How do you feel about settings where gamisms are rendered as a natural component of the setting?
Slaying monsters might expose some sort of mystical energy that gets absorbed by the people who fought it, though the people might not call this energy "XP." It might even go a step further, with some form of currency being or appearing within the monster.
Adventurers have a magical barrier that protects them from harm, though it weakens with each hit they take until they finally are knocked unconscious. They recognize each other's levels, can calculate exactly how many times a day they can use an ability, and can sift through collections of options in order to select what they'll take when they advance.
Immersion breaking? Reserved for cheesy parodies? Or is it possible to create a serious setting where the more abstract aspects of games are recognized within the world?
I actually like that in some animes, but I'm not sure how to feel about in a game. I think it could be fun, if only for some laughs. Makes me think of the New World as a setting in Overlord.
>>43518693
It can be fun, in an occasional tongue-in-cheek thing.
One of my favourite parts of KOTOR 2 is they do refer to how killing things makes the main character stronger - and that's why all the Jedi Masters are fucking horrified of you. What sort of monster are that murder makes you stronger?
>>43518693
I've seen it used well in KoToR 2.A lot of the gamisms are revealed to be semi-unique to you because you carry a wound in the force with you that causes a lot of odd effects.People will point out to you that it is extremely not normal for people to just abandon their lives to fight to the death at the command of someone they just met, or for someone to be able to grow stronger by feeding on death, and that it all makes you deeply weird and threatening.
I generally don't like it, because it's a fairly big change to how the world works that's rarely properly accounted for in the setting, but it's not impossible to make something good with the concept.
>>43518693
Actually, one of my setting's main villains sifts through people's souls to steal the experiences that make them stronger- that moment when their muscle memory on an attack finally clicks, for example.
I won't be telling the players in as many words (lol experience makes you level up and get stronger aren't I clever) but the strength of one's soul, rather than just their body, makes it harder for them to be killed, and adds to their power.
irrc Levels and Level caps were things people were consciously aware of in the Ranceverse. There's even a goddess of Leveling up.
>>43518693
As a side note on the origin of some race or profession, I'm fine with it. Though it's really hard to execute those settings in non-interactive media.
If it isn't done really carefully, the whole setting just collapses for me. For one those settings seem to come from writers who only know fantasy via video games, and so there are just so many assumptions floating around that kill immersion.
When you start answering questions not with in-universe facts, but with "because that gives more loot" or "we need a lot of playable races", then it's not much to answer questions about the plot in the same way.
"Why did the BBEG burn down every house except the one with the protagonists in it?" just leads to "Because they are the protagonists, duh". The story no longer is about people with motivations struggling with a complex world and each other.
It becomes about characters going through plot points for maximum drama and circumstances changing to get the important characters to the next scene.
>>43518693
>Immersion breaking? Reserved for cheesy parodies? Or is it possible to create a serious setting where the more abstract aspects of games are recognized within the world?
It's fine, but honestly after a while the GM stops narrating shit like "and then a ghostly vapor leaves the bodies and slams into yours!" because it adds nothing.
>>43518715
It seems to be a pretty common thing in anime, especially with all the "MMORPG made Real" ones. Living in a video game world has been done in .hack, Sword Arts Online, Tower of Druaga, Mahoujn Guru Guru, Beet the Vandel Buster, Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, among tons of others, and I'd even be willing to argue that Fate/stay has a lot of video game aspects to it that the characters simply take for granted.
I really like the way Log Horizon approached it, where the NPCs are bound by relatively realistic constraints, but the PCs are governed by game logic (can't die, can get really strong, and recognize they operate under those game rules). I was surprised by just how far they took the concept, with diplomatic meetings between PCs and NPCs that highlighted how bizarre the PCs are, anticipating Raids, and PCs exploiting game logic that even other PCs failed to recognize.
>>43518693
Some of the Final Fantasy games acknowledge Jobs being a fundamental part of the universe and not just an array of abilities. Bravely Default for one does it.
Other FF games show some awareness of game mechanics, but this is mostly just a breaking of the fourth wall to explain concepts.
>>43518890
Not really, in Forgotten Realms, the reason vancian magic exists is because the goddess Mystra put hard limits on how frequently someone could cast spells. That's one example of how certain rules are actually a part of the universe.
>>43518795
It's a major theme of Undertale. Towards the end of the game, it's explained thatXP doesn't mean Experience Points, it means Execution Points, and LV means Level of Violence. The higher it is, the more numb you are to pain and the feelings of others, which translates directly into hitpoints and attack power. Even though a single human soul is a million times stronger than a monster soul, a human has to be willing to kill the monster, hence why Frisk is so ridiculously powerful in the Genocide route.
>>43518693
99% of the time, gamebreaking for me.
1% might actually be really cool, but my god it's difficult to pull off properly.
When I play RPG's, I like to get myself immersed, or get other players immersed, and forget about the fact that they are playing a game. Shit like this generally tends to be the anti-thesis of what I look for, and more importantly, almost universally comes across as terribly ham-fisted and poorly implemented into the setting itself.
That said, I don't think it's COMPLETELY impossible to create good setting where elements like these are recognized and function. I just think it takes a fuckton of work to do it right.
>>43518971
Do really all of those series state they take place in a video game or are their settings just straight up lifted from a video game?
SAO, .hack and Log Horizon certainly do, but from what I've seen of Duraga and Dungeon?, they are just fantasy worlds that work like video games.
Log Horizon actually does a great job at showing how the inclusion of game elements influenced the world, because, well, that's the premise.
And in contrast it really shows how poorly other shows handle these elements.
You can't just drop giant monsters everywhere and expect the world to keep on running like a medieval Europe stereotype.
Sure, you can make very adventure friendly settings, heck, I'm doing it myself, but you need to put a lot of thought behind it.
You can do stuff like >>43519077 mentioned:
>in Forgotten Realms, the reason vancian magic exists is because the goddess Mystra put hard limits on how frequently someone could cast spells
If you give some thought to the consequences to these elements have for the world, that can make really interesting settings.
Granted, I cited a rather bad example because magic is the part you really can do however you want.
Point is, if the writer is lazy, gamist settings become incredibly cringy. If they do their work, these settings are quite interesting.
>>43519077
>Bravely Default for one does it.
In BD, the whole jobs business actually plays a pivotal role in the backstory, with the power of Vocations being monopolized until a character developed a process to enable Job switching through the use of a special item. Jobs play such an important role in the world, that it really only makes sense that the overworked Japanese would come up with that.
BD in general did a lot to take the original Final Fantasy and try to make it more of a living, breathing world, including the horrible insinuation that every Game Over you experience was actually the death of an alternate dimension version of your characters, and that you restart the game with another set from another dimension.
>>43519275
>BD in general did a lot to take the original Final Fantasy and try to make it more of a living, breathing world, including the horrible insinuation that every Game Over you experience was actually the death of an alternate dimension version of your characters, and that you restart the game with another set from another dimension.
If I ever make a computer game, I've always wanted to imply that whenever you play through you're watching a specific universe in which the actions of the way you play actually happened, and you're just switching cameras.
But that would come off as a bullshit plot twist in my book, so I'd likely never do it.
>>43519151
For Overlord, it's the former being moved onto the latter, and artifacts from the game world are implied to have affected the new world heavily.
>>43519892
>>43518971
I think its pretty unique, Momonga is moved into a world that is similar to Yggdrasil but not actually it. People are aware of casters, classes, skills have names, experience, level, etc. but its not actually a gameworld. Its also got the best werewolf
>>43520410
>I think its pretty unique, Momonga is moved into a world that is similar to Yggdrasil but not actually it.
I think Monster Rancher, Zegapain, and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance have a degree of similarity, where the main character is transported into a world similar to a video game that they know, where the people are aware of certain game attributes, though perhaps not as strongly stressed as it is in Overlord.
I'm not so big on gamisms as an actual deliberate, effort required, setting feature. You should do everything in your power to make mechanics match fluff, running the process the other way around is a last resort for when you pretty much can't practicably improve the mechanics anymore.
>>43521278
>You should do everything in your power to make mechanics match fluff
Mechanics matching fluff is great, but sometimes comes with a hefty price, and that cost is that the mechanics are either cumbersome, complicated, or don't lead to a particularly exciting pace of play. Or, in short, they're not fun.
Fun mechanics are fun mechanics, and adjusting the fluff to match them shouldn't be avoided or scorned. Fluff is malleable, and while Top-down design is good, it really needs to be balanced with Bottom-Up, mechanics first considerations.
>>43518693
I see no reason people couldn't use the scientific method in fictional settings to quantify how magic and what have you works.
>>43518693
We do this to some extent in our games. Level is never explicitly stated, but people can get a good idea of how strong you are by what you can do. Abilities are quantifiable. For instance, it's not really meta to know how many times a day you can wild shape
As for experience, we generally see it as a 'soul power' kind of thing. It isn't measurable, but the knowledge of it exists to some extent
>>43518693
You should read "Sword of the Bright Lady"
Which kind of follows this premise to the logical conclusion.Human kingdoms and monsters take turns sending waves of disposable commoners at each other in order to farm xp.The King who taxes xp, is a nigh unstoppable killing machine.
>>43518693
Not a tabletop RPG, but I once came up with an idea for a Science-Fantasy vidya RPG where the PC's wore powered armor that absorbed data from their fallen enemies, and synthesized that data to augment their abilities. It was blatantly XP and levels, but I felt it worked.
It can work, but doing it too much is immersion-breaking.
>>43518693
A bit of more convoluted example but in my down to earth, gritty war stories and low magic setting death knights are all about acting out metal covers because some of the players are 100% rollplayers. I love the juxtaposition that happened naturally when all the suffering footsloggers wishing to go home with all limbs intact get to interact with these WOOO I KILLED TWO WITH A SINGLE SWING! motherfuckers. The guys who liked roleplaying also got to roleplay out how they are inhuman killing machines who grew disconnected from their fellow humans completely out of their own volition and enjoying every single moment of it in such a banal way. No brooding, no selling souls, no edgy shit, just guys who love fighting and killing a bit too much and entirely unafraid of death because they know their afterlife is secured in the realm of their shadowy god. They just kept seeing bigger and bigger challanging, justing for the blood of heroes, dragons and gods not because of any (un)holy crusade, or heroism or loot but because they loved combat so much.
i like it
Not sure if it's exactly what you're going for, OP, but I've been playing around with an idea for Final Fantasy themed setting, with some mechanics known in-game and recognized by anyone who cares to do a bit of reaearch on the matter. Such as, for example,
>Jobs, and Job Crystals
Or more precisely, Job Shards, each containing the 'essence of a mighty hero of blah ze blah' that basically lets someone collect the shard, concentrate on it - and more specifically, on the 'song' playing inside - and assume that Job Aspect and any unlocked powers. The process became known, perhaps jokingly, as 'tuning into the music', then later into Attuning. The whole thing is so well-known and documented that, for most shards, the relevant Guilds, merchants and Finders will provide along with the shard (or sell fairly cheaply) an enchanted, password-locked scroll to allow the shard's user to track their Attunement Progress, or AP.
(Cont'd)
Dark souls sort of does it. XP is souls, respawning is in universe, ect
>>43526611
>Hit Points
Or more accurately, Heart Points. The theory being that, at the core of each World, there is a 'Heart' providing life-energy to all on, in and part of that World, with each creature having a smaller, metaphorical 'Heart' (as opposed to the actual physical heart) that pulses in time with the World Heart; and, whether instinctively or through active training, a person (or creature) taps into this pulse to strengthen and protect him or herself from harm. Much like with a muscle, the more one taps into this pulse, the stronger the protection becomes - in other words, the more experience a being gains in handling the hazards and threats of life, the more benefit they gain from the 'Heart Pulse'. Again, various guilds have done countless studies on the phenomenon, and have come up with both a standardized form of measurement for one's connection to the Heart Pulse, and a means of detecting in general terms how many 'Heart Points' a being has protecting them.
As a related note, drawing on the Heart Pulse is an instinctive reaction to real or perceived danger; thus, unconscious or otherwise unaware targets are much easier to knock out or kill, as they are almost guaranteed not to be calling on the Pulse.
(One mo' 'gain)
>>43526650
>Status Screens
More of an available (and pricey) item than any sort of power or ability; the Finder's Guild makes a practice of assessing the strengths, weaknesses and capabilities of its members, and has developed special scrolls for the purpose. These vellum sheets help the assessor determine with a simple scan the general health, well-being and status of the individual in question - in other words, taking a measure of their 'character'. Each vellum sheet is linked to one and only one member of the Guild, and ridiculously heavily protected with both mundane and eldrich securities (the Finders take their information services very seriously). However, a member of the Guild may opt to purchase a field-copy of their Character Assessment Sheet, which contains a truncated summary of the data and can be updated within a minute or two with a brief ritual to give them an idea of their current Status.
As a side-note, any unauthorized persons attempting to read one of these scrolls generally sees a bunch of gibberish thanks to the protection spells, and anyone trying to 'force' through it risks some pretty nasty (and very embarrassing) curses on their head for their trouble.
So yeah. That's about it.
>>43526650
Is that related to Sympathetic Resonance?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxRkOQmzLgo
>>43519892
jesus...he casted EVERYTHING.
>>43527662
>Sympathetic Resonance
Huh. Hadn't thought of it that way. I...suppose that's actually a pretty reasonable explanation, in a way.
Pretty awesome, actually.
>>43527794
he's prepping his spellbook for the day you hilariously obtuse newfag
>>43531153
He's actually casting all of those right before entering a battle.
>>43531194
and they all have a verbal component?
>>43531306
Obviously?
>>43526690
No way, there has to be more! I'm interested!
>>43535327
Well, there IS more to the actual setting and such, but most of that is, well, setting and such - not exactly 'gameisms', so probably not themely to the thread. I appreciate the vote of interest, and maybe if I get some more of the balance issues worked out I'll share more details in another thread; just didn't feel like hijacking this one for off-topic 'hay guize looka my homebrew' stuff.
>>43533186
Not really that obvious. Could be anything.
>>43520410
>Its also got the best werewolf
Best girl in the series, sure.
Best werewolf ever? Not while Gavrill exists.
>>43518693
It can make sens to a degree. Like maybe being able to say "that guy's a lv.20 wizard" would be abit weirdl, but wizards gettign more spells as they gain experience does make sense since in DnD they cast spells by memorising them and it stands to reason an experienced wizard is able to memorise spells easier.
