RPG Systems: A Balance of Freedom

Do you get tingles at the end of your spine when thinking/working/playing with game mechanics? When a new MMO or RPG comes out do you pour hours (or days) into creating character builds, even though you do not have any plans to actually play it? I sure as hell do; my current fascination is the Smite "closed" beta since Hi-Rez did a lot of work adding options for players. If you haven't played in awhile (last I played was when Cupid came out), fire it up and look around.

Besides Smite, the past few weeks have been spent absorbed in pre-production system design for my first title. It has been wonderful. I could (and do) work on systems all damn day. There's just something magical about weaving math and narrative together. Working systems reminds me of why I got into this business; for the tingles.

In an earlier post I talked about the 3 ways RPGs balance their games: Homogenization, Anomalization, and Self-Limitization. These are used to make sure that each choice a player can make is as good as the next in the context of completing a game's victory conditions. That's the "golden rule": all decisions, while different, must be equal; especially in games with PvP. Off the top of my head, only a handful of games have achieved this: Final Fantasy X's wonderful spheregrid comes to mind, Guild Wars 2 has a great omnipotent approach to it, and the new World of Warcraft talent system is a wonderful example of Self-Limitization.

But how do all of these systems work? Why do we think they are fun?

Limited Freedom

Most game designers set out to create a "playstyle" that revolves around doing the "same thing but different", or the choices revolve around a pre-defined meta. WoW's new talent system, for example, lets the player make choices within the very strict tank/dps/heal mechanic. The fact that the game's "meta" is pre-set and hammered in place by the developer allows them to cage-in the player's choices. The player cannot make bad choices because the game's systems do not allow it; I cannot make a Mage to tank heroic raids because it's simply impossible due to a lack of gear, talents, etc., although I do remember blink-kiting (with ice block) the last boss of UBRS back in the day.

RPG systems are simply limits on the player's freedom. "Skills" are the actions a character can take that differentiates them from other characters. Here they are in order from most freedom to least:

• Blank Slate (Skyrim)
• Populate character with any selection of Skills
• Customize those Skills to differentiate from those with the same Skills
• No limit on how Skills can be employed
• Archetype/Class (World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2)
• Choose from a collection of Skills that work toward a gameplay concept
• Customize those pre-selected Skills to differentiate from the same archetype
• Hero (League of Legends, Smite)
• No choice of Skills; only choice in how Skills are prioritized
• Customized by choices shared among ALL heroes
• Linear (Devil May Cry, Mega Man)
• No choice of Skills; only when/if they are unlocked
• Skills designed to make meeting victory conditions easier, but they are not required to do so

Character statistics (Stats) systems (Int, Agi, Str, etc.) are different from Skills in that they do not enable new actions (for the most part), they are just another way to customize Skills. When playing D&D I can still try to punch an ogre in the mouth with a 1 strength character , but I will most likely fail horribly.

RPG systems of all types are so much damn fun because they create the illusion of freedom; freedom players can explore in their quest to find the ultimate solution to the problem of the game. When we play Black Ops II we are striving to find the optimal set of weapon, attachments and loadout based on our preferences. We are able to form opinions that certain weapons perform better than others, or certain perks are better for certain maps. Opinions are just choices relevant to a specific context. It is my opinion to re-play Fallout: New Vegas as a silver-tongued master of stealth and hacking, who utterly lacks any useful combat skills.

Note that limiting your player's freedom is not negative: Mega Man and Devil May Cry, while extremely linear, are extremely fun. In fact I think some gamers thrive on linearity. They do not wish to form opinions; that is not fun for them (and there is nothing wrong with that). Not all games have RPG systems after all. But for me it's all about talent trees, character builds, equipment guides, numbers and stats. And the tingles.

Employed vs. Indie: The Curse of Financial Fasting

It has been a solid month since I was laid off. My wife and I hashed out the finances. We re-budgeted all of our spending. We moved pieces of our lives around. It seems I was left with a decision between two things:

1. Hunt for a job in the industry
2. Stay at home to raise my son and develop games on my own

Initially it was the first option, no doubt. I'm young; 24, and inexperienced; this past job was my first in the industry, straight out of college. We discussed Gearbox, iD Software, and Robot Entertainment since we live in DFW. I checked Gamasutra's job boards, trolled my LinkedIn groups. We talked about moving down to Austin where the indies live, going to California with the head honchos, or even to Salt Lake City because I had a lead there. We talked about the score of unfinished GDDs and development timelines I have sitting in a folder on my desk. We talked about my degree in game design, my growing library of C# and Unity books, Kickstarter, and "that one guy you met who ..." We talked about "what do you really want to do with your life".

We did not talk about going outside the industry. 

That's the main reason I married my wife. She believes in me. "You need to do what you love!" she exclaimed so easily. She is a market researcher so she works from home and makes a solid commission-based living. She's very good at her job; driven, inspired, she is one of my top role models.

So it seems we're going with door number two. I am absolutely terrified.

Door Number Two

So how possible is it, really, for me to bring one of my ideas to life? I spent the last year and nine months on the publishing side of the industry, so I have extensive knowledge of how and why games never see the light of day (always boils down to money). This resulted in a self-fulfilling prophecy filled with failure, starvation, and divorce.

I coined this life-choice "Financial fasting" because I am willingly choosing to make less money compared to other options. Yes, this huge risk could have a big payoff. Statistics on the financial success of a dev's first title would imply otherwise, but it is still possible. Regardless I stand by the bleak outset that my first game won't make any money, so therefore this path leads not to fortune.

But it can't be all bad, can it? What exactly do I have going for me? Let us see:

1. Modest scripting knowledge in the Unity engine. I know the basics and where to go to solve any problems that come about. After finally finishing Unity 3.x Game Development Essentials (Goldstone) cover to cover, I can read other's script with relative ease plus get around the engine.
2. Very experienced in the backend of a game's release: project management, costs, distribution channels, politics, licensing fees, legal stuff, marketing, PR, QA, etc.
3. Passionate academic game designer. Good for doing stuff like, "Make a black and white game about the color orange."
4. Connected to a few badasses in the industry.
5. Married to a supportive sugar mama who is also smokin' hot!

No, I've never made a video game. No, I'm not fluent in a programming language (although getting close in C#). No, I don't have any money. I also have no idea what I'm going to do for art/sound assets due to the previous point and I can't make them myself.

But it's really all I ever think about; every day. It can be quite stressful.  Is this the same for all indies? Is this why they forgo things like food, relationships, and hygiene to develop a game that will most likely flop financially? It's a curse! 

I bet every developer considers this at some point in their career: "Can I do this on my own?" Most indies are created when a large studio goes under, like so many little planets settling into orbit around each other when a star goes supernova. And when those planets cannot sustain themselves, they break apart into comets that hurdle through space to crash into other planets or stars to start the process over again. Can a comet become a planet without ever moving, without all the violence?

What drives a person to do this to themselves? We've all heard the horror stories, although I've yet to see the movie. The plight of indies reminds me of the old masters. Seurat in his pointillist masterpiece, "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" suffered a great deal for this piece. He lived in a very, very small room where this giant canvas had to sit corner to corner diagonally, pretty much taking up the entire space. For over 2 years. Not to mention it was rejected, despite how he went every single day out the the park to sketch the inhabitants. Why did he do this?

Imagine if more people who suffered from the indie curse were not victims of their circumstances. Imagine if more indies were sponsored similarly to fine artists. Imagine if more indies had crazy hot spouses to shoulder life's burdens so they can do their work. What types of games would we see?

I never believed in testing the water. It's time to jump in, head first. If I have learned anything from my parents it's that the advantage of youth will keep me from drowning. I have been hard at work on planning out the project: polishing the GDD, re-organizing the development timeline; today I finished up the base for my concept reference libraries for when its time to shop for talent. You can never, ever plan too much!

This is easily the second most terrifying-yet-exciting thing I have ever experienced, second only to having children.