INTERESTING ITEMS IN RPGS

author=Tree_Eater
On top of this, a question to designers, what is your thought process on creating and implementing interesting items? Feel free to post examples of interesting items you've seen in other games as well, be they professional or indie.

For all items, even equipment, I try to make it so no item (even early-game items) ever go obsolete.

For example, in my Rm2k3 project, a Minor Red Potion heals 39 HP with an additional 20% whereas a Grand Red Potion will heal 300 HP with an additional 50%. Now, the Minor Red Potion may have lower numbers, but it is also much more cost-effective and does heal a decent amount even at endgame.

Armors with higher DEFENSE lower the character's SPEED. Combined with DEF-SPEED ratios, I've added special effects to each armor. For example, Berserker's Armor has an exceptional DEF-SPEED ratio, but it Silences the wearer, making them unable to use magic. I even have one called Reaper's Robe that kills the wearer just as you equip it. (Impractical but different)
I don't see many games discouraging players selling low-tier items for money and moving onto the next shiny thing. To me, everything you find in a chest should hold its worth until the end of the game.

In my game, all "potions" and the like are in the form of real life food, like beef jerky or potato chips, etc.
You also have items like molotovs and rusty knifes, which as expected are single use items that cause damage, whether it be single target or AOE.
And really, in a zombie game, or just a game that focuses on real life, potions and stuff just wouldn't make sense.
So I think people should incorporate items that have to do with their world, be it fantasy or not.
And just because it is fantasy or uses magic doesn't mean it has to be your bog standard potion!

I even have one called Reaper's Robe that kills the wearer just as you equip it. (Impractical but different)

Lol, this would piss me off, but I like it. xD

Just design items as you would cool skills, but without any cost except expending the item. Water Mote goes from "medium Water damage to a foe" to "low Water damage to two random foes. Each hit lowers Lightning resistance" and Earth Mote is "high Earth damage to all grounded foes. 75% accuracy."

(I also have serious issues with tiered spells, but I'm just trying to appeal to you guys here. I'll rant about that on my V&V blog sometime.)

At the opposite end of the spectrum are games like Earthbound or Nethack which have dozens and dozens of items with very obscure uses. The absurd list of items is a major part of the identity of both these games, but I don't really think it's good game design in general, any more than having hundreds of spells per character is good game design.

Let's look at this from a different perspective. Essentially, items are a type of skill. Like magic or swordtech.

Items are unique from other types of skills in that:
- Everyone can use them.
- They use a different type of resource (stock per skill, instead of an MP pool).
- That resource is, in most games, shared between all party members.
- That resource is not automatically refilled at inns, or in fact ever. It must be manually refilled, and the difficulty of doing can vary significantly, with item shops on the easy end, steals and random drops in the middle, and treasure chests at the hard end.

These points make items better suited for some types of skills than others. If certain skills are required to win random battles, you probably don't want those skills to be items, because the player will gradually run out and the game will eventually become unbeatable. If the player has an equivalent skill that costs MP, then adding an item that does the same thing might make one of the two worthless (unless both gold and MP are in very short supply, which would make it a meaningful choice). You don't want the best skills to all be from items that the player can buy in shops, because that makes the differences between characters meaningless. If your items are easily refilled, then you probably don't want them to be very powerful at all.

FF4 and FF7 are examples of games that had item versions of almost every magic spell in the game. Because of the items' rarity, they didn't replace the magic versions - they were only good in emergencies. (A handful were actually buyable, but were borderline obsolete by the point they became buyable.)

I have a weird thing for not just items, but item names. In particular I have a nostalgic love of super-abbreviated item names prevalent in older/less technically sophisticated games. e.g. IRON

author=Tree_Eater
How about ideas for non-generic items, though? Such as items that have hidden uses or inflict unique status ailments?

Outside of "Bombs", I've not created consumable items with particularly special effects. But each character has a Skill slot in their equipment windows, where they equip skills.
Each skill is rather game-changing in the sense that they do very different things and very few of them even do damage.

For example, Final Heal is an equippable skill that heals a rather large amount of HP based on the user's MAGIC stat and silences them.
Another is Assist, which is a skill that buffs an ally for 1 turn. If an ally is ready to release a super-powerful attack and your current character is, without a doubt, going one turn before them, you pop the ally with Assist and watch the damage skyrocket.

I've also implemented Passive Skill Books.
For example, P:Quick Item double's a character's speed one turn after they have used an item.
P:Solstice removes all status ailments every 12 turns in battle.
P:Immortality automatically revives a character by chance.
P:Autocast Arcane adds MAGIC-based damage to your regular attacks.

I try very hard to give RM2k3's battle system more depth.
However, sometimes, one can go overboard. Especially MMORPGS.
For example, the oh-so-new game Rift has rather intimidating skill descriptions.

author=Rift WIKI
Vengeful Spirit
Increases the number of stacks of Deathly Calling converted by your pet's Blood Corruption by 1 and gives Blood Corruption a 33/?/?% to not consume stacks of Deathly Calling. Gives your pet's Oblivion a 33/?/?% chance to interrupt spell casting when it hits enemies. Increases the critical hit chance of your pet's Ruination by 33/?/?% if the enemy has Deathly Calling.

... what?

A lot of games have those boost items that increase max hp or increase agility or what have you. The only question that ever arises from using these items is exactly which character to use it on. I think it would be more interesting if those items also reduced a stat.
What about items that help one party member but hurt the other 2 or 3 or what have you. For instance, a healing item that fully heals the party member it is used on, but then silences, posions, and berserks the rest of the party?

An item that talks everytime you use it.
An item that changes the way people interact with you as long as you have it.
A box that can be used to give you 100,000,000,000,000 gold but will permanently kill one of your party members.
A summon item that summons a creature to help you fight a boss but then you have to fight the summon immediately after.
A balloon. That pops. That's it.
A musical instrument that can be used to change the background music.
A hula hoop. Using it makes your character have a hula hoop animation until you quit.

That's all the ridiculous ideas I have right now.

there are some awesome ideas here.

I suddenly remembered those useless Tissues from Final Fantasy 7 that you had to take sometimes...I did not understand until I lived in Japan lolol

Some of the best items came from the SNES era of RPGs: Lufia 2, Chrono Trigger, and Final Fantasy 6. I'm not referring to consumables, though. I hate consumables.