BSM Rank and Class System

[Kyle]

R@S,

I'm really looking forward to trying out v. 2 of the beta sometime tonight. Unless you say otherwise, I'm assuming that every time a new update comes out we should start a brand new game.


Your efforts with ARM are highly commendable, and will certainly positively alter the entire gaming experience in a positive way.

It gives more power to the player, and that's a good thing.



I too noticed that the starting point totals were sometimes substantially different from one character to another. Like you, I prefer playing Cameron, but didn't know he had the lowest point total of all of them!

Again, being a GURPS devotee, my strong preference would be to simply allow the player the option of choosing any avatar he/she wants, have them virtually be a "blank" slate, and spend points to set their Parameters and Skills.

If I'm not mistaken, the classic Jagged Alliance 2 also had an avatar-creation system similar to what I've just described above. The reason why I prefer this approach, is that while it may seem "less creative" than other approaches, the point to remember is that when going with a system as just described, most, if not all, of the creativity, is in the player's hands, and the more options one gives the player, the more freedom, and hopefully, the more enjoyment he/she will have while fashioning the avatar.

This also simultaneously creates a sense of "ownership" over the avatar, helping to transform them from a "mere" avatar into an actual character fashioned within the player's imagination.

In fact, if it's at all possible, I'd even avoid naming the available avatars. Simple "title" them something like...
"Avatar: Male 1,"
"Avatar: Male 2,"
"Avatar: Female 1,"
and so on and so forth...

Just make sure that there's a screen by which the player can then type a personalized name to his/her newly selected avatar. See, another example of empowering the player, and giving him/her another opportunity to express their own creative capabilities.

I wish I knew how flexible this engine is in regards to modding. While I'm totally in favor of giving a lot of creative power to the players, I'm also in favor of emulating realism as in a title such as this, it heightens one capabilities of becoming immersed in the virtual world.

So, for example, I am in favor of having the player "stuck" with having to deal with gender-based advantages/disadvantages. In GURPS, the stronger one becomes, the larger one is, and the larger one is, the more likely he/she is in regards to producing noise, being seen, look more or less intimidating, etc., etc.

If this can also be done within the confines of 7.62's engine, then I say let's take a shot at it, and see how it goes.

To be more specific with gender-based advantages/disadvantages...

Let's say that all male avatars start with the same basic Parameters and Skills levels. The same holds also true for the female avatars.

But the men are stronger than the women, but (as you suggested earlier) the women will have more agility.

To be fair, I'd advise that when all is said and done with setting up the most basic Parameters, that the point totals are equal between the genders, but not distributed the same.

Here's an example of what I mean...

[IMG][/IMG]
Oops! I reversed the figures for women for Dexterity and Agility! Dexterity SHOULD be 53 and Agility SHOULD be 57!

I'd give both men and women an equal number of points to spend in adjusting their Parameters and Skills. I would be careful to give "X" points for Parameters and "Y" points for Skills, meaning that one can not take Parameter points and spend them on Skills, nor vice versa. Every role playing system I've ever participated in has Parameters as being more important than Skills, because Parameters affect so many different game mechanics at the same time. To allow players to be able to take Skill points and spend them on Parameters at the start of the game would most likely mess up the game balance in major ways.

It would also be nice to allow players to lower one's levels below the STARTING point by up to 30%, and then get those points to spend elsewhere (again, lowering the level of a Parameter by 7 points means that those 7 points can only be spent on other Parameters, and not be diverted to Skills). This way, if a player wanted a really ignorant, slow-learning, yet very strong Soldier, they could do so by reducing the Intelligence by 30% below the starting figure.


Is there a way to have a [+] and [-] menu button at the end of each Parameter/Skill entry, and a running total of the number of points left to spend displayed somewhere nearby, so that making adjustments is an easy thing to do?


Let me know if any of the above is confusing, and I'll try my best at describing it better.



And before I go, I'm happy to take more time in writing up a campaign-proposal. Things are pretty crazy around here right now. And having two kids makes working on any of this a nighttime-only endeavor.

I don't play violent games around them, as they're still far too young to understand what's going on, or to appreciate the full consequences of what they're witnessing.



That's it for now. Off to the beta and then to bed. I'll give feedback ASAP, but tomorrow's going to be a most busy day.

Yours,
Kyle
July 3, 2010