Making EXP exist in universe?

[deuxhero]

Would making EXP an in-universe concept be a workable design idea?


My basic concept is something like this

In *game world* everything alive has some "magic" (let's call it "mojo") in it (even down to the grass, though it provideds less than 1 point). By "killing" something, people can absorb the victim's mojo into them. Obviously things that do this on a regular basis to others give off a good deal of mojo. Eating things that have once been alive can also provide the eater with mojo (this mojo may do the "recover HP with food" shtick).

This could create interesting effects on the game world. Suddenly "butcher" is a high class profession. Above all, IMO, having magic be central to a world, rather than restricted to old introverts in robes most people don't meet, always makes a more interesting world.

By making the world aware of the existence, unique mechanics also could be introduced. For example, finding a way to eat something alive may provide a much greater amount of mojo. Another idea could be that well crafted inanimate objects, and esp magic ones, can have mojo as well, and breaking them can allow you to
gain mojo as an alternative to selling it for gold.


Passing an arbitrary value to gain more power may not be the best idea with this system though. As an alternative, mojo could be spent directly on abilities/stats (use the mojo to build up your mussels, or with sufficient mojo, make radical changes to your body, like get that abovementioned "eat things alive" ). It's a little strange for skills though, having a trainer involved only makes it slightly more sane. Hmm...



OK, that sprialed out of the inital idea.

 

[oscar]

Reminds me of Polynesian culture where you'd gain someone's power (even called "mana") by eating them.

 

[OminousBlueDot]

Would I gain mojo for eating the grass or merely trampling it with my enormous feet? What if I chose to wove said grass into a glorious mat ... then ate it?

Will this mojo exercise duality (be good or evil)?

What are the consequences, gentle-phenomena?!

For the moment, it sounds like coins (and entities that bare coins) in Mario 64, along with other games that allow you to farm experience by slaughtering endless hordes. (Burning down forests to gain ultimate mojo does sound most epic, though.)

 

[CrunchyHemorrhoids]

My basic concept is something like this

In *game world* everything alive has some "magic" (let's call it "mojo") in it (even down to the grass, though it provideds less than 1 point). By "killing" something, people can absorb the victim's mojo into them.

KOTOR 2? MOTB?

 

[Shemar]

So... killing stuff would be the only way to gain XP?

Also, I fail to see any real benefits other than trying to turn meta-gaming into role playing. The advantages you mention 'eating things alive for more XP' and 'trading magical items for XP' are both pretty, well sorry for the expression, lame.

And how would you go about creating a setting where one gains power simply by killing things? It would tend to be a whole lot more chaotic when life turns from a positive value to a negative one even for the general population. Most settings, in fact almost every example of organised society, is based on some basic things as the value of each other's life. In a world where taking each other's life has even more value, how would organised society exist?

On to more practical matters, so if a group of adventurers is in a fight, then the one who delivers the killing blow gets all the XP? How would that work mechanically? Clerics (and healers/buffers of all types) want to know!

 

[Excommunicator]

Shemar is spot on. If you want to bring the mechanics into the setting (which is always a good thing for a designer to consider at some point anyway), then you will need to completely restructure the world so that the people of the top have consumed hundreds of thousands of people, and have laws that prevent any lesser person from doing so so they can't be overthrown. In other words, it would get very messy.

 

[deuxhero]

On to more practical matters, so if a group of adventurers is in a fight, then the one who delivers the killing blow gets all the XP? How would that work mechanically? Clerics (and healers/buffers of all types) want to know!

I pictured this as for a solo game, ala Gothic or Bloodlines.


Yeah, there is some issue with it limiting EXP to combat though.

 

[spectre]

The advantages you mention 'eating things alive for more XP' and 'trading magical items for XP' are both pretty, well sorry for the expression, lame.

Incidentally, it's D&D 3E all over again. So, yeah, I agree.

@ Excommunicator
That's actually Vampire the Masquerade (especially the Dark Ages bit, there seems to be more vampire-cannibalism going on in there), but with a twist - consuming one powerful guy will take you further than thousands of weaklings.

 

[rpgcodexusername]

its like paradroid where you gain the xp of the bloke you killed

 

[Erzherzog]

And how would you go about creating a setting where one gains power simply by killing things? It would tend to be a whole lot more chaotic when life turns from a positive value to a negative one even for the general population. Most settings, in fact almost every example of organised society, is based on some basic things as the value of each other's life. In a world where taking each other's life has even more value, how would organised society exist?

Not necessarily. If only the PC had this power then there would be no special rules, only the player's ability, like MotB. I mean hell, this has already been a plot element in essence.

 

[curry]

/thread

 

[Mastermind]

My basic concept is something like this

In *game world* everything alive has some "magic" (let's call it "mojo") in it (even down to the grass, though it provideds less than 1 point). By "killing" something, people can absorb the victim's mojo into them.

KOTOR 2? MOTB?

It's funny you should mention that, the first thing I thought when I saw this thread was "hey, that idea sounds drug induced enough to be a Chris Avellone game".

 

[Davaris]

Shemar is spot on. If you want to bring the mechanics into the setting (which is always a good thing for a designer to consider at some point anyway), then you will need to completely restructure the world so that the people of the top have consumed hundreds of thousands of people, and have laws that prevent any lesser person from doing so so they can't be overthrown. In other words, it would get very messy.

It sounds like an interesting game world to explore. I assume the people at the top, would conceal their activities and knowledge of how to benefit from this killing, for fear of a general uprising among the lower classes.

There is a Dr Who story called State of Decay, that had high tech vampires, ruling over a world of medieval tech humans. The vampires hid their true nature from the humans and suppressed technological advancement.

The Chronicles of Riddick had the antagonist taking people's souls, which is vampirism by another name. He was out in the open about his activities, but he was a cult leader.

 

[IronicNeurotic]

Shemar is spot on. If you want to bring the mechanics into the setting (which is always a good thing for a designer to consider at some point anyway), then you will need to completely restructure the world so that the people of the top have consumed hundreds of thousands of people, and have laws that prevent any lesser person from doing so so they can't be overthrown. In other words, it would get very messy.

Furthermore you would have to concentrate on all that shit too when you write. Which in turn limits what and how much you can write to stay coherent.

In my opinion its really more trouble than its worth.

Pitch the idea to Bethesda. Theyre writers don't give a fuck anyway.

 

[Elwro]

In Stoker's Dracula there was this story about a guy in an asylum who bred flies, then spiders which ate the flies, then mice (?) which ate the spiders, and he wanted to have a bird which would it the mice so he would eat the bird and BECOME OMNIPOTENT

So, the idea in your setting would also presumably be that you should train your pets to be ferocious beasts, set them free to hunt, and then try to kill them and eat them...

 

[Excommunicator]

Shemar is spot on. If you want to bring the mechanics into the setting (which is always a good thing for a designer to consider at some point anyway), then you will need to completely restructure the world so that the people of the top have consumed hundreds of thousands of people, and have laws that prevent any lesser person from doing so so they can't be overthrown. In other words, it would get very messy.

Furthermore you would have to concentrate on all that shit too when you write. Which in turn limits what and how much you can write to stay coherent.

In my opinion its really more trouble than its worth.

Pitch the idea to Bethesda. Theyre writers don't give a fuck anyway.

When it comes to proper design, there is almost nothing more trouble than it's worth. The more you put in, the more value it has. It is the finer detail takes it from being just a general role playing setting around a single idea, to a real world with complexity and depth.

There is nothing wrong with the consumption idea so long as you would be interested in going that far. Sounds mostly like a random idea so I doubt it will be developed, but never feel like your ideas can't be developed because they don't "seem" good. Chances, are the process of looking into it will show you an even better idea that you didn't even think of before.

 

[Tycn]

It wouldn't be that hard to accomplish. Just make it somewhat rare or forbidden like in MotB. Naturally the PC gets to be one of those special people.

 

[IronicNeurotic]

Shemar is spot on. If you want to bring the mechanics into the setting (which is always a good thing for a designer to consider at some point anyway), then you will need to completely restructure the world so that the people of the top have consumed hundreds of thousands of people, and have laws that prevent any lesser person from doing so so they can't be overthrown. In other words, it would get very messy.

Furthermore you would have to concentrate on all that shit too when you write. Which in turn limits what and how much you can write to stay coherent.

In my opinion its really more trouble than its worth.

Pitch the idea to Bethesda. Theyre writers don't give a fuck anyway.

When it comes to proper design, there is almost nothing more trouble than it's worth. The more you put in, the more value it has. It is the finer detail takes it from being just a general role playing setting around a single idea, to a real world with complexity and depth.

There is nothing wrong with the consumption idea so long as you would be interested in going that far. Sounds mostly like a random idea so I doubt it will be developed, but never feel like your ideas can't be developed because they don't "seem" good. Chances, are the process of looking into it will show you an even better idea that you didn't even think of before.

We see us thursday



Edit: To be serious. Sure, its better. But we ain't livin' in perfect world.

 

[Azrael the cat]

Depends heavily on the setting. In a cyberpunk setting it could be very neat. Say that the setting involves AI in an artificial world - there's no reason why they SHOULDN'T be aware of the mechanics of that world. You could have backlore about how people figured out the nuances (like what happens in mmorpgs), the exploits, and why some areas are still a bit grey. In that setting the self-consciousness of the mechanics would reinforce the setting.

An example where that has actually been implemented: System Shock 2. The levelling system is built around getting modules to purchase upgrades, and both the player and Shodan are directly aware of how it works. Shodan can dole them out and occasionally take some off you for disobedience.

As the previous posters have said: if you're making the mechanics into lore, then you need to make sure that the mechanics are consistent with how people actually behave. That's going to be a problem if levelling boosts combat and non-combat skills alike - if you can become a good smith by, say, killing rats (or a REALLY good one by killing people), or a great negotiator by running errands, then people will be behaving in a way that would normally be viewed as very very bizarre. You'd get people doing their smithing apprenticeship by working as a rodent exterminator, that sort of stupidity. Again, if it is a blatantly cyberpunk or scifi setting (or an all-magic setting where everything is done via magic so practicing one ability can improve seemingly unrelated ones due to their common magic-aptitude skill set), then that might actually reinforce the setting. But in a straight fantasy / action-sci-fi setting you'd need a learn-by-use system, and a damn slow one at that (unless the player is 'a chosen one' and has some mcguffinish reason for learning faster).

KoTOR sort of did this in some of Kreia's dialogue. It only hints at it - gazing in the direction of the 4th wall rather than breaking it - but it's there if the PC chooses to help protect some of the minor NPCs. As the experience points are awarded, she comments about how by doing their fighting for them, the player is USING them to make himself stronger at their expense. She points out that if the player had said no, then they would have become stronger through fighting the problem themselves. It's partially a comment about the side-effects of being 'the hero' (referring to the Jedi, of course) - that the universe comes to depend on them and becomes week, but it also seems to give a gentle nod to the xp system that makes the world work in such a way.

I think that there is definitely scope for a game that puts the mechanics into the lore - and I mean almost everything, make savegames into time-travel, pausing into time-stop, a literal interpretation of hitpoints - but it would be a story gimmick, good for a once off, rather than a new way of doing mechanics that can be transported to further games outside that setting. I'm thinking a cyberpunk (well just the cyber, not the punk - AIs and virtual worlds, but lose the 90s cyber-fashion and the genre trappings, just because it involves VWs doesn't mean it has to look like the friggen Matrix) but more along the lines of 'A mind forever wandering' rather than that lulz-based Deus Ex mod. I can't see it being an ongoing gamestyle, just a story idea like PS:T's resurrection mechanic.

 

[Excommunicator]

We see us thursday



Edit: To be serious. Sure, its better. But we ain't livin' in perfect world.

We aren't all working with the same limitations either. One designer working in their free time is often much more capable of being productive on the design side than a team working on a project that is already past the design phase and investing money.

 

[zenbitz]

Pac Man, the RPG.

 

[Murk]

This is how vampires functioned in 'night watch' -- drink enough blood and you gain greater powers.

 

[IronicNeurotic]

We see us thursday



Edit: To be serious. Sure, its better. But we ain't livin' in perfect world.

We aren't all working with the same limitations either. One designer working in their free time is often much more capable of being productive on the design side than a team working on a project that is already past the design phase and investing money.

A little late reply, but:

Yes, but it needs a long time. For most people life interfers in that time postponing work/cancelling any hope of ever finishing it. It's great if you have the chance to follow it. But its not advisable and its just not possible in most cases to actually going through with it.

I'm a writer myself (german) and I have such a project on the side which I want to be perfect. I have rewritten the inital script around 12 times by now because I found tons of things that I wanted to implent. I already know I'm not going to end this till I'm like 60 at which point I'm either dead already or nobody will publish it. Not to mention the realization that I still haven't implented everything I wanted because I spent a large part of my time adjusting some minor detail about the world.




Point is: You just have to say no to some things that aren't worth it if you want to get it done. Do I invest hunderds of hours on a plotdetail the reader/player will barely notice/overlook in some cases?


That said. If you have the chance to impent this stuff or if you plan your inital concept with it in mind. Then by all means. Do it!

 

[DraQ]

At first I was like , XPs being a very artificial idea and one of my pet peeves, but then I noticed the potential. Making such kind of gamist thing into part of the universe can only help if you are going to use it anyway. Of course, there are going to be consequences, as such mechanics cannot exist in vacuum, universe has to adapt to it to remain consistent.

Which is why...

Reminds me of Polynesian culture where you'd gain someone's power (even called "mana") by eating them.

...is a very sound observation.

The point is not to mimic some culture, but if a culture exists holding some beliefs about the nature of the universe, the way those beliefs have shaped it can observed and observation used to design the game.

Such a culture will have developed it's all narrative structures, which, by virtue of being human narrative structures, honed by centuries of acting upon human brains, should also be potentially attractive for humans playing your game.

Shemar is spot on.

No he isn't. As usual. I begin to seriously doubt if he ever had an original thought, but even if he did, it certainly died miserable and very, very lonely.

And, as usual, he approaches the idea ass-backwards.

The point is not to design entirely new mechanics, but to ponder what would existing mechanics with a few tweaks do with the universe. Instead of shunning XPs as retarded and excessively gamist (which I would agree with) or trying to make them more realistic (which I believe would be doomed to fail), deuxhero decides to grab the idea and run with it, which seems just about crazy enough to work.
It's pretty much the process of Pratchetting.

It's not about introducing some corny idea, it's about trying to make corny idea less corny by applying it consistently and seeing where will it take us, and such a journey may result in something more interesting than just thinking "hey I will design awesome setting it will have all kinds of cool stuff and shit", because the result can be non-trivial and often something you don't arrive at in one step.

Now, the first step should be to determine how do we want to gain those XPs exactly, because it will determine everything else. Is it a ritual? Eating a body part? Having to kill something, and then eating a body part? Does it work at distance? can the effect be shared by others who took part? What we want to accomplish is avoiding leveling up accidentally or as distant consequence. Should the mojo scale with the danger involved? Hell, such a system might very well incorporate intent as well (accidental crit on another enemy? no EXP for you). Hell, what if someone decides to sacrifice their life and give up their mojo to you voluntarily? Should it be boosted because of being offered in 'undamaged', 'unspent' form, or diminished because of no danger involved? Etc.

Now, balancing such a system in universe doesn't actually seem that hard. XPs can be a measure of power, but they are hardly the only thing that matters, killing someone and taking their mojo isn't so different from killing someone and taking their stuff - in the context of society both will generally be frowned upon and both will make you enemies. A character that is weak but liked might be better off than a powerful dude everyone hates, if only because of the numbers and, at very least because the latter may required constant slaughter just to keep up creating slippery slope and making player uncomfortable. Hell, such cases could be incorporated into mythology as well.

There are also other alternatives to consider - what if instead of consumed mojo EXP represented gaining favours of spirits and those spirits granting you powers" This idea would be much more narratively oriented, as opposed to combat oriented consumable mojo. Both ideas have merits, both can be potentially interesting, they may even be used in conjunction, or with other ideas that are, without doubt, possible.

 

[Nael]

The idea of an experience system that works in an artificial sense should model the real world idea of the proper application of acquired knowledge over time.

If you have spent time sewing a field and your crop dies out, the most you have gained is knowledge of how NOT to perform a task. You still have been spending time farming but with no useful output. Doing this over and over should gain you nothing. The most you should get back at the end of this time is the equivalent of what time you put in, minus some interest. Back to square one in otherwords. But after spending time on this task and properly putting that knowledge to use you will gain a healthy crop. Also, you have become something you were not before: a more experienced farmer. One that knows how to proceed with his/her craft and build upon it. The same goes for the butcher. He can take a battleaxe to haunches of meat for years, but if his cuts are an absolute mess of flesh he isn't going to make it in that profession. He has to properly perform his craft to truly experience what that craft is.

Games try to do this artificially and I don't think any of them do it perfectly. Or at least I am not aware of them.

Maybe it's too hardcore, but I think if there is experience gain in a system there should be experience loss. Unused knowledge atrophies.