How about a game where the whole point of the thing is that you get reincarnated. You start of as a farmer joe, and if you lead a good, heroic, generous nice guy sort of life then you get reincarnated as something a little better (ie wealthy merchant fred). You could even have multiple cultures / nations which are in conflict, then reincarnate the player amongst them. What I am imagining at the moment would be mmorpg, but could be a single player game based on random quest generators. The final goal of the game would be to become such a hugely titanic hero that you leave a gigantic impact on the world and you get rewarded with immortality.

Immortality is a reward? I would consider it a punishment... But the doc skims over reincarnation. A much loved idea I have to say. Good to bring it up .

Punishing the player to eternal life is going to bore them. They are going to not be on edge in battle and they will end up becoming PKers (in MMO) or just stop playing. I suggest that they get rewarded with something else... Like a chunky sword with special effects, or the ability to morph into any creature they want... Etc.

-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - Site:"The Philosophers'' Stone of Programming Alchemy" - IOL
The future of RPGs - Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche
          

Dwarf: It might be a punishment in real life but in a game it could work. And PK''ing wouldnt be much of a problem - by killing an PC you are kind of doing them a favor.

It would be best if it could work both ways though - if you lead a bad life then you become something less nice (although not necessarily less powerful ) after you die.

But immortality will just make players bored. They wont be able to die, and so they can walk into a melee that is totally against them and not get a scratch. That isn''t fun. Half the fun of a game is running away to refill your health bar! IMHO!

Yeah, the Karma system would make you a less appealing character. You could look like a goblin and people would take you for one and try to hack you to pieces.

Another thing about immortality... the gods hath gaveth and the gods will taketh away should you choose to do some nasty deeds...

-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - Site:"The Philosophers'' Stone of Programming Alchemy" - IOL
The future of RPGs - Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche
          

Woops, by immortality I meant that the game ends when you get
it. You see a nice cut scene of you getting accepted into the
hall of the gods (or whatever) and then the credits roll. That''s
for a single player game with an end.

For a multiplayer, i do like the sound of that morph thing
dwarfsoft, or how about the player gains a skill that allows
them to pick their new class when they die.

Here''s another idea - If during your ''life'', you develop a
certain level of mastery over a skill or magic or whatever,
when you die you get a bonus on that skill in your next
incarnation. You could even trancsend class boundaries this
way, ie: you are a knight who has the ability to wear "chunk
nugget" armour (the heaviest in the game). When you die,
you get reincarnated as a turnip that can wear regular plate
armour. Turnips normally cannot wear armour.

What if there were multiple "class levels", say at the start of
the game you can be a thief, a barbarian, or a turnip.

These classes have a cap on how powerful they can become, and
the only way to get a class which can be advanced further is
to work hard and do lots of quests. If you don''t do quests
and concentrate on levelling & getting powerful, you could
join the ranks of the undead (powerful wizards turning into
liches etc) & if you PKill a lot, you go into daemonic classes.

If you PKill weaker characters a lot, then you become a
shrivelled, weak, cowardly daemon.

Immortality doesnt necessarily mean invincibility. It might be that they dont die of natural causes, but can still be killed, or it could be a Highlander style of immortality, ie vulnerable to certain kinds of attack.

I dont think the player should be *forced* to die to progress - but he would have to acheive immortality before his character died of old age.... or become undead....

Good. I am glad you made the Highlander reference (hell, I wasn''t going to do it again ).

As for the skill transition... EXCELLENT. It wouldn''t work in a totally stat oriented game, but skills would work nicely. This seems like kind of a transition from class-statistic to non-class-skills type of deal. Comes as a breakaway from the current character class with stats to the ideas of an undefined character class but totally skill oreinted game. Quite a good idea...

As for Karma being carried over... I like the idea of becoming demonic for more damage that you do. But PKing brings up the problem of WHO STRUCK THE FIRST BLOW. If the weaker character started the fight, then the stronger character shouldn''t end up being penalised for it. Neither should the weaker for that matter (hell, they died already anyway). And what if the weaker one killed the stronger one (hey, it could happen )? Same deal about who hits first? What about a three way fight? Who gangs up on the other? What about if it is a vengance killing based on a past event?.. I ramble... These are problems with the karma system. It means that a lot has to be stored before you can figure out who is liable for karma loss.

Anyway... Good ideas fellas

-Chris Bennett of Dwarfsoft - Site:"The Philosophers'' Stone of Programming Alchemy" - IOL
The future of RPGs - Thanks to all the goblins over in our little Game Design Corner niche
          

Karma liability? Easy peasy.


A formalised set of behaviours, akin to chivalry could be used
here.

You have a mechanism for formal challenges to be issued.
If you fail to issue a challenge, then you are liable.

If your opponent rejects the challenge, and you still attack,
then you are liable.

This solves ganging up issues too. Unless you are dumb and
accept challenges from the 73 different warriors who are standing
around you, then they will have to accept karma liability if they
hit you.

Also, you have a mercy option. If you are teaching a pitiful
weakling a lesson, you engage mercy mode, and your shots become
non-lethal. You just knock them out and they are shipped to
hospital where they get charged a huge amount of money.