Skills in RPGs

Food and Drink adds another level of Depth and Character-Choice. I miss the Features of RoA in modern Gaming - it was not only about a Tank, a Healer, a Damage-Dealer and a Traps-Guy, it made Sense to have one of your characters trained as herbalist, hunter, diplomat or gambler - eventually it made sense not to raise every combat-ability for every character, because the higher your skills got, the harder it was to raise the skills and the points might be better spend at the lower non-combat-skills.

I'd like to have as many non-combat challenges as possible, eating, drinking, sleeping, keeping warm during the winter… etc… And none of them automatic.
Perhaps invent something new too.. like keeping the characters sane / mentally stable. Keeping the characters happy (music, tales, alcohol, pleasurable company) etc…
Automating everything is one of the things that plague modern gaming.
Sure, it might get tedious or seem trivial at times, but if the only thing you need to do is push the forward button and kill things… you have just another useless modern game (and from what I've understood.. that's what you don't want to do). Make surviving hard. Make it unforgiving. Make it challenging. Make the player feel glad to be alive. So you don't need to throw in dragons and uber-demons and princesses with big titties all the time to make things interesting.

Use… the keyboard. For example you're in a forest, next to a bush.
Then by pushing the keyboard.. for example the f button you're character with the highest survival skill tries to look for food&waters and fails/succeeds depending on a variety of things (like the skill, time of year.. etc) . Easy and satisfying. Makes sense. Navigating through a messy smoothed high-res menu with your mouse - filled with useless icons and deccorations - for every damn thing that needs to be done, does not. This does need to be obscure & hardcore. Some kind of on screen guidance & popups for what could be done in a certaing place with a certain place could work.


So yeah… I'm pretty much in the minority here and it seems like my ideas are quite opposite from others.. but since you've asked - just giving my input & opinion.

keeping warm during the winter

Hehe, I do not want it to be just click forward and kill and it certainly will not be. But I don't want it to be a bore either. While I did love eating food in Ultima 7, it does get old to keep feeding the characters all the time!

However I will try to think of many fun none combat related things to do too.

Thank you for all the feedback I keep getting, I am listening to each and every one of you and taking notes.

The feeding process itself… how should it be done?
In my opinion, just push the e key (e for eat - for example) all your characters try to eat, and if the foodratio counters is 0 - they fail and start complaining… and eventually.. get weaker & die. Not an useless & boring click fest with berries and pieces of chickeng filling the characters inventories. Just a simple number indicating the amount of food somewhere on the screen. like in M&M.

And your characters freezing to death due to freezing temperature or a snow blizzard or something.. would be the coolest thing ever. Then you could have a skills that allows a character to make a warm cloak out of a dead bear or something.. or light a warming bonfire! would be so unbelievably cool…

Then you could have a skill that allows a character to craft arrows from a branch of a tree!

*raving* *mouth foaming*

Hmm… Yeah I'll shut up now. Perhaps I'd need to start making my own game with ultra-simple 2d graphics and midi music. and without mouse support - of course

Morrowind has a nice eat&drink&sleep mod that Ive been using for almost two years now:

Hunger

You need to eat twice a day: at 12:00 for lunch and at 20:00 for dinner. You can automatically eat any food you've in your inventory. You'll eat different kinds of food according to your hunger level: if you need only a snack, you'll eat a tomato or an apple, and if you're really hungry you'll eat pies and hams. Also, for every hunger level, cooked foods will be eaten first, while original Morrowind ingredients will be likely used last. A complete list of the foods follows. CAUTION! Don't read it if you're hungry!!

If you can't eat, you get penalties in Strength and Endurance. After too much days without eating, you will die of starvation. You receive a warning message when you have only 1-2 days left.

Keep in mind that you can't eat with a weapon drawn or a spell readied. You must exit combat mode to fill your belly.

Thirst

You need to drink 2 times a day: at 12:00 and at 20:00. You can drink from wells, waterfalls, spouts and other water sources through the game world.

You can fill empty bottles, jugs and skins at water sources to bring water with you in the wilds. When you become thirsty, you'll drink automatically from any full jug, bottle or skin you've in inventory.

You can also drink wine, beer and fruit juices to satisfy your thirst. The order in which these drinks in your inventory are consumed can be easily set by the configuration script (see below). By the same script you can choose to never drink juices or alcoholics; this is useful if you want to use them for their alchemic properties.

Sleep

You need to sleep in a bed, hammock or bedroll at least 6 hours a day. The scripts control if you slept enough during a day at 0.00 ( or when you wake up, if you're sleeping at that time). If you didn't, you get penalties due to tiredness in Intelligence and Willpower. Note that you can sleep during the day and stay up at night, so stealth characters will not be disadvantaged: they'll just have different habits.

Resting in the wilds still heals you, but it doesn't remove your sleep. If you sleep in a bed, hammock or bedroll you'll also recover more Health than you do with normal resting.

http://wrye.ufrealms.net/NOM%202.12.html#Description

Basicly its automated but you can select the order in which you eat&drink. I.E water before alcohol etc, small foods if small hunger, big foods if big hunger, etc. You can do it manually too but the ui is mousedriven. Works with one character but with more it might be too much.

Princesses with big titties are a must for any truly hardcore rpg. A lot of them!

The need for warm clothes might be in principle reasonably interesting because a warm cloak which will take place of valuable slot for some enchanted one.
Also, in desert you would have to put off the armor, otherwise the character would overheat.
Something similar may be applicable for potential underwater locations.
I think this might be an interesting addition because it would add to a tactical aspects of the game.
On the other hand there'd be a risk of potential inventory juggling.

The problem with these survival skills is that if you want to stay true to the premise that all skills should be useful, it may shift the gameplay too much from other roleplaying activities.
I think that the surviving aspects generally work much better in games where you have only one character. Though I remeber that unpatched Arx Fatalis was just too funny in this regard - it was only noon and Am Shaegar already had five breads, five cheeses, ten carrots and three chickens and the only think he said after gaining glorious victory over an evil sect was: "I am hungry!"

However, I agree with Zakhary that the game should be made unforgiving and challenging, just by different means.

For a long time I've felt that a good RPG should contain secrets that are difficult to discover. Character skill should factor into that effort, somehow. RPGs that enable all their secrets to be revealed regardless of what characters are played or their skills are too simple, IMO.

Charm, rapport, deceit, beguilement and varieties of perception and intelligence would all be valuable skills in a good RPG.

Using a different skill for woodwinds, stringed, and percussion instruments is exactly what I was referring to, Gothic. I suppose singing too. The Music skill could be the one required for actual Bardic magic, if it's in there (which it should, otherwise the Bard is just a loud-mouthed rogue).

Might and Magic had stat decreases the longer you went without rest as well, and you had to have food to rest. It was still simple though, find a safe place or cast a certain spell; hit 'R', and waste 8 hours of game time to recoup your strength. IIRC, they'd eventually fall out if ran too long without rest, but I never did that too often. If food, drink, and rest are added, it should be something simple, takes only a few moments of real time to take care of, and doesn't really distract from the regular flow of the game.

Alchemy is actually one of the few things I didn't like about Wizardry. It was nothing more than a separate spell list in 7, IIRC. 8 Did it right, but IMO Alchemy should not be treated as magic at all. The character should have to find or discover recipes for potions and other compounds, which they can then make. This might introduce the need for regents, and searching for such items, but I don't think it'd detract from the game if it is completely optional, and just an alternate to using a mage. Heck, Ultima games used to require regents for their spells, making it a requirement to go searching for stuff there.

I don't think it should be a requirement for the bulk of spells, however, as it detracts from the game itself; instead of getting on with things you're back to grinding, this time for some obscure fungus and bat ****.

old ideas but good:

a) getting special skills in quests or unsual encounters, these skills are not available
during character creation

b) a skill gets a bonus effect when the character reach the maximum of the skill

I like the classic str, dex, con etc system

while some ppl prefer complicated, more realistic system that gives me headache. I like simple rule so I can get into it pretty much straightaway.

Realistic system is the most simple system imho. You get more experienced in a skill by using it. If that skill is tied to str (i.e wrestling skill) then you have a small chance that str will raise too when the skill raises. Thats pretty much the whole system.

Level based ad&d systems or clones are often abstract and somtimes complicated too. They have little to do with realism (kill 10 rats and get more experienced in lockpicking). But I guess that doesnt mean that they cant be good too. Atleast they are popular.

The only issue I have with a "practice makes perfect" system is that there are skills which don't really get a lot of use. Thus, you either grind them, or you get stuck.

Now, that's a bad design to me. I should not have to stop playing the game to raise anything; either give me the option to train my character via skill points or by paying trainers, or do not put in any obstacles which force the use of only one skill, which stop the entire game. Always have two or three workarounds for every problem.

I kinda prefer giving skill points at level up, but I'm starting to like the idea of paying trainers. However, you're still breaking away from the meat and potatoes (or tofu and lettuce if you're a veg) to go do something that a good game design wouldn't have forced you to in the first place. So both would probably be best, as long as there was some ways of capping the skills.

Just by having a skill system, we're getting far away from classic AD&D/D&D. Those type systems are based on abstracts; but in a lot of them (classic Bard's Tale, God Box games) you had to go find a Training Hall to advance, so the imaginative player could just assume that while he got to that point killing 10 rats, he was trained by the hall to be better at his chosen skills. It breaks down when you have BG, where you just advance automatically.

Don't confuse Level-based with AD&D. AD&D has levels, but it's far from the only way to use them, as Wizardry and a vast majority of non-AD&D RPGs have proven.

The reason they are popular is from a player's standpoint, you have an easy way to show your E-penis in that game by saying you have a level 99 Monk or whatever. Whereas without levels, you gotta dig out a stat sheet. From a design standpoint, you can estimate a certain level of power at each level, and can balance the game more easily without taking into account grinders and such. There'll always be those who can break the system, but for those who want a fine balance between challenge and fun factor, it'll be there.

Originally Posted by azraelck
The only issue I have with a "practice makes perfect" system is that there are skills which don't really get a lot of use. Thus, you either grind them, or you get stuck.

Thats not an issue, because there are many easy ways to solve it. You can either simply remove such skills from the game, make the skill so easy to use that you dont need to grind or have trainers available for the skill (You pay gold and they train you - realistic).

For instance morrowind, betrayal at krondor or antara never had issue like that even though they were skill based (morrowind partly). The german rpg trilogy arkania did but the game was simply badly designed - but thats not the fault of the skill system. Im sure there are many badly designed level based games too.

And I dont know about you but I do like to get more experienced in non-combat skills by using the non-combat skills. Smithing/repairing armor after battle or sneaking around in night picking locks is a fun distraction from the eternal rat killing to reach level xx.

Don't confuse Level-based with AD&D. AD&D has levels, but it's far from the only way to use them, as Wizardry and a vast majority of non-AD&D RPGs have proven.

For me there are basicly three kinds of systems: skill (ultima online), level (everquest) and hybrids (elder scrolls series). DD/ADD is the best known level-based system so I often refer to that when talking about levels.

You basically repeated what I said. Either offer another solution, or offer a way to train the skill quickly without grinding is what I'm getting at. I actually prefer the first, as if gives creative players something to reward them, rather than just forcing them along a chosen path. IMO both should be used.

What do you call a system that has neither skill or levels then?

Originally Posted by azraelck
What do you call a system that has neither skill or levels then?

Im actually curious - can you give an example? 95% of crps i can recall are level based or somthing between.

Same here, but I did play a game on the C64 which was similar to Bard's Tale, but didn't have classes or levels. Or skills, such as we are discussing.

Sadly, the disks have long since demagnetized, though the Commodore still runs like it did when new. I've tried to find it on various sites, but can't. Which may not be surprising, my grandfather wrote a few games that I can recall for the C64; which he gave to a few friends and family. He wrote one just to teach me to read. Then found out I already knew how to read before we had a C64 to run it on!

My original game design was similar; I used no levels; but had classes; no skills. I've since removed classes, added skills, then added classes back in. I have levels basically because I hate grinding, and they give a skill point bonus just to pump skills that wouldn't otherwise be used very often. Originally, I just used XP giving a point at a set interval, which I may go back to. Or say screw it all, and just use better design to circumvent the need for pumping skills the tedious and un-fun way. I'd like to get away from levels entirely, since they don't really do much other than give a easier way to balance things. Which I can do in an entirely different manner.

Level 99 Monk sounds just fine to me.

It does; getting there isn't always as fun.

Really, to me sitting around smithing armor, no matter what the design is, is not fun. Especially if I'm doing it for hours on end. Same for picking locks; I'd rather not be wandering around finding locked doors just to unlock them for the sheer heck of it.

I'd rather be going off, and working on the main quest of the game, or at least a side quest. It's that reason I'm not too fond of MMOs, it's all about the grind, which is something I have no patience for. I do pop up in EUO every now and then, but not very often.

I don't like reducing combat skills to weapon skills, like sword, axe, dagger and (what I find particularly bizarre) mechanics when skill determines only accuracy, and not defense.

Instead, I would like to see something like Streetfight or Combat Sense - skills that determine your ability to fight in special situation (multiple enemies, close quarters) affecting initiative or ability to avoid ambush and so on, rather than just weapon proficiencies…

Originally Posted by Squeek
For a long time I've felt that a good RPG should contain secrets that are difficult to discover. Character skill should factor into that effort, somehow. RPGs that enable all their secrets to be revealed regardless of what characters are played or their skills are too simple, IMO.

Completely off-topic, but I felt it necessary to respond once I read this little gem, with which I could not agree more. I absolutely adore it when certain aspects of a game are restricted to those possessed of a certain skill only. This should also apply to classes, my favorite example of which comes from Gothic 2, where you were prevented from entering the Fire Mage's monastery if you'd chosen not to enlist with them (although, yes, I'm aware you could still get in…but you couldn't take part in their quests). I also remember the locked door in Arx Fatalis that no one ever got through.
…actually, come to think of it, I just like being denied access to certain areas. It makes the world seem more…uh…mysterious, I suppose. More real. After all, I've yet to meet anyone in this world who could go wherever they pleased. Be sure to include some areas like that in your game, Gothic. I don't just mean "sorry, you can't enter the king's bedroom while he's dressing" type stuff, but little villages on top of a cliff that is impossible to climb, an open chest of gold in the middle of a river that always sweeps you away ere you can reach it, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera…
Of course, adding some obscure method of actually getting to them is also fantastic, as it makes the triumph of doing so that much greater.

Alright, that's the end of my off-topic blurb.