Hi again guys! I was surprised by the amount of interest showed in my game idea in my last topic and got a lot of good feedback and ideas bouncing around so I’d like some advice. When it comes to the stats of a game they are quite fundemental. At the moment I have my stats at charm, cunning, reputation, stoic, mercy and ruthlessness. I’m thinking of changing these to possibly relationship stats with other characters. This is because I want people to be able to enjoy the story and not worry to much about missin out on a choice because their stats wasn’t high enough. I also think that as a vampire as old as your character is, they would probably have learned how to ‘play the game’ and adpats their personality according to what will get the what they want. This being said, I know stats are well liked and it can make the game more personal. As this is my first game I’d like some advice.
Thanks guys!
I think you should absolutely use stats, the game to me would feel really basic without them.
Here’s a discussion you want want to consider while making them: Opposite pair variables vs. single percent variables
You could have skill stats if you want or you could have relationship stats or you could have both.
Team Zero has only relationship stats because the MC is a boss who can do everything, but lots of people love that game.
Oh excellent, thank you for this. I didn’t mean that there would be no stats, just that they would be easier to manage.
Thank you, I’ll definitely have a look.
Sounds good have background stats as well and scars from when your were human or something
You can, and should, use stats, but make sure that the endings and major parts of storyline are not affected by them. This way you can ensure no one misses out on anything and it is solely their choices that affect the major storyline.
Ah yes, I remember your demo, very well done. I would think that a combination of different stats would be best, both relationship and otherwise, (as you said, our vampire is very old, and bound to have mastered some things in their time on this earth) personally I’d have to fervently disagree with @DeepPars as that stats can, and should affect the story. Since stats are simply a necessary evolution of choice…
That is your opinion, and I respect that. However, I’d like to express mine and point out a few things:
- Stats are not an evolution of choices- they’re just meant to complement choices and make our game more immersive. Meaningful and difficult choices win over stat checks any single day.
- I did not mean stats should not be included at all. I only meant stat checks should not be used for choices that concern endings and very major parts of storyline such as heavy branching. This is because nothing hurts as much as knowing that you cannot choose an option just because you didn’t develop that particular skill enough, especially when personality checks are imposed. (why can’t I suddenly want to save a character I’ve been rude with? At least give me a chance) I know this sounds generalized, and depends on the game, but an author should take care that the choices affecting ending should not rely on stat checks only. They should give player a chance to redeem themselves in some other way. Say, I want to end a game by shooting a person located far off. However, my shooting skill was never high enough, so I can’t kill the target and thus can’t choose /fail that particular ending, even though that is what I want. This is disappointing. A better way would be, since I cannot shoot the person, I must devise another way to take down that person - say shooting the fuel tank of a nearby vehicle and thus causing the death of the person in concern. Of course- if I had enough shooting skill, I could have easily reached the ending- however I didn’t, so the author gave me some other options to reach the ending. In this way, stat checks do not necessarily interfere with the ending.
An even better way would be to offer such choices that do not include any stat checks to decide ending at all. - lastly, I posted that comment because @Razorpaw was worried about players missing out choices because of stat checks.
So I offered my idea of devising choices in such a way that there are no stat checks for ending and major story parts. Thank you for reading.
I agree, I want the story to be immersive and interesting choices available because you have a high talent/skill you’ve chosen to develop but I don’t want it to hinder the story, mostly just to slightly influence what your actions may be. I’m thinking having relationship status’ with major characters, so far I have six of them, though I might change this later on. Depending on your relationship, they may chose to help you or not, make an alliance, side with an opposite side or have a strange romance with. Again this is just a rough idea, however if one is not an options, the others will be. Also with personality stats I’m unsure of which ones I should use. I think I will use charm and cunning but I’m not sure of the others but I’m thinking of pairing them with honesty and lies. If it was like that say you have a high cunning rate and are trying to get someone on side, maybe they know that you are prone to lie but because you have a high cunning rate you can coerce them into siding with you. Or opposite, you’re cunning but normally quiet honest and they decide to trust you. I want it to be believable I’m just aware that as I’m totally new to all this scripting that I have some limitations and I don’t want to be too ambitious and it mucks up the story.
Thank you, I’m glad you liked it. I think I will go for a mixture of relationship stats and personality stats but for personality I’m not sure which ones. At the moment I’m thinking, charm, cunning, honesty, lies and reputation (though reputation isn’t really a personality). I just don’t want the reader to be overwhelmed by all the stats, so far I have six relationship stats, but I think I might reduce this to five. Also this is totally new to me so I have to learn the script well enough to actually do what I want to hahahaha.
Ah, that definitely clarifies it a bit more, thank you.
@Razorpaw that does sound good, though personally I would think there should be a “Ruthless” stat somewhere in there, but that is simply personal preference. As I cannot imagine any of my characters as being not completely ruthless.
Honestly, I think that personality stats aren’t necessarily needed. A lot of the time, it feels like people just put them in because it’s expected of them and not because it adds to the story.
It depends on the type of game you’re trying to make. If it’s mostly about romance (and I hate my brain for suffering from the romantasy influence and automatically jumping from ‘vampire’ to ‘romance’), then personality stats might not be that important. If the game is about living as a vampire and about mastering the challenges associated with such a life, stat checks might come in handy.
All in all, I’d say don’t force yourself to add something just cause other games do it.
I don’t know, some games have so many stat choices that make me mad.
It isn’t that i dislike stats, i just hate how those games force me to play on their “rules”, you have to shape your character that exact way to procceed on the way to a good ending, etc. With that the ol’ % stats get really annoying. If you’re planning on using stat checks, be careful with widening your options too much.
I personally love gamebooks that give options for each of the playstyles possible, and still avoid falling in the stat management category that i hate so much, especially when it’s so hard that i can’t progress. So my suggestion would be to focus on balancing your stats system and getting it to work with the story branchings(?) and the choices you give.
Yeah I was thinking of doing mercy and ruthlessness and have those stats influence your reputation.
You have a good point, I’m assuming you haven’t seen my other topic because then you would know that your character is an ancient vampire, who was turned as a child. I’m going to put a bit of romance in it because obviously a lot of people like it but it’s going to be awkward, a little werid and hopefully quite funny. Then there’s the whole political aspects and murder you have to solve so I think some stats would be a good idea but relationship stats I think might be more (?) important or at least as important because it will influence who will help you, who will side against you and all of that.
Solid adivce thank you. I want the stats to give you options but at the same time if your one stat that might be the most strongly linked to that option isn’t high enough the other stats will come into play. I like the idea of letting you try the option and when/if it fails let you try something different or maybe have the options greyed out but give you other options to take advantage on and slightly different ways to get what you want.
Mhm, I haven’t seen your other topic. If the game is like you describe (with lots of challenges to face and hurdles to cross) then personality stats and relationship stats definitely sound like a good idea.