Thoughts about life, death and heroes

[Berundo-kun]

At first I have to say, I love RPG's and I have played many of them.
So my conclusion on the main character of these games are the following:

• you start more or less as a normal civilian
• you get involved in bigger events (politically, evil rising, ..)
• eighter you discover unknown over-natural abilities or you can simply train your character stats to an over-natural level
• you advance to an super-hero who can kill a whole army in a fort, all by your own
• the life of NPC's is not so important and also your own life because you save before every dangerous situation or important decition. And if there is no save function there is a respawn with reduced stats

And why are you doing things in such games:

• for gold
• to get experience
• or just to finish every quest in the game

But in real life, there are also heros.
What are there background:

• normal people (there are no super-powers in the real world)

Why are they heros:

• because they do things not to be rewarded. They put themselves in danger in order to save others, without thinking of themselves and what meight be the reward.

So the basis for this is: !! life is important !!
This aspect I miss in nearly all RPG games.

This game has the opportunity to change some things and develop a more deeper story, because of the more realistic fight system, no overpowerd super-heroes and no save function. If there also is no respawn, then life of the player character is the most precious thing in the game (especially after several days or weeks of playing). But this has to be respected also by the game and the death of a player has to be something realy special.

What kind of main character I would like to have:

• the character (player) should have real motivation to do things (not just for gold or XP-points). Therefore give the player a background, NPC's that are family, friends, mentor which are important for character development in the game and can not be replaced by other NPC's easily. Loosing your teacher in magica or fighting should throw back your advancements in learing for several days of playing, so his life has a value. The same may hold for friends which give helpful hints for riddles.
• let there be no save/load or respawn. IF the payer is dead he has to start from the beginning. So the player realy has to think about the consequences of his actions. But the game should be aware of this, loosing a battle should normaly not lead to death, not all people, robbers or guards are murders. Making a bad decicion should not ruin the whole game or completly destroy character development. Think about imprisonment, slavery, disablement (lasting reducement of specific stats) , which can lead to new quest: To free one selfe from prison/slavery, get help from friends in appropriate positions, ...
• to be dependent on others or to be on someones dept may be a much better motivation for new quests than gold or XP-points. If your methor is kidnaped you have a strong motivation to free him in order to continue to advance with your trining. The same if a friend of you is kidnaped/ in trouble who is a merchant, that sell you stuff for a very low price you are also motivated to help him. If such persons are kill, it should be permanetly and very hard to find a replacement so you want to have revenge, which is an other way of motivating the player to do something.
• And finaly a solution to weaken the fear of dying, which may prevent an very advanced character of a fearful / over carful player from doing brave and hero-like things: Why not allow the player to have an apprentice. The player could teach the apprentice things his character knows, build up his stats, knowledge of the world and so on. He can help the player in Quests and battles or can be used by the game to make the player do things by threatening the apprentice. IF the player dies he should have the option to start from the beginning or to take the role of his apprentice. So he can start to revenge the death of his mentor ... and then continue the game.

Hopfully you like my thoughts about RPG's and how I would like to have them. Perhaps some of the Ideas can be realized in this game because it is in a very early stage of development.

Sorry for the long statement.