Breakdown Lane: RPG

As I seem to have hit something of a logistical roadblock with my explorations in GameMaker for the moment, I thought now would be a good time to start a new series within the blog.  You've seen other series posts such as "Down To Business" and "Rant," but this is going to be about the deconstruction of game types as a prelude to design.



Making a game is not the same as making a movie in any number of respects, despite what some developers, publishers, and filmmakers would dearly like to believe.  Movies are a highly linear enterprise, while even the simplest games can have several paths to achieve one of multiple possible end states.  Yet, there is at least one commonality that they share: they both require a solid framework.  For a movie, that framework is the script.  For a game, it's the design doc.  And let me tell you, writing a design doc can be an unmitigated pain in the ass because it has to be just as multi-linear as the game that will be built with it.  This is probably the single biggest hurdle that any game designer, or would be game designer, will face.  It's making the game before you make the game.

So, how does one overcome this monumental task?  Much like eating an elephant, you have to take it one bite at a time.  Instead of looking at and trying to describe a tremendous feast, instead break it down to the different courses that are served up.  By doing that, you begin to get a better handle on things.  You suddenly have a slate of sub-tasks within the framework of the project.  Putting them all together later may be a bit of a challenge, but you've got targets now.

For this first breakdown, I'm going to take on one of the enduring games types of the gaming world: the role playing game.  "Wouldn't it be easier to do something like a puzzle game or a side scroller?" you may ask.  I'm not going to be going into super detail (yet) about building an RPG ruleset.  No, this is more along the lines of general components, what it is that makes an RPG.

Required Components

Character Sheet - This one is pretty important.  It tells you about your character or characters, their strengths and weaknesses, what they're skilled in and what they aren't, their powers, etc.  They can range from pseudo-tabletop sheets like what you'd see in Baldur's Gate or the original Bard's Tale series to the minimalist sheet found in games like Mass Effect.  Character creation is very closely related to the character sheet, since creating a character inherently means you're filling out the contents of the sheet.  It's tied up enough that they should probably be considered two halves of the same whole.  Note that this also covers the advancement scheme you use to let characters level up.

Inventory - This component also ties into the character sheet, but it's not quite as intrinsic.  Your character is going to be picking up stuff as they go through the game.  Weapons, armor, utility items, money, MacGuffins for quests, that sort of thing.  You need to be able to see at a glance what you have, what you need, and what is expendable.  You also need to be able to move items from the character sheet into the inventory and vice versa.  Otherwise, why bother putting a +3 Sword of Vorpal Asskicking into the game in the first place?  Speaking of which, an inventory system intrinsically means developing types of items from general categories such as weapons and armor to working out damage dealt, special properties, etc. for specific items.

World Map - This particular component is, oddly enough, one you can completely get away with hiding from the players if you want to do that.  You have to plot your position on the map, even if the map is simply a set of coordinates which are abstracted.  Take a page from some of the old school SSI games  and the original Bard's Tale, and don't make the world map visible.  Instead, you can simply say, "You are X number of paces/wheels/miles from <Location>."  What matters is that you have some sort of reference point which the player can start building his own mental map from.  Of course, if you have an artist who can deliver a high quality looking map that you use for fast-travel and generation navigation, by all means, go for it.

Area Map - This is one component that you can also theoretically keep hidden from the player (if you're going super old school), but less so if you're going the tabletop-style route found in Baldur's Gate or Suikoden (Yeah, these ideas also apply to JRPGs.  It's all in the execution.).  The area map is either going to be a subset of the world map or a completely separate entity.  It's the town that your player visits, the large district of the capitol they go to when they need to see a certain NPC, a floor of the dark and dangerous dungeon, a portion of the spooky looking forest.  At its simplest, it can be laid out on a piece of graph paper (very handy for structures).  At its most intricate, you'll have a highly detailed "room" full of mesh objects and very specific paths you have to go through.

Combat System - This peripherally relates to the character sheet above.  You have to be able to determine who will win in a fight, whether the fight is with a level 1 rat or a level 100 demigod.  It doesn't have to be super-fancy, but from an aesthetic standpoint, you will be feeding the power of "the gotta" when there are big numbers displayed, more so if there's a nifty description involved.  After all, which of these statements sounds more exciting: "Paladin Bob hits the ogre for 400 points, killing it" or "Paladin Bob smites the ogre for 400 points, casting its soul to whatever hell awaits it"?

Optional Components

Codex/Grimoire/Encyclopedia - Having a means for the player to refer back to interesting information about your world can be a lot of fun, or it can be a complete waste of time.  It's a component of world building, something that maybe helps the players out, or just gives them something to read when they want to take a breather from killing rats.  Use judiciously.

Quest Journal - This one straddles the line between optional and required.  For a game like the early Final Fantasy titles or any other RPG with a relatively linear plot, you can get away with nothing more than a simple reminder screen somewhere, even just a line that says "Current Quest" on the character sheet.  For your massive open world projects and MMOs, this one really is a requirement, because if you populate your world the way Bethesda populates theirs, some kind of quest log is needed.  Players will get lost otherwise.  And if they get lost, they will get bored.  And bored players drop games.

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This covers the basic components of an RPG from a game perspective.  Things like world building, music, companion characters, and romance storylines stand outside of this.  Though having a combat system which doesn't even remotely appear to relate to the setting can be jarring, just as an example.  This is one time where the coders and the writers can work together effectively if they both listen to each other.

You'll notice that I didn't cover things like tactical RPGs (Fire Emblem, Disgea), strategy RPGs (Jagged Alliance, XCOM), and FPS RPGs (Deus Ex, The Elder Scrolls) in any specific detail.  Partially because I need something to write about later on, but mostly because those types of games will get their own breakdowns later on.  Plus, I'd like to break down the basic categories first before getting into the neat hybrids that pop up.  This was just the first installment of this series.  I'm looking forward to writing more.