Just how close to an RPG could a custom FOT campaign be?

[quietfanatic]

Character poverty is another method of hooking a player into a game. The less you have to work with the more likley you are to play well and watch your resources. You might have a sub machine gun and two hundred rounds of ammo but if ammo is generally scarce you will opt to hack and slash with a pack of low level street thugs or sand bums rather than waste precious ammo on their nasty hides. I generally start to get bored when I have every wepaon available power armor and enough ammo to take on the world.

hmm, sounds like a Dark Tower mod.

I like the humourous, useless random encounters. It is just difficult to get the level of humour right. But the idea of searching around for things can be good.

Elements of your stories are reminiscent of Van Buren, which was recieved well at NMA. Great minds think alike eh.

[xbow]

Just a coincidence, its obvious that if you are talking Utah you have to talk a theocracy. Of course this particular Utah theocracy of 2253 is a mutation and distant offspring of the 1860's Utah theocracy. I chose Utah because of its isolation and because there a third force a wild card could be introduced. Weather I have the ability and time to complete the MOD is another matter since I won't just daisy chain together a series of missions, I want something that at least apes the attributes of an RPG.

On another note I wish some company could get the rights to finish Vanburen (that won't happen) and use another name for the game and remove any reference to fallout. I think the game might have been good. Its hard to imagine just how dumb old Herve is for misreading the market so badly. I wonder just what made him think that PC gamers were going to shell out 200 skins for a PS2 just so that they could play a lashed up piece of console shit like Fallout:BOS. It must be the French connection or perhaps there is too much lead in the water Herve has been drinking.
[/b]

[Retlaw83]

During work, I had a revelation, because while I'm hosing down the body shop floor my muscles go on autopilot and my brain gets to thinking.

I realized that using CVARs and either series of BIK movies or "add text to debrief window" commands, that you can simulate the way the Fallout roleplaying games handle their endings. HOWEVER, this would require several triggers which all told had all possible cominations of endings as conditions. It would take a bit of work, but the copy and paste commands would help significantly.

This, theoretically, would work. I might test it out sometime; I just though everyone else would be interested to know my idea.

[PaladinHeart]

I have been planning something similar. Except I haven't decided whether or not such a thing will play a part in how my campaign ends (but I would like to have at least two different endings).

Im planning on having multiple encounters where the player has a chance to spare certain enemies. If they do manage to get away from the player, or if the player spares them, then they may show up later on in the campaign. At this time they would either be a stronger opponent (with a unique weapon or such) or offer something to the player that they otherwise would not have been able to obtain.

Im not sure yet what all I want to do with the idea, but it'd be nice if the player could even embark on entire new quests spanning two or three maps just because they spared an enemy's life earlier in the game. I think this type of thing would make for great replay value.

I don't know though, if I want the player to have the option of killing them (the enemy gives up and asks for their life) or do I just let the enemy try and run away? I think the latter option would be more realistic in most situations, but not always the best.

[Retlaw83]

It depends on the exact situation.

If you want a dialog exchange in which the enemy begs for their life, though, you may want to make them initially friendly otherwise a PC in aggressive mode will make the encounter not happen. If they have to force-fire to kill them, you could always give a karma reward for the action (ha!) to offset any karma-loss from the engagement.

That is, of course, if you wanted to treat their death like any other enemy NPC's.

[quietfanatic]

How would you make a BIK movie?

[Retlaw83]

I'd imagine that there would be a converter out there, although I haven't looked into it.

My idea was more describing what you could do from a technical standpoint.

[PaladinHeart]

I'll most likely employ a karma loss under certain circumstances. Generally if the enemy is just running, no loss. If they ask for a 2nd chance, that's kindof iffy. I would probably have given the opponent enough personality that the player would know whether or not they are sincere.

Therefore, killing someone who is going to show up again later, as a hostile, would not result in a loss of karma. Killing someone that is going to help the player later on.. well that's a different story.

Of course, in both cases, the player reaps their own reward. So I might want to go with neutral Karma.

I just wish I knew how much karma is gained/lost per enemy/friendly kill.

I've noticed you don't get any karma for killing enemies, unless triggers are set up. But you can lose karma for killing good people. I've even noticed Karma is sometimes lost on some of my maps for killing enemies. Anyone have any ideas what is causing this?