ashbury's fleet mines the waters around Isle of Despair, preventing a D-day scenario on the east coast. The Vendis subs do get through, but they are confined to harassing Ashbury's fleet ( which is irrelevant by this point ).

The Vendigroth position is dire. Unified Kingdom is prepared for a long war. Although technologically inferior, their manpower and natural resource output are an order of magnitude higher. Due to considerable mental defects of its rulers, Tarant has been secretly stockpiling a horrifying new weapon: it has been trapping predatory beasts and transporting them to secret facilities on Thanatos. There, through artificial selection and cross breeding, they have designed new species of highly resistant predators - Burnowar Wyverns, Insectress hell-creepers etc. Tarant transports tens of thousands of these monstrosities to Vendrigoth across the strait, setting them loose to terrorize the land.

Vendigroth morale is low and Merwin confides in his military aides that he is contemplating surrender. The people are beginning to panic and the the situation nears breaking point. A young general, Isaac Radcliffe, convinces Merwin to keep fighting. Dividing the Army into two, the smaller group attacks the unified forces directly from the grey mountains. Consisting of self-propelled arachnid artillery and several divisions of automaton machine gunners, these act as a distraction, whilst the real army, personally led by Radcliffe, begins fighting their way through the glimmering forest in hope of reaching Hardin's Pass and attacking the unmanned Tarant from the west. It's Vendigroth's only chance of success.

But the scars left by an ancient war have not yet healed, and the Old Gods have not forgotten..


TLDR This game would have it all - mage paratroopers, motorized necromancer divisions, magical bombers, packs of hyper-intelligent lizard predators, war, peace, espionage, betrayal, Gods, orcs, ships, planes, teleportation portals, crimes against humanity ( yeah yeah there'd be some romance too ). There'd be twice as many skills, crafting schools, magic schools and weapons. More locations, more factions, more c&c, more companions, better combat, and a story to rival PST's to boot ( What can change the nature of a God? )

 

[Reinhardt]

The lack of imagination in this thread is mildly disheartening.

Brace yourself, big post incoming.

Arcanum 2

 

[Serus]

The lack of imagination in this thread is mildly disheartening.

How so ? You mean people not presenting completely novel revolutionary concepts of things that were never done in CRPG ? Perhaps but those are hard to present in one post in a thread like this.

Turn-based BG3 in the 3.5e ruleset. Essentially ToEE on steroids.

Yo

https://www.realms-beyond.com/

Yea but that's "planned release in 2019". Which means there is optimistically 25% (according my super scientific calculation) chance it will get done at all.
There is also KoTC 2 still in the making (right ?) but will probably suck donkey balls.

 

[V_K]

You mean people not presenting completely novel revolutionary concepts of things that were never done in CRPG ? Perhaps but those are hard to present in one post in a thread like this.

Not really. If an idea is original, it's generally rather evident and doesn't require long elaboration. There were a couple of those here (e.g. "noir RPG"), but most posts are like "game XXX but with furries".

 

[Serus]

Hyborian Age the RPG.
[...]

This so much. We had some shitty mmos, some very old action games, perhaps some other shit I forgot about but a proper Hyborian Age, heroic fantasy CRPG - never done to my knowledge. I'd kill for one.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

The lack of imagination in this thread is mildly disheartening.

In the last two decades there were so many crpgs that had some potential but failed miserably in execution, that it's understandable people are just longing for same old stuff, but more polished and refined - nothing wrong with that.

Instead of some highly original new worlds with convoluted ontology, imaginative pantheon of gods, Dune or LOTR level lore that was never rehashed before and can serve as a basis for several novels, Dostoyevskian NPCs, constructed languages, ultra immersive novelty gameplay and all that, I just want my goddamn FO3 like it should have been done. Or BG3. Or Arcanum 2. Or Wiz 9.

& I'll add the obvious question: What has originality got to do with someone's perception of ideal? How can someone know something is ideal if they've never encountered it before?

 

[undecaf]

I'd actually like to see a game that firstly had custom PnP compatible set of rules that allows for large variety of interactions, characterbuilds and reactivity, phase based combat in a sort of a combination of Wasteland 1 and Wzardry 7/8 (with a bit more on screen mobility and visual flare), and a set up that puts a detective/agent story within a combination of the "serious story draped as an animal driven childrens tale" from Orwells Animal Farm (the player playing either as a cat, dog or a pig), David Lynch's warped reality mysteries and David Cronenberg's bodyhorror violence, twisted individuals and paranoia, all set in far future space. Core gameplay being a combination of Dreamweb and B.A.T. 2. with visual fidelity of GTA 2. Open ended storytelling with an initial motivation to set things in motion and then following and reacting to the players actions and whims as he goes to what ever end he ends up with -- as little scripted "must-do" events as possible and the effort put into world reactivity.

It'd might be for a good laugh, at least.

 

[V_K]

What has originality got to do with someone's perception of ideal?

The OP said nothing about ideal though. The thread title says dream RPG.

How can someone know something is ideal if they've never encountered it before?

That's precisely what imagination is for - the lack of which this sort of question clearly demonstrates.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Another fun game to play would be a medieval rpg where you create a team of fighters and rogues, all non-caster types, and pit them against a council of mages and other casters.
Bunch of average dudes having to acquire the intel and use their wits and strength to take down powerful mages should be a fun exercise in creativity.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

What has originality got to do with someone's perception of ideal?

The OP said nothing about ideal though. The thread title says dream RPG.

How can someone know something is ideal if they've never encountered it before?

That's precisely what imagination is for - the lack of which this sort of question clearly demonstrates.

And you can dream about things you've never encountered before can you?