IS MODULAR STORY BASED GAME CONTENT THE WAY TO GO?

An idea occurred to me this afternoon as I was blocking out a section of my game's story for demo purposes. Instead of just starting the player off at the beginning of the game, I was planning on introducing a self contained story that featured characters who were a little more advanced in terms of their skills and abilities, so that the demo could be engaging both plot and gameplay wise.

I wanted to put the best foot forward, not a starting area full of hand holding, fetching, and tons of conversation.

Then I thought, why not just build a game around the best moments it has to offer, instead of all the filler that we've come to expect?

My recent experience with Dragon Age 2 also worked into the mix. The mass produced dungeon approach sort of worked in Mass Effect, where you could easily believe that most of the facilities you ended up traipsing through on "unknown" world missions were just prefabs sold by the same company. Having ten different quests drop you into the same section of real estate, re-purposed to be whatever lair is called for at the moment, in a fantasy setting where it isn't logical to expect someone was selling build-your-own cave kits didn't feel as natural.

I started thinking about how difficult it is for me to generate my own resources. I'm not suggesting I should be able to get away with building one dungeon and just setting up different entry points and treasure drops and call it a game, but that there is no rule saying that more than one story couldn't take place in the same areas. That way, I could get more use out of every resource I produce.

The basic idea is to come up with a number of possible adventures that make use of the resources. Instead of making one overarching game story, I could produce several smaller campaigns. By restricting their scope, I could focus on populating them with (hopefully) more memorable moments and characters.

I could offer the player the chance to "recruit" from stock party member builds, or custom tailor their own party, sort of like how you were able to assemble your teams at the beginning of older games, like the original Pool of Radiance (the one D&D game I actually played on my old Tandy).

The campaign/modules could have assigned difficulty levels and recommended parties. The player would be able to either start new builds at the recommended stat level for the section, and/or import some/all of their existing characters from another module. Modules could be written to favor various approaches, and in the "selection" screen (or whatever I come up with), there could be a brief description, so that the player has the option before hand whether or not they want to start up a campaign that will be heavy on conversation and trade, as opposed to ones that are more focused on combat and action. I could even add in an estimated average time of completion for the modules. I like the idea of focusing on stronger content, and giving the prospective player the option to digest it at their own pace as opposed to just saying "here is a story, play through all of it."

So, does this vignette approach to game making sound like a cop out, or a valid approach?

For progression, what I was thinking about was having the "player" level up as opposed to just having the characters level up. The experience points the party gain would go into a sort of "bank" that the player can spend in different ways.

Any rare gear that the player finds/earns during the campaigns would go into a sort of storage that transferred between sections. For any "later" campaign, they can take the gear out of storage with no charge. If they wanted to bring it to an "earlier" campaign, they could spend some of their xp bank to transfer the better gear in, but only if it was allowed by the module's spending cap. I'm thinking that the different modules could have different xp spending caps at character generation/outfitting.

I tend to go overboard with attempting to allow non-linear approaches in my games, and it usually makes a ton of extra work for me (an example would be having five copies of every enemy in the game for the scaling difficulty event to assign as appropriate). With the XP buys & spending caps, I can make a set difficulty level for each module, so they can still be a challenge despite me giving the player the freedom to tackle them in any order.

I can use variables and switches to govern the party's abilities. Skills will be tiered, so if a character has 1500 xp worth (access to tier three) of skills (stat boosts/upgrades are going to be counted as "skills", and assigned/removed via events as needed) but is being imported to a module with an 1000xp starting cap, any of their third tier skills/stat boosts would be disabled.

Another possible advantage I see with this setup is that it would be relatively easy to add new content. Instead of always having to write the "next" part of a story, I could just come up with anything that fit the game's overarching theme/setting. If it is "earlier" in the chronology than the player's current save, they can either start a new character for that section (and try out some skills they haven't had access to yet) or import their better developed party members in, once properly governed for the module's spending cap. Also, any xp gained during missions can be spent later, so a lv25 character can still get xp from a lvl 5 module, which they can go ahead and spend in any lv25+ campaign.

I like the idea of a player running his "main" character through a few modules, and then maybe trying out a new character build for a lower level module that isn't really compatible with his current build. He could then bring the new character up through a few adventures, and add him to the team with the original main character to help round out the party's capabilities for later adventures. I guess I'm trying to build in "re-play factor" but in a way that doesn't really have to interrupt the flow of the game, or make the player sit through the same quest sixteen times if they want to try every character build out in the game.

I envision the campaign selection menu as sort of a time line, with a bunch of branches. The player could unlock things that happened in the "past" based on how quests in the present go. This would let them go back and play through those events with new characters, who could later get folded into the "main" party. Even though I'm not really planning one having one constant story tie everything together, I would like for little hints/clues the player finds to unlock newer and more challenging modules for them to tackle.

One example that popped into my head this afternoon was a "later" module that required the player to collect three components of something. Note, I say player. The player's "main" might locate one or two, and maybe a new character finds the third when the player gets around to tackling that section. Now, the new module would be available, but it would require both the characters who carry the components to be in the same party. (Still working on a couple things in my head, like whether a character with 500xp worth of skills/stats should just get handed 1000 free xp when they get introduced into a 1500xp starting cap module, or if they should get a smaller increase.)

It still means a lot of work for me, but hopefully it will prove more engaging and rewarding than duplicating a list of 200 enemies five times has been in the past.

It also sounds like I'm going to have to check SaGa Frontier 2 out at some point!

A good bit of my party "recruiting"/managing comes from my early experiences with Pool of Radiance. You had the option to make up your entire team at the beginning, or to hire them as needed, with a few interesting characters along the way who could join if you had room.

My approach is similar. If the player wants, they can fine tune their entire team from scratch, including assigning alignment and personality types to their creations. They "tag" one of the characters to act as the leader at the start of the module. This is the character they will "directly control", and this character will also gain xp at a slightly increased rate. This xp is separate from the "player xp" which can only be gained by progressing the plot of the individual modules and can be used to transfer gear between different campaigns, as well as for services like a "miraculous" bout of luck that lets a character survive/escape something that should have been fatal, or buying a special one time use technique that can help get them out of trouble. The "personality" settings for the other party members come into play in any conversation/discussion they're in when not being directly player controlled.

The player could also choose to build only their main character from scratch, fleshing the rest of their team out with the available cast of characters. Unlike the player's custom team members, not every unique party member will be available for use in every module.

Since one of the main points of this approach is to focus more on characters and interesting gameplay, I'm leaning towards capping the total number of player built characters in any group to three, so that there will usually be a slot open for a character unique to a given campaign.

Since the whole thing will probably feel a little foreign at first, I'm planning on having a description for each campaign that offers a suggested party. If the player doesn't have anyone who fills one of the recommended roles, they can hire a specialist from the unique cast.