[Rainer Deyke]

Right now I'm working on an rpg that is fairly non-linear. It is not completely freeform, however. It has a beginning and an end. It has a goal. The player either reaches it (thereby winning the game) or dies trying (thereby losing the game). The various events between the beginning and the end make up the plot, which is partially pre-scripted and partially determined by the player's actions.

The problem I've run into is that there are various ways for the player to make the game unwinnable. The most obvious example I can think of is killing (or permanently alienating) an npc who was supposed to give the player critical help. I can think of several things to do about this problem, none of them fully satisfactory.

• I can just let the player make the game unwinnable. It's his own fault that he killed that npc who was obviously on the player's side.
  
• I can immediately end the game when the player has messed up. If the player can't win, he loses.
  
• I can categorically forbid actions which may make the game unwinnable. No fighting in town.
  
• I can make actions which would mess up the game impossibly difficult. Critical npcs are immortal.
  
• I can put in backup systems that keep the game winnable at all times. Killed the npcs who knows the secret password? Look, he's written it down on a piece of paper. Lost the key to the secret passage? What luck, it's not locked.
  

What makes this even more complex is that there may be multiple solutions to a problem which depend on different events. What if the player only needs to convince one of the wizards to help him - he only loses if he kills or alienates them all. He may even need to do something bad to one of them in order to get help from another.

Any comments?

[js71]

Morrowind had a system where if you kill a critical npc it notifies you, saying you can keep playing but cannot win.

[Ironshanks]

Yeah, that's a useful system, because you know then that you should probably go and reload your game but you can keep playing if you want.
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That's not a broken link, it's a PICTURE of a broken link. It's really very conceptual.

[Jihgfed Pumpkinhead]

     I think I'd much prefer to be notified before I kill the NPC, rather than afterwards, since I'm not (most people aren't) always as conscientious about saving as I should be. However, if it's obvious that it would be a painfully stupid thing to kill a given NPC, and I do so anyway, I don't really think I deserve too much mercy.
     I think the best way, if it's not too much work (though I realize that it will be a lot of work), is to have many alternate paths, like your many wizards example.
     Have you ever played Fallout? It did a fair, but buggy, job of working around a non-linear plot. A good game, and unlike Morrowind, you don't need to have stolen your computer from the NSA within the last year to play it.
     It would really help if we knew the plot of your game, or at least the goal. I mean, in a game like mine the only goal is to acquire influence; there are few required plot "bottlenecks", so the non-linearity really doesn't pose much of a problem. But a different type of game would be, well, different. So what are you doing?

[Rainer Deyke]

The game will be about war. Unite the warring tribes to drive out the hated oppressors. I'm basing this loosely on one particular historical period - the Baltic crusades - although it will take place in a fantasy world with fictional tribe names. The Balts are the player's people, the crusaders are the hated enemy.

The player will control a small party. This will not be strategy game focused on the clash of huge armies, nor will it be about life as a soldier. It will be the story of one hero and his companions and their role in the war. One theme will be what a small group of adventurers can - and can't - do to turn the tides of war.

The game will have certain critical plot points which are there to prevent the player from rushing into the final confrontation. If the player rushes to the final confrontation, he will miss out on most of the game and he will lose because his party is too weak. Yet rushing in is exactly what a true hero would do, unless there is something critical that needs to be done first. Hence the need for plot points.

Actually the war aspect of the game adds another dimension to critical npcs. The enemy can and will attack the villages containing npcs. The player and the npcs will try to fend off the attack. Npcs can and will die. I guess I just need to make sure that the npcs in the attacked villages are never truly critical.

[Jihgfed Pumpkinhead]

     Do you really need the plot points? Or rather, do you need these plot points so concretely centered around specific characters?
     If your game is focused around uniting various tribes, you could allow the player to do this as he sees fit; once he has accrued a certain amount of influence, that would trigger a plot point. In this way, every quest and character is essentially equal; some may be more important, but none is critical in itself. So, instead of being "major event A occurs when the hero completes quest A", it's "major event B occurs when the hero accrues X influence".
     Of course, the problem is that since everybody's expendable, it's hard turn the NPCs into very developed characters, since you can't even count on them to be alive at any given time. I guess that's the price you pay for a non-linear game. I think it's worth it, though.
     Sorry if I've been stating the obvious.

[Rainer Deyke]

[Suchiiben]

You could just pull a Nethack and have it prompt the player if they really want to harm this pivotal character.

[Jihgfed Pumpkinhead]

[Rainer Deyke]