Scars of War Developer Blog Update

[GameBanshee News]

In the latest entry on the Scars of War blog, Gareth muses about the problem of chance and constant reloading in RPGs.

One of the themes that the Codex often brings up is “trying to get the player to accept small defeats". As in, you don’t simply reload around any inconvenience or anytime you feel you’ve gotten “2nd best". But the real problem is games are a form of entertainment, and players are all seeking to maximize their entertainment. Coupled with the fact that most games are thinly disguised problem-reward cycles, and the player is effectively trained to try to “win", and the underlying game-players psychology becomes the enemy, unless you change the rules.

I’ve seen 2 solutions that indie developers have come up with to counter this problem, 2 quite different approaches.

Over at Iron Tower Studio, Vince and the guys have come up with a rather straightforward approach to dealing with the issue. Eliminate random rolls outside combat. Instead the game just checks that you match the requirement. So if you need a 50 Persuasion to convince somebody of something, and you have a 45, you’re out of luck. No matter how many times you reload, that is always a fail. It’s a simple solution, but powerful nonetheless. Players will barely notice, it is easy to implement and when you remove the temptation like that you simply make it a non-issue.

Jay Barnson, aka the Rampant Coyote Has a slightly different approach. His game, Frayed Knights, a comedic-fantasy RPG, has the concept of “Drama Stars". Basically, every time the player engages in some form of chancey maneuver he can earn drama stars. Which can in turn be spent for special abilities, things like healing characters when they need it and have no other way to regain health, etc. Now, the real trick is that the drama stars aren’t saved when you save your game. Every time you load up they are reset. So the old saving and loading trick might allow you to game the system, but you are losing out on your special Drama Star powers, especially if you have a full complement.

Spotted on RPGWatch.