Behind the Scenes: May Part 1 - Building RPG Aspects

Strap in. This is going to be a long one.

Last time, we talked about building characters and what drives them as people. Today, we’d like to talk about how to start building your own RPG system for your story.

The systems are the last portion of building a LitRPG, and they are often the most complicated part. Oftentimes, the system is the glue that holds the world together. The system will determine what is and is not possible and determine which rules can be bent or broken.

Instead of getting into complicated math and number-crunching, I want to focus on the basic, fundamental building blocks for building your system. There are many questions you can ask yourself, but the ones I ask myself on a consistent basis are the following:

• Do levels grant innate advantages? For example, MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft, Aion, Blade and Soul, Tera, and most modern games, feature a system wherein if two players are fighting, the player who is lower in level innately misses more, deals less damage, fails more spells, etc.

• Is progression linear or horizontal? A linear style of progression would be something akin to Final Fantasy XIV, where stats and skills are automatically assigned to you. A horizontal style would be something similar to Ragnarok Online, where stats and skills are put in the player’s control. You can also elect for a mixture of both. Aion and Blade and Soul are prime examples of such a system.

• Is there a crafting system? If so, is the number associated with the craft an indicator of the individual’s skill, or a way to limit the character from crafting certain items?

  

• How are weapons, armor, and magic affected by the system? In a video game, we can simply look at a gear score or a number and deduce how much damage is dealt or whether or not a status effect can occur. We are granted health bars, mana bars, and constant visual feedback in the form of numbers. But in the real world, armor is armor, and weapons and protective gear are designed with a purpose. Does chainmail protect against slashing attacks like it does in real life? Or is your character able to cut through it like butter just because their strength is high?

  

• How do skills and magic work? Are they called out and automatically used? Does the system take control of the user’s body and send their limbs into a flurry of motions against their will? Can they stop mid-action? Is there some degree of adaptability required on the user’s part?

This last question is very important and was something I had to think long and hard about, especially in regard to melee and ranged combatants. In many video games, restrictions are put in place for balance or playstyle-related reasons. But what’s to stop a person from throwing an axe or thrusting with their spear or snaring someone with a net? Nothing.

You can choose a system that controls the user, or you can let your characters do whatever they like, giving them opportunities to improve their attacks depending on the circumstances and whether or not they’ve invested points in such a skill.

There are many options here.

• How can I break this? When coming up with skills and spells, you need to think of how it can be abused or broken. If you were able to come up with a way to break it, then someone else will, too. People don’t want to die, and they’re going to try and come up with any way they can to avoid dying. “Cheese-tactics" and “broken strats” do not exist when your survival is at stake. To quote Kazuya from Tekken: “A fight is about who is left standing. Nothing else.”

  

After you’ve determined how it can be broken, you need to decide if you’re okay with that. Whether or not you fix it, it is entirely unrealistic to think that someone else would not discover how it can be broken, and thus, you must address it at some point in your story.

• Lastly—and I feel this is the most important question—how does this system affect the average person? Remember that not everyone is out to grind levels and be a god. Some people don’t care and just want to live their life on a farm or become a carpenter or make buttons. More importantly, people like this are integral to making your world feel real and lived in. It takes all kinds of people to make a world.

If you can answer these questions, then you’re well on your way to creating a great system for your world. That said, there is one thing above all else that you need to remember with your system, and that thing is CONSISTENCY.

Nothing pulls a reader out of the world more than a lack of consistency. If the rules are constantly changing, constantly shifting, then it becomes difficult to acknowledge where the goalpost is or where the line ends. With the system being so integral to how everything works, the system is the one piece of your story that needs to always remain consistent.

Exceptions can exist, and they can serve as powerful plot points. However, if you do introduce such a feature, it needs to have a purpose in the narrative and must stand out as something strange or unique. A character who is limited and still comes out on top is much more interesting than a character who always wins and never struggles.

I encourage each and every one of you to explore your story and find your own ways to weave your system throughout your world. It can be a very intimidating experience, but it is immensely rewarding.

I hope this will encourage some of you to try your hand at writing LitRPG or even fiction in general. Many of the subjects we went over can be applied to any story. Even if the task is daunting, it is my belief that everyone has an interesting story to tell. Just because a similar story has been told before doesn’t mean that your story is boring.

It is your story. There are many like it, but no one has ever written it like you have.

Thank you so much for your support! See you soon.