Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
DESIGN RULE
Don't Penalize Low Health
Do not reduce the fighting ability of a character because she has low health. This is gen-
erally a bad idea in strategy games; for RPGs, it is a design rule, because the number of
characters that the player controls is smaller and the consequences are more damaging.
If you penalize wounded characters, whoever gets in the first solid blow in a fight has a
big advantage. See the section “Health, Morale, and Fighting Efficiency” in Chapter 14,
“Strategy Games,” for further discussion.
Ty pically, XP have no intr insic value and cannot be traded for any thing else ; they
are simply a measure of progress, almost like a score. However, when a character
achieves a certain level of XP, the character's level goes up a notch. The thresholds
are sometimes determined by the character's class. Achieving a new character level
(called
leveling up
) usually gives the player an opportunity to raise one or more of
his characterization attributes. In many games, the player earns a certain number
of points, often two or three, that he can add to whichever characterization attri-
butes he is most interested in improving.
If you implement character classes with different thresholds for leveling up, you
should make this clear to the player before he has to commit himself to a given class.
COSMETIC ATTRIBUTES
Because part of the appeal of role-playing is the ability to play as a character of
one's own design, CRPGs often have a great many cosmetic attributes. They add
variety but don't influence the gameplay. Cosmetic attributes include such things
as hair, skin, and eye color; facial features and body shapes within a particular race;
clothing and jewelry that doesn't function as armor or have magic powers; tattoos,
piercings, and other body modifications; and talismans, pets, or other distinctive
objects that a person might keep nearby, such as Indiana Jones's hat. In online role-
playing games, rare examples of such objects are highly sought after and command
high prices within the game economy, even if they serve no function in the game's
combat challenges. Cosmetic attributes add richness to the play experience; the
more of them that you can afford, the better—although they are not a substitute
for good gameplay.
