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[freeformschooler]

Oh, yeah, one more thing I want.

An otherwise at least okay game with a reasonably complex seed-based procedural magic system. Like Minecraft's world seeds, but the seed determines effect, target, element and other things. Perhaps something a little emergent so it's not all about finding the best seed.

Me and my friends discuss this sometimes, I've talked about it once before on here and it's been brought up a few times on the libtcod forums.

[Draco18s]

Actually, that's rather simple.
What you need are a list of triggers, effects, elements (including vague ones like "magic," "force," and "generic"), restrictions, targets, and so on.

Triggers are what casts the spell (or what causes a "trap" to activate)
Effects are things like "does damage" "heals" "illusion" and so on.
Elements are optional, but a "fire" spell that "does damage" differs from a "electricity" spell that "does damage" (secondary effects: fire sets things on fire, electricity stuns, and so on).  Things like "magic damage" might only effect certain types of targets (i.e. a "magic damage" spell only damages magical constructs, i.e. wards or magical traps)
Restrictions are things like "only effects objects" or "only orcs" or "only Steve Jobs" where the more specific the restriction, the "lower cost" the spell is (less mana, or whatever).
Targets would be "designated" ("that guy that I'm pointing at"), "area" ("ten feet in a circle around that point I'm pointing at"), "named individual" ("I'm casting this on Steve Jobs, wherever he is"), with varying associated costs (the first one being the least expensive, the latter being the most).

ShadowRun has a fairly expansive magic system if you look at the spell design rules (D&D not so much).

[Neonivek]

Oooh a New RPGmaker game with ALL the trimmings.

Unfortunately most RPGmakers skimp out on several features.

The closest to the BEST RPGmaker I saw without heavy modding was for the PS2... but it had a devistating problem... Limited NPC space.

[Kay12]

Oh, yeah, one more thing I want.

An otherwise at least okay game with a reasonably complex seed-based procedural magic system. Like Minecraft's world seeds, but the seed determines effect, target, element and other things. Perhaps something a little emergent so it's not all about finding the best seed.

Me and my friends discuss this sometimes, I've talked about it once before on here and it's been brought up a few times on the libtcod forums.

At least I think such a magic system would be boring. I find even the TES system of spellcrafting to be ultimately fairly dull, as you'll wind up with several spells that are no doubt useful for advancing in the game but not interesting at all.

But actually, it kinda exists. At least the classic ToME version had thaumaturgists whose powers were randomly generated spells. By my observations, they were fairly powerful, but having 40 different spells is rather dull when you only use 4d8 chaos vision and 12d8 mana bolt. Redundancy is unavoidable.

[Draco18s]

In that vein, however, I'd like to see someone make a game based off the Temeraire universe (Naomi Novik's stuff).  It'd be somewhere between top-down tactical commander and (I hesitate here, but it's the only technically correct term) a first person shooter.

Expanding on this a bit more:

The whole point of the game needing to be designed the way I imagine it is that I want to capture the thrill of areal combat on dragonback with the intimacy of actually caring about the dragon-npc, but at the same time, feel the overall impact that you're fighting a god damned war and that battles are huge and expansive, utterly complex, and that really, you're unimportant in the grand scheme of things (i.e. it'd be a valid tactic to never go out in battle yourself, albeit you'd miss that aspect of the game and would make it slightly more difficult).

Unlike all these "Army of Two One" games where You and only You can kill Hitler/Stalin/BBEG, and all those NPCs around you are worthless puds (unless they die, then you can take their health/cookies/ammo).

[freeformschooler]

Oh, yeah, one more thing I want.

An otherwise at least okay game with a reasonably complex seed-based procedural magic system. Like Minecraft's world seeds, but the seed determines effect, target, element and other things. Perhaps something a little emergent so it's not all about finding the best seed.

Me and my friends discuss this sometimes, I've talked about it once before on here and it's been brought up a few times on the libtcod forums.

At least I think such a magic system would be boring. I find even the TES system of spellcrafting to be ultimately fairly dull, as you'll wind up with several spells that are no doubt useful for advancing in the game but not interesting at all.

But actually, it kinda exists. At least the classic ToME version had thaumaturgists whose powers were randomly generated spells. By my observations, they were fairly powerful, but having 40 different spells is rather dull when you only use 4d8 chaos vision and 12d8 mana bolt. Redundancy is unavoidable.

Like I said, something more emergent. It took all of a few skill levels to see what ToME3's thaumaturgy had to offer, and the TES spellcrafting system consisted of merely rearranging variables and effects. I'm thinking something with more dynamic effects: you have an ice spell, and it does such and so damage, but perhaps it's also used to heal Dark-aligned companions and teammates, and control the freezing of a lake once per day.

Basically similar to what Draco18s said but with compound effects and more complexity.

Or, if it doesn't do that all at once (that way leads itself to static), the seed generates not one spell but a whole skill tree of them, each with varying, somewhat related, nuanced and dynamic effects and variables.

[Draco18s]

At least I think such a magic system would be boring. I find even the TES system of spellcrafting to be ultimately fairly dull, as you'll wind up with several spells that are no doubt useful for advancing in the game but not interesting at all.

But actually, it kinda exists. At least the classic ToME version had thaumaturgists whose powers were randomly generated spells. By my observations, they were fairly powerful, but having 40 different spells is rather dull when you only use 4d8 chaos vision and 12d8 mana bolt. Redundancy is unavoidable.

This is also true.

Although I am reminded of a (3?)DS game where you can design your own gun bullet patterns.  So you could have one tight-blast shotgun that Kills Fuck All, but takes all of your "mana" (yeah, it used mana) to fire it, or you could have a simple pew-pew-pew gun that did very little, but you could use it almost all the time.

I've seen some really complex patterns made with it

[Mephansteras]

Anyone think up concepts you REALLY wanted to play, but unfortunately don't exist?
Just to day, I thought of a game like this:
In most games, when you fail a mission, you get a "GAME OVER" screen and must start again. However, in a game like this, if you lost the plot would adapt accordingly. For example, this mission would be "The attack was successful but they're launching a counterattack, survive until reinforcements arrive and keep at least five troops alive". If you failed to defend the troops, the base would be destroyed and you'd have to flee and assemble a makeshift squad and base as a last resort.

To an extent, X-Com did that a long time ago. You could completely lose the game, but the loss of a single mission or base was hardly the end of the game and you could often struggle your way back from setbacks like that.

[Draco18s]

you have an ice spell, and it does such and so damage, but perhaps it's also used to heal Dark-aligned companions and teammates, and control the freezing of a lake once per day.

ShadowRun will totally let you do all of that.  It just gets prohibitively expensive to cast.  Basically, your "I hurt people" spell has a drain of (Force / 2) and does Force + Net Hits in damage.  Drain being damage you have to resist with two stats (and the other guy gets to resist with one).

A fire ball is (F/2) + 3.  It's elemental (+2) and AoE (+1), but isn't discriminatory (Friendly Fire).  If it also heals people, you need to restrict the targets (-1 drain) add a secondary effect (+2) and cover both being a combat spell and a health spell (+2).

So you end up with a Fancy Fireball that has a drain code of (F/2)+6, which is really expensive.  Most magicians can expect to mitigate 4 points of drain (i.e. take no damage) regularly, and on average be able to mitigate 5.  So this Fancy Fireball is pretty much guaranteed to deal (F/2) damage to the mage himself (but he'll hurt the opposition for F and heal his teammates a little bit.*

*Depending on if you want to use the same rules for the Heal spell, then it's Hits on the spellcasting test - 2.  So figure about 3 healing (a person has roughly 10 boxes of health before falling unconscious).

[freeformschooler]

Wait, is that all in the video game versions of Shadowrun? Because I thought this was a thread about video games mostly. Obviously a system like that is much easier in a P&P RPG, in fact I've written up an elaborate FUDGE ruleset for something very similar one time

Additionally, if we're talking P&P, there's always the ridiculous Mage: The Awakening.

[Draco18s]

Wait, is that all in the video game versions of Shadowrun? Because I thought this was a thread about video games mostly. Obviously a system like that is much easier in a P&P RPG, in fact I've written up an elaborate FUDGE ruleset for something very similar one time

Oh, sorry, the PnP rules.  4th edition.

But automating it is fairly strait forward.  There's not a lot of "GM discretion" in it (and even then mostly "are you sure you're going to let your player have this spell?")

[Detonate]

In whole, I would like to see games that break the mold of the games we have now. RPS explains this very well:

"My argument, though I botched my explanation at the time, is that games have incredible untapped potential in the field of negative emotions. Just as the lowest common denominator of any art form appeals to ‘positive’ emotions, whether it’s humour, arousal or excitement, so it is that our young games industry is obsessed with the idea of ‘fun’.

I think this is one of the core reasons that the games industry hasn’t had its Casablanca or Citizen Kane- we’re still in the era of musicals and slapstick comedy. No games developer’s going to try and make its audience feel sad, or lonely, or pathetic, at least not for long stretches. You might get games that dip their toes into that water from time to time, but by and large developers are keen to keep you smiling."

Right now we're stuck with mindless games that are basically Skinner boxes that really just focus on entertaining the audience. I want to see more games that tell stories in a compelling, interactive way, which is what video games should be about.

[Neonivek]

Right now we're stuck with mindless games that are basically Skinner boxes that really just focus on entertaining the audience. I want to see more games that tell stories in a compelling, interactive way, which is what video games should be about.

Sorry but genuin games not only take more effort but they also have a chance to fail. So we companies won't listen to you.

We will instead make our guarenteed hit "we made it a thousand times before dinner" games.

[Draco18s]

You're right.  We have had any tragedies in gaming (by which I mean the story itself is a tragedy, by which I mean this kind not that it's a failure).

[nenjin]

But I'd like it if Raven made a return to the Hexen and Heretic style games. But that's not likely since they're owned by activision and stuff now...

/signed

Just replayed both of those recently. Heretic was a true gem, better than Doom even IMO. I'd love a reborn Heretic that does't ape all the 3rd person action games out there.

Sadly, I'm pretty sure if Heretic got remade today, it would basically be Dante's Inferno/God of War with the Heretic name.