I’ve been kicking around this idea a little bit in my head for quite a while now, and I figured that it would be better if I sat down and wrote about it as opposed to trying to keep it all locked up–Where I’m usually apt to forget about it. Here are just a couple rambling ideas that I’ve had so bear with me..

‘Delinquent - Law of the Fist’

Objective - As a new student at a Japanese School, it’s you’re objective to become the “school guardian” or Head Hoodlum. By joining clubs and forming aliances, you will hone your skills to overcome and crush your enemies, while making sure not to be expelled.

Format -On-Line Based… Though I suppose you could do other things as well.

Attributes -

Strength
Speed
Stamina

Honor Based Systems -

Authority
Classmates
Hoodlum

Authority would be Teachers / Principals / Gangleaders (Yakuza) / Police, etc..
Classmates would be non-combatant characters for who you would interact.
Hoodlum - You’re overall reputation with the other ‘gangsters’ in your school.

You social ranking with these groups would determine how or what you would be able to get away with. For example, say you start off at a 0 ranking in all three attributes. If, for example, you had a Positive Ranking with Authority, you would be less inclined to be bothered by those if you ended up being in a fight.

Club Activities
By participating in certain clubs, for example the Judo Club, you could get further experience in special attributes in certain combat skills. The more you train within that subset, the increase amount of skill you would have for additional combat.

Work
If you decide to participate in a Job, it’s a means to earn extra money.. Or you could do nefarious things like bully your classmates for money (but you would end up getting a negative attribute in doing so.. )

Fighting
Don’t really know how you would go about doing this, but you would have certain hoodlums that have a set social ranking. For example, if you tried to fight a higher end hoodlum, you wouldn’t be able to even approach them unless you had a high enough experience / hoodlum level.

You would start off fighting someone at a lower level and after defeating those people, you could work your way up to fighting the ‘boss’ of that particular gang.

In fighting someone, if you defeat them, you could either form an aliance with that person, or you could utterly defeat them — Making them a pure enemy.
So as you go further up in your fighting, say you got involved with a turf war or whatever, you could call on your alliance of other people to help out in that fight.

Anyway, those are just some ideas I was kicking around in my head. In reading it now, I guess it sounds a little bit hokey… But I figured that if it was an on-line environment, it could have various people going ot the same school, trying to each become the head hoodlum. The clubs could have there own forum, and if you wanted, you could challenge other people online in a gang fight.

I suppose it all comes off either too much like those ‘Pimp Wars’ games (or a more recent type — Bite Fight’), but it would have a specific nitch audience.. Those people who are familiar with the early Japanese Macho Anime / Manga where might made right, and the most extreme weapons you would see would be like a knife, baseball bat, or bicycle chain..

So I guess it would be pretty much a strategy game to a certain degree.. But how to put it all together is beyond me at this point. But I just wanted to share my idea and see what you think.

Influences - ‘Angel Densetsu’ Manga by Norihiro Yagi, Anime / Manga taking place in the late 70’s..

- Rob

Just some quick thoughts on paper.

class Proposal
{
   protected $id;
   protected $name;
   protected $description;
   protected $creator; // character
   protected $onsuccess; // script
   protected $onfail; // script
   protected $oncancel; // script
   protected $faction; // faction
   protected $yesvotes;
   protected $novotes;
   protected $votepool; // number or null
   protected $type; // base ruleset for proposal, int
   protected $flags; // proposal options for rules
   protected $parent; // counterproposal to
   protected $created; // date
   protected $expires; // date
   protected $status;
}

class ProposalVote
{
   protected $id;
   protected $proposal;
   protected $created;
   protected $creator;
   protected $value;
   protected $comment;
}

Flow chart pseudo for a promotion proposal:

• Click “promote” (script to promote with parameters prepared)
• Check permissions in faction to do this
• $proposal = $faction->proposals[’promote’][rank] contains nothing or a default proposal for creating that proposal at that rank
• $proposal->type might be ‘instantaneous’ in which case, script is immediately ran
• Otherwise, $proposal->Create() after filling in unique info creates the proposal
• Based on type, events (expire, max votes filled, supermajority reached, etc) can cause a proposal to close with a ’success’, ‘fail’ or ‘cancel’ result.
• If a script is attached to the appropriate handle for the proposal result, it is executed.
• Proposal status is set to ‘closed’

Classes

Some title ideas and their 6-matrix + notes:

• Pirate - [danc, illu, summ]
• Ranger - [danc, monk, stra]
• Archer - [illu, stra]
• Paladin - [danc, monk]
• Necromancer - [monk, illu, summ]
• Overseer - [monk, stra, summ]
• Sculptor - [summ]

Not all titles have to come from the 6-matrix, some can come from just tradeskill specialization or playstyle:

• Baker - Good at making cakes
• Chemist
  
• Swordsmith - Specialized in swords
• Diplomat - Specialized in political and social tree
• Politician

These ‘titles’ might better be referred to as ‘class’ or ‘profession’. Something about class is that it may give players less of a feeling that they’re playing Minesweeper on the battlefield. You’re free to make assumptions. You’re also free to be wrong. Also an Illusionist ability to hide the class from casual eyes, or misrepresent them.

Titles

A second field in a character might have a status title from faction status or play awards.

• Mayor
• Duchess
• Coward
• Slaughterer
• General
• Master

These might combine to form a wholistic title:

• Master Swordsmith
• General Archer
• Mercenary Shadowblade

If in a given titlespace, multiple things qualify, or in the class sense, you are very close to multiple things being ‘most applicable’ (i.e. ‘tied for first’), the player could choose.

Advantages

Now, short of status, there can be a real reason for getting a title. Each title could come with a single skill or set of skills that you have for as long as you have the title. Some might not do much (Pirate - “Avast!” - Makes everyone in range talk like a pirate in battle chat), while some may be very useful (Coward - “Escapism” - Once per day, can escape from battle all locks and teleport to home city). When you have multiple titles to select from, you can only pick the one you want, even if you qualify for many.

In short, I’d like to use titles as a friendly identifier, a status symbol, a ‘collectors boon’ (gotta catchemall / find the hidden easter egg titles), and a customizer.

To one side of it is medals (I plan on giving medals of honour for things like in BF2), and to the other side is Starsign (Astrological sign at character creation, gives very minor stat / attribute customization). Basically as much customization for a character as possible and more feeling like this character is ‘mine’ and unique. The down side is we might have to make a lot of little icons.

Apprenticeship and the socio-economic ramifications of any related game mechanics have been the forefront of my thoughts lately. Some visibility:

• Some rite of passage grants someone a Master Craftsman status (also vote). The craft guilds could be handled as factions, with one ranking ladder.
• Each Master can take on a number of Apprentices. The Apprentices take care of doing low-level sub components, gathering, and anything else menial. There is an exclusivity arrangement with the Master (the Master will likely fire the Apprentice if he goes and sells his sub components on the auction without the Master’s permission).
• In exchange, Apprentices gain a mentoring bonus to their craft progression and ability that makes them want to stay with the Master.
• Eventually, they begin to be able to make simple sellable finished items. After a specific level, Apprentices may raise to Journeymen. Journeymen traditionally are day-labourers, and are payed for their services by their masters, and may travel working under different masters to round out their training. I’m not exactly sure how to work in either concept if feasible [making money for services / employment] and [going from Master to Master], but I think they are worth exploring. Especially if you have some sort of ’stamp’-like system where certain advancements (for example getting a Master skill level, or getting certain skill trees purchased) require some sort of quest/trial/service/apprenticeship to complete under a different or number of different masters to be able to go forward. This is not unlike the ‘pyramid inversion’ of specialism in knowledge I was discussing with skills.
• When a Journeyman is of the Master ability level and meets the requirements of journeying and apprenticing times and certificates, they may attempt to make a “Masterpiece”. This is a huge endeavour, perhaps one that must be completed entirely (all sub components) by the crafter, and one that takes a considerable amount of time and toil. It should be not something we make easy enough that ‘everyone’ can get it. Only the truly craft-dedicated can approach this.
• I have toyed with the idea of patenting a Masterpiece with the Master’s own choice of naming or their name on it, and perhaps some graphical customization above the normal (and possibly being able to submit their own image for approval). I’ve also toyed with the idea of them gaining a bonus to the future creation of that Masterpiece (as replicas) for clients, a bonus large enough that they would become famous for making that item.
• When a Journeyman has completed their Masterpiece, they must approach the guild that they wish to join and show it as a resume of their skills. The Guild Masters must vote on the addition of another Master
• On a successful vote, the Journeyman is now a Guild Master and can vote on Guild decisions and partake in all of guild politics.
• Grand Mastery is still a possibility (more vote weight, status)