Designing a new Player Death / Failed Skill Roll System

[poetic codex]

I don't think I've ever played an RPG that handled these two things well.

In every game, dying, or failing certain skill checks is essentially another trip to the reload screen. For instance, you attempt to steal from a shop, but you failed, so the merchant and city guards start to attack you. Trip to the reload screen.

(Of course, there are exceptions such as Planescape, but I will address that later on because in some ways, the Planescape death system was even worse.)

This death = reload system that is so pervasive has always bothered me and now I'm starting to understand why.

1.) In a game that uses killing lots of stuff as the primary way to engage with the game , the death = reload system is a way to make things more fair for the player. But that's the thing. Why use killing lots of stuff as the primary way of interacting with the game? It's one of those things that game designers blindly accept as a necessity and design their games with it. "Hey, every other game has this, so we shouldn't think outside the box " It's the reason why FPS shooters are so pervasive. So the first way to stop this death=reload system is to actively design games in such a way that killing lots of stuff is not the primary form of interaction/conflict resolution. I have some ideas about this which I will discuss below.

2) Games do a poor job of designing consequences. Stealing from a shop and failing usually means its time to reload if the guards and merchants start attacking you. But there are so many other consequences they could have used aside from instant death. How about the merchant upping his prices or banning you from his shop ? Alpha protocol, despite its many flaws, actually made an attempt in the right direction when it comes to designing consequences aside from imminent death.

Perhaps you guys will add other ideas, but for now, those two are the main culprits that make death=reload 1) designing a game around killing lots of stuff, and 2) poor job of designing consequences.


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So how to rectify this situation where death=reload?

There are many ideas. I have some, and I know you guys can add more.

1) The Planescape method. Just make the player immortal ! Unfortunately, this method is akin to placing a cup to collect blood under a bleeding wound. Your priority should be to stop the bleeding, not simply contain it. Similarly, simply making the player immortal does not solve the problem if the underlying issue is still present: the game is still designed around killing lots of stuff. So now instead of death=reload, we get death=respawn.

2.) Design the game in such a way that killing lots of stuff is not the primary form of interacting with the game. Even though Planescape suffered from the above problem, one thing it did do very well was give non-combat methods of gaining new skills, and character development via dialogue with NCPC's. So dialogue is one way. Another way to design a game where killing lots of stuff is not the primary form of interaction is making consequences arise directly from gameplay decisions. For example, whether you choose to follow through a quest or whether or not you choose to explore a cave you will find new skills that won't be accessible to other players who did not choose to do these things. This is explained more fully in THIS THREAD HERE

3. Design more creative consequences for failing skill checks. Not simply getting slaughtered by the guards. I already mentioned making merchants up their prices, or banning you from their shops if you fail an attempted steal.In Morrowind, you could go to prison or you could try to bribe the guards with money. The ideas are out there, it's just that more game designers don't implement them, and opt for the lazier failure=death=reload screen.

I would like to hear your thoughts on this. Are you guys satisfied with the current death=reload system?

If you are, please explain why. I'm open-minded enough to consider the possibility that my assessment here is missing something.

If you are not satisfied with it like I am, please share your alternative ideas if you have them.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Except that there isn't a failure = reload system. No one forces you to load game. It can be as well played as death = the end. The problem is that a lot of games don't support replaying/restarting many times because of stuff like linearity and constraining players during the beginning.

Death = the end approach works very good in Fallout because it doesn't throw forced content at the player and doesn't have wall of text conversations with "deep" characters.

Whole towns going hostile because of a failed steal check are retarded. Someone should simply check how stuff works with RL thieves.

 

[poetic codex]

Death = the end approach works very good in Fallout because it doesn't throw forced content at the player and doesn't have wall of text conversations with "deep" characters.

Good points, and I'm glad you brought up Fallout. Because in that game, I attempted to debate with a super mutant, I failed, and this lead to a video cut-scene of me suffering a horrible consequence (I don't want to mention spoilers, but those who played the game should know what I'm talking about)

I did NOT reload. I accepted that as the result of my action, and I felt bad about what happened. That to me was good game design, and I just wish that more games would incorporate meaningful consequences like this, but not ones that would necessarily lead to death.

Things like this definitely help to prevent the constant reloading bug that plagues so many games.

 

[Phelot]

1.) In a game that uses killing lots of stuff as the primary way to engage with the game , the death = reload system is a way to make things more fair for the player. But that's the thing. Why use killing lots of stuff as the primary way of interacting with the game? It's one of those things that game designers blindly accept as a necessity and design their games with it. "Hey, every other game has this, so we shouldn't think outside the box " It's the reason why FPS shooters are so pervasive. So the first way to stop this death=reload system is to actively design games in such a way that killing lots of stuff is not the primary form of interaction/conflict resolution. I have some ideas about this which I will discuss below.

I've discussed this before and we were just recently discussing it in that codex rebellion thread in GD.

Basically, yeah I agree. In PnP combat was kind of tedious to do, so there wasn't that much of it unless the players wanted it.

I think it's possible to make a game with little combat and still be fun, but I suspect it would be very short if it truly follows a PnP module. I don't have a problem with this so long as the devs make the setting detailed enough which most PnP modules do as well (at times going so far as describing the lineage and background of every NPC in the game, important or not)

Not to mention a focus on a player's chosen skills would come into play. Most problems have numerous solutions and it's up to the devs to try and guess what different players might try to do when approaching a problem. Do they bash a door down? Do they lockpick it? Do they trick a guard into opening it? Do they seduce the guard? All of these should be valid options for the player in order to avoid combat.

2) Games do a poor job of designing consequences. Stealing from a shop and failing usually means its time to reload if the guards and merchants start attacking you. But there are so many other consequences they could have used aside from instant death. How about the merchant upping his prices or banning you from his shop ? Alpha protocol, despite its many flaws, actually made an attempt in the right direction when it comes to designing consequences aside from imminent death.

I guess devs just need to try and be more creative if they're making an open ended game. So with your example, you're right and it's way to extreme for an entire town to go apeshit and attack you on sight because you stole a broom from the general store, but that's typically how it's handled. Instead, maybe you go to jail and as an incentive for the player to keep playing, maybe there's a chance you meet an influential thief or something that perhaps unlocks more quests.

Also, I believe it's important not to show the player failure notices. If I'm lockpicking a door and get "FAILURE U SUCK" then yeah I'll likely reload, but if I got a message along the lines of "The lock jammed, perhaps due to age." it might throw me off and I might assume the door lock was just old and so I'd have to move on and try another approach.

I wouldn't want it to be apparent I failed, but of course this means I'd need another avenue to solve a problem... or perhaps not if it's a minor quest. I don't see a problem in permanently failing a quest because my character lacked the proper skill or me the player wasn't clever enough to figure it out.

Perhaps you guys will add other ideas, but for now, those two are the main culprits that make death=reload 1) designing a game around killing lots of stuff, and 2) poor job of designing consequences.

Except that there isn't a failure = reload system. No one forces you to load game.

I agree to a certain extent. I do think that if a game adds in lots of cheap shit just to make you think it's challenging then they're likely encouraging reload behavior.

Like I said above, I think it's important for a game to avoid having big "FAILURE" notices popping up and it'd be nice to have consequences other then mobs of angry townspeople and death.

 

[Davaris]

Good comments there phelot.

I would also add a no reload feature, where the game auto saves at intervals of 5 or 10 minutes and saves on exit.

Also as phelot said, make the game shorter but very detailed and give lots of options and few absolute failures.

Something I'd also like to try, is to make combat as deadly as it is in real life. That way combat becomes the option of last resort for the designer and the player.

If you take combat out as the primary game mechanic, then you must replace it with something that is stimulating. Perhaps Alpha Protocol's rapid dialogues could help, or you could think of something else.


>Are you guys satisfied with the current death=reload system?

I don't like it myself, because it doesn't feel like you are playing a game, if you are force loading through difficult areas. However most people are addicted to it.

 

[Deneidez]

I would also add a no reload feature, where the game auto saves at intervals of 5 or 10 minutes and saves on exit.

Something I'd also like to try, is to make combat as deadly as it is in real life. That way combat becomes the option of last resort for the designer and the player.

If you take combat out as the primary game mechanic, then you must replace it with something that is stimulating. Perhaps Alpha Protocol's rapid dialogues could help, or you could think of something else.

Actually I have been making a game in which player is just another character with no special skills. He/she might survive fight with 1-3 human enemies, if he/she is lucky and/or skilled enough. Player can also surrender etc. However going after dragons etc. alone would be a suicide.

However I think death = end would be too harsh and in my game I have done it so that every being won't die right away, but they will be wounded and they can be healed or they can be killed after combat, if not needed. Also there is a possibility to continue playing after death as a offspring of players character. Of course death would be the end, if there would be no offspring. So it would be something like M&B for every character, but with some extra features added.

More arcade way to do dying would be some annoying puzzle or something every time players character dies. It would be like punishment or something. ( I think there was some games that did it like this. )

And about auto saving. That would nice feature.
(In my game there can only be auto saving, because of size save files. And again... Sig for more info about my game.)

Or there could be something like prince of persia sands of time has. A way to rewind few seconds.

Oh and this one...
>Are you guys satisfied with the current death=reload system?
I don't like it especially when there is always a way to get instant death for your character. It will bog down something like(especially with linear games) try -> death, try -> death, try-> death...try-> success and it can get boring quite fast. One (crappy)way to eliminate it is lowering difficulty and thats what we have saw way too much in games today.

 

[spectre]

The trick in designing around this is, first establish with the player that he no longer needs to have the knee jerk reaction - failure = reload.
But that's only one step, in the example of PST you see it done, but it is not enough.
If the benefits of not reloading on death are few (like in PST), the player will learn them and still reload in the other cases when he feels punished (having to go through mortuary and back to where you've been counts as this).

While the statement "don't make the player feel unrewarded" may sound like bsb popamole bullshit philosophy, you have to understand that doing it otherwise just caters to the niche hardcore ironman wankery support group.

Now, for examples, we've already discussed raising skills through failed attempts only. It's the way its done in Brigade E6, and I must say, it works. You're actually being happy about missing a sniper headshot, because you see your skill rise by +3.

So, the trick is to give additional opportunities to the player when he fails tasks, raising skills is one thing, gaining access to factons, perks quests, npcs is a logical extension, think Oblibion's prison, only on a larger scale.

Thing is, it shouldn't be a one-off, like the said prison - once you've been there once, you're set and no reason to do it ever again - to continue with the prison example, the player needs to get caught every once in a while, because f.e there's an npc that can only be accessed there.

Failure increasing skill is another implementation to look at when you want something that just works throughout the game.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Here is a good way of rewarding failure:

Cattie Sintal, The Eternal Romantic

Gender Female
Race Human
Class Warrior 1
XP 568
Next @ 1000
Align Neutral


STR: 13/00 [+1/+1] (base 13)
DEX: 12/00 [+1/+0] (base 18, -6 status)
CON: 10/00 [+0/+0] (base 10)
INT: 13/01 [+1/+1] (base 13)
WIS: 13/00 [+1/+1] (base 13)
CHA: 12/00 [+1/+0] (base 12)
LUC: 13/00 [+1/+1] (base 13)
Fortitude +2(Warrior +2)
Reflex +1(Warrior +0, +1 Dex)
Will +3(Warrior +2, +1 Wis)
Brawl +toHit -2 (Warrior +1, +1 Str, -4 status)
Damage +1 (base 0, +1 Str)
Speed 55% (base 100% +5% Warrior) x 50% status
Size Human-sized:
(base human-sized)

Defense Class 7:
(base 10, +1 Dex, -4 status)

Coverage 0:
(base 0)

Movement Rate 110%:
(base 100%) x 110% skill

Hit Dice Rolls 23:
20 + 1d10 (3)
Mana Rolls 14:
10 + 1d6 (3) x 1 + 1 (WIS bonus)

Encumbrance None:
(Light 25.3s, Moderate 76.0s, Heavy 153.0s, Extreme 230.0s, Max Press 300.0s)

Special Abilities:
Inherant Potential +3
Versatility
Lore of Arms (20 hits)

Feats:
Armor Proficiency: Light
Armor Proficiency: Medium
Armor Proficiency: Heavy
Mounted Combat
Ride-By Attack
Shield Proficiency
Spirited Charge
Weapon Focus

Resistances and Armor:
None

Proficiencies Simple Weapons, Short Blades, Long Blades, Axes, Archery, Staves, Impact, Thrown, Polearms, Spears, Lances, Daggers, Flexible, Flails, Light Armor, Medium Armor, Heavy Armor and ranseur (focused)

Skill Ratings:
Athletics +4 (1 ranks, +1 STR, +2 train)
Bluff +2 (0 ranks, +2 train)
Climb +3 (0 ranks, +1 STR, +2 train)
Craft +2 (0 ranks, +2 train)
Disguise +3 (0 ranks, +1 INT, +2 train)
Find Weakness +5 (2 ranks, +1 WIS, +2 train)
Healing +3 (0 ranks, +1 WIS, +2 train)
Intimidate +5 (2 ranks, +1 STR, +2 train)
Intuition +3 (0 ranks, +1 WIS, +2 train)
Ride +4 (2 ranks, +2 train)
Seneschal +3 (0 ranks, +1 INT, +2 train)
Spot +3 (0 ranks, +1 WIS, +2 train)

Spiritual State:
__You are not devoted to a
____single god.
__You are perfectly neutral with
____regard to Good and Evil.
__You are perfectly neutral with
____regard to Law and Chaos.

CharGen Options and Choices:
__Beginner's Kit: OFF
__Initial Rolling Method: 4d6 + Perks
____(actually used Point Buy)
__Allow Rerolling: NO
__Use the Subraces: NO
__Disallow Wizard Mode: NO
__Maximum Hit Points: NO
__Maximum Mana: NO
__Default Character Gender: ASK
__Monsters Maximum Hit Points: NO
__Roll Attributes First: NO
__Gain Attributes With Levels: YES
__Allow Rapid Intuition: WEAPONS
__Monsters Use Djikstra: YES
__Out-Of-Depth Monsters: YES
__Transgression Hints: NO
__Difficulty Level: BASELINE
__Power Stats: BASELINE
__Elude Death: NO
__Disable Complicity Transgressions: NO


Inventory:

On The Ground:
uncursed flaming ranseur +1
uncursed medium backpack
7 uncursed food rations
uncursed adamant Gauntlets +1 of Ogre Power [+1]
5 uncursed torches (with 3000 turns of light left)
5 uncursed Potions of Healing [2d8+8]
uncursed Potion of See Invisibility
3 uncursed Potions of Dimension Door [2d20]
uncursed Wand +1 of the Void [1d6, 1d6] (47 charges)
uncursed dagger
2 uncursed Oils of Transformation
288 uncursed gold pieces
uncursed studded leather +1
uncursed peasant garb
uncursed kite shield +1
uncursed torch (with 2816 turns of light left)
Cattie Sintal's corpse
Cattie Sintal's corpse

Known Spells:

Journal:

12:00 AM, 1st of Suntide: Entry Chamber, 10' (H:23/23 M:14/14 XP:0)
You arrive at 10' in the The Goblin Caves.

12:36 AM, 1st of Suntide: Ice Matrix, 10' (H:1/23 M:14/14 XP:568)
Seen: giant dragonfly (CR 1)
You are gravely wounded by Cattie!

Monsters Encountered:
Total: 9
4 Dogs
1 Faeries
5 Humanoids
1 Jellies
2 Oozes
1 Spiders
2 Vermin
1 Elementals
1 Elementalkin
1 Outsiders
1 Swarms

Level Statistics:

Lvl | Act | Key | Turns | Secs | XP | Explored
----+-----+-----+-------+------+-----+------------------
1 | 844| 1550| 11005| 1050| 568|2239 / 4435 = 50%

Messages:
mage: 2d4+3 +1 charge = 8
Seeing an opportunity, you swing low, killing the adlet.
Autosave...
Done.
Searching Check: 1d20 (6) +1 = 7 vs DC 16 [failure].
Reflex Save: 1d20 (3) +4 base = 7 vs DC 21 [failure].
You fall victim to a pit trap!
The ground falls away!
You fall into the pit!
You reel...
You stand up.
Climb Check: 1d20 (16) +1 = 17 vs DC 20 [failure].
You try to climb out of the pit, but fall back in!
You reel...
You stand up.
Climb Check: 1d20 (5) +1 = 6 vs DC 20 [failure].
You try to climb out of the pit, but fall back in!
You reel...
You are gravely wounded!
You stand up.
Climb Check: 1d20 (14) +1 = 15 vs DC 20 [failure].
You try to climb out of the pit, but fall back in!
You reel...
Fortitude Save: 1d20 (3) +2 base = 5 vs DC 20 [failure].
You die...

 

[Davaris]

Failure increasing skill is another implementation to look at when you want something that just works throughout the game.

That is clever.

Along similar lines I would have a hint tree, that expands in certain directions, as the player succeeds or fails at certain tasks. That way the player will be conflicted: Accept failure and investigate the new possibility that has just opened up, or reload and try again.

 

[Murk]

I remember Rex talking about how Divine Divinity did the whole 'stealing' thing rather well.

You would have individual reputations with people and if it was high enough you could steal from them and they would complain but let you do it - seemingly as a "hey, if my best friend needs that healing potion then fuck it, let him have it". Eventually however they would get enraged and possibly attack you... but they would stop, well some NPCs, if they were losing. Otho was a good example - if you killed one of his pigs he'd go to town on your ass but if you beat him to near death he'd stop and tell you to fuck off.

No sense in having a constant suicide-by-police like mechanic... err suicide-by-hero?

 

[poetic codex]

However I think death = end would be too harsh and in my game I have done it so that every being won't die right away, but they will be wounded and they can be healed or they can be killed after combat, if not needed.

Man, it's so good to see I am not the only one who had these kinds of ideas.

I also envisioned a death system where getting killed=injury for the player character instead of death. Fights continue until the player character suffers an injury which would take him out of the fight.

And it would not be a matter of just using a healing kit, and automatically healing everything like in DA (which defeated the whole point of an injury system in my opinion)

Injuries would heal over time, with different healing rates depending on the nature of the injury. Although the process can be sped up somehwhat by going to doctors.

Some in juries would leave permanent disabilities, but even more importantly, some injuries would leave permanent benefits. In a game like this, the encounters would have to be designed with this system in mind, so no countless horde after horde like is typical in RPG's.

Fights would have to be few, but have weight and meaning in order to give enough time in between injuries. This is why injuries would also benefit/harm the non-combat interaction with the game world.

NPC: "That's a nice looking scar. Reminds of the one my da' had. I've got a mind to give you a nice discount just for today."

 

[Lord Rocket]

Kay so how bout this

P&P players will have heard of 'fate points.' For those who haven't, they're essentially get out of jail free cards - character dies? Spend a fate point, and you miraculously survive. Fuck up an important roll? Spend a fate point and you get a reroll/autosuccess. Anyway yeah these could be imported easily into a CRPG. For ex, you start with X amount and get another one every time you finish a quest (or whatevs). If you die in combat (or a party member dies, for that matter) you can spend one for a miracle and hooray they're alive again, Bioware style motherfuckers. Alternatively, if you fail a roll then you can spend one to automagically succeed, or just to lower requirements and try again - eg
[Talk shit 50] Blah blah blah
[Talk shit 25, 1 Fate Point] Rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb
(the beauty of this approach is the devs can control what checks can have fate spent on them. You could, for example, restrict fateable checks to main quest, potentially progress blocking checks or let folks use them as they will)

BUT here's the deal. When you're low on fate points you get rewarded for it. Only a couple of points left? How about access to some totally sick loot tables and/or some big old experience bonuses? Better yet, you can use them to restrict access to certain content. Too many fate points left and folks might think you're too fresh faced to do some quest or some shit (rant rant realism, fuck off, abstraction rules and if you don't like it then you're a fag. Full stop.). Alternatively, succeeding without expending a point or two is different to succeeding by means of points, closing off various quest paths.

So you get the following advantages: wussy players will complain a little less if shit's too hard for them since they can fate their problems away (and they'll get rewarded for doing so). You don't have to resort to jerky methods (NO MANUAL SAVES!!!) to prevent players from reloading their troubles away. Lazy devs should love it since chucking in an algorithm to boost XP/loot rewards is easier than designing 'realistic' consequences for failure. Cool devs can use the system to make quests that much more interesting. It's an in-game reason not to save/reload constantly. I quite like metagamey shit like this.
On the bad side, I suppose people will bitch about how this makes games too easy (because quicksaving doesn't). It's another thing to balance (although if you keep fate point rewards relatively rare and provide plenty of opportunities to spend them, players can largely take care of this themselves. Although that might generate it's own problems as then everyone's getting the rewards for having not many fate points all the time). Probably a bunch of other things some enterprising poster will point out.

 

[Excommunicator]

What I like most about the idea is that it gives options. I love options. It allows you to think about which way you might want to do something and will allow you to approach it the way you want, not to mention give you more to think about in terms of consequences and how you will develop your character. That is always fun.

I think some of the problems lie in the fact that it is not really a "self-protecting" mechanic in the sense that you can quite easily hoard points (save scumming) if you want, or you can deplete them intentionally to get more loot/experience (or whatever the reward might be).

What I think will happen is players will meta-game and analyse the two alternatives - would I rather be able to skip difficult situations with a bunch of "get out of [situation] free cards" or would I rather trudge through the bad rolls and situations and in turn end up with more loot and experience. I know for me I would pretty much automatically go for the depleted faith points because essentially it is an investment - you are getting more experience points/loot that will in turn make you better and more powerful and in the long term reduce the amount of situations when you would need to use the fate points... As opposed to building a big pool and using them for what would probably feel like "cheating" situations when your character does not have the skill to succeed "naturally". This in turn I think would result in most characters being above the curve in their experience and loot (in having essentially farmed the rewards of low fate points), and then ending up with a large pool of points that they do not need (or alternatively could use to unbalance the game further) due to having a better character from low fate rewards.

I would say the solutions for those problems would creating a lot of interdependence in the advancement methods - you would need to design the way in which a character advances around this fate system so as to reduce opportunities for such farming (which would most easily be done by taking away rewards from tasks that could be farmed, i.e. killing), and I would add another layer of benefits/penalties on each - where you mentioned opening/closing quest paths would help with this, but also make it so that perhaps fate points could be spent on things which could not be gained any other way, and adding a special mechanic for characters who have consistently "bad fate"


I would also suggest hiding the fate points - I think DraQ will be with me on this - because it would be tempting to start analysing and comparing the numbers and then forget why you are playing.
Then you could attach a mechanic of negative fate points so that a player must predict if they have the points to do it and then whether or not they should risk the dreaded "negative fate" penalties whatever they might be.. maybe the grim reaper will make a visit to claim a party member given your apparent "debt" heheheh


On the other comments in this thread, I am a huge fan of non-lethal confrontations. It is a foundation mechanic that when implemented would provide so much opportunity for other mechanics to use it to their advantage and create whole new layers of interaction. I would love to see them in games more often, though I am not holding my breath with the triple-Ass studios

 

[Lord Rocket]

The way I would parcel them out is this:

X points for every person in your party (X is probably one but if I were to implement this system in a party based game, ho ho ho, look at me implying I can program and have the drive to complete a game, with >4 members it'd be one-half each)
1 point for every non-trivial quest completed (ie no bonus reward for farming 'quests.' To use a Fallout example, you'd get one when you either help/kill Gizmo or the sheriff. Assuming that big fat dude at the table is called Gizmo, I honestly don't remember. You wouldn't get one for clearing out the radscorpions in that other place)
1 point for acting in a way consistent with your 'alignment' in a situation where that would land you in trouble. Assuming this is a game with an alignment system, I mean

In an ideal world I'd aim for players to have, assuming they were savescumming where possible and never using the points, about half a dozen points at the most.
However, I also think the other problem is more likely, where they eat all their points straight away and then savescum to enjoy the XP/loot benefits. Two possible solutions: old school save and quit system (I think this would work quite well with a system like this one as you wouldn't necessarily need to save before every little thing. I don't favour this solution outside of combat though) or, again, quests designed around fate usage. The fate points to access additional content is a great variation on this as well and I'm sad I didn't think of it myself.

 

[Kz3r0]

I remember Rex talking about how Divine Divinity did the whole 'stealing' thing rather well.

You would have individual reputations with people and if it was high enough you could steal from them and they would complain but let you do it - seemingly as a "hey, if my best friend needs that healing potion then fuck it, let him have it". Eventually however they would get enraged and possibly attack you... but they would stop, well some NPCs, if they were losing. Otho was a good example - if you killed one of his pigs he'd go to town on your ass but if you beat him to near death he'd stop and tell you to fuck off.

No sense in having a constant suicide-by-police like mechanic... err suicide-by-hero?

Good example, another thing that DD handled well was the jail system.
However the real point is making failure part of the game, and not a de facto gamebreaking experience, heck, in Arcanum you can make hostile the two major cities and still finish it.

 

[Excommunicator]

Maybe have it a flat X fate points per party minus n points where n = number of companions? (the idea being with a party based system, you are going to have more skill sets at your disposal, and less likely to need the fate points)

I have never been a fan of alignment systems though. Even as basic as the chaotic/lawful thing in D&D, its like you either are completely selfish and unguided in your decisions or you have to believe in some pre-established (yet invisible) law system that is almost always structured around an extreme of punish the weak or protect the innocent. I always find it too simplistic and built around the designer's own moral system to the extent that it may as well not be there at all.

I would love to get into a moral debate with some of the designers that put these systems in to their games, they just seem so incredibly flimsy and naive

 

[Tycn]

ctrl+f
"gothic"
phrase not found

Though I do agree that it would be fucking cool to have a game that treated murder as something serious and actually consequential.

 

[PandaBreeder]

Thing is, if the player fails at stealing the blacksmith's key he should be punished, and while the blacksmith might, instead of trying to kill the hero, call the guards to subdue the protagonist and lock him in jail (And possibly pay a fine) the player would still reload. I don't see any way to solve this problem besides only allowing reloads on character death.

 

[zenbitz]

I thought about this in the early stages of PARPG. I wanted to do the game permadeath, or 1-save-slot rogue-like but currently that's been tabled as too mean.

The hard part is - let's face it - replaying a huge chunk of content just because you chose poorly in some interaction sucks. PS:T worked because it actually JUSTIFIED why it didn't matter if you reloaded or not because your character was immortal.

The other problem is that players playing a cRPG want to go back to various "forks" and try different approaches. This is true whether they have a "good" result or bad one (but usually bad one). Only in an extreme case (FO/FO2 as a moron) is the content going to be varied or unique enough to play over and over. Permadeath works well in roguelikes since the content is essentially random.

Of course, most old arcade games you got your 3 lives and were done... until shinobi or (maybe even Defender?) invented the "insert coin to continue".

Maybe one way to do it is to simply have a "score" based on how little you die before end screen. I think "Adventure" type games have done this.

At least this way there is some incentive to stay alive.

Another way is sort of cheating, but PS:T like - and that is to just Deus Ex Machina the PC out of any "fatal situation". You could couple this with single save point (so no reloading!), but the game would not actually END if you died. If you went to jail, you'd have to break out, etc.

You could also pull a console-game (I am thinking LEGO star wars) like "unlock" (or I guess FO2 did this as well) area so that the player could go back and get all content once they cleared an area/ beat the game (but you couldn't load up on loot and bring it to the next loc. That would be dumb).