Comments | matt_rah: On a lighter note:

matt_rah

On a lighter note:

Oct 30, 2007 02:32

I may be designing an RPG for academic credit... ...*if* I can pull off some decent research within the next week (not too hard, though I'm pretty stressed right now), *and* design the game mechanics by the middle of December (that's where I'm going to need help from the good folks of SG ( Read more... )

Comments 6

mazarin October 30 2007, 08:36:25 UTC

Did the professor react positively? It's probably worthwhile to find this out for sure before you go too far into planning the game.

matt_rah October 30 2007, 13:11:37 UTC

Oh, he did, though there's still some skepticism.

That's why I need to get a decent draft of a proposal together for next week.

Matt

kiddens October 30 2007, 11:50:05 UTC

This doesn't answer any of your direct questions, and I'm thinking about this a little more like a boardgame than an RPG, but you can take from this what you will.

I think there should be a continuous soundtrack which the players are fighting over "king of the hill" style. To make it educational, I'm thinking a specific set of canned characters with specific canned soundtracks. Each different composition within the soundtrack could have different benefits for the character. Trouble is that you can't change your current composition without first being usurped. So, as conditions change the other players will have a chance to grab the soundtrack with whatever would benefit them most at the time. This requires players to learn about the contents of their soundtrack.

matt_rah October 30 2007, 13:12:11 UTC

Yeah... yeah. I see what you mean, mostly. I may ping you again in future to explain this idea in more detail. Thanks!

Matt

instigator_ash October 30 2007, 17:44:03 UTC

I like the idea of canned composers as well. That's how you work your research in. I'd suggest perhaps using some of the analytical research you're doing to try to characterize common threads in music at the time to rate what the appeal of the most famous pieces of music of each composer is. Writing these pieces of music then becomes the "moves" that the players make-- the order in which they're written and the situations in which they're presented make up the player's strategy. "I have this lovely tune I made up, but I have to keep it a secret or it will anger my patron, because it seems to be making fun of randomly generated event X." The soundtrack would then be determined by whoever used the "compose music" ability most recently. There would be other abilities available as well, but music presentation and composition would be the most important ( ... )

labyrinth_ghoul October 30 2007, 23:48:14 UTC

For system ideas I reference Prophecy a newer system which is all percentile with ranges. The big thing is each time you use a skill you get a tic. When your tics = your skill level, the skill increases by 1 and the tics are set to 0.

I think this would emulate well the way people learn music or compose perhaps?