System presented here can be used as an addition to classic NPC-oriented quests, but I think it would work best in a rogue-like game, as it fits nicely into randomly generated content.
The basic idea is this: in order to earn experience and advance a character, allow the players to compose their own quests.
Let’s assume that there are no NPC quests whatsoever. When a hero is interacting with NPCs, she is gathering information about what they want, desire, fear, etc. They can of course ask the hero to help them, but that doesn’t result in formal entry in the quest system log.
Instead, player has a separate “Quest Composer” screen, where he can create (though not delete) new quests, and each quest comprises goals.
Goals can be anything – ‘become king’, ‘kill Antonio’, ‘get 1000 gold’, ‘become owner of a farm’, etc. Whenever the player adds a goal, game engine computes an experience reward appropriate for goal difficulty w/r to current game state and hero statistics. Goals can have some additonal conditions attached, like ‘in 1 hour’, ‘spending not more than 500 gold’, and so on.
However, what makes it more interesting is composition. Goals can be arranged into logical trees with ‘or’ and ‘and’ nodes.
Nodes affect likeliness of quest completion – i.e. it’s harder to complete two goals connected with ‘and’ than only one, and it’s easier to complete a quest composed of two ‘or’-connected goals than both of them considered as single. Engine takes this into account when computing rewards – multiplying rewards for ‘and’ nodes, dividing for ‘or’ nodes.
Exact algorithms for computation may not be so obvious and will require extensive testing. It’s also not very obvious if it will actually be a fun to play with such a system, but I guess answer to this question requires a good prototype.
Engine should generate some goals according to the game context, i.e. information gathered from the NPCs. Solving their problems should be rewarded as in any classic RPG, but players could also add some constraints and connected goals to create more challenge for themselves and increase rewards.
I think that it can be some solution to the problem of engaging content generation. Shifting a burden of creating story to the player’s responsibilites may at first be hard, I guess – gamers are not very used to such a system – but on the other hand it introduces new dimension in gameplay and even more possibilities for meta-game (like, “let’s see who can create and complete the hardest quest!”).
That might work out. I'd recommend testing it on some small prototype first. You could make a simple rogue like in the Unity game engine and pull it off and if you're okay with 16 x 16 pixel images there is tons of free to use public domain art out there.
My current project I am trying to get ready to release on Steam (since it was greenlit) is not an RPG. Our project we were working on until we got notification of the Greenlight very much is. I do quest creation very different from the norm there. I do everything with an NPC driven economy, need for food, need for social, need for rest, need for work. If any of these things are disrupted for long enough they could inspire an NPC to request something be done about it. My RPG though has active armies and RTS elements as well as RPG so disruptions and interesting things can and do happen in unusual ways. It makes it so it has high replay value for the developers and not just the gamers playing it.
Traditional quest based RPGs the developers usually have to test the quest lines so much during alpha and beta that by the time the game is released there is no wonder, or suspense for the developer so while it IS the type of game they would play as a gamer, at that point they are not too into their games. I tend to design so that games are fun and playable by me too and I don't exactly know what they might do.
There is a draw back to that though. It is a draw back you may have to deal with too. In linear predictable quest lines even if you have multiple passes it is easy to test for bugs. When you have emergent systems and things that can change with each game play it can be difficult to catch all of the bugs and when they do it can sometimes be difficult to reproduce as you may not know all of the various factors that lead to the condition which had the bug.
I still prefer emergent game play though, so I will be doing similar things. This RPG project of mine is likely years away. It is one of my Holy Grail type games. I made essentially a prototype within Neverwinter Nights (not the MMO but the Bioware game) where I heavily changed how that game plays, and my family and I still install NWN still every once in awhile because we get the urge to play it. So that means recreating something like it as a stand alone game without the restrictions the NWN engine put upon me is a huge goal.
My current game sat in Steam Greenlight for 570+ days and I didn't really expect it to get greenlit so we had been working heavily on building up to the RPG and then one saturday a little over a month ago I received a message that the game was greenlit. So we put the RPG on hold while we focus on this game. This is not an RPG and is much smaller in scope.
Title of your game?
Emergent systems are hard, I know, but such engine if done right once may be the base for many, many games. Developers may provide some declarative description of how world looks and behaves, press button and it lives. ;) Well, that's how I imagine it. I'm slowly writing prototype in Unity, as you have suggested.
You know Dwarf Fortress?
Yes, of course I know Dwarf Fortress.... amazing game. Pain in the ass User Interface. :)
I've thought of making a variant a couple of times. I'm trying to stay focused though. :) (I don't always succeed)
The only thing hampering my development at the moment is steemit. :)
OH... my game that is Greenlit is Wormhole Ventures... I have some videos of earlier versions and kickstarter stuff in my introduction: https://steemit.com/steemit/@dwinblood/i-am-a-weird-person-i-am-creative-sometimes-i-should-be-wearing-a-tinfoil-hat-game-developer-musician-etc
The RPG/RTS/and other odd things game is based upon my Neverwinter Nights Module: RTS - Harvest of Souls.
When I was playing with making a Dwarf Fortress here is a screen of one of my voxel experiments from several years ago. I was thinking of using that as my base for a DF type game.
I am pretty picky that MAP would perform great. I wasn't quite satisfied with the zooming through levels speed though. :)
Do you know of any RPGs that people are playing just as text interactions in Steem? I searched for "RPG" and came across this, but am really looking for a thread or some such in which I can play pretend, writing character behaviors and seeing the environment react like with a live DM (GM/ST, depending on system ;))
No closest thing is @pappa-pepper doing a survival type game.
Thanks, I'll take a look at that and just started my own.
Whoops, I think you mean @papa-pepper the other is a dead page.
Yeah I added too many P's.