Fresh Ideas

So I've got this idea to demonstrate the Theme Engine on the small scale. I'm going to put a web page with four characters at the top. When you click on one, it will pull up a chat with them. As you chat through them, in any order you please, they will guide you though a simple plot.

Think of it as a rudimentary prototype.

F

Back in Bidness!

Well, we're back!

I've gotten my act together. (Thanks to GTD and RtM.)

And we're starting to work out our first steps. On project line is the Browser-Based Play Area.

We've recently had some good luck working out how to have a game without levels. Not even those 'disguised' levels called 'skill-based systems.'

Here's it in the rough: you either have a skill or you don't (much like my old Scattershot spellcasting system). To have a certain skill, you need to have gained one or more prerequisites. Yeah, I know; sounds like a level system with names instead of numbers (although that, alone, might be enough to 'not be' a skill-based system). For example, in order to drive a team of horses, you need to know how to drive a horse-drawn vehicle, you need to know how to ride a horse, you need to know how to keep horses, and so on. (Trust me, I've practiced balancing just such a system, so I know I can do it.)

However, that alone would suffer from exactly the same problem skill-based systems do: exploits. Perfectly balanced, you wind up with nothing but jacks-of-all-trade otherwise you have a particular build (or two) that works off specific inconsistencies; either way, everyone winds up playing the exact same character.

In simpler games, and those with many Advanced Dungeon & Dragons artifacts in them, they employ a class-based system which creates niches that force teamwork. Now I'm all for teamwork, but we have a different idea.

What if the qualities of one kind of skill-set interfered with the capability in another? For example, our horse driver above would find it hard to practice sensual massage with those calloused hands of his (the exact interaction need not be this practical or visible). Now some will boost others and some will penalize others. If I'm on my game, design-wise, I should be able to create a few 'sweet spots' that work just like classes yet still offer a fair amount of niche protection.

It even affords the possibility of a more skilled player being a guide into dangerous territory for their lesser skilled compatriots. And so on.

I think. Still need to prototype it. And the Browser-Based interface. And the Theme Engine. Where to start?

See you in 11!

Fang