Pen & Paper influences?

[catmorbid]

Hi! I just accidentally noticed MO today and was instantly intrigued.

I've a few questions, I haven't found answers for:
First, how's the PnP RPG influences in the dev team? I come from PnP games and as such I'm always excited the more influences I find in a CRPG/MMORPG. Anyway, due to this i'm always interested in game mechanics, and I'm hoping MO will represent a lot of raw character data in numbers, so us number crunchers can enjoy them

The other questions pretty much continue on the same theme:
-How do you handle Health? There aren't levels, which is great, but are there skills that can increase your health? Will the increase be on a logarithmic or more linear scale? Do wound effects/injuries e.g. limping and bleeding occur and is it dependant on damage type and/or The dependence on health in computer rpgs is what bugs me mostly. I'd personally like to see a game where every hit that lands is bad, and instead of just shrugging off blows your character (or you controlling the character) actually parries and evades the blows instead of just taking a beating and just soaking the effects away. Small difference in practice, but huge in "immersion".

-I've never played UO (too early for me) or any other full-loot mmorpg, but as a PnPer I find it very exciting idea. However, considering the death consequences, which appear to be of rather high severity, and especially if health is low in numbers (not increasing logarithmically with levels), it would be good to see a feture in PVP to leave your victim incapacitated instead of killing them, if you want to. I mean that when the health runs out, the target would fall down and not be able to move, but would still be breathing, but he would be just one more hit away from dying, so you could trade dramatic last words before deciding to give the killing blow - or not Haven't bumbed on that feature before.

-Relating items: I'd like to know if items are actually built from different parts instead of just being a sword-type x with special effects n1, n2, n3. What I'm talking about is procedurally created weapons and armor - pretty much the fantasy equivalent of what Borderlands claims to have. So you'd have a bunch of different basic item types with basic stats, but e.g. with swords the end result would vary in what metal the blade is crafted from (copper, bronze, iron, steel, anything), and perhaps the pommel, armguard, grip, sheathe even and then variables such as crafting quality and condition. Properly done, with everything having their own graphics tied in, every character could have a unique weapon or several even, that function and look unique.

-Does the game have a real functional ball-and-chain weapon implemented/on the works?

-Will weapons have a stat called "Damage per Second"?

I will be greatly anticipating Mortal Online *salutes*.

[Landor]

Originally Posted by catmorbid

Hi! I just accidentally noticed MO today and was instantly intrigued.

First off Welcome to the MO forums, now I will get into your questions, just keep in mind that the devs won't say much so mostly fellow waiters answer people questions to their best ability.

Originally Posted by catmorbid

I've a few questions, I haven't found answers for:
First, how's the PnP RPG influences in the dev team? I come from PnP games and as such I'm always excited the more influences I find in a CRPG/MMORPG. Anyway, due to this i'm always interested in game mechanics, and I'm hoping MO will represent a lot of raw character data in numbers, so us number crunchers can enjoy them

If you haven't read the skills and something article. You probably won't know that stats only effect what type of skills and spells you can use. But when it comes down to it. It is mostly player skill that will affect the outcome of the fight.

Originally Posted by catmorbid

The other questions pretty much continue on the same theme:
-How do you handle Health? There aren't levels, which is great, but are there skills that can increase your health? Will the increase be on a logarithmic or more linear scale? Do wound effects/injuries e.g. limping and bleeding occur and is it dependant on damage type and/or The dependence on health in computer rpgs is what bugs me mostly. I'd personally like to see a game where every hit that lands is bad, and instead of just shrugging off blows your character (or you controlling the character) actually parries and evades the blows instead of just taking a beating and just soaking the effects away. Small difference in practice, but huge in "immersion".

Were not sure how the health will be handled. But most likely you won't see that every hit that lands does something to the player. Due to it would be way to much for the server to process at the same time for maybe 100 people at time.

Originally Posted by catmorbid

-I've never played UO (too early for me) or any other full-loot mmorpg, but as a PnPer I find it very exciting idea. However, considering the death consequences, which appear to be of rather high severity, and especially if health is low in numbers (not increasing logarithmically with levels), it would be good to see a feture in PVP to leave your victim incapacitated instead of killing them, if you want to. I mean that when the health runs out, the target would fall down and not be able to move, but would still be breathing, but he would be just one more hit away from dying, so you could trade dramatic last words before deciding to give the killing blow - or not Haven't bumbed on that feature before.

See answer above, but I like the idea. And it could be exploited due to you could just leave everyone laying there. And just camp there waiting for someone to come along and kill them, which you attack them before they are able to kill the person laying on the ground. And you do the same thing over and over again. And the person laying there can only just log out, and when s/he logs back in they are stuck like that.

Originally Posted by catmorbid

-Relating items: I'd like to know if items are actually built from different parts instead of just being a sword-type x with special effects n1, n2, n3. What I'm talking about is procedurally created weapons and armor - pretty much the fantasy equivalent of what Borderlands claims to have. So you'd have a bunch of different basic item types with basic stats, but e.g. with swords the end result would vary in what metal the blade is crafted from (copper, bronze, iron, steel, anything), and perhaps the pommel, armguard, grip, sheathe even and then variables such as crafting quality and condition. Properly done, with everything having their own graphics tied in, every character could have a unique weapon or several even, that function and look unique.

We don't know what crafting is going be like. Sorry

Originally Posted by catmorbid

-Does the game have a real functional ball-and-chain weapon implemented/on the works?

Do you mean like a the ball and chain mace what ever it is called weapon? If so I think they will have them in there.

Originally Posted by catmorbid

-Will weapons have a stat called "Damage per Second"?

All weapons have this stat. All you need to do is determine how long it takes for you do swing that sword, and swing again. And have the damage divided by the time it takes. But as I said it all comes down to player skill.

[Veith]

damage per second 'dps' im knowing in SWG, but thats the normal autofight, every weapon does in one second different damage.
But here its realtimecombat and so it depends on the player if he can hit every second, if he can place a hit. And then the opponent is able to prevent the hit.
So, its surely a difference in the possible interval if you want to do a strike with a halberd or with a dagger, but if hitting well its surely not as important which deadly weapon will hit.

But thats something i demand, no toy-weapons, no useless scrap for our warriors. Different weapons means anyway all are weapons.

for p&p also i'm playing p&p i dont think especially for combatresults p&p can be an idol for MO.
If you only read something like full pvp world, first person view and realtimecombat i cannot imagine gameplay will be created for statistical calculation and then diced results.

[catmorbid]

Originally Posted by Landor

First off Welcome to the MO forums, now I will get into your questions, just keep in mind that the devs won't say much so mostly fellow waiters answer people questions to their best ability.

Thank you, and of course i can't expect a dev to answer, but I can always hope I'm lucky

Originally Posted by Landor

If you haven't read the skills and something article. You probably won't know that stats only effect what type of skills and spells you can use. But when it comes down to it. It is mostly player skill that will affect the outcome of the fight.

Oh but I meant a lot of the secondary stats as well, which are of course derived from primary stats and/or skills. I'm sure there will be plenty of those, as they are unavoidable in games, i'm just hoping I can actually see those stats, and they'd not be hidden.

Originally Posted by Landor

See answer above, but I like the idea. And it could be exploited due to you could just leave everyone laying there. And just camp there waiting for someone to come along and kill them, which you attack them before they are able to kill the person laying on the ground. And you do the same thing over and over again. And the person laying there can only just log out, and when s/he logs back in they are stuck like that.

Well... it would be easy to add a suicide button so the player could make a suicide if the attacker just wants to toy around and leave the character lying dead instead of doing nothing. Problem solved! I think it would actually make a big difference in the theme of the pvp, as then those who actually make the finishing blows would be really deeply hated everywhere. The effect could in fact be a debuff (technically-wise), which incapacitates and lasts for e.g. 60 seconds, after which you're left in pretty bad shape, lwo on health and maybe another, longer debuff effect to represent being just beaten down to death and given mercy - just so your healer friend around the corner can't instantly get you back to full health and help you beat the guy who just showed you some mercy.

Originally Posted by Landor

Do you mean like a the ball and chain mace what ever it is called weapon? If so I think they will have them in there.

Yeah, that's the one, morningstar to some I'm asking because a functional one seems to be difficult to create in games, especially if collision detection is used because of how such a weapon works, but is nevertheless one of the most kickass weapons I know of

Originally Posted by Landor

All weapons have this stat. All you need to do is determine how long it takes for you do swing that sword, and swing again. And have the damage divided by the time it takes. But as I said it all comes down to player skill.

Yeah, I know, but it was actually meant as a trick question, because personally i loathe that particular stat. Not actually sure why, but I hate to see it

[catmorbid]

Originally Posted by Veith

But thats something i demand, no toy-weapons, no useless scrap for our warriors. Different weapons means anyway all are weapons.

Oh I agree, weapons should feel like weapons, so when you swing you make a nasty cut which actually stings!

Originally Posted by Veith

for p&p also i'm playing p&p i dont think especially for combatresults p&p can be an idol for MO.
If you only read something like full pvp world, first person view and realtimecombat i cannot imagine gameplay will be created for statistical calculation and then diced results.

I'm not sure what you mean there, but I think PnP games can and SHOULD be the base example for any crpg. Things like turn based combat is of course difficult to implement on a mmorpg, but the basic idea of PnP which is that character stats affect the result of character action (someone could claim dice rolling is a dependant on the skill of the one who rolls the dice). And no matter what you say, computer games are pretty much impossible to create without randomization - i.e. invisible dice rolls, basically crunching in the background. Especially mmorpgs are full of this. I already see a lot of PnP influences in MO according to how I've understood things, and the more I find, the better.

[admiralnlson]

Originally Posted by catmorbid

Yeah, that's the one, morningstar to some

When it has a chain, it should not be called a morgenstern/morning star, it's a flail.

And I'd like both

As for the topic title, I hope StarVault is inspired by pen&paper RPGs too, just not D&D please

[Traceur]

come to think about it, Mats post about religion from the atheism thread sounds a lot like Mage:the ascension...

just saying.

[catmorbid]

Originally Posted by admiralnlson

When it has a chain, it should not be called a morgenstern/morning star, it's a flail.

And I'd like both

Yeah I know, fantasy rpg's have wrongly adopted the name morning star, so I thought people might be more familiar with that

Originally Posted by admiralnlson

As for the topic title, I hope StarVault is inspired by pen&paper RPGs too, just not D&D please

I loathe D&D... And hate when people talk about RPG when they actually mean D&D. Big difference

[Veith]

In German the term Morgenstern only describes the ball with the spikes (it looks like a 'morning star'), the flail the handling. So a Morgenstern could be fastened for a flail or only on a shorter or longer pole. But on a (war)flail also a kind of club could be fastened with or without spikes.
So in english also for some other weapons often different terms, if you would translate word-word.

[Lyllyth]

Originally Posted by catmorbid

I loathe D&D... And hate when people talk about RPG when they actually mean D&D. Big difference

RPG = Role Playing Game... Like, a game where you Role Play... or play out the role of a character.

In that sense, D&D is pure RPG.

Here's an interesting read for you.

[admiralnlson]

Originally Posted by Lyllyth

RPG = Role Playing Game... Like, a game where you Role Play... or play out the role of a character.

In that sense, D&D is pure RPG.

Here's an interesting read for you.

We know what pen&paper RPGs are, Lyllyth. Otherwhise we would not critize D&D.

D&D is not game that emphasizes on roleplaying the most. That's what we were saying.

Only if you have actually played other pen&paper RPGs can you understand.

[Lyllyth]

I've played (just pen&paper);
D&D through AD&D 3.5
Vampire: The Masquerade
Vampire: The Dark Ages
Shadowrun

The amount of Role Play that any of these games "emphasizes" is entirely dependent on the DM/GM/ST.

Some DMs are hack-n-slash... so the game (any of them) will focus on combat.
Some DMs are social... relying a lot heavier on Role Playing.

[admiralnlson]

Originally Posted by Lyllyth

Some DMs are hack-n-slash... so the game (any of them) will focus on combat.
Some DMs are social... relying a lot heavier on Role Playing.

No DM could make a rpg like Nephilim a hack&slash game.

You can't deny that D&D has a strong emphasis on hack&slash. The system motivates players to focus on their stats.

[Lyllyth]

Originally Posted by admiralnlson

No DM could make a rpg like Nephilim a hack&slash game.

You can't deny that D&D has a strong emphasis on hack&slash. The system motivates players to focus on their stats.

The "system" is just a set of rules for varying scenarios... Most people tend towards glorious combat...
Many of the campaigns my group ran were city-based and had more to do with culture and prejudice. Combat was more about tactics than simply running in and hacking away at your opponent, when it happened. We ran 2 days straight with no combat whatsoever.

Like I said, it's completely dependent on the DM.

So, yes, I can deny that D&D's emphasis is on combat. Though combat is where you'll need the most rules set, as almost everything else is completely up to the imagination.

[admiralnlson]

And what about the focus on the stats?

Yes, a DM can change the game experience.
But D&D still has a focus on hack&slash.

I can honestly say I have played RPGs without any systems. And it was good.

[Lyllyth]

How does having stats make it combat-based?

A character of limited strength can only lift so much... Some people are more nimble-fingered than others (Dexterity)... etc, etc...
Stats are just a representation of your character's strengths and weaknesses. But it's the Player that plays the role, deciding what this character will do in the given situation, how to react, what to say... yadda yadda...

[admiralnlson]

Originally Posted by Lyllyth

How does having stats make it combat-based?

A character of limited strength can only lift so much... Some people are more nimble-fingered than others (Dexterity)... etc, etc...
Stats are just a representation of your character's strengths and weaknesses. But it's the Player that plays the role, deciding what this character will do in the given situation, how to react, what to say... yadda yadda...

There's a difference between combat-based and hack&slash.
There's also a difference between presence of stats and focus on the stats.

Yes, you can have good roleplay in D&D.
What I was trying to say is that there are other games which try to emphasize on this even more, like a game who uses a journal instead of 4-page character sheets, full of numbers and stuff .

I won't go further. We're already out of topic.

[Mats Persson]

Originally Posted by catmorbid

First, how's the PnP RPG influences in the dev team? I come from PnP games and as such I'm always excited the more influences I find in a CRPG/MMORPG.

My personal background in PnP RPGs mainly comes from the Swedish PnP Drakar och Demoner (released 1980, and translates to "Dragons and Demons". It's not being made anymore.). This originated from Chaosium's BRP (together with Magic World) and evolved into a PnP series of its own with lots of different expansions and modules.

Although being the first PnP I played, the DoD (Drakar och Demoner) or more accurately the expansion "DoD Expert" ruleset has stayed with me until now and been the base for 90% of all my campaigns. I'm actually not sure how much of the original rules I'm still playing with though, as I have expanded them with I don't know how many pages (books?). Most importantly however is that for a very long time now I've felt that too much dice-throwing and numbers take away from the actual role-play, immersion and action.

The rules of DoD Expert where very basic at first sight, but as it was more of a base and a thought-through system for how to expand them yourself, I've never felt the need for another system. Even if I wanted a completely custom skill like "History of Ritualistic Architecture" for some purpose, it was obvious how to implement it and how it should work. And as I know the rules by heart, if I ever wanted to play in a Star Wars or Lord of the Rings setting, all it took was a couple of their rulebooks for inspiration (creatures, ships, type-of-skills, and the odd chart for thermal-grenade-efficiency-falloff etc), and then we played DoD-SW or DoD-LotR, which in my opinion worked in a much more logical way than the original rules did.

I remember saying in some post that I've never read the Dungeons and Dragons manuals, but that's not completely true. Of course I know the basics (from the PnP, not to mention the flood of digital offspring based on the same type of rules) and I've tried the game a few times as a player. However, I've never understood or liked them, at least the old ones I played. Levels? Classes? "Dragon Fire"- "Spell"- and Whatnot-resistance? Detailed die-throw charts for how the skill "Lockpicking" works, but no mentioning whatsoever of immersive skills like Fencing, Anthropology, Heraldry or Mathematics? And if I wanted to invent those skills myself, where should it put them? Next to the imaginative "Armor Class"?

I've read quite a lot of PnP rulebooks as I'm interested in the lore (but not DnD's, as already DnD-books with titles such as "Knights of the Silver Dragon" or "Key to the Griffons Lair" scares the hell out of me). Due to its grossly exaggerated setting, it is interesting to read the massive amount of lore in the Warhammer PnP universe, but due to the same reason I find it hard actually playing it.


I like most of my fantasy worlds and campaigns to be grave, believable and marked by sober sincerity. That's not to say there can't be humor, huge beasts or heroes in them: what I think is most important is to have contrast in the world - for me putting a dragon in every cave, or having all towers be a mile high doesn't mean that the world becomes more "epic", rather the opposite. Also, in most of my PnP campaigns, I make huge efforts to give my players the feeling that they are living in a world that is alive and that would exist without them, as opposed to them being the center of the world and the whole campaign. A book like the masterpiece "Thieves World" would be a great example of all of the above. (And for Mortal Online, seeing the slum-quarters of Vica Caducus in Tindrem become like the setting in the book would be a dream coming true.)

I would say my main fantasy influences comes from twisting our own world and our history. Movies, books, games and art, often of fantasy or SF nature but not necessarily, that can be fused into my PnP setting. For instance, I may borrow an idea from Miyazaki's anime Princess Mononoke but turn it into something "real" that would fit the visual style of the movie Gladiator.


So, I'm sad if I disappoint you, but I really haven't tried that many PnP's. I'm sure many players feel that the specific ruleset for a game is tied to the lore and setting (even if it's Star Wars PnP), and perhaps it's therefore they have played so many of them. But that's never been the case for me or any of the groups I've been GM for.

Originally Posted by catmorbid

-Will weapons have a stat called "Damage per Second"?

"Damage per second"? How horrible..

[yXXe]

Originally Posted by Mats Persson

"Damage per second"? How horrible..

Halleluja!

[Traceur]

that was... actually quite revealing.

i'd only add that as a GM if you know what would make things more interesting or better to the story you don't really need a dice throw. sometimes as a GM you think "i hope he manages it so we can move on" or "i hope he doesn't hit the arrow before things become interesting", so why not just trust your instincts and forget about the dice throw?
the best way to intreduce it is to have a "secret ruleset" which the players don't know about and throw the dice at random... god i hope non of my players know i'm on this forum and find this.

second- regardless of gameplay, you just raised my hopes up regarding world design a couple of notches above wht is expected from most MMOs:

Originally Posted by Mats Persson

I like most of my fantasy worlds and campaigns to be grave, believable and marked by sober sincerity. That's not to say there can't be humor, huge beasts or heroes in them: what I think is most important is to have contrast in the world - for me putting a dragon in every cave, or having all towers be a mile high doesn't mean that the world becomes more "epic", rather the opposite. Also, in most of my PnP campaigns, I make huge efforts to give my players the feeling that they are living in a world that is alive and that would exist without them, as opposed to them being the center of the world and the whole campaign. A book like the masterpiece "Thieves World" would be a great example of all of the above. (And for Mortal Online, seeing the slum-quarters of Vica Caducus in Tindrem become like the setting in the book would be a dream coming true.)

I would say my main fantasy influences comes from twisting our own world and our history. Movies, books, games and art, often of fantasy or SF nature but not necessarily, that can be fused into my PnP setting. For instance, I may borrow an idea from Miyazaki's anime Princess Mononoke but turn it into something "real" that would fit the visual style of the movie Gladiator.