Luck in RPGs - We CAN Do Better!
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- Опубликовано: 9 ноя 2021
- In this video, we discuss the Luck attribute in computer role-playing games by taking a look at how it's been used in some of my all-time favorite series!
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I hope you all enjoy second video in my making attributes better series! Can’t wait to see your suggestions & thoughts on the topic!
what is the game at 5:34?
I like the system of karma(when a player does a good action he gets a higher hidden luck stat) and that the luck is something that must be influenced by the player actions while being balanced by the system so that he can experienced both sides of the coin: one day he will encounter a monster the other day will be calm. and if he has a better luck atttribute, depending on the difficulty and game design, he will only encounter a monster 1 day on 3.
Something that this video made me remember was the "Stunt Points" from the "Dragon Age RPG Core Rulebook", where something like "critical hits" on a roll would create a new resource for the player to use and kind of "activate a critical strike/action".
I think Luck in videogames could be used as a Resource or Resource Generation mechanic and then give the player creative ways to use it, the "critical hit" from a Luck based test would no longer be random only the acquisition of its resource. Even though I don't think it fit in every kind of game and creates a different type of experience.
Wow, I haven't heard of that and I am a massive Dragon Age fan! Thanks for sharing that sounds incredibly interesting, plan on looking into that!
As someone who typically runs luck builds in Fallout games i always liked the idea of randomly having an enemy's weapon jam or slip out of their hands during combat or even had it affect the chance for your gun to jam, kinda wish they did stuff like that. That being said luck as a stat is hard to implement without it either it feeling weak or too strong.
In the call of Cthulhu tabletop rpg, you can spend luck points to improve your roll. So if the dice check requires a 50 to pass and I rolled a 48, I can spend 2 of my luck points to succeed. OR if I already passed the dice check, I can spend luck to make my regular success a critical success.
I think this would work great in some turned based rpgs or crpgs. For the King has a similar system as the one I just described, except they call it “focus points”
Ah yes I am familiar with For the King! Fantastic game, interesting I’ll have to run some Call of Cthulhu sometime soon then! Thanks for sharing!
The thing with Luck is that the Lucky character archetype is a thing and has been for some time. Some characters have extremely bad luck while others have extremely good luck and aspects of their personality then get built around that fact with good luck often getting tied with charismatic, arrogant hot shots that rely on their luck to do well in life. And it's a fun character, with the major foreseeable flaw that luck always runs out sooner or later and shouldn't be relied on to that extent. I then would want to allow luck as a stat to give players the experience of being that sort of character and think taking that away entirely takes away a fundamental player choice that can affect gameplay and roleplaying.
A potential fix for it would be that the luckier you are, the more likely things are going to go well for you, but for every time things go well for them, the chances also rise that they will have critical failures. And if they've invested solely in luck rather than any other stats, those failures are going to hit the player hard. Unlucky characters are most likely to have things go wrong for them, but they'll also have more traits and abilities to mitigate the effects of what goes wrong and so are better off in the long run because their luckless existence has forced them to be more prepared for when things go wrong.
Luck could give you more option to choose from at the begging, 10 = son of king, 1 = beggger. On hardest difficulty you would have more points for another attributes than on the easiest.
I think you're right! I like the notion of coordinating a number with an image like that, or a background. Hard to understand the difference between 4 and 6 luck, but the difference between a commoner & knight background are more illustrative. Thanks for the comment!
Luck is controversial stat player could have. It's very hard to measure or even feel its impact. I never agree putting this as a stat in any game. Sure, some games use RNG to determine success or failure of every action, in which luck could increase success chance. However that means player with low luck stat would be playing a gambling game even though the game isn't about gambling. If there were any way players could increase success chance without toying with luck stat, it means luck stat is less impactful than other stats.
The best suggestion I could say about using luck feature for future games is first: random feature should be implemented on stuffs such as enemy encounter, loot finding and dungeon shapes (for roguelikes) which doesn't hinder gameplay. Second : the luck feature is not from player stat but instead given from items such as trinkets, spell or even gears. Example: players without lucky gear would only meet decent enemy encounter and regular loots while players with lucky gear meet less/easy enemy encounter and better loots.
You make some good points! I like the suggestions you bring up, those are the type of things I love looking into when examining the future of what Luck will become in RPGs!
Reposting my reddit comment here to help you with algorithm engagement
Luck as an attribute is something I avoid. I think there are better ways to represent luck. Like a number of times you can succeed in a previously failed roll, or avoid a consequence of failure. Even the old Fallouts did this well with "jinxed" affecting enemies. A luck stat that caused bad thing to happen with your enemies is an interesting idea. i think luck based traits and special abilities are a better fit than a basic stat.
Changing critical from luck based to part of a skill tree does more than "redistribute luck" it completely re-contextualises what critical strikes mean in the context of the game fiction. A luck-based critical means the character was lucky enough that something good accidently happened. On the other hand as part of the relevant weapon tree, it means your character is skilled enough to target vital spots consistently. It is a god thing that you don´t feel luck with critical in Skyrim because that is not the fantasy the system is working for and that is why to me this different approach to criticals is an unequivocal win.
Really appreciate you taking the time to double up your comment it really helps out the channel!
I can understand why you want to avoid systems like that, and I think you're not in the minority, I think the points you bring up are a huge reason people avoid/dont engage with luck systems!
You also make some really great points about what 'luck' is! Never thought about the last part of what you said but you're right! It's more than redistributing what the attribute is, its an entire different experience, a whole new fantasy.
Thanks for the comment again! Truly love hearing other people's POV!
New Vegas Luck Reigns Supreme
The game was rigged from the start!
I don't think what Shadow of War is doing should even be mentioned in the same breath as what Fallout has.
One is an invisible self-balancing gameplay machine.
The other is a stat with 0 feedback.
There's nothing common between them.
What SoW is doing is amazing, but it has nothing to do with Luck as a stat.
And if it *were* connected to a stat, I'd absolutely hate it.
As an actual stat, I think the Heroes of Might and Magic series does it best.
Let's go with the third entry.
There are only a handful of levels: -3 to +3.
Its effects only apply to one specific (but *the* most important) part of the gameplay: attacks. You always know _when_ you roll a dice, and you always know when you succeeded.
It doesn't affect gameplay with 0 luck, as all attacks will always hit. So no frustration for players who ignore it. It can be negative, but you have to go out of you way for it, making it completely different from X-Com-like % hit chances.
It'll play the role of a critical hit/miss instead. Good luck: double damage, bad luck: half damage.
The exact percentages aren't shown, but you can _very easily_ get a feel for how effective 1 level of luck is. You roll the dice extremely often, so you'll learn quickly, and the sorta roguelike gameplay (as opposed to a single RPG campaign) will help with learning it in all kinds of environments.
Also, luck is the *only* stat that influences these rolls. Nothing else interferes, which makes it 100% clear how effective it actually is.
You make some good points, I quite like heroes of might and magic’s system of luck myself!
Wtf are these closed captions?
LOL did RUclips do weird ones again? I've had it happen before, the early ones sometimes end up a little bizarre! Il check it out! Thanks for sharing!!
LOL OKAY THOSE ARE TERRIBLE. I love auto generated captions
I think luck as a stat doesn't make any sense because by its nature it serves as kind of a divine intervention, and so it would be best if instead protagonists of their respective cRPG worlds had some kind of rabbit's foot charm which would possess some divine, magic-like power to alter events or outcomes in a protagonist's favor.
IIRC, Red Dead Redemption had an actual rabbit's foot which decreased a chance of being hit by gunfire. It's hard to say whether it really worked or if it worked as some kind of placebo, where a player believing he has more chances to survive an encounter would think, with the help of self-deception, that he is, in fact, lucky (or a good player). I guess that's probably how authored (curated) luck works.
Otherwise, if a designer decides to have the luck stat in their game, then both NPCs and the protagonist should have it. Although then it would function in DnD fashion where both you and your opponent roll the dice and whoever wins gets lucky with whatever outcome.
Yeah, I agree it's hard to implement it with some sense at all given the points you made!
The purpose of the video was to more talk about maybe how we could salvage it, but it's totally possible it stays on the decline and eventually is killed out.
But I think systems do exist that are luck-based and good, just unsure of their longevity and how realistic they are to evolve.
I like the red dead example! One that totally slipped my mind thanks so much for sharing!