Brushing up on my RPG's
I'm taking a quick break this evening from my RPG story to air out my head a little.
So as with any story I write I do a bunch of research and refresh my memory on how things were or are. What I remember about a video game from twenty years ago might not be correct. Like, I wanted to reference the onboarding for a typical fantasy RPG where you select your class/race/sex/hair color. It's different on every game but still something I wanted to make sure the reader understood because who knows, maybe someone would be reading it in the future where character creation pages are no longer a thing.
Anyway, during the day while watching kids I put on youtube videos about RPG's I've never played or don't have time to play. Like all the Ultima's and JRPG's that never left Japan. If anything I like to read up on them just to get myself in the right headspace to write about someone being in a game.
Many of the early games had hardware and computational limits so naturally you could only play as one single character. But many RPG's are based off the core concepts of Dungeons and Dragons which is a multiplayer game revolving around a party of characters. It took a while but by the 90's most RPG's gave you either a party of characters to control or at the very least, some followers to help you out.
But the player is in control of those party members. The player gets to head hop to from the fighter to the mage to maximize utility. A JRPG is less likely to allow you to modify the party members or pick a main character as success relies on a group effort of specialists. Is Tidus or Cloud the main character? Sorta. They already have a canon name and personality. But the player just gets to play as these preset characters. They are still Tidus and Cloud.
If you look at American RPG's you'll find that you get to make a main character that you personally customize down to everything (More like D&D). The Elder Scrolls series let's you become your own personal lvl 99 Mary Sue. You might get to have some followers tag along during a quest but they aren't permanent. Same goes for Fallout. Mass Effect is different in that you are Commander Shepard and you get to choose your team of party members just like a JRPG would but you can customize the physical aspect of Shepard to look the way you want. But you aren't a Custom Generic Hero you are still Commander Shepard. Baldur's Gate works similarly where you choose what your main character looks like and what their class is but the party is a set group of characters.
For the story I wanted to make sure my main character gets full control of who she is in the game but as far as the other characters are concerned she is a Custom Generic Hero. This allows her to be herself while she engages with the world around her. I don't want any other characters to already know who she is. They get to learn along with her and in that way we can shoehorn exposition without using flashbacks or pausing the story flow.
But she does have a party. And this is the important thing. She does not control what the party does. In most RPG's you can assign actions to the party members during battles. But I wanted this story to have more of a Skyrim follower system of battle. Like, if I shoot an arrow at a bear Lydia will run up from behind me and attack the bear with me. I don't have to tell her, she acts on her own accordingly. Because the main character in my story doesn't control the other party members actions they will be acting this way during battles as well.
I think this will make it feel more like a proper D&D session as well because when you play a TTRPG you aren't in control of the other players. They are free to make their own decisions be that good or bad. For my story this also allows the other characters to hide information, abilities, and items from the MC but she can see their stats just the way you could ask a player at the table what their AC is or something but they can still hide critical campaign information from the party.
This will make the story and the game she is playing feel more like a real multiplayer game. My husband and sons love multiplayer games. They group up with strangers in ARC Raiders and such and it's a toss up if you are getting competent players or not. When we played MMO's back in the day it was the same thing. A whole world of Custom Generic Hero's decked out in random missmatched gear and glowing weapons. With the right group this works great. Your real life friends or other competent players can make a multiplayer experience enjoyable.
And I want that feeling of the other party members in the story as well as the NPC's to feel more like they are there to be more than just "The Healer" or "The DPS". Isekai stories do a great job of this because they instantly make the game or other world feel like a real world. The other characters aren't limited to multiple choice questions and answers, they are living their lives as though a regular person in this world would.
In the first chapter the MC goes to pick up her copy of the game from the store and one of the employees lets her know that the latest MMO is up for preorder. She scoffs because she is a team lead at work and already puts up with people not listening to her on a daily basis. With a single player game she is in complete control, even in this open world RPG she gets stuck in. She chooses who stays and goes in the party, she chooses what quests to do, she chooses when and where to go, when to save when to pause when to reload. She prefers to play a single player game because of the control she has over the outcome, something she doesn't have IRL.
Anyway, I've got stuff to do. Back to work.