KickStarter Mechajammer (formerly Copper Dreams) - cyberpunk RPG from Whalenought Studios

[ArchAngel]

I was not commenting about game design, just my observation when people mentioned BG and Ironman :D

 

[hell bovine]

Baldur's Gate is 2x better in Ironman mode. You actually have to use scrolls, potions and wands when playing Ironman.

Do you think that proves baldur's gate couldn't have been improved had it been designed primarily an ironman game?

Not really; I don't think it would have made a difference.. Baldur's Gate is by far not a perfect cRPG, but it's biggest weakness is that the only meaningful difference between characters is what class they are, because there are no dialogue checks for character attributes (e.g. a dumb grunt plays the same as a genius wizard), nor are the neutral and evil roleplaying opportunities that great. Neither of those issues would have been fixed by a system that prevents save-reloading.

edit:

Frankly, if your dialogues immediately let you know which is the better result,

This is largely a problem with save scum systems and the solution of having delayed outcomes is only really necessitated in save scum games. In games where you can't save scum you'll often not be aware of how much better or worse your choice was, even if the outcomes are immediate. Though I would agree that delayed outcomes are probably preferable the degree to which they're preferable very much depends on what type of save system you're using.

I prefer delayed outcomes because it makes plotlines more interesting and not because of how a save system in a game works.

For example: let's say a game has a quest to sell the Brooklyn bridge, implemented in such way that it's a simple skill check in dialogue. If you succeed you get extra cash and xp, if you fail you don't. Preventing reloading isn't going to fix the problem, which is that there is nothing more to this quest. Or you could add a second outcome: the future bridge owner either sends the police after you, or helps you in a different quest later in the game.

It's not about knowing "how much better or worse your choice was", but rather that all outcomes lead to interesting - if different - results.

 

[Zombra]

It always strikes me as weird that a game can try a whole new combat system, a whole new stealth system, a whole new advancement system, new inventory system, new economic system, etc. and they will be discussed with pros and cons like anything else - but mention a new save system and suddenly it's this huge dealbreaker for people.

 

[Kalin]

But seriously now, why is racist listed under disadvantages?

 

[ArchAngel]

It always strikes me as weird that a game can try a whole new combat system, a whole new stealth system, a whole new advancement system, new inventory system, new economic system, etc. and they will be discussed with pros and cons like anything else - but mention a new save system and suddenly it's this huge dealbreaker for people.

Personally I don't have a problem with this save system as long as it is made to be part of the world but not like this when it is like Diablo and then fuck it. Diablo is ridiculous in everything, nobody cares if it has ridiculous respawn mechanics.
What you are calling save mechanics are actually respawn mechanics. Save mechanics are save and quit.

 

[Fenix]

I think we should wait fro real gameplay experience before submitting complains.
I'm not quite understand how this system will work, so I'll wait for real game.

 

[Zombra]

What you are calling save mechanics are actually respawn mechanics.

lol, a minute ago you were saying this wasn't even a game system but an out of game mechanic. Now it's a respawn mechanic, how could that not be a game system?

Maybe you should worry a little less about what labels to put on things and concentrate a little more on whether they're good for gameplay.

 

[gaussgunner]

But seriously now, why is racist listed under disadvantages?

I guess it changes dialogue choices so you can't be everyone's buddy, only your character's own race. That could be interesting.

EDIT: and I guess it's a disadvantage in this dystopian cyber horror world ruled by SJW redditards.

 

[gaussgunner]

Whalenought_Joe maybe you're getting too creative with the savegame system? I've seen a friend go down this rabbit hole and come out with nothing to show for it. Basically he was trying to be "innovative" like modern Decline Era rpgs. It all sounds nice in theory when you're chatting with fellow game designers but when I'm playing a game, there's nothing better than save-anytime.

I complain about lots of things in *cough* *cough* quality rpgs like PoE and D:OS, but the savegame system ain't one of them. Spiderweb's games have one of the more annoying save systems: click a slot and enter a name, only 1 quicksave slot, no save in combat, and combat is long and prone to disastrous misclicks. But it's still tolerable. A really good one is VTM Bloodlines: save anytime, sensible auto-naming, unlimited slots, and *10 quicksave slots* so you don't have to worry about overwriting you 3rd last save, so you don't have to fill up your save folder with manual saves. You hardly even think about it.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Whalenought_Joe]

It always strikes me as weird that a game can try a whole new combat system, a whole new stealth system, a whole new advancement system, new inventory system, new economic system, etc. and they will be discussed with pros and cons like anything else - but mention a new save system and suddenly it's this huge dealbreaker for people.

I think players get cozy with the idea of infinite saving for a CRPG, unlike other games, so it can be treated like a sandbox and be able create the pacing of their challenges. We explain in detail how we’ve shifted the focus of those dangers/challenges in the KS page with the radio save, and this is just an extension of that.

The goal we had for the original saving system, and its successor, was to add to gameplay, so while it’s a fun thought exercise to design something for characters to magically reload places, that’s certainly not what we were ever trying to do.

But seriously now, why is racist listed under disadvantages?

NPCs and characters create a disposition level to determine how much information (tags) can be divulged in a conversation. There are a lot of determining factors to that, but the PC or NPC being racist for instance just means they lower that disposition, unless they are the same race, of course, so that an also be handy because then it would increase it. We go into detail about disposition in the next update a bit, it's simple, but designed to be very transparent so the player can have some agency in conversation.

 

[gaussgunner]

I think players get cozy with the idea of infinite saving for a CRPG, unlike other games, so it can be treated like a sandbox and be able create the pacing of their challenges. We explain in detail how we’ve shifted the focus of those dangers/challenges in the KS page with the radio save, and this is just an extension of that.

This was mainly a challenge shift from try-until-you-win save scumming to that of enduring with your failures.

So you're adjusting maps & gameplay to be failure-tolerant. If death just slows you down, I assume it won't be possible to fail a mission by alerting the guards or getting captured, either. Can't leave the player in limbo with no recourse to saved games. 'k.

But don't second-guess yourselves on my account if you feel that strongly about it. Indies gotta take some risks.

 

[ArchAngel]

It always strikes me as weird that a game can try a whole new combat system, a whole new stealth system, a whole new advancement system, new inventory system, new economic system, etc. and they will be discussed with pros and cons like anything else - but mention a new save system and suddenly it's this huge dealbreaker for people.

I think players get cozy with the idea of infinite saving for a CRPG, unlike other games, so it can be treated like a sandbox and be able create the pacing of their challenges. We explain in detail how we’ve shifted the focus of those dangers/challenges in the KS page with the radio save, and this is just an extension of that.

The goal we had for the original saving system, and its successor, was to add to gameplay, so while it’s a fun thought exercise to design something for characters to magically reload places, that’s certainly not what we were ever trying to do.

But seriously now, why is racist listed under disadvantages?

NPCs and characters create a disposition level to determine how much information (tags) can be divulged in a conversation. There are a lot of determining factors to that, but the PC or NPC being racist for instance just means they lower that disposition, unless they are the same race, of course, so that an also be handy because then it would increase it. We go into detail about disposition in the next update a bit, it's simple, but designed to be very transparent so the player can have some agency in conversation.

I hope at least you make fun of this system in one small quest or encounter like Bioware did in BG2 Throne of Bhaal with making fun of save/load tactics players (ab)use.

 

[Merlkir]

I think I'm ok with a non-standard saving system (or rather player-failure system), but I'd love if it was explained how the character manages to survive the failure. Just waking up every time with no explanation sounds pretty (as much as I hate the overuse of that term) immersion breaking.

 

[xxxCatholicKillahxxx]

Waiting for more info on the saving system before passing judgment. Someone as bad at video games as I is often in trouble with innovations such as these but that is not a reason to trash such concepts.

Also racism is a disadvantage because of the ever present threats of our times. Anti-whiteness and russophobia. Other such evils could be added to the list which makes racism a disadvantage since the term is about as stretchy as green goo invented by by the late Robbie Williams.

 

[crakkie]

I think I'm ok with a non-standard saving system (or rather player-failure system), but I'd love if it was explained how the character manages to survive the failure. Just waking up every time with no explanation sounds pretty (as much as I hate the overuse of that term) immersion breaking.

It could be something like System Shock replicators, maybe with a cost-per-use. Or Planet's Edge cloners, albeit without rerolling (maybe some temp penalties).

But you would have to assume that other factions have access to it the same tech. Then you're into originals bodies in stasis pods, bio-schematics and techno-phylacteries.

Plenty of wacky cyberpunk explanations beyond "they shot you in the face and you woke up outside the building."

 

[Whalenought_Joe]

I think I'm ok with a non-standard saving system (or rather player-failure system), but I'd love if it was explained how the character manages to survive the failure. Just waking up every time with no explanation sounds pretty (as much as I hate the overuse of that term) immersion breaking.

Yeah the non standard save system is the only way we can create the tension and pacing of a p&p experience, but it's tough to balance how that works for gameplay and logically without some mental gymnastics thinking how resurrection works.

We were going to wait for another update around when the alpha is out to roundtable it with players and see what folks thin, but permanent death is probably where we'll end up.

The mini-campaign mission for the alpha, on starting a new game, has the option to have the death-punishment system mentioned where you accrue wounds and continue, as well as a permanent death where you can just re-roll new agents to have another go at it fresh. The past year one of the last iterations we were working on was designing the campaign around permanent death and this kind of death-penalty pacing, but it's been very intuitive and fun designing around permanent death. We weren’t sure if that was going to be a difficult topic to bridge so we wanted feedback when folks started playing a mission proper, but from the sounds of resistance against a weird save system here and the Kickstarter comments it shouldn't be a problem. We'll eventually only have one of them, we don't want to bother worrying about balancing options or muddying the campaign experience.

For either, there are systems in place that allow players not to die too randomly or as often though, like NPCs not wanting to always fight to the death, unconscious body dump locations you can wake up from if you aren't killed, and just being able to end encounters by sneaking away or avoiding them outright.

While the game isn't exactly random to the extent of Crawl or something, there is randomization of map positions and events on a new-game that shape Calitana’s history, faction powers, and item/NPCs throughout it, so it’s designed to be fresh each play-through. Creating weird characters and the randomized setting variety for the populous should make it fun to roll new characters and have a stab at surviving through the campaign.

 

[The Fish]

Are we going to be seeing updates more frequently for a while?

 

[Zombra]

Are we going to be seeing updates more frequently for a while?

They said they're planning weekly updates until the alpha ... that was 6 days ago ... so we'll see what happens tomorrow

 

[Whalenought_Joe]

Are we going to be seeing updates more frequently for a while?

Are we going to be seeing updates more frequently for a while?

They said they're planning weekly updates until the alpha ... that was 6 days ago ... so we'll see what happens tomorrow

Yeah we'd like to spam you guys until the alpha is out, planning to showcase some content every week. Probably Friday for the next one!

 

[Grotesque]

But seriously now, why is racist listed under disadvantages?

Because being a racist in real life is disadvantageous.

 

[Fenix]

Because being a racist in real life is disadvantageous.

I don't see that in example of feminists.

 

[Excidium II]

But seriously now, why is racist listed under disadvantages?

Because being a racist in real life is disadvantageous.

as long as ur white.

 

[Infinitron]

Wow, they did it: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1649838104/copper-dreams/posts/1867065

Dialogue vs. Player Agency

Copper Dreams uses tag-based dialogue, which we talk about a little bit in the initial Kickstarter overview of the ruleset. In this update we just wanted to go over how that will influence gameplay and roleplaying, and our reasoning for why we decided to use it in our original design doc.

Roleplaying Goals
Our goal was to make dialogue another tool in the player’s belt. Dialogue doesn't take away player agency, and is instead something that's either strictly for the player to get information from NPCs or playful banter — usually somewhere in-between. For Copper Dreams we came up with a few guidelines for dialogue:

• Never author events in dialogue that the player could use gameplay to actually play through. Limiting the large amount of tools we've given the player for gameplay to push some story/dialogue/cinematic would be insulting to the player and systems, and ultimately make a bad DM experience. Players need to be able to respond to dialogue or cinematic situations with ALL their tools and gameplay mechanics normally available.
• The player isn't important or destined for greatness, conversations need to reflect that. It’s a dungeon crawl where you play as cyborg monsters, you're not sitting down for tea, so NPCs shouldn't be to open to a stranger like yourself.
• Allow player agency by making dialogue events predictable by making the tools at your disposal during conversation very consistent in their application. If you try to bribe one person, you can try to bribe them all, whenever you want during a dialogue.

More P&P Feels

Tags were initially a difficult choice for us, as it’s very easy to fall into the trap of dragging the player by the ear to show or tell them something just the way you want to through some dialogue event. Any DM knows the experience of setting up a great event or character encounter for a story to have a player evade or change it through clever or unexpected means. That’s awesome though, allowing player agency for creative problem solving is the crux for most [good] tabletop roleplaying we know. If we’re under the assumption that games should be a challenge, which we are, selecting through a handful of dialogue options for choice/consequence isn’t a challenge, it’s just a storybook with a no-lose scenario.

After assessing what we then wanted, we couldn’t use the typical CYOA events usually done in roleplaying games. CYOA style text options in a gameplay focused RPG is the equivalent of quicktime events to an action game. There's often a contradiction in design for RPGs where they give players an immense amount of tools and ways of completing tasks, but then in a conversation or cinematic players are often shoehorned into a situation where they can only access a fraction of those tools in story contextual ways. No amount of choice and consequence can make up for the fact that the DM took away the rules and tools you were relying on up to that point to be cinematic or story heavy for their own agenda, taking away from your experience.

We had to think about how we use it and make it fun in actual p&p gaming. Rolling for risky (permanent) social disposition changes for NPCs is a big part of that, as well as the focus of using them as a tool for gameplay and not story-dumps. The conversation flow of an NPC saying something and the player asking about keyword highlights is a comfortable flow and encourages the idea that you’re purposefully asking these questions, that these NPCs are a tool at your disposal instead of there to tell you about your story.

Tags and Emergent Gameplay

Tags became an obvious starting point for what we wanted to do. It gives the player total agency and voice of their characters by not having the game authoring what they say and how they say it.

More importantly, this coincides with our other goal to not streamline gameplay through cutscenes or dialogue options, and instead rely on emergent gameplay. Systemic gameplay can sustain itself with no matter what is thrown at it, which was already the goal, but now is certainly an emphasis as we aren’t controlling the content through dialogue.

For instance we have a lot of focus on sneaking mechanics during gameplay to avoid setting off alarms or being seen (or getting un-seen). It would be pretty dodgy, as your DM, if we say or ask to roll during a cinematic or dialogue to avoid being caught or set off alarms after stealing something or killing a target behind enemy lines. When there are burglary, searching, or just gameplay for NPCs existing with some sort of AI, we can’t have these narrative take-overs for the sake of story navigation, that’s lazy. We want to let players roll for these actions anyway they can think of tactically with normal gameplay.

So that’s been a lot of extra work for us to create systems that can ultimately be abused by the player, as we definitely have events and interesting things happening in the city, but for the sake of roleplaying we’re left with allowing the player to disrupt and tackle these events anyway they want to. To that end there is choice and consequence made by the player, not the author.

Dialogue Actions
When you start a dialogue, we show a Disposition score and who/what influences it:

Disposition

NPCs react to you in 1 of 3 ways, or what we call Disposition levels (DL), ranging from giving you no tags to ask about (Closed), some (Wary), or all they have (Open). DL table is pretty simple:

Closed: no tags to ask about

• DL 1 - 8

Wary: a select amount of tags from their total

• DL 9 - 16

Open: all available tags and situational check tags

• DL 17 - 24

DL is a combination of NPC and PC personality modifiers, so both player characters and NPCs can dislike or like each other automatically. Which is to say if you make or find an unsavory character, they will be the ones lowering DL when talking to NPCs. Adversely if an NPC has poor social modifiers or background advantages/disadvantages they’ll be influencing the poor DL. So in this way the player is always trying to mitigate a low DL regardless of the one causing it, as they’re the ones trying to get information.

Modifiers for Disposition Level:

• +/- Advantages
• +/- Disadvantages
• Character Sex
• Character Ethnicity Group (in our alternative world just East-Asian or Mix)
• Logic similarities

Creating the DL is sort of Superficial: the game! Importantly, it allows us to have pre set ‘randomized’ NPCs in the game that the player can always understand how to react to with the rules in place.

Disposition Example

So for a simple conversation example the player tries talking to a non-hostile thug stationed near a dilapidated building.

A Closed DL would have the thug tell the player to shove off.

A Wary DL would present a piece of dialogue with limited tags, like [building] and [gang] to then be able to ask about.

An Open DL would give the player full access to the NPC tags, like [building], [gang], [trouble] and [missing], maybe allowing him to give the player warning that there is another gang nearby who is planning another raid on the area, and a few of the other guards went missing after patrolling through the building nearby. An easy cue for the player to venture into the dilapidated building with a little bit more caution.

In this situation, to give the player a voice, you could explore the building and head back to the thug, showing him a CiWar dog-tag of a gang member found in it to initiate the idea that you checked it out.

From outside combat you can use the same ‘SHOW’ action for an item to anyone to initiate dialogue about the item if they know anything about it or will react to it. For instance inconspicuously navigating a hostile base under cover and showing fake identification to every guard you see for good measure. You can also initiate a conversation with any of the other rolls we talk bout below, or new ones you can train for.

Threaten, Bribe, Persuade

If the NPC will have too low of a DL and the player still wants more info, they have three proactive options besides looking visually more favorable or cybernetics. We have these Social rolls to accomodate this. What’s worth noting, as we briefly mentioned in the last update, the game saves everything, so your rolls and consequences for these are permanent.

Rolls:

• Threaten: Roll 3d8 under Social + Vigor Mod (+/- Adv/Dis)
• Bribe: Roll 3d8 under Social + Cunning Mod (+/- Adv/Dis)
• Persuade: Roll 3d8 under Social + Logic Mod (+/- Adv/Dis)

If roll success

• The roll difference is added to the DL permanently for the NPC and you start conversation with a quip related to the action to start.

If roll failure for Bribe/Persuade

• The conversation doesn’t start and the player is inflicted with a lesser ailment of social shame (-1 DL) for 24 hours.
• Difference of roll is permanently added as a negative modifier to that NPCs DL

If roll failure for Threaten

• The player has offended the NPC, and they either initiate combat if they think they are able to do so or leave the area for 24 hours.
• Difference of roll is permanently added as a negative modifier to that NPCs DL

We'll have a small amount of potential NPCs for the section of the city you play in the alpha to see what you think, including merchants, civilians, and syndicate agents.

Tool Belt at-a-glance
Characters have a lot of actions they can use in and out of combat. We struggled for a while balancing what would be most comfortable to show visually with what would be comfortable and accessible to use.

This was initially separated by character selection in one area and a static action-button field in another — this is what we had when we initially released the Kickstarter. From there it evolved as we iterated and adapted it to work well with movement mechanics, and now finally have what we’re putting in the alpha. It’s a lot more simple, by design of just showing you all 4 characters information and having everything at your disposal. Here's a picture of one character's data in the HUD (art in progress, textures needed and such):

Instead of selecting a character to toggle another interface to show their actions, any character action list can be toggled from the HUD immediately by clicking one of their 3 quick items (4th being empty hands) or their characters skills, which includes anything from movement, those dialogue options, to cybernetics automatically being loaded in.

The selectable part of the character also has an icon displaying what action they are currently doing, which is handy in and out combat.

Bags are neat now too:

Bags, Richard. BAGS!

Next Time

We wanted to show the updated character designs, merchant shopping and some more sneaking and combat, so we'll do that next update. We also wanted to wait to get those portraits from our portrait-tier until we had more of the character examples we were going to show in this next update, so you can get an idea of what options you'll have for looking like in the game.

We also wanted to show off tactical mode, which is much smoother than when we last showed it and will likely be what you'll play in during any potentially hostile situations, so it's good stuff.

Cyberpunk Kickstarter Lookout
We wanted to shoutout to Nicola Piovesan for his campaign about a short film called "Attack of the Cyber Octopuses", who announced they just finished a good chunk of the filming. If you didn't get a chance to check out the campaign while it was live, keep your eyes and/or cyber eye out for when the film launches, it looks fantastic, full of miniatures and 80's cyberpunk goodness!

 

[ArchAngel]

A very cool update. Even with our old cRPG hero developers "dead", new talented blood is working hard to prove themselves

 

[Infinitron]

A very cool update. Even with our old cRPG hero developers "dead", new talented blood is working hard to prove themselves

Funny to say that when this update is a lot like what Tim Cain talked about in "Mistake #6" in his talk.