How does the math work that drives an RPG?
This isn’t a matter of math so much as your philosophical approach. It’s been a long time since I played RPGs (and those were all paper-based), but as I recall, the common theme behind this kind of thing was that the higher up you get, the harder it is to advance. Runequest had a fairly straightforward approach. IIRC, skills (not attributes) were all rated in a 20-point scale. In order to level up a skill, you had to use that skill successfully a number of times equal to your current skill level on a mission, and then roll above your skill on a d20 after the mission to actually raise it. Another approach would be to say that a given task is worth N points applied to a certain skill/s, and that to level up the skill requires a geometrically increasing number of points (ie going 1-2 takes 10 points, 2-3 requires 20, 3-4 requires 40, etc). Representing either of these mathematically is trivial; the latter would would require more scenario-writing overhead because you’d have to say “OK, pi
When it comes to balancing I agree with a previous poster that it all comes down to what philosophy you implement. For example, you could work on balancing each character individually so they could have even chances against one another…or you could implement a “rock-paper-scissors” approach where the magician always wins against the warrior, the rogue always wins against the magician, and the warrior always wins against the rogue. You can accomplish a lot of this by using weights on various things (as much as you’d like to really but i’d avoid making it too complicated). Things like….damage types, armor types, range vs. melee, etc. Each of those variables can have their advantages or penalties when they interact with other variables. For example, ranged weapons hit heavy armor wearers easier without being evaded, but do less damage than if it was light armor. In D&D a lot of this is done with the random seed weighting from dice rolling. Roll for damage, opponent rolls a save throw,
The real secret of RPGs, in my experience playing them, is that you work out how the battling works at Level 1, then as you level, you just multiply all the numbers up and up by the same constant (factoring in equipment upgrades.) The real change (and the part that keeps the game interesting) is you introduce some new mechanics for the players and enemies to use. Then, you make sure you rig the experience breaks/enemy spawns so a ‘typical’ player will hit levels that match the enemies as he encounters them. Now, the magical part, is that your game is ‘self balancing’ in the sense that if some area proves too hard for a player, the player can grind up a level or two and come back and beat that area. So, in short, you make the game work at one level and you’ve done a lot of the work. Games like Oblivion try to level the enemies with the player (presumably so the player can do the dungeons in any order,) but I don’t like this, since, IMHO, it defeats the greatest benefit of the RPG, the s
