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[JasonPickering]

so no sure if anyone has seen the new series over at The Escapist called "Extra Credit". It's pretty neat and the past episode really got me thinking

Here it is
 
this got me thinking about RPGs and Confrontations so I had an idea. what if you made an RPG as High Society. instead of Dungeons you have Parties. instead of Monster you have guests wandering that you need to talk to. Now in a roguelike you basically just bump into a monster to damage them. so my plan is instead of just that why not do a conversation. so there needs to be some element of action so heres a plan

Basically when you engage a NPC in conversation a bar appears now you hit the button and a number is chosen much like a dice roll(we'll say between 1 and 5). now the goal is to get as close to a predetermined number (say 15) without going over. you can stop at anytime and the difference is subtracted from your health. (like most dice approach games or black jack) then items can be added we will call them "anecdotes" that are a set number. so if you are battling someone and you have 13 and the goal is 15 you can take two damage or use one of your "anecdotes" to get a perfect.

so what do you guys think? does this sound like an engaging battle system? do numbers need to be shown or will simple percentage bars be enough?

[snowyowl]

I'd be interested to see the goals that the player is given. In a dungeon, the goal is "get from A to B". In a boss fight (or random encounter), the goal is "get this guy out of your way, fatally if possible".

If you want to persuade a guard to let you into the royal palace, that's also fairly simple. (Maybe kick it up a notch by letting you offer him something in exchange; seems more engaging to me.)

Making small talk, though... doesn't really have a goal. Not a simple one at least. If your goal is "become lifelong friends", that's not the sort of thing that should be resolved in a short event, and it might mess up the story if you can become friends with any NPC you meet. If it's "convince someone to give you item X", I don't see how "anecdotes" could help; otherwise that works. If it's "get information Y from someone", well, how you'll do that depends on what you're asking. (The way to the shops, the code for the safe, or the location of the Allied base?) And none of those will be used very often, because they have to be story-relevant: random encounters don't jump out of the woods and make you interrogate them.

[Breadcultist]

Basically when you engage a NPC in conversation a bar appears now you hit the button and a number is chosen much like a dice roll(we'll say between 1 and 5). now the goal is to get as close to a predetermined number (say 15) without going over.

What does the number represent? And how does 'health' come into it?

Do you actually get to read/hear the speech? That would require a lot of written content. Fighting can get away with repetition (repetitive animations, or repeated text like "you kick the spy in the balls".) Repetitiveness in conversations is sillier.

I'm sceptical.

The system you describe is quite simple. (Aside from the fact that I'm not sure how it maps onto the simulated conversation.) Game combat can get away with being really simple. It can be abstracted/simplified down to
-a bunch of pre-established possible actions
-simple rules determining cause-effect relations
-collision detection
Real combat is much more "free-form", unpredictable, error-prone. But these concessions don't (completely) destroy the inherent interest that combat has, from the video: 'conflict and danger'. I'll go with that.

Conversations involve ideas, emotions, beliefs, desires... best simulated with human-level AI. Complex stuff. Question is, can it be simplified down, like combat, in a way that doesn't break its essential interestingness. And still be interactive, hopefully challenging...

It's my contention that:
-the free-forminess of real conversation (control of timing, tone of voice, word choice, gestures, etc.) is important
-the complexity of the cause-effect relationships is important
-this shit is hard to model (derp)

Or. We could try modelling higher level abstractions... like choosing the numerical level of 'forcefulness' to a statement. And having the 'opponent' react to that number.

From the description of your system, it looks like you've gone down that route.

I'm reminded of Balance of Power: 21st Century. Play it to see why it doesn't work... at least it can't carry the whole game.*

Another thing: if the player is in control of his big fat mouth he has the choice of saying bad or stupid things. And you (and all your characters) will have to deal with that. And there are various kinds of badness to deal with... depending on how much 'freedom of speech' (heh) the player has. Will other characters get offended? Will reconciliation be possible? Over and over and over? Can the player talk their way into an unwinnable situation?

When a gamer fights in a stoopid way you can easily, naturally deal with that: kill him.

Simpler interpersonal interactions to try to simulate: sex, dancing, massaging, grooming, feeding. Look to... the lower animals.

*edit: I'm saying that specific game BoP doesn't work. Not saying that, in principle, the system can't. But... well...

[SirNiko]

I don't have the ability to watch the video at the moment, but do they make mention of 4th Edition D&D and the "Skill Challenge" in that? It's a mechanism where players rack up "Victories" in non-combat situations with the intent to reach any designated goal the GM can think of.

A common example might be to convince a baron to send his army to aid you in a battle against a dragon. As you move through the conversation, you might try intimidation, pleading, or lying with associated rolls. Perhaps you watch his movements to predict his reactions, or use a history skill to impress him with your expertise. The difficulty comes from figuring out how to apply the skills, identify what will work and what is unlikely, and then based on those details, find the most probable combination of moves that can lead to victory before time runs out.

It also allows for non-social encounters, like embarking on an expedition through the jungle for a hidden temple, or even non-fighting encounters like chasing down a foe who is fleeing in a vehicle.

What it gains it versatility it lacks in depth - unless the GM constructs a really clever mechanic to govern the situation it just boils down to using your best skills and hoping you guessed right, but it's still a worthwhile system to consider for developing a non-combat challenge for a player.

[JasonPickering]

well my original idea was based off of the Dorian Gray novel. The main character basically would lead a life of hedonism. Talk to people, Seduce women, Duel men, Steal, and Drink. and you didn't have a health bar so much as a boredom bar. I planned on conversations to be more implied with players basically speaking simmlish the goal of each party being to talk to everyone at the party to some extent. talking to the same people of course being boring. so the goal was a combination of talking to everyone but also remembering who you had previously talked to.

SirNiko: they don't mention that but that thing from D&D they more just talk about different ideas as opposed to examples. 

[AMAZON]

[iffi]

http://miwiki.net/images/Insult.jpg

Haha, I thought of the same thing (except from The Curse of Monkey Island, which is the first Monkey Island game I played).

well my original idea was based off of the Dorian Gray novel. The main character basically would lead a life of hedonism. Talk to people, Seduce women, Duel men, Steal, and Drink. and you didn't have a health bar so much as a boredom bar. I planned on conversations to be more implied with players basically speaking simmlish the goal of each party being to talk to everyone at the party to some extent. talking to the same people of course being boring. so the goal was a combination of talking to everyone but also remembering who you had previously talked to.

SirNiko: they don't mention that but that thing from D&D they more just talk about different ideas as opposed to examples. 

I think it would also be interesting if you could choose to talk with the same person multiple times and unlock new options (or something, I don't know) by getting to know that person better.
The idea could potentially work as long as it feels like a conversation rather than a normal combat system dressed up in words rather than action.

[SirNiko]

Earthbound had lots of characters that had multiple dialog boxes that came up if you spoke with them multiple times. In practice, though, it just made you talk to the character N+1 times to get all the conversation bits, where N is the number of new things they say and the +1 is the last time when they repeat their last statement again. (although at the least the last statement is usually short so you can clear it quick and move on)

You could construct a strategy game in which the player is challenged to carefully manage social energies to manipulate a party to success. You might expend energy to jumpstart parts of the party (expend some stamina and inhibition points to dance with a lampshade on your head to break some ice), then soak up the atmosphere to recharge.

Later levels become more complex, as you crash parties and evade the bouncer, host parties for warring factions (capulets and montagues hold a ball together) and try to accomplish challenging goals, like keep the party bumping without triggering a public nuisance call.

[Radix]

Yeah the idea in the first post is essentially a blackjack-bases combat system. You could skin it any number of ways, but that's all it is, so it has pretty much the same characteristics as a lot of other battle systems.
That's basically what any related ideas based on stats and dice rolls and anything else like that are going to be; more and more complex, abstracted, and probably repetitive and needlessly drawn-out combat systems.
That's really fine though if a game is heavily conceptual. The advantage is that it's a simple matter to tweak it to fit the pace of a game if you don't go overboard.

The idea of non-combat, as in a system that's a more accurate modelling of conversation or whatever, as a primary encounter system is always interesting but there's probably a reason that these types of things generally appear in games only in as a limited number of unique puzzles. I guess that's the non-presence of an intelligent and trusted GM who gives meaning to what should be the somewhat unpredictable outcomes of a situation that we're used to being based on fuzzy logic and not stats.

[Contrary]

All conflict is a pale reflection of battle.

But really you could use a lot of video game obstacles as RPG conflicts. Just think of all the noncombat games out there. You could break into a Phoenix Wright type engagement where you have to point out the contradiction or whatever. You could copy one of thousands of puzzle systems. Trauma Team has a section where you're an emergency medical technician. You have to work on multiple patients at a time using a number of different techniques. They're all dying quickly and new patients are being added as time passes so you have to juggle between them, trying to stabilize critical patients and eventually get them healthy enough to be shipped out.

[Gimym TILBERT]

Battle is just a fancy shortcut for challenge, put challenge and scrap the battle. see contrary post 

[baconman]

Racing? Sport? Gambling? Debate? Practically anything competitive or conflictive in nature can be a "battle system," it doesn't always have to be fisticuffs. Battles are great if you want a sense of "finality" about something, but other forms of competition are good if you want re-encounters.

But then, I'm still waiting for an RPG that actually uses a fully-fledged fighting game (like KoF or MvC) as it's "battle system." (NAMCO x CAPCOM and KoF Kyo came kinda close, but it was still ultimately turn-based strategy that happened to feature fighting moves/combos, rather than an actual live-action match.)

[umezono]

Racing? Sport? Gambling? Debate? Practically anything competitive or conflictive in nature can be a "battle system," it doesn't always have to be fisticuffs. Battles are great if you want a sense of "finality" about something, but other forms of competition are good if you want re-encounters.

But then, I'm still waiting for an RPG that actually uses a fully-fledged fighting game (like KoF or MvC) as it's "battle system." (NAMCO x CAPCOM and KoF Kyo came kinda close, but it was still ultimately turn-based strategy that happened to feature fighting moves/combos, rather than an actual live-action match.)

I don't know if Final Fantasy Dissidia counts. Does it?

obligatory 

[baconman]

Racing? Sport? Gambling? Debate? Practically anything competitive or conflictive in nature can be a "battle system," it doesn't always have to be fisticuffs. Battles are great if you want a sense of "finality" about something, but other forms of competition are good if you want re-encounters.

But then, I'm still waiting for an RPG that actually uses a fully-fledged fighting game (like KoF or MvC) as it's "battle system." (NAMCO x CAPCOM and KoF Kyo came kinda close, but it was still ultimately turn-based strategy that happened to feature fighting moves/combos, rather than an actual live-action match.)

I don't know if Final Fantasy Dissidia counts. Does it?

obligatory 

Haven't seen/played it, tbh. I'll have to look it up.

[Contrary]

On that note Soul Calibur 3 had a strategy game type thing where you moved guys around the board and fought battles when they touch.

Anyways I think using stuff like racing or sports would work but would be impractical due to how long those things take. Debate would be awesome but wouldn't really work due to how many separate puzzles you'd need and how difficult it would be to implement the improvement of your character. I think jewel quest puzzles or something of that nature would work. Your blackjack system works too but is kind of random for my tastes.

Actually it's interesting that this thread has shifted topic like this as I wanted to make a topic about (more) skill based RPGs. People often put down RPGs for being grindy. Can anyone think of a 2D turnbased RPG in which skill plays a a huge difference up to a fairly high skill ceiling? Pokemon arguably was deep on a competitive level but I think that much of that is because of yomi which is not applicable to AI.