So last week I started playing Pokémon Sleep.
There is a problem. (I mean, in addition to "the app crashes reliably the first time I try to start research after waking up, and I have to look at the sleep stats again")
The problem is, it makes me want to play a "normal" Pokémon game where I can just play longer to level up critters...
@skysailor Part of my brain is going "make your own game"...
@Anke Owlkemon Chores?
@skysailor @anke All the cute owl pets! leveled up to make their cuteness even GREATER!
@rowyn @skysailor
nah. I like owls, but I like other critters, too 😆
@skysailor @anke mine too, I figured Anke already has a big head start on owl-art :D
@rowyn @skysailor Mine didn't, and not a tie-in to real life, either.
Just... gathering stuff and critters, and crafting stuff (and possibly critters) and gaining XP and raising skills.
@rowyn @skysailor
Build-your-own-familiar. Study a cat, give your magical creature a trait that a cat has; study a bat (if you can *find* one) if you want to add leathery wings...
@anke @skysailor ooh
you could make it a solo RPG for way less work than a video game
@rowyn @skysailor Yes!
It's somewhere in the heap of ideas. Along with "you are a witch hut with chicken legs looking for a new occupant-buddy".
But tracking EXP and levelling up (the way Pokemon sleep does experience *per dish*) gets tedious to do on paper, I think.
@anke @skysailor OTOH, video game exp systems were all inspired by TTRPG systems. Early D&D had you keeping track of xp per monster killed, and needing 1000s to level up. So maybe it's not that big a deal to do manually?
@rowyn @skysailor Early D&D had you keep track how many XP you got per kind of monster?
@skysailor @Anke @rowyn D&D still, technically, works this way—if you flip to the creature statistics section in the back of the 5e player handbook it lists the difficulty of each creature, along with the corresponding amount to XP you’d earn if you killed it. I think the typical assumption for those types of games is the DM tracks XP privately and then hands it out at the end of each session but that is still someone keeping track!
That said, D&D is a an overcomplicated math heavy game and I don’t necessarily recommend just copying its choices 😆
@rowyn @skysailor @Anke yes that’s exactly what I am describing as well—a Bat is 10XP and a Dire Wolf is 200 according to the player manual
@Satsuma @rowyn @skysailor
But I mean "there is a permanent record of how many XP have been earned which way", so if a character kills one bat this session and one bat five sessions down the line, they will have an entry like "Bats: 20" in their records then (and one score for wolves and one for goblins etc.)
@Satsuma @skysailor @anke @rowyn I was going to say, you'd is also an optional rule at this point: I think most DMs use Milestone level ups
@skysailor @Canageek @Anke @rowyn yeah it’s definitely no longer the only option, and I think DM’s have been going “fuck it” and houseruling things since the day tabletop was invented so it was definitely never universal
But it is still canonically a thing and there are still tables that use it as a result (we do use XP at my table but it isn’t just a strict ‘list of monsters you killed’ because players using non-combat skills should count for something)
@Canageek @Satsuma @skysailor @rowyn
DnD is certainly the most famous game I never played, and never even skimmed the rules, because the small bits I saw (classes, alignments) were things I did not like.
@Anke @Canageek @Satsuma @rowyn Currently in D&D there are two main systems:
CR (Challenge Rating), which is a tier system for XP based on encounter difficulty, number of foes, etc. You're usually not recording that you specifically fought bats, at least not in 5e.
Milestone, where you gain levels based on completing story events.
@skysailor @Canageek @Satsuma @rowyn
Let me sum up... or unpack, or whatever 😆
- I think keeping track of one XP score, adding to it when completing stuff and paying out to raise stats/gain abilities, is not too much work for paper.
- But that can lead to weird stuff like "I got XP for travelling through a swamp and killing tentacle monsters; I'll use these XP to raise my skill at Acting Proper At Court".
- If you split XP into multiple scores that are limited in what you can spend them for...
@skysailor @Canageek @Satsuma @rowyn
... that can get annoyingly much when playing on paper, depending how fine-grained it gets, but can work OK in a videogame, when the computer does all the math.
@skysailor @Canageek @Satsuma @rowyn
As soon as I think of bestiaries and creatures in context of games my mind jumps to "how could you make a game where the player makes up creatures?"
That seems to fit a solo RPG better than a videogame...
@skysailor @Canageek @Satsuma @rowyn
Any random generator is a mine for ideas!
I like the Creature oracle tables in Starforged, particularly that there is a Basic Form (is it bird-like, mammal-like, insectoid, snake-like, an amoeba...)
@skysailor
"Extras: It has one central turtle ear" oh dear XD
@Anke @skysailor @Satsuma @rowyn one of my favorite tabletop role-playing games actually does this, in the Call of Cthulhu and related systems whenever you successfully use a skill you put a check mark next to it and at the end of the adventure any skill with a check mark has a chance of going up. But for it to go up you have to roll it and fail, so the worse you are at something the easier it is to get better at it... but at the same time you have to have used it successfully to have a chance of it going up.
@anke @skysailor @Canageek @Satsuma
I have seen TTRPG systems where players track xp by skill/stat/power. So, eg, you'd earn xp that leveled up your Stealth skill when you used stealth and your Healing power when you healed someone, and those xp would only apply to that stat.
Keeping track of exact the source of all xp seems unintuitive, but I think "separate xp pools that are specific to a skill or a type of skills" isn't that odd for a paper RPG.
@Satsuma @skysailor @rowyn
No, I mean, was it like
Goblins: 200 XP
Wolves: 50 XP
Gnolls: 100 XP
Multiple scores of XP based on where they come from, essentially.