Ideas For A Generic Fantasy RPG
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 มิ.ย. 2024
- I talk about some old (early 2000s) ideas I had for a fantasy game. These ideas that are not detailed enough to form an IP, but they would be useful to explore in a brainstorming session.
Videos I reference:
An Example Of Making A New IP: • An Example Of Making A...
Another New IP Idea: • Another New IP Idea - เกม
An abbotoir worker accidentally ends up becoming a mighty wizard
The difference between Tim's idea videos and the "ideas" I hear randomly in the wild, is that Tim has explicit mechanic and function details, whereas the wildlings only have the highest concept level outlined and little else. Usually, a single question crumbles their whole plan. I find that strange, because I love it when people have questions about my ideas because that means they are interested.
Often times its just because they don't know to take it that far. Maybe they feel like you questioning is a judgment against their idea?
As far as learning a language goes, Dragon's Dogma II has something very much like this. When you first get to the home of the elves, you can't speak the language or read the captions. But if you have Glyndwr with you during his quests/escorts, he can translate. You can hire a pawn with the Woodlands Wordsmith vocation and they can translate. Also, if you sleep at the Inn at their home for (I think) three consecutive days, the innkeeper will give you a scroll that you can use to teach your main pawn the Woodlands Wordsmith vocation.
My design idea is to make the world more or less judgmental to the player. I would hire an actuary to create the RPG mechanics if I can afford one or do a kind of expected value for each spell and counter. Here is a brainstorm idea that I have had and will tuck away as Ctl c this into my notes. The hardest part for me is too many ideas that all I need to do is just start. But here are a few ideas that I have for mechanics. So the entire lore system would be the conversation system and each NPC and characters in the game would have the entire lore locked and unlocked for them as well as interests so you can discuss the lore with the character world and gain affinity with the NPCs. The enemy system would have not just a leveling to scale system for the overworld but it would have a similar mechanic to the Horizon series where the enemies will try to counter if you keep using the same weapon or try to spam a specific weakness that say a wood elf has with fire they will douse themselves in water in the beginning of combat after a time. Skyrim's commentary on the player's actions is what makes it. Making the shopkeeper judging you for buying too many health potions (you really need that many or oh you are so tough not buying any health potions) is a powerful mechanic. I think too that there should be also kind of funny carrots like in the quests there are other people doing them in it as NPCs and you can come across them in the taverns. Taverns and Inns are more or less a hey don't know what to do and I kind of just want something to happen (You buy a drink and it will give you either a quest, an interesting encounter related to the current main quest or just being hit on by someone in the tavern or a bar fight). But those are some ideas that I have seen and enjoy. I think encampments like in Red Dead 2 and BG3 are kind of here to stay and likely a place where the player sees the progress and can build and likely defend their inhabitants. I can't wait to see what mechanics GTA 6 will have.
This is cool. And I want more!
I really liked the language quests, and language learning as a way to unlock new areas/quests. That's a neat way of looking at it. And the cool thing about it is that rudimentary knowledge of a language could get you simple quests, quests that don't give you great rewards, but as your knowledge on that language evolves, you'd get better quests and rewards. You could ascend socially, even.
Also, dialogs in an unknown language could be simply garbled text, that gets more and more un-garbled as you learn more of that particular language.
Great name for this budding IP. MORIBUND WORLD.
Love the souls to mana system. Morrowind (or maybe ES in general) works with some of the same. Soul gems are used to enchant and recharge magic items.
You need black soulgems for humanoid creatures whose souls are equivalent to the strongest "white" souls eg. from non humanoid creatures.
Yep and also the Ghost Gate is a wall of souls. Morrowind lore goes hard
@@Reldonator Michael Kirkbride is one hell of a writer. I would give BGS $1000 for TES6 if they brought Kirkbride back and fired Emil Pagliarulo.
Languages are often underuntilised in games.
Various humans, elves, dwarves, demons etc. usually all speak "basic" or "common".
I would like to be able to learn orcish, and if I don't speak it, orcs will not talk to me. If I do, they might tell me stuff, trade, give quests, be followers.
Hey Tim. Bit of a long winded question I've had for a while now.
In previous videos you've talked about sitting in a room for a long time having "arguments" about creative decisions. However, they're not really "fights" where people are upset, but rather passionate debates where people go to bat for their ideas. I love those types of discussions, and I like to call them "Idea Battles".
My question is do you have any favorite Idea Battles, or ones that stand out to you? Times where you enjoyed the conversation? Times where you thought you were right, but it turned out the other idea was better? Or maybe times where the discussion lead to a new idea that was better than the ones originally argued?
I thought this would be a good opportunity to share stories about team members and the creative process. I really like those.
I’ve described one such Idea Battle in my video The Arcanum One-Point Fiasco
th-cam.com/video/keTG-5WPccU/w-d-xo.html
I’ll try to think of more
The minion thing actually reminds me a bit of the Communion system in the grand strategy franchise Dominions. A Communion Master acts like a conduit. Other mages use the spell to become a Communion Slave. These slaves all contribute some of their own researching ability or magical aptitude to the master, meaning you can use a good communion master like a lightning rod to boost his own magic power and gain access to spells and research ability he wouldn't normally have access to in exchange for having to make sure your communion slaves keep channeling the spell (meaning they cannot act themselves while doing so).
"Good is when you kill..." has gotta be the most "classic RPG" approach to morality lol
Gave me a thought with "flavours" about being knowledge based. That way killing high skilled people allows huge amounts of XP, for example killing the towns blacksmith gives loads of XP/mana/soul, but that stops you accessing improved weapons.
Would also allow for "trading" magic for strength playstyles, but also will reduce the towns income etc
A perfectly neutral item that is the rarest weapon/armour to obtain and equip. No goody-two-shoes could fathom using it, no dark traveler could wield it effectively.
Ave, true to TimCain
Love the concept, I can see how it could be developed into a great project!
I can't help bit think about worldbuilding whenever game ideas are discussed, as I prefer to tie lore and mechanics very tightly together.
In this case, I'd develop religion very deeply and have it play a big role in the soul/mana mechanics- can temples provide mana without having to kill people, instead by worship? can they corrupt/purify souls? I think it would tie in great with what you said about item alignment and followers/minions as well. You could devote yourself to a temple or god, and get access to special gear and such, which may become cursed if you ever stray from their ideals.
Perhaps another great idea would be to allow the player themselves to be, as Elder Scrolls puts it, 'soul-trapped'. Death may be the end, but are you dead if your soul is trapped? Is this part of the player's unique ability? There's a lot of ways to develop that. I should stop talking before this becomes another essay.
Im just now getting a Notification that this video was uploaded lmfaooo I was like damn Tim's uploading at 1:23 am that's odd lmfaooo
Very interesting ideas, will have to steal some of these for use in my game(s).
The 'magic is murder' angle opens the door for a lot of interesting scenarios, definitely going to be brainstorming more 'passive ascension' systems like this that everyone participates in by default. A lot more interesting than 'I don't know, some people are born with magic 🤷' angle.
tho not the same thing but vamper has a blood system where blood is your exp, you can drink a small amount of blood from people and get some while fighting enemies but the largest amount you get is by knowing the named npc and uncovering their stories the better you know them the more exp but the fun part is killing them can and will change the town drastically in both good and bad way also its a somewhat dialogue heavy game. i highly recommend it , the combat system is okay not too hard and not too easy.
I loved listening to this idea. Personally, I don't think this game would have compelled *me* very much just on the description of mechanics. Not that's there's something bad about it, it's just a case of understanding my own preferences, games that are hyper-reliant on their loot-systems usually don't do much for me. On Bartle's Taxonomy, I am fully on the explorer side of things: I like a good narrative more than anything. So this would need a really good setting in order to hook me past all the different gear sets and crafting. Fallout doesn't excite me because of the gear or crafting or survival elements, it's the conversations and characters and setting that gets me hooked. Again, that's just a preference of mine. Plenty of people would love this system and more power to them!
However, if this hypothetical game we're brainstorming were to be made, my note would be that we need to make sure all of the gear sets have an interesting story or lore component in addition to their considerable stat effects. If we build a game where so much of the player's aspirations is focused on obtaining those powerful sets of loot, they shouldn't just look good and have good stats. There should be something unique about them in a story sense. For example, New Vegas' DLC had a stealth suit that fit perfectly into my NCR military low-karma sniper build. But I *remember* it because she *talks*. Not in the way that Fallout 3 had a stealth suit that spouted anti-communism propaganda at the player and actively revealed their location to enemies (though that too was very memorable), but a very kind stealth suit AI that talked to me and would occasionally ask things like "Do you like me?" It was so cute, I named her Angie, and I wore that stealth suit for the rest of the game, and that's a detail I will never forget. It's one of the first things I think about when I think of that game. So, back to this hypothetical brainstorm, maybe if you have a full set an NPC will track you down and give you a new quest relating to the lore of that outfit. Like maybe the player is unwittingly walking around wearing a legendary outfit (ala the Hero's Tunic from Zelda), someone sees that and identifies it as the iconography of the legendary hero, so he begs you to get involved in a quest-line across the world. I like this idea because it could be used for on-boarding players to quest-lines they might have otherwise missed, which I feel is extremely important in an RPG.
On the other hand, the ideas about hyper-strict alignment chart management in a video game is very intriguing to me. RPGs had a bit of a rocky relationship with morality systems about twenty years ago, at least on the video game side of things. The Mass Effects and Fables. These systems tended to be pretty binary. But TTRPGs have been using the lawful/chaotic/good/evil alignment chart for decades. And it works well for them! Why don't more RPGs try to do something similar to that, where everyone has a very specific alignment and attacking / insulting people on those alignments have consequences for your own character's alignment? The four axis approach definitely feels at least more robust and interesting than the simplified Paragon to Renegade slider. And I don't see video games play around with it very often, unless their game is literally trying to replicate the mechanics of a TTRPG, like Baldur's Gate 3.
And logically you have some mana from yourself, that replenishes with time. In terms of the player being non-violent, some magical things can come from natural deaths, accidents, fallen from war, etc. That is partly how I see in my D&D game (non official world) ; I say partly because I conceive mana in all living things around and you don't need to kill them (but magical items always have a soul, willing or unwilling, which is an ethical issue), but I see the twists you are suggesting here for gameplay.
I wonder what flavor my soul is.
Probably banana
This sounds like Demon Souls. With a bit of some other Japanese RPG's I've played. Color XP is mostly from DMC and other action games however, that would be nice to see in rpgs. Likely is an RPG that did it and I think I recall one, but I don't remember the name.
I like most of this but mixing and matching armor/weapons/tools is part of the fun for me in big RPGs. I'm sure it isn't fun for whoever has to balance the game 😅
I had an idea inspired by your mana system. You said something like a rat would give you a small amount and is flavored.
Bills Mana farm! Organic free range ethical Mana at affordable prices!
Lore idea: people have found a way to partially drain souls, and are selling vials of their soul in desperation. Some have figured out how to replace their souls with differently flavored souls. And there are fringe groups who mix souls together in themselves in an attempt to ubermensch themselves.
This is pretty cool, and honestly, I think it's already done in Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies (both great games, but I'd far and away recommend Sunless Skies over Sunless Sea).
I only started playing sunless sea a bit, and didn't entirely gel with the gameplay. It's a bit on the slow and disorderly side for my taste. I absolutely love everything about it aside from sitting down to play it though!
@@MFKitten Hah, yes. Sunless Sea is abominably slow. Sunless Skies, however, remedies that issue quite well! If you ever get bored playing that game, you can just go to the next area - there really aren't any limitations on just progressing when you want to.
Mr. Tim, can you make this game, like, now? I really want to play it.
Now seriously, your insight into designing RPGs is so rich for someone who likes designing TTRPGs. A common critiscism i see in the TTRPG sphere is "this is too videogamy" but TTRPGs are the origin story of videogames and your perspective is amazing, sometimes I forget i'm watching a video on videogames and think "i'm gonna steal that for my OSR game".
Thank you so much
Very cool to see that you thought of some concepts that eventually came to fruition, either by your studios or others. Great minds think alike.
The look of dread that formed on my face as you started described the soul system was only outdone by my sigh of relief as it became clear the thing I'm currently working on took a completely different path in its narrative and mechanical focus
That dread is well-known to every game designer who has worked on a game for years, only for a similar game to be announced...or worse, shipped.
@@CainOnGames How did you react when you first heard about Outer Wilds? Also known as the game not to be confused with The Outer Worlds. It's so funny that the first line on Wikipedia for both games is telling you not to confuse them with each other.
Did you ever play it and if so how was it?
@@TS-by9pg Extra funny now that a writer on Outer Wilds has worked /works on The Outer Worlds too lol.
I've posted the comment a few times, but I still can't believe in 2024 Tim Cain is one of my favourite TH-cam Subscriptions. Do you think you'll interview anyone else? Josh Sawyer maybe regarding your time on Pillars and other separate projects? I think you two would be great!
That would be... very interesting. I, personally, am interested on hearing his ideas regarding balancing... I preferred on-release class stats/abilities in Pillars of Eterenity over their later patched stats/abilities.
You kill something, and you get mana, so, kinda like being a vampire?
Man, it's really hard coming up with new stuff.
Imagine you have this game where you could potentially have limitless mana, but you can only use it at special exchange stations for spells and ability effects, that you have to prepare ahead of time. You can also use mana to build stuff, and thus you can "invest" it.
@cainongames So I can't find it now, but awhile back you mentioned your favorite games and mentioned Star Control II / Ur-Quan Masters, which led me to something I've wanted to ask regarding Fallout and that game:
What is your opinion on diajetic timers - that is deadlines within the game?
Fallout - before it was patched out I think - made Vault 13 and the water chip a deadline. You can move it by getting water to the Vault, but at a certain point, Vault 13 will die of dehydration. Star Control II had several events operate on a schedule, which you can interrupt, move up, and delay depending on your actions. Prince of Persia had a direct deadline bast on how many screens you pass. The Last Express operated on a real-time event schedule. I personally preferred this in giving more consequence, even to player inaction. However, most open world games these days have quests wait for you, while at the same time expressing urgency.
Since Fallout and Star Control II are the games I remember that have quest deadlines as an important mechanic.
Incidentally, Star Raiders is a favorite of mine too, and (ahem) I was born in 79.
But my evil character only does “good” things so he can betray everyone at the end. Alignments shouldn’t be forced; it is judgement of actions that only the player can know. I “help” the gnome child by getting his turtle (or whatevet) out of a tree, not because I am "good." but because I want to then eat the pet turtle in front of the gnome child, making him cry. I am 56 and just LOVE you and your videos, Tim, thank you for being a treasure.
Destroy all those gnomes? The anti-gnome bigotry accusations will never leave if you keep this up Tim! Great vid as always
Something that strikes me about this system is that a wonderful "difficulty" or option for this game would be *starting as a truly evil character*. You end up with something like a redemption playthrough in Tyranny emerging purely from the mechanics, and that could be really cool!
Similarly, if magical items have power that drains over time, then even if somebody thinks they're using an evil item to good ends they run into real trouble when they need to recharge it...
This can be a cool game if created.
I haven't stopped thinking about your concept you spitballed about the child escaping the city and not able to read the street signs, etc. I think that premise is great.
Glad to be able to support you in a way that's more than just watching every video you put out lol. Have you noticed quite a big surge in "Game dev" related content on youtube and twitch? Whether it be a dev-log or a 3 hour long tutorial. Do you think going down the "content" route is a viable option for new (or veteran) game devs to get themselves and / or their work noticed? And if so, would you consider it as viable a route as any other?
I thinking creating something, whether it’s a game or a demo or a TH-cam channel, demonstrates that you will put in the work to create a thing. So yes, it’s viable. As more people do it, though, the signal-to-noise ratio drops. It’s the discoverability issue all over again.
@@CainOnGames Gotcha, so just like anything it’s better to start sooner than later before the discoverability becomes nearly impossible. I appreciate you taking the time to reply, I’m sure you know how much your input and opinions mean to smaller and inspiring devs so thank you!
I really want you to narrate a Mage: the Ascension game.
This video was particularly insightful, it's great to listen to how you start world building and designing from a somewhat simple idea that though have a lot of implications and ripercussions, and those generate specific gameplay loops and systems.
Thank you for this video and the rest of this great game design encyclopedia that is your channel :)
instead of a fixed Alignment that carries over from one group to another, you could have it be subjective to whomever is perceiving your character, like a faction reputation system based on the your backgrounds and previous decisions made.
I would So want to play this game!
This system has the potential to have a pacifist be an evil option.
Make a spell or ability that let you siphon off a portion of a living being's soul for mana without killing them, but leaving them diminished. As you gain power you can progressively drain away larger and larger portions of souls, eventually being able to leave people as mere shadows of their former selves, barely more than a soulless husk.
Guess someone has to tell Larian that Tim beat them to the concept of Source magic by about 20 years 🤫🤫🤫
I mean... Divine Divinity was made in 2002... Original Sins 1 is not the first divinity game.
@@SenkaZver Of course the Original Sin games weren't the first Divinity games (I've even commented on this exact channel before about how Divinity II is a great "comfort game"), but my joke was more about how OS2 treats the reveal about "Source = souls".
Hey Tim, do you pick your crazy thumbnails out yourself or does TH-cam pick them automatically? Either way, whoever is pulling the strings on these thumbnails is doing a great job because these are amazing.
TH-cam auto-generates three thumbnails from the video, and I pick the silliest one
@CainOnGames your ideas sound like they would work great in D&D. I'd really like to see a chat between you and @RobertHartleyGM that does the @VivaLaDirtLeagueDnD campaign
Though a bunch of them are writer centric and might do well modded into games like bannerlord and such
I want to play this, please!
If I ever win the lottery, I'll ask you to make this game, Tim. 🙏
Shiny; specifically Sacrifice by Shiny entertainment.
Cool story bro. Now can we please get this game created in my lifetime?
Talking about specific IPs is dangerous, because hackers may try to access that IP o.o
Btw I wonder if Tim ever played Counterfeit Monkey. It is a text based game where you can remove or add letters from words and when you do it, it has real consequences, for example you point at a cod, remove letter "o" and it turns into a CD. You can do various shenanigans with words in this game and there is lot to do in the world. Just don't try to turn the whole fair into air, you may die xD
do you have any opinions on realistic RPGs? One of my favorite RPGs is Kingdom come deliverance and they are a realistic historical rpg it's not 100% historical accurate I don't think any game could do that, history wasn't pretty. But I'm just curious what do you think of a game like that I haven't seen many games like it since I'm only a console player
I am starting to see how Story can follow from Setting and Mechanics.
About Pacifist playthroughs, what about those minions / followers? Can you get mana from your control over others, not necessarily from their death? That would allow one to play without killing. Although if you need control over others, that can be argued to be not quite pacifist.
Extra long episode full of ideas! Thank you T.C!
I have a question I've not seen yet, and it's twofold: Do you have any opinion on voice acted vs typed dialog, and out of the voice actors on games you've worked on, were there any you enjoyed working with a lot? I personally have loved Ashly Burch's VO work and loved her in Outer Worlds. I used to watch the "Hey Ash Whatchu Playing" vids all the time and loved how versatile she ended up being with her VO's in different games.
Hello Tim. How do you feel about a player creating a meta character? For example a DnD player, playing a character named "Town Guard #3" and all of their verbal interactions being on a table of 20-30 generic phrases that are rolled for.
Evil cults not evil enough? Now you can make them MLM with promises of passive mana!
Gnolls == goblins == gnomes 😄
I have the "adjacent word" problem all the time.
The game Hinterland as described on the channel Accursed Farms back in 2017 has some similar elements, but it is not as well developed as what you are describing here.
I love those ideas - you've definitely given me some food for thought.
Having different languages sounds like it'd make for a good character trait/perk to be a language learner. Traits like in Fallout are such a good system if they're balanced appropriately, to the point that I think you could add those to any RPG and it makes the game better.
Different languages is a good way to keep "Speech" as a skill without it being "I have 100 Speech so everything I say is convincing." It's pretty easy to flesh that out to where it's a core mechanic of a game, really. Some languages should be easier to learn since they're similar to your starting language, some should be a lot more difficult. Ancient/dead languages could potentially be easier to read due to archived writing, but nearly impossible to speak. So in a magic setting, maybe the cliche of "reading a curse/warning activates something bad" is because of mispronouncing the words to dispel the enchantment. Maybe I'm just saying that because of how annoying Duolingo's audio challenges are, but it'd be kinda funny to have that happen once in some old crypt or something.
Mmmm, flavored mana 🤤
I like relay like quests that effect the game world, seeing changes reflect player actions. The blacksmith example is good, id also love to see some environmental changes like clients in blacksmith shop/town after the quest using items made from the metal from the mine. Maybe see his wealth is going up, not in direct talk but say being dressed better or having more customers etc.
Language and factions are a cool idea, may bring some fun interactions.
Your ideas on how to structure itemization feel dated but still better than what we get most of the time sadly
Oh shit, Tim invented Black Soul Gems
@@garrenbrooks4778 Funnily enough, this is also a generally-run-with theory among the TES community regarding the Dwemer's automaton construction.
Could there be a economy behind the production of souls. like its Illegal to domesticate creatures and people for the production of souls but if you kill a king's subject its treated as a crime of not murder but damaging his property/investments. Do people literally sell their souls if they are that poor, and this would be treated as a legal loophole towards slavery?
I think the soul mechanic could lead to all kinds of interesting quests and side stories.
Hey Tim! I'm currently making an immersive sim and have been thinking about how to go about making systems generic enough. What do you think of ECS? Especially when incorporated into commercial game engines not built with them in mind. I made a custom ECS framework to be used within Unreal
We used component systems on Pillars of Eternity using Unity. I thought it was a clean way to handle systems. For example, we had a lock component that could be put on any entity that needed it, so doors, chests, suitcases, etc. Then those locks could be opened with keys, spells, or abilities in the same straightforward manner, no matter what thing was locked.
How about enchanting items has become so prevalent that the afterlife is running out of new souls. To prevent the rash of soulless children being born you have to start breaking things and freeing trapped souls.
I really like the goal being to make your own town. Go from murderhobo to murdercitizen or even murdermayor.
Hey, Tim, check out thaumcraft mod for minecraft.
I was never good at programming, but I've made quite a few table top rpgs just for me and my friends.
I wish I had the confidence to make one I could share with the public.
You just release it and hope no one sees the glaring issues (only) you see. In most cases you'll be surprised. You could soft release it onto a smaller group, asking for feedback first though.
@@Pixelsoep I'm currently doing that with some close friends as my play testers, also my brother is co-authoring/editing it with me.
I sort of have a scatter ADHD brain, so he's essential in reorganizing my thoughts and just trimming down whats there already.
Hi Tim! Any take on avowed? You will play it? Ty!
my favorite online game designer sensei.
Welp, now I want to play this game that isn't even being made yet. 🤣
Hi Tim, it's us, everyone. Question for you: imagine that game development just isn't a thing that exists. What do you think you would you have been instead?
😁Sounds intriguing! I especially like cursed items. I'm pretty sure there's something to do here in a new game, with a character that uses cursed items or is cursed in some way and has to play differently to circumvent this. Offers some Role play shenanigans!
Our father has blessed us once again!
Lets go Master crew! I still have about 100 videos on the backlog to watch but I'll happily get some Tim Cain knowledge fresh off the presses!
How important is lore to a video game? How do you feel about expanded universes with books/comics and tv/movies. Have you ever thought about developing a book series for fallout or arcanum. I love the way your games feel like flushed out worlds, I have watched many videos from Brandon Sanderson, and about GRRM and I would put fallouts world up there with the cosmere and planetos easily.
Have you watched Game Lore?
th-cam.com/video/fwiXTYMCc6A/w-d-xo.html
And since I own neither Fallout or Arcanum, I haven’t considered writing a book series for them. Along with my lack of writing skills, of course
@@CainOnGamesthanks Tim you are elite when it comes to game lore. I bet you would make an amazing editor for a book series or tv show the way you think about lore.
Great video Tim! I have never commented or asked questions on the channel before but love your games and have watched a ton of your videos. Happy to support!
i've a lot of appreciation for you and this channel. i don't know how much questions i'll be asking, but it's great just to be able to support and be in a channel that inspires me. i'm an inspiring author and working on my own project, so hearing another creative is comforting in a way. what i'd like to suggest is if you can run through how you begin brainstorming ideas. whether it's simply bullet points in a note book, or if its on flash cards etc? just a simple break down of how you organise your throughts and begin things when working from scratch. as someone who doesn't code, do you have that constantly in mind when coming up with a ideas or does that ccome later?
I keep a notebook (now a series of notebooks) where each page has a title of the idea, followed by bullet points of main things about the idea. I’ve done a few videos of IP ideas, and they’re coming straight from the notebooks
Instructions unclear: I created murderhobo
You talked a lot about how you don't like tropes in games, but the way you describe this RPG stuff in this video it sounds like the typical WoW-like RPG or something from the 90s even. Fetch quests, armor sets, dungeons, guilds, etc.
Did you read the title? It says “generic RPGs”. Also finish the video and you will see some more original ideas.
Regardless, 90s had great rpgs what are you talking about? What about fallout and fallout ? I think the tropes you are talking about were more present ten to fifteen years ago.
Not sure if you've already answered it elsewhere, but one question unrelated to the video: how do you maintain longevity in the industry and in particular, longevity with quality? From my admittedly meager knowledge, comparatively few of the great designers / developers of the 90s managed to maintain a career of solid output. Given that you are in that handful, I thought you could provide insight about consistent quality over a career especially in such a fast-changing industry.
And a random comment--I love the interviews you've done. I understand that isn't where you want the channel to go in part because you want the channel to be something people can look back to many years down the road.
But the thing is, I think interviews actually do have that longevity. It captures a discussion about both game ideas and the history of a set of games' development. I could absolutely see someone many years from now watching your chats with Leonard Boyarsky, Jason Taylor, and Scott Campbell to understand your different experiences developing a game.
I could equally well see a great conversation that stands the test of time between you and Richard Garriott about forced morality versus moral choice in video games or with John Carmack or John Romero about the actual nitty gritty history of programming games in the 90s or with Todd Howard about what makes a great RPG.
Just a thought. If it's just not your jam, I totally get it.
Have you watched my Career Longevity video?
th-cam.com/video/qRAUcX8cRZQ/w-d-xo.html
As for the chat videos, they take a long time to schedule, record, and process. And another reason I’m reticent to do more is some people don’t want to do them, and the more I do, the more apparent it will be who said no.
@@CainOnGames Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks!
4:49 the pyramid scheme lord
The souls idea is extremely high utility because of how easy it is to expand upon - remove the idea of mana, even, and it has even higher utility. Harvest souls from mobs and what not, and you can collect them to power magical "machines"/tools... imagine getting a tool that has goblin-like abilities because enough goblin souls trapped within it.
Breaking tools could narratively set them free as angry spirits or some such (due to being trapped & milked for their abilities). This could be shown late-game as a fake steam-punk city suffering under a cataclysm which occurred by one piece of equipment breaking, and the then-released spirit breaking another piece of equipment, and so on, and so on.
A haunted city created by the souls utilised being set free... it's an interesting idea, at least.
It's also a nice system for creating weapons/armour - a sword that gets abilities/stat bonuses from what souls you put into place, similar to materia from FF7.
I object to the idea that (well done) fantasy can be generic.
This setting in particular has one issue, which is that you can substitute the word "magic" with "meat" and make no difference at all.
Sounds like it would devolve into murder hobos even more than fantasy RPGs already do
what I appreciate most is how you describe how each mechanic interacts with other mechanics and how they work together to inform the kind of world they exist in. Thanks, Tim!
stormbringer?
Generic is only bad if the main story and characters are bad because everything else has been proven successful.
All the enchantments you craft using souls are an status effect that can be taken away by vampiric mobs/bosses sucking off the powers you got from the souls (some hidden number that increases when you eat souls like xp, which is not the mana you need to craft which needs to be replenished) So there are bosses / areas you can't go in until you get an item or an ability that gives you protection against soul-vampires. When you die you lose a base amount of souls that represent your own soul and on zero souls the game ends permanently. Maybe use another name instead of souls (Chi (Qi), Prana, Ka, Mana, Atman, Pneuma, Awen)
I feel like languages is a thing that hasn't been very well explored in games, outside of maybe Final Fantasy 10 of all games. I think it was hinted at in Kotor1, but I think it'd be very interesting if you had to do it for a sort of Dune-like diplomacy approach, otherwise you end up being manipulated by NPC's that have their own agenda's.
Do I have to navigate your channel on my desktop to become a member? I can’t find anywhere to go to do it on my phone 😢
Apparently iOS phones don’t have a join button on the TH-cam app. The browser should work
@@CainOnGames thank you sensei 🥋
Dang, it sounds like it will encourage residents of that world to be evil, assuming that what we call 'evil' is also evil in their world.
The idea that mana comes from souls reminds me of the anime "Demon Slayer" where demons gain their power by consuming blood. They have an almost insatiable appetite for it.
The twist in that show (not a spoiler) is that some demons were able to find other ways of satisfying that craving that didn't involve murdering villiages full of people.
That could be an interesting twist to the mana system as well. Maybe could play into a flaw-like system? I dunno, just spitballing here 😅
Hey Tim, its me, jordzy. I hope your enjoying the Elden Ring DLC, its amazing!
A universe in which the only way to get magical energy is by killing living creatures.. and the more intelligent the better.. would be a psychopath's dream. A psychopath with a demon whispering in their ear. The animated series "The Dragon Prince" performs a spectacularly beautiful treatment of this genera idea. In the story, it was thought by nearly everyone in any way connected with magic that killing living creatures is the only way to get magical power, so magic was banned in many places by various races. An evil elite rose up whose powers of intellectual rationalization and propaganda were profound. Then an orphaned royal prodigy was born who was almost insanely enamored of the idea of magic and strove to learn all he could, but was horrified when he discovered this dark secret of how magical energy is procured. In the story, he eventually proves that a person with sufficient innate talent whose heart and intent are sufficiently pure can wield magical energy drawn from a great energy field that is produced by all living things, and eventually, he proved that it could drawn from an even greater energy field that is produced by the action of that power which holds material matter together, and he showed that the power that can be drawn from these fields is practically inexhaustible and is orders of magnitude larger than what can be drawn by extracting the energy released upon death of individual creatures. This is the angelic response to the demonic dream.
This sounds very similar to a souls like campaign setting i have homebrewed for dnd! Never thought of the set items though I really like that.
Didn't miss one video for at least 6 months. Super interesting stuff, keep it up Tim. We love you!
Does this mean we're free to steal these ideas and use them in our own projects now? lol
One of the tomb raider games has a language mechanic similar to what's described here where she collects pieces of a language and once she has enough pieces, Laura can read objects that have that language written on them.
Did that in final fantasy 7
@@wesss9353 Final fantasy 10, actually, but yes.
@@SyndicateOperative did I mix up 7 and 10.
Wouldn't be the first time
@@SyndicateOperative oh yeah I forgot all about that in FF X
This is one of the best channels on you tube. I have no interest in getting into the video game industry. But learning about it from one of the most prolific devs and creator of my favorite series. It’s such a pleasure. Thanks Tim❤