Castle Paradox

[Uncommon]

But that would also require you to explain why the heroes know about it and why everyone else is too blind/stupid to know themselves. If you leave that out, the idea's worthless.

[Shadowiii]

It would be fun/interesting to make a game where you were a micro sub hero who wasn't really that important and SORTOF helped the world/story move along, but really you were just like everyone else spectating the ones in power/heroes/villians doing stuff.

Lacrymosa was planned a bit like that. That is, none of the main heroes were anyone special, though you met important people who shaped the world (and though you tried you usually failed in your influences).
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But enough talk, have at you!

[Battleblaze]

All these ideas are handy-dandy fine-as-candy but why not just leave it the way it is(in OHR anyway)?

Having huge masses of people helping you unless you are some general is a messed up idea. In OHR you can only have 4 people in your party at once. Sure you have backup people in your reserves. But when you get dozens of different heros you would start to lose hero development. Soon it wouldn't be Hitari and Greg, it would be ninja guy and axe guy. And after awhile it would be fighterA fighterB MeleeA MeleeB. And finally, somedood, someotherguy, whats-his-face, what-cha-ma-call-it, and that-thing.

Most of the time, in games I play that have huge legeions of forces and a megaboss, the NPCs know that they would get their ass seriously kicked if they tried to fight. Then some rebellious teenager that dosen't know better keeps telling himself," OMG this sucks!" Then something pushes him over the edge like his town getting burned off the face of the earth. And he grabs the pointiest thing he could find and swears to smash the megaboss.

So you get to know the hero and level up and meet other strong people along the way until eventually you and your small group are strong enough to actually match the power of megaboss...


Basically I think I'd pick quality over quantitiy...
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Indy OHR! and National OHR Month Contest going on now!

"Aeth calls PHC an anti-semite; PHC blames anti-semitism"
-squall

[Moogle1]

You completely just missed the point.
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Slime Salad :: Independent Game Design

[Leo]

[Iblis]

[Sephyroth]

[Uncommon]

Seriously, that really only applies when the designer is lazy.

[Joe Man]

Do what you want, just as long as its complexity is reasonable.

For example, if I'm going to be controlling four hundred troops, I don't want to have to strategically plan each of their eighty-something attacks and fight modes etc against thousands of unique enemies with subtly different stats and have to learn every detail of every character's stats to have fun. I'll just take about four different kinds of characters with unique stats against maybe eight other kinds of characters with slightly less unique stats with maybe some options on adjusting a groups fighting style. If the number of characters fighting at once becomes too vast, it should be a simple rock-paper-scissors style strength system focusing on geographical location. However, this sort of simplicity won't work if thee are only six people fighting. Things should be detailed, with a very noticable variation in stats and attack effects, and even some variation such as in James' D&D style RPG he made. Also, it should be easy, one way or another, to figure out the enemies stats. If not, one should be offered plenty of battle opportunities (including troops) to find out.

Of course, its not as if I plan to play any of your games soon. I'm already up to my nose and drowning in OHR games.

Edit: This just occured to me, for I have not seen it in an RPG style battle before (though possibly because I don't play many RPGs): Three or more teams all fighting each other. I'm not sure how it would work, but I'd like to see how someone pulls it off. This also would be nice for multiplayer (which is terribly uncommon in RPGs).
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"Everyone has 200,000 bad drawings in them, the sooner you get them out the better."
~Charles Martin Jones

Last edited by Joe Man on Fri Dec 13, 1957 1:21 am; edited 2,892 time in total

[Uncommon]

Joe Man, it sounds like you're talking RTS while the rest of us are still talking RPGs. Suikoden II, the example used, had 108 characters but still used a typical RPG party.

[Joe Man]

I guess it does sound a lot like RTS... Well, the only specifically RTS element I mentioned was the part about geographical locations, which can, with some difficulty, be applied to RPG battles.
Of course, the rules still apply. Nobody wants to learn millions of highly detailed strategic rules for a single battle. The thing about Fire Emblem was that all of the RPG style battles were simple one-on-one battles, so it still obeys the rule, especially since the battles are not insanely complex, using basic, easy to learn and remember rock-paper-scissors rules. As for Suikoden II, I know nothing about its battles so I cannot reply to that.
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"Everyone has 200,000 bad drawings in them, the sooner you get them out the better."
~Charles Martin Jones

Last edited by Joe Man on Fri Dec 13, 1957 1:21 am; edited 2,892 time in total

[Uncommon]

Actually, the whole RTS bit I was talking about is where you mentioned having four hundred people fighting at once. No one ever said anything about that. Like I said in the last post, we're still talking RPGs and basic party system mechanic here. No one's made any mention of breaking that convention.

The party system is actually one mechanic that RPGs have had problems breaking. That could be what sets the traditional RPG apart from other genres. The only RPGs that don't have the party system usually only have one character.

That actually sounds like an interesting point of discussion. What sort of conventions could one use to break the party system and still have multiple characters? Or does using multiple characters at the same time define exactly what the party system is?

[Moogle1]

Then you have to define "party convention." If you're talking strictly games like Final Fantasy, then Enix has made a lot that don't follow that convention (e.g. Tales games, where you control one character and the rest are AI).
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Slime Salad :: Independent Game Design

[Uncommon]

I dunno if that really counts as multiple characters, though, since the player doesn't actually control them. They're more NPCs, really, even if the player can set the type of AI they use.

I suppose, instead of talking about the "party convention", I'm more wondering about multiple playable characters outside of a turn-dependent environment but with only one player, like most RPG battles are (note the difference between turn-based and turn-dependent, as even ATB's depend on turns). For multiplayer it would be easy, just assigning a character to each player. I suppose if each character was assigned to a different button, though that most would likely be a terrible control set-up.

I dunno, maybe that's the difference between a convention and a cliché. One you use 'cos it's worked before, the other you use because there's no proper way to do it otherwise?

Thoughts?

[Iblis]