THE ULTIMATE R.P.G

                 An article by Graham Raven

The Ultimate RPG? Well of course there's no such animal, we all
have our own ideas as to what would make the perfect game.
However, I have for many years been searching for my own idea of
perfection in an RPG, and as yet very few games have come anywhere
near. Not being a programmer I can't make my own game from scratch
either (though I suspect that eventually I shall simply have to
learn to program, or remain frustrated ever after!). An idea has
struck me though, if I can't actually program my ideal game, then
at least I can describe it, and in so doing maybe get a better
idea as to what exactly I'm looking for.

For a start I'm a traditional Dungeons & Dragons man, in at least
that cyber punks and plasma rifles have no part in my world. There
are many games available in the D&D mould already of course, but
I've always had the feeling that there was something missing in
them.  Ideally we are aiming to create a magical world for our
characters to live in, and it needs to be as convincing as
possible. Make the world convincing, and you've cracked it!

Races and Professions.  There needs to be not merely three or four
different races that inhabit this make believe world, but lots.
The original D&D game is far too restricted on this point. Twenty
different races might make a good start, each of course with its
own unique characteristics. Another problem some games have is
that all members of a given race appear to be clones. They all
potentially have the same abilities, strengths and weaknesses.
Mordor 1 & 2 suffer from this fault, all giants have potentially
exactly the same strength, intelligence, constitution etc etc.
There ought to be some natural variation here, with the occasional
intelligent giant turning up in the game, or a relatively powerful
elf for example.

I also think that the many professions or guilds which a character
may choose from in this world really ought to exceed the number of
races. The standard D&D Thieves, Clerics, Warriors and Magic users
are not enough, there ought to be a huge number of other
professions to choose from, Seers & Mystics, Dancers, Farmers,
Bards, Wild men, Beggars, Merchants etc. It shouldn't be difficult
to dream up twenty or more professions, each having their own
unique characteristics. Whilst I'm thinking about guilds and
professions, I also think that you ought to be able to join
several different guilds and learn any number of different skills.
There is an argument amongst some D&D purists that if you wanted
to be trained in more than one profession you simply wouldn't have
enough time to become a truly elite fighter, mage, whatever. Okay
that's fine, but there should be room in this world for 'Jacks of
all Trades' as well as masters of one.

Experience.  Experience is what a good RPG is all about, taking
a new character and turning them into the person you want them to
be, honing their skills and hopefully bringing them to life as
unique individuals within the confines of the game. I think Mordor
1 scored well on this point in that all newly made characters were
just sixteen years old and were complete novices. If you wanted
them to develop fighting skills, thieving abilities or to become
great magic users, then you worked for it. Somewhere nearly all
RPGs fall down, is that almost the only way you gain experience is
by fighting.

Now I enjoy slicing a monster in two as much as the next man, but
doing such things should build up your strength, improve your
fighting skills and nothing else. Fighting should not improve your
magical skills, nor make you a great thief! It seems reasonable to
me that the Thieves guild on my world would not rate you as a
thief if you simply cut someone's head off and pinched their
money. If you picked their pocket however, without them even
noticing, now that would be something of note, and you'd be
rewarded appropriately with improved thieving skills and
experience points. Thieves should be good at detecting traps and
hidden doors, disarming traps, recognising and opening locks,
moving stealthily, surprising an enemy etc and the only way you
get good at such things, is by practising them.  Appropriate
training and testing would be required. Magical skills have to be
developed in the same way, you can only master a given spell by
practising it; there's no other way! It strikes me as incredibly
absurd that a healer might improve their healing abilities by
practising killing monsters, yet that's how any number of games
work. If you want to have good healing talents, you must practise
healing!

In my ideal game characters would both sit exams and be tested in
practical ways too, to both develop and prove their specific
skills.  They'd also be tested on Guild or professional lore, and
be expected to have learned essential information with regards to
their profession eg a thief who doesn't know which street the
'Gold Brick' merchants bank is in should be laughed out of the
guild! All such experience would be in addition to fighting of
course. Fighting should perhaps account for 50% of your
character's experience and no more, unless you are in a fighting
guild.

Whilst I'm on the subject of fighting, I think it really has to
occur in real time, round by round fighting is basically silly. A
monster attacks you and you apparently have the time to stop and
think "Erm shall I run or shall I cast a spell? Hmmm, maybe I'll
make a cup of tea first!"  Sorry, you should be dead by now!

Quests.  There ought to be almost innumerable quests and tasks to
complete, not that all of them will be essential to the game of
course, but they will all have their rewards, especially so in
terms of experience.  Quests should range all the way from the
heroic, defeating the evil mage, stealing the fabulous jewel or
being crowned king of all the land etc, right down to finding the
old lady's cat. Of course there should be a twist in many of these
quests, in the latter case, the old lady might just turn out to be
a witch! (would she be pleased to get her cat back or not? Yes,
one of those possibles!)

Some of the quests need to be discovered, or even worked out by
the player themself, ie not everything will be laid out on a plate
for you. You will sometimes have to think for yourself, decide
what needs doing, and then do it! Quests will have varied rewards,
cash, treasure, information and always experience points.

Graphics.  Many modern games I feel tend to concentrate on state
of the art graphics to the detriment of game play and depth. Adom
was one game I've played which was certainly the opposite of this.
The graphics were acceptable at best, but the game play and depth
are excellent.

An odd thought strikes me about graphics. I don't know about you
but I can find a really good book quite gripping, I can become
quite involved with a story and the whole thing can come to life
in my mind's eye ... and there's no graphics what so ever!! Now a
few suitable graphics here and there can add even more to a good
book, make the story even more believable, more spell binding, and
they do this by stimulating the imagination, but not trying to
replace it altogether.

I remember watching a cartoon version of Batman some years ago on
the TV. What you saw on the screen was merely a series of static
black and white images together with an atmospheric sound track,
but the whole thing worked extremely well. It had great atmosphere
and some how managed to be far more engrossing for me than a
Batman film with human actors. The sound effects were skilful and
your imagination conjured up the details which the images and
story line suggested. Result? Brilliant!  Graphics can, I feel, be
overdone sometimes, something should be left to the imagination.

In Mordor 1 your position on the dungeon map was shown by a simple
arrow and I personally found that quite acceptable. The arrow
clearly merely represented me, and I found that I could believe
quite easily that wherever the arrow was, that's where I was too.
In some games I've played however, especially some with 'superior'
graphics, the mundane arrow is replaced with a humanoid figure
which invariably looks like a cartoon. I'm afraid that cartoon
figures always scream at me "This isn't real, this is a silly
game!", no matter how high the resolution or how many million
colours they are shown in. A technically superior image can
sometimes be less believable. State of the art graphics can be
great, but the images must work, they must make the game more
spell binding, more convincing, and not just be an excuse for
showing off technical expertise. In a nut shell, don't use
brilliant technical skills to portray unconvincing cartoon
images.

Sometimes a half seen image can be pretty scary, and more
effective than a glorious state of the art one. I think that all
graphic programmers have forgotten this idea. I remember watching
a film last Christmas called 'Night of the Demon' wherein come the
climax, the dreaded Fire Demon eventually comes to get the bad guy
and give him his just rewards. A suitable spooky sound effect
alerted you to the fact that the demon was coming, and there in
the distance the half seen slightly unfocussed image of the
monster was seen rushing towards you. This was genuinely scary, it
worked! Two seconds later unfortunately the monster reached the
bad guy, scooped him up and we saw the demon for the first time
close up in sharp focus. The illusion was shattered, the demon
looked like it was made from fake fur fabric and was quite absurd.
The film would have been so much better if they'd left that scene
out. Just sometimes, less is more!

Picture if you will, you, in the guise of your character are
walking through the village on your way to the store for supplies.
Suddenly there's a dreadful scream. You search the nearby houses
and eventually come across the bloody remains of Sue, who worked
at the Inn. Nobody saw the attack, no one knows why this terrible
deed was done. None of this was seen on the screen either, but
your imagination is already working overtime conjuring up
possibilities!  Most of the monsters and characters you meet in an
RPG need to be seen clearly of course, but not all of them.

Sound.  Sound reproduction seems to be another growth area in
modern PCs and games, the theoretical quality seems to be ever
improving and I'm sure that anyone with access to technical
equipment could prove this to be true. Regrettably as is the often
the case with graphics, awful music and dreadful sound effects
remain bad no matter how good your sound card or speakers may be.
A good sound effect, delivered at just the right moment can be
wonderfully effective, but few games I've played have ever managed
to achieve this.

I must also say that I find some of the background music which
accompanies so many games is simply awful. The problem lies not in
the quality of the reproduction, but in the choice of 'music'.

Communication.  Potentially the most important element in the
game. Even if there's no image at all on the screen, a character
can still come to life if you can have a conversation with him. I
have to admit that I've never got to grips with the old text
adventure games, yet I think they were actually on the right
track. I once spent twenty minutes trying to get a guard to give
me his sword and every variation and permutation of words I used,
including unrepeatable ones, failed utterly. After those
interminable twenty minutes I refused to play the game ever again.
Of course I hadn't learned how to communicate 'properly' in that
particular magic world. It turns out that all I had to say was
"Guard, drop sword" and then pick his sword up and I would have
been dashing off slicing bad buys into pieces. The problem was
clearly mine, but that shows me that a few rules about
communication need to be properly explained for our particular
magical world.

I think there's great potential for development in the area of
communication, especially using artificial intelligence. I have an
old shareware program called M.I.P.S which I've enjoyed using for
some years now. It enables you to create multiple 'personalities'.
It's easy to use and you teach each personality basically
everything it knows simply by typing the information into the
appropriate file. I can think of no reason why a similar program
shouldn't enable us to have convincing conversations with the
various characters in our game. A number of programmers I've
spoken to on this subject have insisted that A.I. simply isn't
advanced enough yet for such applications, but I think they
imagine that we need a simulation of true human intelligence. That
isn't really necessary, all we need is a fairly convincing
conversation with various 'personalities'. Also, as far as the
game is concerned, all races will speak 'Common' as a second
language and this will be the usual tongue throughout the world.
As you'd expect, communication will be less than fluent, as
everyone will usually be using their second language, but it will
be acceptable.

As this is a real world we're trying to simulate, different
characters will get on better, or worse, with different people. A
warrior might get on better with say a guard, as they both have
something in common.  Thieves and beggars will share information
readily, as long as there's something in it for both of them.
Giants will of course tend to get on with other giants, and
everyone will hate Orcs (assuming we have them). Strangers tend to
be less well received until people get to know them, so it's
likely that you'll have to chat to people often before they start
to reveal their secrets to you. Add to this such elements as
Charisma (it helps), Generosity (it helps), Intellect (you need
some brain cells at least) and even possibly magic - a good charm
spell ought to loosen tongues. Hmm and each race will have its
first language too. If you can speak to an elf in his own tongue,
you are much more likely to get a good response.

Alignments.  A quick word about alignments. Basically I see little
need for them myself. All characters tend to see themselves as
good, and an alignment is just a label that the rest of society
puts on you. However I do think that the way you behave should
affect and guide your path through life. This is nothing to do
with being good or evil, rather 'action and reaction'. If you do
good work and tend to be a general nice guy, then people will tend
to like you, be more willing to assist you etc. If you enjoy
killing other characters off for no good reason you will tend to
be shunned, and rightly so. Also you may find yourself being
approached by the Assassins guild and asked to dispose of people
for money. There will be simple rules of conduct for this world,
and these will need to be discovered as the player progresses.

Puzzles.  I may make some enemies here, or more likely cause
derisory laughter amongst the readers, but I hate puzzles. The
reason I hate them is because I'm terrible at working them out.
I've given up on a great many games simply because I can't answer
some absurd riddle. I thoroughly enjoyed playing Excelsior until
talking signposts started asking me idiotic riddles, and there the
game ended for me.

Sure there needs to be 'puzzles' and problems to be solved, but
let's try to keep them fairly sensible. Oh yes, a minor niggle. If
you simply can't solve a puzzle, this should not, hopefully, bring
the game to a complete halt. Maybe you can forfeit a quest as is
the case in Mordor, where failure meant demotion in rank.
Personally I'd rather be rewarded for successful completion of a
quest, than punished for an unsuccessful attempt though.

So where are we after all this? I think my ideal game will have a
landscape as well as dungeons and caves. I'm told that it
shouldn't be impossible to create a random dungeon, which is
slightly different every time you enter it. That would be
excellent, it takes a long time to get bored with something which
keeps on changing ... hmm I wonder if you could do the same thing
with certain (magical?) parts of the landscape too?

On screen it would be nice to have a map (and it should look like
a real map!) with some indication as to your present position.
Villages and towns are needed, presumably with a plan view of the
various dwellings when you enter such an area.

As you'd expect you also need some kind of inventory to keep
yourself up to date with various items you are carrying, and also
some indication as to your present health.

Communication should be possible with virtually every character,
and possibly every monster which you encounter, and the number of
possible quests should be huge (most of which will be optional,
not compulsory for the player).

I do like the idea of having night time as well as day, after all
certain monsters would rarely see the light of day.

There should perhaps be some mechanism, Sentinels for example,
which ensure that exploration isn't too rapid. In some games it's
possible to dash around all over the place and miss important
details.  Maybe you shouldn't be able to leave your village before
you can prove yourself at fighting? Such restrictions should
continue throughout the game, ensuring that a character is fit to
enter into the certain areas. Perhaps there might be a way around
such restrictions of course, if you can find it. I remember when
playing Mordor 1 that once the full exploration of the dungeon was
complete my interest began to fade in the game, even though the
game was far from complete. Bearing this in mind I have plans that
certain areas of my imaginary world simply won't materialise until
my character has had some serious work done on them. Maybe the
Sorcerers' Valley will remain hidden until a character's
perception is sufficiently high, and when that happens, all manner
of changes will start to occur throughout the already familiar
world which you've spent hundreds of hours exploring.

Of course there are a huge number of details to add to all this,
libraries, broad sheets, festivals, weather, monsters, characters
(complete with some level of personality and a lot of 'chat'),
astrology, magic etc.  Being able to see a static image of an
attacking monster, or of a village you are about to enter, would
be a bonus, and the odd sound effect here and there would be
great. I am barely a novice in terms of programming but I do think
that with the simple graphics, such a game shouldn't be impossible
to create, at least compared with modern 'state of the art' games.
A lot of work would have to go into the communication side of
things, and virtually every character should be able to
communicate. Some characters, guards for example, may tend to be
tight lipped, especially on duty, but most people should talk with
you fairly easily, even if it's just saying "Hello". Each
character needs something unique to say. I'd like this to be a
game you could play for years, so it needs a lot of depth.

I'm currently looking at A.I. programs with the aim in mind of
learning something about 'communication'. I don't know really what
I'm doing yet in terms of programming, but I aim to get there all
the same.

@~What would YOUR ultimate RPG be like? Do write in and tell us
@~... Sue









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