The Base, Part 2(ish)

I'm currently beating my head up against a wall. After spending days working on my XP system and Reputation system (and, by the way, getting only about three hours of sleep a night), I have about 4000 lines of code, none of which work the way I want. I can't nail down what the systems are even doing, much less where they are messing up. I'm tired of looking at code, but I don't want to get up until I fix the damn thing. I suppose I'll go pour myself a stiff drink and try to cool off.

As important as scripting is, that's not all there is to building a persistent world. You've also got to have areas, and building areas is Casa's strong point, not mine. Nevertheless, I thought I'd show a couple of scribbles of my own to show the direction I'm planning on taking my world. Shown are a couple of the intro areas: the jail cell the PC wakes up in, and a shot of home base.

It's not much, and it's practically devoid of placeables right now. But it does give a general idea of how the world will look. Dark, gritty, and ominous. I think proper lighting will play a large part in the design, as will strategic use of placeables to make everything look dirty and cluttered. This gets my creative juices flowing. I'm not great at building beautiful areas, but I can definitely think up how things should look based on an artistic style.

Next time I'll start outlining the layout of the land, especially home base, the city where the PCs will likely spend most of their time.

The Base, Part 1

Casa laments in one of his first posts the difficulty of creating a base for a world, and he's spot on. The problem when making a persistent world is that you can't simply start building and expect it to work well. Remember one of the points in my last post: coherent design. If you want everything to flow together, you have to design it that way, and that means building a solid foundation for everything else to stand on.

What composes a foundation? Well, if you're designing a persistent world, you've obviously got to have a persistency system. You'll need to keep track of things like whether players have completed important quests, joined a guild, rented a room in an inn, and so on. You also need to prevent exploits, such as players logging out to avoid death or to regenerate spells. NWN allows you to set persistent variables on items, but what if something gets set by mistake? You want to have the ability to edit or delete any persistent information you store on a character, so the ideal thing would be a database. So then you need to design a way for your scripts to talk to a database and reliably get the information you need. NWNX fills this need, but the included scripts are really only a start; you need to customize it heavily to get any real use out of them

And what about XP? Players want to be able to gain experience, and the default system is certainly not built for PWs, which usually call for slow level advancement. And what do you do about high-level PCs teaming up with low-level PCs to get better XP? How about spawn camping, where players sit and kill the same thing over and over?

How do you design treasure drops? What about encounters? Crafting? Do you want any of those "realistic" systems like hunger and thirst that so many PWs have? How are you going to make them all work together and not be a mish-mash of random junk?

When builders realise just how much work goes into designing a PW, they often throw up their hands in despair and just drop the project. I made a commitment to myself early on that I was going to put as much effort into this world as was necessary to get it to meet my vision, and that it wouldn't be just another project that I get excited about and then put up on the shelf a month later. It was about this time last year that Casa and I started planning on how to build our awesome PW (and I'm suprised that both of us are still excited and producing stuff). He decided to focus on the building while I went to learn how to use NWNX, MySQL, and NWScript. We've both finally got something to show for it, but a lot of work remains ahead.

I settled on the Hardcore Ruleset as my method for tying all the various systems of the PW together. While it's mostly known for systems that allow permadeath or keep your characters from resting more than once a day, the core system doesn't enforce any of these. Mostly, it's just there to let you run multiple scripts on a single event so you can easily mesh plenty of systems together. It also comes with a decent and customizable persistency system that you can modify based on the type of database you use. Even better, the scripts are carefully designed to be self-documenting and follow a careful naming convention. I adopted both of these practices, and every system I've designed for my base I've designed to work with HCR2. I've also expanded a lot of HCR2's functionality, such as allowing hook-in scripts for creature and placeable events, rather than just the default module and area events.

To this, I'm adding plenty of custom systems:

• A custom XP system with class-based rewards
• Persistent reputations with NPCs and factions
• Persistent quests and journal entries
• Persistent chests and banking
• A D&D 4th Edition-style resting system
• A D&D 4th Edition-style bleeding and death system
• A cut scene system
• A crafting system
• An inn room rental system
• A whole new magic system (yes, you heard that right)
• And a whole lot more

So yes, it's a lot of work. But with the foundation built, it's coming together quickly.

Game Design Basics

Before you jump into designing a game, it's important to know what you want yourself and others to get out of it. If you start building without a purpose, then, when you finally have settled on a purpose, you have a bunch of unrelated junk that doesn't at all promote the actions and attitudes you want. That said, what do I want in my game?

1. Fun. Entertainment is the chief value of a game. Sure, it may be thought-provoking and challenging, but it's got to be enjoyable first and foremost. Games that are not fun do not keep players. For me, I get most of my fun out of role-playing, but there's other ways to have fun, too. Some people like wasting monsters, some like gaining recognition, and others just like discovering the game world. Often, players are a mix of the three. Thus, all three of these play styles should be catered to in order to keep the majority of people happy.
2. Solid gameplay. I've seen many games that, while they've got lots of complex systems in place to ensure realism, lack any sort of gameplay. Often, that means they stick players into a sandbox type of game where they've got bunches of rules to obey but few clearly defined goals. No, you don't need to have every step in the game planned out for the player, but you should always give him something new and fun to do. Gameplay, in my mind, boils down to these things:
   
   • Clearly defined objectives: the player should never be left scratching his brain to figure out what to do next. Giving the player free reign over his actions doesn't mean you can't point out the way for the newbies.
   • Opportunity for advancement: so often I see persistent worlds where the owners think XP is something evil. On the contrary, building your character up in power is fun, and, if the game is fun, it will give you opportunities to do so.
   • Chance for adventure: Neverwinter Nights is a game of adventure, and most of the characters your player will create will be adventurers, like it or not. This means you need to allow your players to experience a sense of wonder and excitement. That doesn't always mean slashing up monsters (though that's a part of it). It also means giving them new and exciting places to explore, challenges to overcome, and limits to push past.
   • Coherent design: this is my other big beef with so many PWs I've seen. There's a huge mish-mash of cultures that don't fit into a realistic world, and there's an equally dissatisfying mix of gameplay mechanics. Often the mechanics are there for "realism," but, again, there's no rhyme or reason to what's being made realistic. Why force me to have food in my pack to rest for the night? Do they think no one has ever gone hungry for the night? Realism is useful, but any game mechanic should not be in place to ensure realism but, rather, to ensure fun. That is, after all, the point of a game.
   • Immersion: I would much rather play in a world where it felt like a real place but there were no nifty features than one where there were plenty of flashy gimmicks but nothing to draw you in. Fantasy gaming is about cultivating a sense of wonder, and that's one of the things that makes it so fun. Give a world I can lose myself in, and I'll be happy forever.
3. Something new. Tried and true is good, but if I was wanting the same thing I can get anywhere else, why am I coming here? A game should give its players an experience they just can't get anywhere else. Whether that means storyline or character classes or just the visual style, you've got to have something the players haven't seen before to grab their attention. But you've also got to be careful to have real substance and not just flashy gimmicks.
4. Improvements. A game designer has the luxury of being able to look back at past games and see why they worked and why not. He then has the duty to do his absolute best to improve the game in every way he can and to thus give his players a better experience. Don't just copy what worked for others. Figure out why it worked and make it work even better.
5. Art. Some people throw things together, while others take the time to really give it their all and put some serious creativity into it. Casa is one of the latter. I've never seen an area he designed that didn't thrill me. Aesthetic appeal helps create a sense of immersion that sucks you into the game and won't let go. And it's not just visual appeal that does it. I've seen NWN modules that stood out to me because of the great dialogue and the carefully developed plot lines. But art doesn't just mean aesthetic appeal; it also conveys a certain depth of feeling and expression. I've spent so much time in this blog talking about the importance of theme because saying something deeply meaningful is important to me. I want to make a deep world.

Well, that gives you a bit of a glimpse into what I want from this world. We'll get more specific next time.

Plot, Part 4

I got a basic plot for my book that I can start fleshing out. But I've also said I would like to make a Neverwinter Nights world based on Shadows & Silver. I'm going to work some on the plot for the game this time, and I'll begin shifting my focus here from writing fiction to designing a game world.

Writing a plot for a multiplayer game is both similar to and different from writing one for a novel. For one thing, you've got many more characters the story has got to focus on, not just one or two, so the story has got to be flexible enough to account for players of many backgrounds, abilities, and personalities. Secondly, it has to be a conflict that will not be resolved in the book. This has been the downfall of many settings (notably Dark Sun), and is particularly dangerous since it makes it so the players' accomplishments mean nothing. Third, it has to be something the players cannot resolve in a few gaming sessions, but something that they can make progress with so they don't feel useless.

The similarities are still there, though. Even multiplayer plots center around a conflict and the complications that get in the way of solving it. The more difficult the complications are to overcome, the longer the plot is able to last without coming to a conclusion. Often, the resolution of one conflict will reveal a new conflict (e.g., the players topple an evil king only to have the local nobles start warring to determine the successor). One of the best ways to have an ongoing plot is to show a conflict that is too big for the players to do something about on a large scale but is still one they can manage on a small scale. For example, you can't expect the players to do much to end a world war, but they might infiltrate key enemy positions and thus help one side or another.

In this case, I'm going to use the primary conflicts I laid out a couple of posts ago, since they're all things the player can work to change on his own end without a realistic chance of him drastically changing the face of the setting. It also means the story will be flexible enough to account for many players participating in it. I doubt I will have to worry about characters in my book overshadowing players in my world since, for my first book, I settled on a main character who's out to bring in an age of science to trample the age of magic. This implies that it's earlier in the chronology than my world was intended to be, since I had intended a world where technology had displaced magic. This means, then, that whatever happens in my novels sets the stage for the world the players will inherit.

Considering that, what sort of world do I expect to come out of the actions of the characters in my novels? For one, I expect that my main character's goal of toppling the mage-kings will come to fruition, and that the religious and technological orders he supports will come into power. The Church of the Archons, as I've been calling it, has been waging a silent war against the mages for thousands of years, and, after the actions of this character, they are final able to wrest control from them. They have, in the years since, conducted extensive witch-hunts to destroy both mages and magical creatures. In turn, they support the development of machines which, while non-magical, can accomplish wondrous feats and placate a public thirsty for wonder. Over the years, they've managed to convince the public that the mages were either pretenders who simply harnessed the power of science, cruel men who played on their superstitions, or demon-worshippers who obtained power through horrid means. Unfortunately, in its years (I'm thinking maybe a few centuries) of endless witch-hunting, the Church has so thoroughly rid the land of significant presences of magic that most people don't believe in witches and think the Church serves no useful function except perpetuating superstition. In order to solidify its place in the new world, the Church has begun expanding its definition of witch to include undesirable members of society.

So how does the player fit into all of this? I'm thinking that the player is arrested by the Church when he is found without identification papers (or much else, for that matter), and he is being held until he can prove he is not a mage. Just prior to the arrest, though, he discovered that he may be a target for mages and other creatures of magic. If he chooses to divulge this information, the Church will likely give him a job, since he would be excellent bait in catching mages. If not, then he'll be on his own and in need of money in a land that is still suffering the effects of the magical warfare of centuries past: parched land, poisoned water, and rampant plague.

In addition to all this, there will always be wars and conflicts going on as the country tries to maintain its position amidst many lesser lands, and the high tensions means the racial integration in unacceptable in all but the most liberal of places. There should be plenty of plot hooks and quests to show these aspects of the world to the player, and the conflict of the struggle to survive is inherent in all of them, as well as in the day-to-day life of the player character.

I think this is a good start, and something I can flesh out as time goes on. It also begins my shift towards talking about game design, which will start to become the focus of this blog now.

Plot, Part 3

Most external conflicts involve a clearly defined antagonist. This may range from an individual or monster to an organization to the world itself. Your choice of an antagonist will often define the conflict and, thus, the story. In Shadows & Silver, I know I want a world in which black and white morality is not present, so I should pick a person or organization which is neither inherently good or evil. Conversely, the protagonist should be neither good nor evil. Both serve their own ends, and both think they are right.

I have held in my mind for quite a while now the idea of having a society of mages be the primary antagonist of my first book. Mages, by their nature, are powerful people, and the idea that power corrupts is one that fits into my world. The protagonist, then, is fighting against this corruption. Is this black and white? It doesn't have to be. The corruption of power doesn't require that you be a moustache-twirling eeeevil villain. It simply means you are using your power for your own good and not for the good of society in general. When you look at it that way, everyone does that, right? The protagonist, then, is fighting their corruption not out of some idealistic crusade to rid the world of selfishness but because the mages' use of power has come into conflict with his own interests.

How specific do I want to get here? Well, I don't want to go into too many details, since I haven't settled fully on the storyline and don't want to commit to something that won't be in the story. On the other hand, this blog is here for getting my thoughts out in the open. Consider this part a brainstorm, then, rather than an actual plot synopsis.

The protagonist, I think, should be a normal guy. I see him as a peasant in a kingdom run by mages. Our fellow has seen the abuses of magic and is determined to put a stop to their rule once and for all. He falls in with a society of alchemists, scientists, and what have you and, deciding that their way is superior to rule by mages, tries to bring down the mage-kings and replace it with the enlightenment of science. His position, then, is that power should be harnessed by mundane means so it is employable by every man equally, allowing no one to control another without his consent. This is in direct opposition to the position of the mages, which is that the powers of the universe are too precious to be squandered on lesser mortals, and that those with magical power deserve to be rulers.

Our hero seems like a pretty noble guy, yes? Let's dampen that a bit. There's always not-so-noble reasons for doing noble things. For instance, it's quite nice to patiently listen to the stories your ninety year-old Aunt Sally tells, but if your only reason for doing so is to make sure you are written into her will... I suppose we can all agree it's more noble to simply not listen to her. Similarly, our fellow here is not on this crusade because he wants justice for all humanity; he's doing it because he hates the mages and can see nothing more fitting than to have power equally distributed among commoners. Why he hates them I can decide later (I have several ideas I am sifting through), but this works for a basic conflict.

Plot, Part 2

Whenever you have opposing interests, you have a conflict. The more diverse the opinions of people in your world, the more conflicts you are likely to have. Shadows & Silver is specifically designed not to conform to the typical black and white method of thinking so common to fantasy today, so there should be plenty of places where conflict can be found. I'm going to establish five core conflicts for the world. These will be conflicts that drive the actions of most people in the world and around which my stories will usually center.

1. The struggle to survive. Shadows & Silver is a gritty world, one in which survival is hard and in which things can always get worse. Three things come to mind that make survival difficult for the common person: famine, economic disaster, and plague.


2. Owners versus workers. Ah, the essential class struggle. This has been one of the primary conflicts we have seen throughout the modern age, especially with the advent of industry. In a time where the common people cannot afford food, they are forced to work for however little the owners want in order to survive. Of course, some people decide to fight the system...


3. Old versus new. Industry, being a relatively new thing, is hailed by many as the savior of mankind (note: this implies that whatever order came before industry was disastrous). Proponents of the old orders fight against it, trying to keep things as they were so they don't lose their place in society. I'm seeing agriculture versus industry here as well as other things: faith versus cynicism, magic versus science, and chaos versus order.


4. Civilization versus savages. Those who have discovered industry always see those who have not as savages. Either they lord their knowledge over them or they try to help them out of well-meaning but unwanted paternalism. Either way, it makes the "savages" resentful; they're proud of their ways and don't think they should change. Often, those who do are seen as traitors. Many accept just enough help from their educators to fight them off with their own weapons, leaving the civilized country to conclude that the savages are just not worth the effort. (Note: could be modelled after America's struggle with its natives, British colonization of Africa, etc.)


5. Racial hatred. Scientific learning gives people more excuses to hate each other. I see humans in Shadows & Silver as the dominant race, and theories of evolution they posit likely give them excuses to look down on other races, if not persecute them entirely. Of course, the attacks are usually aimed at age-old racial enemies, not friends who happen to be less "evolved."