Part of the RPG experience is becoming a new, unique character. To do this I generally pick the most unique character to that game, to see what the designers have allowed me to do. I don''t like elves, hobbits, halflings, trolls, orcs, gnomes, wizards, humans, monks, etc. because they''ve all been done. I like to try new things. I don''t think people that play a lot of RPG''s in order to try new characters will use your module. Not only that but why would you complicate matters for the programmer by making another thing they have to implement? I understand you''re trying to make things easiar, but I don''t buy it. There has got to be a better draw for your module.

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Trevor "Zephyre" Barnett

quote: Original post by Paul Cunningham

You could also have quirks and perks.

I''m not sure what you mean - what would be some examples?

Zephyre, the point is not really to make things easier, it''s to make games super-customizable without an insane amount of effort. The point of such customizability is to increase immersiveness of game play and player investment into the character, which intensifies the player''s emotional reaction to the character''s adventures.

character dislikes and likes. Basically i''m talking about their character. What makes them different from someone who has similar stats and configurations. The personal touch. Example: my character likes their beer with sugar. Its just something about them that makes them prefer it that way. Or something like this.

I had a great idea for an automatic game customizing system.

Everybody hates trawling through thousands of tweak menus before they can start a new game after frantically tearing off the shrink wrap. My alternative is to present the player with an interactive, non critical opening scene, incorporating elements of the rest of the game, ie puzzles, combat, tactical situations, and record how they behave.

One can calculate the players response times, preferred tactics, combat skills, etc from their behaviour in this first scene, then calibrate the rest of the games main elements (difficulty level, speed, enemy tactics, etc) automatically to match their responses to the test scene, to make the game as appropriate as possible for the player.

Of course some people would hate this, so don''t forget to leave an override option to tweak the game manually.

Captain Insanity
(aka some poor lone developer with too many good ideas and not enough skill to implement them this side of the end of the universe)