Random RPG Character Creation System Ponderings

[tuftears]

For various reasons, I find myself pondering MMOGs and superhero RPGs every now and then. For instance, I think 'wouldn't it be neat to work a superhero MMORPG into a story about virtual reality that crosses the line into actual reality.'

Lately, perhaps since I've been watching assorted Marvel movies, I recalled that while I played on an X-man themed MUSH a long time ago, the whole X-theme hasn't really been tapped into in MMOG form. There's a Marvel Heroes MMORPG, but rather than playing your own hero, you get to choose from a rotating cast of iconic heroes. That's one way for Marvel to protect its brand, but it really doesn't fly for me as an opportunity to 'play yourself'.

But that made me wonder-- how much control do people really want over character creation?

Avatar customization is obvious. City of Heroes was justly famous for its character creator. But...

Powers? City of Heroes only let you choose from major archetypal powers, and from optional power pools, and then these powers could only be allied in set ways-- ice blasts and shields, for example, rather than free-form creation of ice. Allowing free-form use of powers would be a major game-changer, and likely game-breaker-- what happens if you freeze the water in a human body?

Background? What I'm curious about here is how much people want to be able to define their own backgrounds, versus having it set by the game. City of Heroes handwaved this, letting people write freeform text and simply categorizing superheroes by their 'origin type'-- magical, scientific, technological,et cetera. An X-men-based VR MMOG might specify all players had to be mutants of some kind, giving them 'origin stories' to play through which would clearly explain to them how their character was viewed by the world, a la the Dragon Age origin stories. How much control over your character's origin would you want, versus having your origin be supplied by the game, along with plot threads and known NPCs that might show up?

I'm not proposing to run a superheroes RPG just yet but I do wonder what my friends would want in a VR MMOG.

Comments

[rowyn]

I rather liked the SW:TOR approach of having each class have their own story arc, with the choices you make along the way having some impact on things that happen later. (Not a lot of impact, granted, but it wasn't the standard "succeed or keep trying until you succeed, this train only goes one way" of most MMOs). In an actual RPG, I'd rather be able to make up my own character. But in a CRPG, playing a character whose background is predefined is worthwhile if it means that the story I'm part of makes more sense.

SW:TOR also worked surprisingly well for my usual MMO playstyle, where I play every session with the same small group. So having two-four archetypes whose storylines complemented each other worked well for me. I don't like it as an overall strategy because I think "people who play in small groups always at the same time" is a pretty small subset of the MMO market, though.

Anyway, I also had a good time making up characters for City of Heroes/Villains and interacting ICly with my friends, so fully customizable works for me too.

[cjthomas.livejournal.com]

I don't spend much time on MMOs, so most of my experience is second-hand (or through multiplayer games like Minecraft or FurryMUCK). That said, there are a few things I'd look for to make an MMO more attractive to me:

- Avatar customization shouldn't be immediately undone when you equip things.

This is one of my biggest beefs with Minecraft's skin system; the armour covers it. The most straightforward workaround I can think of is to let people customize their livery, and to apply a sash or other covering to any equipped items to let the player's motif show through. Failing that, at least decorate the item with the player's emblem.

- Game mechanics should reward cooperation and collaboration, and directly penalize most forms of griefing.

I know that this will just encourage more creative griefing, but I'm told there actually are a few multiplayer games that make teamwork vital and rewarding. Doing that without requiring a horrible learning curve is the holy grail of MMOs. There should be roles where even a new player can usefully contribute.

- Personal taste item: The game should reward tinkering.

This is part of why I like Minecraft and the mods to Minecraft. Having a crafting or upgrading scheme or a tech tree that gives a trail of milestones to reach for and small rewards for fiddling with it is something I value and enjoy. The holy grail (for gameplay, at least) is implementing this in a way that doesn't trash game balance or force endless grinding. Profit-driven MMOs have strong incentive to reward grinding with abilities that far outshine anything you'd get without grinding, with the reward increasing with degree of grinding, as they make their money from duration of play. Minecraft rewards grinding with toys (a working 32-bit redstone computer isn't going to upgrade your character, but is neat enough that at least one person made one).

---

The most interesting take on collaborative gameplay I've seen was in the "Friendship is Optimal" fic, and that a) was deliberately kept vague for the reader and b) required solving the Strong AI Problem to implement. =^.^=

(Short version: When it was still an MMO, the game mechanics focused on conversation and empathy, with the computer skillfully prodding peoples' social reflexes to encourage actions or to reward them. You got in-game achievements for what amounts to "being nice".)

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Darn, I missed catching you on SWTOR? :) I played it a while ago but raiding-wise it pretty much died because of the vintage WOW approach/no addons approach. The state of raiding has moved on, folks, you can't capture the market by playing to 'old WOW' archetypes. Don't try to be WOW! Anyway, if you haven't poked at Star Trek Online, there's kind of that approach for at least the first 20 levels for Federation, Klingon, and Romulan stories, so you might enjoy it. It's also F2P.

I definitely liked the SWTOR story arcs. I was saddened when the expansions didn't really continue the individual characters' stories but were more of 'planetary DLCs'. I liked smugglers the bestest, but the Imperial agent story really is good. Kind of curious about the upcoming expansion which promises another 'character-based story arc'.

In an actual RPG, you'd have a GM who'd be able to work arbitrary story backgrounds into the game... But in a computer RPG, having the game supply a background, and explain things as you go seems so much more immersive it's silly, as opposed to being a blank slate addressed as "$NAME, hero, please save us!"

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

That's one thing that COH got right; you were in control of your character's appearance, not the game.

I've read the Friendship is Optimal fic, but as you point out, that won't fly for a typical MMO because 'Strong AI Problem'. What I'm thinking of basically is writing a story about a VR MMO going through several iterations... The first, the obvious 'it's really a computer game with discrete rules and objectives' and the second being what happens when you upgrade it to something with Strong AI. Sort of like Log Horizon or Overlord, except for the superhero MMO genre.

[cjthomas.livejournal.com]

I'm not familiar with either of those works; I may have to look them up when I'm less woozy.

Regarding using an AI moderator/GM as a plot device in a game-story, there are two main things to watch out for.

The first is that your AI should be written consistently and appropriately. There are many ways to design/write an AI character, and they're all tough to pull of. Ping me online if you want to bounce ideas back and forth. The two approaches I can think of are "ultra-rational and driven by alien goals" (the FIO approach), and "it's designed to provide character interaction, and this is the only way it knows how to interact with its controllers". The latter would let you build many interesting characters that are all partial reflections of the AI. As an example, the "admin interface" might be a group consisting of a sage (who answers any questions you have about the world-state), a charismatic ruler (who answers any questions you have about the characters in the world), and a mechanic (who implements changes to the world). Think of each of these as having the central goal-driven AI's motivations, but filtered through their own human-like personalities. This would be easier to write scenes for, but you'd still have to keep track of the global AI's goals and strategies, so it's not necessarily less work in the planning stage.

The second is that it's easy to give an AI powers that either break the story or that are very hard to write consistently. Worse, it needs at least one of these powers (the ability to juggle an entire virtual world and all the players' interactions) in order to perform its job. If it's only as bright as a normal (or even sub-normal) human, it'll still be able to index vastly more information without strain, and it'll still have all the subjective time in the world to see problems coming or to find holes in its own plans. If it's brighter than a normal human but still thinks in a human-like way (so as to better interact with humans), you have the challenge of writing someone like HP:MoR's Quirrel (an upgraded Xanatos). If it's brighter than a human and doesn't think like a human, you have CelestAI, which is an even bigger challenge (same difficulty of writing a smart, rational character, plus a completely alien mindset).

All of this is without giving the AI the ability to engineer nanotech out of nowhere, or an interest in taking over the world (why would it? its job is to manage the game). A person of ordinary intelligence but the intellectual resources of a server farm could cause enough havoc. An ultragenius with those resources and an interest in tinkering with the real world would be a can of worms not worth opening unless you were explicitly planning to write a story about such a thing.

Food for thought, and I look forward to seeing where you decide to go with this! =^.^=

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

I probably should come up with an overall plot and characters and such first. :) I guess I'm more interested in the within-a-game point, what happens when players realize the game rules aren't absolute anymore? Even if you don't restrict them from logging out (as happens in Sword Art Online; Log Horizon and Overlord don't specify if the players still exist outside the game or not) , the players retain a deep attachment to their characters.

The base assumption for superhero MMOs is that the players are, well, superheroes, going out there to fight evil. But if that's no longer enforced by a contrived plot and invisible walls, well, many players are happy to cheat and exploit even in actual games now.

So, the AI isn't really required to be a character in this, though that's certainly an option. Having the AI-as-world react to players going off the ranch in ways that make sense to it but not necessarily to humans could be a valid plot path.