Game News Colony Ship RPG Update #1: Setting, Character System

[Excidium II]

How are you guys going to handle zero/low G combat/exploration? I mean there oughta be some holds where whatever generates earth-like gravity doesn't work anymore right?

 

[Goral]

How are you guys going to handle zero/low G combat/exploration? I mean there oughta be some holds where whatever generates earth-like gravity doesn't work anymore right?

If that was the case if you shot a non-energy gun recoil from firing a gun should give you a momentum (add to this magnetic boots and many strange things could happen). Does IT even have someone who is good at physics? Because otherwise I would keep it simple.

 

[Whisper]

The expanse is great sci-fi serial.


Highly recommend.

p.s. You should add vatniks to game. Can name one "Whisper" )

 

[Zero Credibility]

No rifles for firearms?

 

[Maculo]

Well, there are people in multiple threads recommending the Expanse. I guess I will need to give it a try at some point. Also, I see some decent book recommendations in this thread.

As for the game, I am excited to see another project from VD/ITS. The Generation ship is an interesting idea for an RPG setting. I look forward to (hopefully) smacking enemies with a wrench on a max-strength character, as I did in System Shock 2.

 

[GuiltyofBeingTrite]

How are you guys going to handle zero/low G combat/exploration? I mean there oughta be some holds where whatever generates earth-like gravity doesn't work anymore right?

I figure the ship itself can rotate to create it:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/rockets/a8965/why-dont-we-have-artificial-gravity-15425569/

 

[Goral]

The expanse is great sci-fi serial. Highly recommend.

Yeah and it's better with every episode. Best sci-fi since Star Trek DS:9.

Semi-serious question, what are the chances that Todd Howard will read VD's post, buy the licence of some generation ship book (or just use the setting like VD) and make a Bethesda generation ship RPG and at the same time send a C&D because he can? It's not like IT could win against army of lawyers that Zenimax has. Aren't you afraid that by being so transparent others will use your ideas in games that will be released earlier?

 

[Vault Dweller]

The number and names of stats and skills don't really define gameplay. It's how they are used that matters.

Can't really agree. You're using them to describe what player would be doing in game and what focus lies on (combat, social, investigation), like verbs in adventure games.
Like Zed's comment, if it's generation ship, there are generation ship problems, and there should be skills to solve these problems.

If that doesn't mean anything to you, at least think about style points

I thought Zed's comment was a joke. Anyway, the ship provides recycled air, water, and basic nutrients. See this intro:

Spoiler

You open your eyes to a grey hull-metal ceiling, one panel of which flickers yellow, indicating dayshift. You overslept, not that it matters. With a grunt you roll off your stained mattress and open the "window" to let some fresh air in. Like everything else around here, fresh is relative. The Ship does Her best to recycle air and water, but cargo holds aren’t high on Her priority list. You breathe in metal and burning oil and look up. Four of the bridge's six projectors are still operational, shining dully down on the container towers of Cargo Hold 3, aka the Pit, the free city.

Calling the Pit a city is a bit of a stretch, but so is calling this reddish-brown liquid water. You've read that water is supposed to be clear and cities are supposed to be big, but no ship-born has ever seen either. Maybe in another hundred years water will look and taste like oil and people will be talking about the good old days when it was the color of rust and tasted refreshingly bitter and tangy. That's the kind of optimism that keeps you going.

The elevator crawls up a groove in the cargo hold's wall like a black steel bug that's worn a path traveling to the bridge and back. It’s time to get up there and earn a few coins, but first you need a drink.

Make your way to the local bar.

The Ship provides breathable air, water, and N-tabs – your daily source of recycled nutrients and minerals, pressed into chewable tablets. They taste like cardboard but they are free. If you prefer finer things in life, like synthetic meat served with a side of algae, you have to pay.

The Ship never served alcohol – the Forefathers frowned upon such things and did their best to discourage drinking, but everyone’s favorite vice made a triumphant return in no time. Each bar has its own secret recipe, each more awful than the other.

The bartender gives you a nod and pours black, oily liquid into a beaten metal mug. You take a careful swallow, fighting your body’s desperate attempt to get rid of the poison, and wait for the familiar warmth to spread through you and make the world a slightly better place.

Continue.

The bar isn’t busy this time of day, making it easy to spot people who come here to conduct “business”. Tanner, the local hustler, is moving from one patron to another. Evans, a cheap gun for hire, seems to be waiting for someone. You hire him, you get what you paid for. Platt’s a doc. His hands shake too much when he’s sober, so he keeps himself well lubricated.

“I have a job for you, <charname>,” says Tanner, making himself comfortable on a nearby chair and putting on airs. “Interested?”
“What kind of job?”
“An easy one.”

He pulls out a plastic card from his sleeve and slides it toward you. The card is old and worn out, the letters faded a long time ago, but you don’t need to read what it says to know what it is.

Like Zed's comment, if it's generation ship, there are generation ship problems, and there should be skills to solve these problems.

It's not that kind of game. The problems are bigger than "we need a plants expert, quick, what do plants crave?!".

 

[Shadenuat]

So it has no actual sci-fi?

This description looks like it's dystopian cyberpunk, and focuses on how miserable everything is. It doesn't carry any ideas about space exploration and it's values or difficulties, even in social sense. (If it does, explain me how, at very least cramped space doesn't work for me since you have hubs and laser guns from mechs and enough place for multiple factions to live and change/degenerate).

ship provides recycled air, water, and basic nutrients

Boring ship then. Might as well be an underground bunker from Fallout.

 

[Vault Dweller]

The game is not about space exploration because the ship's denizens aren't space explorers but poor bastards stuck on a ship they can no longer control, a ship that may or may not ever arrive to its destination. Of course what you read is only an intro and doesn't define the entire game. I'd say there are enough sci-fi elements there to firmly classify the game as sci-fi, but growing plants and space exploration a-la Martian aren't one of the themes. For the record, the locals do grow plants, mainly to supplement the nutrition tabs produced by the ship, but they aren't experiencing any difficulties you can help them with.

 

[Roqua]

. Just don't go overboard with "muh fantasy atheism". Another "the gods aren't real * tips fedora *" twist ending and I swear I'm gonna give up on rpgs altogether...

It won't be like AoD. It's about different ways of dealing with being stuck on the ship and turning to faith is a very logical and legitimate way of handling it. I'll treat it with utmost respect.

So far the main changes are Cha determining the number and type of party members

- What the fuck is this? Is this some bullshit like your next game which will not have full party creation? If so, fuck you right in your Middle Eastern ass. Let us create our own party for crying out loud. It is the only civilized way of having a party game.

You create a single character, the recruit other people who will have their own agendas and preferences. For example, if you're running with God-fearing men and decide to be a dick to the Christian faction, your crew won't follow you for long and might abandon you during a fight. It's a very simple example, obviously.

If you are going to force me to pick up characters you designed, at least let me fucking control their stats and skills and feats, etc.

Stats - no. Skills and feats after they join you - definitely.

And also very, very important - FIXED CAMERA. It will make designing the game far easier for you, and less annoying for us. Spinning a camera, and fighting the camera to pixel hunt is fucking stupid. Design with fixed camera so normal people can play normally without the headache and hassle of the spinning pixel hunt nonsense and have an option for the retards that really love spinning the camera to be able to do it, but it won't be necessary to find doors or items on the ground, etc. Like Kyn.

Too early to say.

Okay, as a developer I understand your desire to inflict your story and characters on players, but I like playing games and creating my own story. A big part of the fun for me is creating MY character(s), not being stuck with your idiotic talking heads that spout gibberish that makes me want to kill them. I can tell you right now I hate your characters and they suck. Why? Because they are not mine. My characters are way better than yours. I also have an emotional investment in my characters, and none at all for yours besides hate and loathing.

Now, what you are doing with this extremely flawed design is forcing the character I design to be the high charismatic social guy. No problem, I need one of those anyway. But now, since I can't create the rest of the members of my party on my first play through I have to hope the characters you are going to inflict on me are not built way too inefficiently, but that I get them in a reasonable time frame that I don't have to overload my brain remembering where I have to go back to to pick locks or do whatever things I missed out on.

At the very, very least let me be able to pick ALL their skills and feats if I can't create them or change their attributes. Also, let me fill my party up very near the start so I don't have to start over and redo a big part of the game because I'm stuck with a bunch of shitty fuckfaces that suck so bad I need to make changes and restart to get any enjoyment out of the game.

Lastly, fuck you for this. It is bad enough I can't create my party in the dungeon crawl game but now I can't in what is supposed to be a civilized party crpg?

I really like the inclusion of feats and more equipment slots, but that doesn't balance the scales of wackadoo Bioware bullshit you are aiming for with the rest of the game design.

 

[hivemind]

I personally think that rotatable camera is the way to go.
Not that you care but I would feel bad if I didn't mention this.

 

[Shadenuat]

The game is not about space exploration because the ship's denizens aren't space explorers but poor bastards stuck on a ship they can no longer control, a ship that may or may not ever arrive to its destination.

It's not really about growing potatoes, but it seems to me if you have a space ship, it's factions and themes should arise from them living on a space ship. You're basing people on some prefabricated morals like religion or not religion (mormons in spehhs), why I'd find it more probable for factions and themes to naturally arise from ship itself - people who live on a part of ship that was bombarded with space radiation, people who were descendants from professional pilots with blasters but became a secluded order, people worshiping actual recycling system as a benevolent god, etc.

Also if it's a generation ship, it makes me wonder how it will all end. Potatoes may be not important or big problems, but let's assume I believe ship will reach it's destination. Then what? What would people do there if they will forget how to grow potatoes? Ship won't supply them forever. Or maybe ship already arrived and is lying at the bottom of the sea now? How will people get out? And so on. These are just questions that arise naturally from the premise, and they are not smaller than democracy vs. despotism or whatever.

Which is why I said it seems like a setting more fitting for something like huge underground city (Zion from Matrix).

 

[JudasIscariot]

How big can a colony ship be? I never read any books featuring these. Guess I should!

I'd recommend "Orphans of the Sky" if you want a decent colony ship story.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphans_of_the_Sky

 

[Vault Dweller]

Okay, as a developer I understand your desire to inflict your story and characters on players, but I like playing games and creating my own story.

What story would that be? Me and these five custom-built murderous mute clones went adventuring? I have nothing against creating your own party in a game like IWD or Silent Storm but we are going for a slightly different experience here.

A big part of the fun for me is creating MY character(s), not being stuck with your idiotic talking heads that spout gibberish that makes me want to kill them.

I'm not a big fan of party banter either.

Now, what you are doing with this extremely flawed design is forcing the character I design to be the high charismatic social guy.

If you want to have a full party that follows you everywhere because you are that fucking awesome, yes. If you want to have a single companion or two, no.

I really like the inclusion of feats and more equipment slots, but that doesn't balance the scales of wackadoo Bioware bullshit you are aiming for with the rest of the game design.

I'm aiming for choices & consequences not party banter.

 

[Excidium II]

If you want to have a full party that follows you everywhere because you are that fucking awesome, yes. If you want to have a single companion or two, no.

How will the variable party size work in terms of combat/stat balance anyway? Are companions deliberately weaker than the PC?

 

[Shadenuat]

How will the variable party size work in terms of combat/stat balance anyway? Are companions deliberately weaker than the PC?

I think Vince answered that, they'll eat your XPs?

 

[Excidium II]

Sounds like a small price to pay unless it's one of those games where your sklls become worthless if you don't keep pumping them.

 

[Athelas]

The only games I can think of where charisma determines the party size have A.I.-controlled companions whose character development you can't control (Shadowrun SNES, Fallout 2). If they are fully controllable and customizable, charisma is potentially the best offensive stat, since even with a party size limit of 4, it means charisma will let you at least quadruple your party's power.

 

[Roqua]

Okay, as a developer I understand your desire to inflict your story and characters on players, but I like playing games and creating my own story.

What story would that be? Me and these five custom-built murderous mute clones went adventuring? I have nothing against creating your own party in a game like IWD or Silent Storm but we are going for a slightly different experience here.

A big part of the fun for me is creating MY character(s), not being stuck with your idiotic talking heads that spout gibberish that makes me want to kill them.

I'm not a big fan of party banter either.

Now, what you are doing with this extremely flawed design is forcing the character I design to be the high charismatic social guy.

If you want to have a full party that follows you everywhere because you are that fucking awesome, yes. If you want to have a single companion or two, no.

I really like the inclusion of feats and more equipment slots, but that doesn't balance the scales of wackadoo Bioware bullshit you are aiming for with the rest of the game design.

I'm aiming for choices & consequences not party banter.

The consequence of your poor design choice is a game that is not nearly as good and enjoyable as it could be if it was designed in the non-Biowarian fashion.

RPGs are about my making a character or characters and making my own story. ToEE, Darklands, Realms of Arkania Trilogy, Wizardries, Gold Box Games, Buck Rogers, M&Ms, Dark Suns, etc, aren't about "Me and these five custom-built murderous mute clones went adventuring?" It isn't about me. It is about characters that I make and I decide their personalities and motivations, not you. You provide the setting, scenarios, and backdrops, I make the story for my characters.

Lets look at the games with recruitable NPCs and see if they had good combat or not -

IE games - nope, not even a little
Kotors - nope
Drakensangs - nope
Arcanum - nope
Jade Empire - nope
Dragon Ages - nope.
Fall Outs - nope
PoE - nope, probably the best of the actual rpg RTwP offerings.
Everything else - nope, besides the one blatant exception to the rule (and the only RTwP game with actual good combat) Aarklash legacy, which didn't really have recruitables, but characters if forced you to take, and isn't a real rpg.

There has never been any game with recruitable NPCs that is known to have good combat, or memorable combat.

So, it seems you want the combat in your game to not be good. Why? Why spent the time and resources including it then? Just take it out. Make the game story mode. Have text combat that just says "You Win!" and give the players loot.

Or, if you want combat to be good, let me make my own party and build encounters around an actually efficiently built party made by non-retarded person.

When you think of a game that has combat worth playing, that you would be proud of saying you designed, do any of them have shitty ass, inefficient recruitable npcs?

 

[Shadenuat]

There has never been any game with recruitable NPCs that is known to have good combat, or memorable combat

JRPGs like Final Fantasy Tactics.
Also, games you mentioned are real time aside from Fallout/Arcanum (and Fallout Tactics was ok for a Fallout game).

Also, what the fuck are you even smoking, cause I want that.

 

[MRY]

There has never been any game with recruitable NPCs that is known to have good combat, or memorable combat.

The Gold Box games had recruitable NPCs, just not a lot of them. Jagged Alliance had recruitable NPCs. Really, though felipepepe is the man to field this kind of thing.

 

[GuiltyofBeingTrite]

lol, Jagged Aliiance had recruitable.

 

[Eyestabber]

What story would that be? Me and these five custom-built murderous mute clones went adventuring?

I really hope that's the "plot" for the AoD based Dungeon Crawler. I'm not even joking. I liked the combat in AoD and when I first read about the Dungeon Crawler I thought "less talking, more stabbing!? YES PLS!".

Seriously, VD there's gotta be at least ONE game using ITS Ruleset™ that allows for full custom party creation. The Dungeon Crawler seems like the best "fit".

As for CSG, I really hope the combat is every bit as "absolutely impossible" as in AoD. No such thing as causing TOO MUCH butthurt among retarded gaming journos.

 

[Vault Dweller]

If you want to have a full party that follows you everywhere because you are that fucking awesome, yes. If you want to have a single companion or two, no.

How will the variable party size work in terms of combat/stat balance anyway? Are companions deliberately weaker than the PC?

The easiest way to handle is by splitting the XP. So, for argument's sake, you can end the game as a level 15 character or level 12 character with a single buddy or level 8 character with four companions.

Sounds like a small price to pay unless it's one of those games where your sklls become worthless if you don't keep pumping them.

In AoD skill levels matter a lot and the difference between slvl 3 and 5, for example, is fairly significant. Not every character can handle the mine and the raiders, etc.

The game is not about space exploration because the ship's denizens aren't space explorers but poor bastards stuck on a ship they can no longer control, a ship that may or may not ever arrive to its destination.

It's not really about growing potatoes, but it seems to me if you have a space ship, it's factions and themes should arise from them living on a space ship. You're basing people on some prefabricated morals like religion or not religion (mormons in spehhs), why I'd find it more probable for factions and themes to naturally arise from ship itself - people who live on a part of ship that was bombarded with space radiation, people who were descendants from professional pilots with blasters but became a secluded order, people worshiping actual recycling system as a benevolent god, etc.

That's one way of doing it but not the only one. Basically, a question of how far the ship's inhabitants have regressed. We can go far, all the way to AoD in space, or just take a few steps back. Both are viable directions to explore.

Also if it's a generation ship, it makes me wonder how it will all end. Potatoes may be not important or big problems, but let's assume I believe ship will reach it's destination. Then what? What would people do there if they will forget how to grow potatoes? Ship won't supply them forever. Or maybe ship already arrived and is lying at the bottom of the sea now? How will people get out? And so on. These are just questions that arise naturally from the premise, and they are not smaller than democracy vs. despotism or whatever.

The tech level and understanding are there.