Why not an option with a switch in setup - “protect important NPC” on by default and if you turn it off you get a warning after killing important NPC. In skyrim I run into a problem where I joined with rebels and later in the game wandered into imperial outpost - they attacked me on sight and of course I killed them all… all but the commander who was important unkillable NPC that kept attacking me - annoying as hell that I couldn’t simply kill him even tho he wasn’t important NPC for me.
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That’s option 3. you can like it (=vote for it)
Please put option 3 in the game. I’d appreciate it a great deal.
That is why I made two suggestions: the other one being that the NPC “gain” an item, so when the player killed him/her this new item enable him to move on.
But the NPC A C E could be know by P Q R, the actors for the roles of P Q R should in some instance said the names of A C and E; and they could just say “It’s a shame that C died.” (noting that it doesn’t matter if their are trying to continue the quest, they are just reacting to the death of someone that they knew), the following sentence could be “Listing… I need to tell you something.” P is whispering in the ear of the player (whispering sounds)
Why not both 2 and 3? edit: let player choose when starting new game.
I like 3rd option most.
What if you you kill ACE as well as PQR? What if you kill everybody except one guy? All quests and quest items would go to the last man standing? That’s not a bulletproof system although it seems stable from purely technical viewpoint.
It seems one ends with either ultimate fail (morrowind) or ultimate immortality (skyrim) systems. Workarounds are too costly (but much easier in sci-fi or fantasy settings) or you have to restrain your design to a barebones generic stuff which is impossible to break. Which sucks.
BTW We can’t go wild with letters as most people in those tymes were illiterate so we cannot pass questgiver status to items holding information - books, letters, recipes, holotapes, daguerreotypes…
You’re forgetting that P,Q,R knew A,C,E and the other did’t so that quest is in failed state if ACEPQR are dead before completion. (and if only A is alive?.. failed quest or completed quest?)
Well, If you kill everyone then is clear that the player doesn’t want to do quests, he will be living in a desert island. (with the animals?)
My suggestion was more a player killing accidentally the NPC. I was thinking more like how the brain works, when there is a problem in a particular region the brain make new connections, but if you remove the brain … well.
If is to choose among those 3 choices, i would go with 3. I want to feel responsable for the action in game.
Compromise between 2 and 3 (sorry for my english):
Player attacking important NPC - Henry saying for example: “That I should carefully consider” and doesn’t attack. But when player continue in attacking- then variant 3.
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I would do a combination with a social warning like Dekssan mentioned, but if you would go all out badass in maybe a next playthrough, turn of the protection and just kill the lot like a maniac. Personally I wouldn’t use that option since I enjoy a good story driven game better then an ultimate sandbox where you can basically do anything yet break main story lines too. Doesn’t do the game enough justice to do so and frankly doesn’t add much to the game. Make it a sandbox mode or something but I would focus on not be able to kill vital NPC for at least the main story.
I feel that this game the player should be able to kill any NPC even the necessary ones but not without an warning upon first attack or an icon that appears when the cursor passes over the designated NPC displaying that they are a key
character or important to a quest. I think this would add a level of authenticity to the game and prevent too many NPCs from being immortal.
i never understand why some players think being able to kill all npc is part of meaningful game design.
i don’t see it as “story” issue, but design issue. realistic world, realistic consequences…then you have “maniac” gameplay. just not necessary imo.
I would not say all NPCs but rather any NPC. I think that if you kill some key NPCs then you should end in unwinnable scenario where the rest of NPCs will attack and kill you. I mean, it should be possible to kill king or anyone who invites you to their castle/house/tavern but because they are surrounded by loyal servants and friends who will attack you you would have no way of escaping, you simply can not kill bunch of people alone unless you have superpowers and I hope that in this game we will not have them.
I still do not know why would anyone attack a king (or any other important NPC) just because he can, but if he does so, he should face realistic consequences (i.e. death).
P.S. If the player managed to somehow beat all the NPCs then he would not need to do quests anymore, he would be the last man standing in that part of the world, he obviously is not person who cares about story, so I would add condition to the game (IF all NPCs are dead THEN roll credits). As you can see the game would not be broken then and whoever manages to kill everything would be still able to finish it.
Well, games can be played in different ways. Many RPG’s does allow the player to play the game differently than intended. Take Skyrim for example, there are multiple ways of playing the game without completing it, without the purpose of completing it. If you read on the Bethseda forums you can see there are many people “playing the story” of a character they’ve just created. Doing some of the quests in the game, but not all, or doing none of the quests.
I can see myself trying to do “other things” in KC than just following the story line. Doing things outside the storyline, doing things you’re not meant to do is all part of playing a sandbox game. The strenght of a RPG, in my opinion is when you can do more or less whatever you want. You get “another game” in the first game so to say.
I would prefer the 2nd option. with a dialog like “He is too important for me” “He wouldn’t worth the price” etc…
another option could be that, if you kill some very powerfull NPC, you would be chased by a lot of other NPC (gard, villagers, etc…) with no other option but to try survive (which should be somehow impossible). In other word, you will be publicly linched to death.
But it depend of NPC. For example, the girl who wake up us at the beguining of the story, if this girl is important for the narration, you should have a stop like “It’s my sister/she save me, I can’t do that” after all, we don’t create our character and much of his bond. For others (may be, at one time, the weaponsmith is crucial for the main quest) do the character impossible to kill discretly/with no witness). In that situation, the caracter would be named as a a murder, and would be chased, and avoid by all the population. With no way to came back. And no way to do anithing else thant fleeing, or being chased, arrested, and hang on a proper place.
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Seems like there could be more immersive ways to deal with the problem.
Depending on the context, some could survive being killed and show up hospitalised some time afterward, delaying your quest, in other cases they might just be replaced by someone else and in other cases, a strong group of enemies from the faction of the dead NPC could promptly track you down and kill you, or if you’re in the quest that the NPC is helping you with, it could be your mutual enemies that kill you because you didn’t have the NPC to assist you. There’s also the possibility to let players skip important parts of the main quest, replacing those parts with something less glamorous, interesting and work intensive, that would still lead to the next part.
In a perfect world, it would be obvious that killing a particular NPC is a bad idea and the consequences would make sense within the story.
Anyway, option 3 isn’t so bad. I hope you have time to make the system seem reasonably flexible though, even if not foolproof.
I think it will be better if we keep the main story NPCs alive. Option 1.
I believe the best method is if these guys are important NPC’s i imagine they have bodyguards you are either not going to get close or get killed before you can kill them. i guess a good player might be able to though, but it would be a hard fight.
I’m not sure we can take for granted that all NPCs that are critical to the completion of the story-line quest are going to be important enough that they’ll have bodyguards at all times. As far as I can tell from the OP, the requirement is that they’re unique people (think named, possibly known by the main character directly), not that they’re royalty or anything.
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that is a fair point, but i imagine most NPC’s around this time are not push overs and can hold there ground or survive long enough to get backup, i guess assassination is the only way to do them in quickly
Possibly, but it all depends on who they have in mind. I haven’t read up on the backstory of our character, so I’m not sure he has any family, but imagine for example his sister/mother/other relative/close friend was crucial from a story perspective. It’d most likely be easy for a player to kill such a character at will as it would come as a complete surprise from their perspective and they may well not be capable fighters.