Losing party members as the game progresses Options

[CWCprime]

So I had the idea of having a game where you lose party members as the game progresses, as opposed to gaining them.

I was planning on doing it for the sake of the story, not just for the heck of it. The world faces a seemingly unstoppable force, and where everyone else failed, your party manages to begin the process of pushing the force back. The loss of party members would emphasize that the party is not as powerful they seem, and that hope for the land would be questioned. Very somber and melancholy game ;P It would be a slow process, like a party member being lost every 1/3 of the game or so. And some of the key abilities of dead characters would later be learned by the remaining members, and the enemies would be scaled to accommodate for lost members.

Has this ever been done before, in an RPG Maker game or otherwise? If so, how well was it pulled off?

If it hasn't, does it sound like something that would be interesting to play, and what advice would you have to help pull this off effectively?

Thanks in advance!

[Titanhex]

You want the work done with the dead members to be significant when they are lost from the party. By redistributing their powers, you may be able to accomplish this, but remember to keep the narrative in sync with that, or immersion may be lost.

I have seen games remove or kill off members, but rarely more than one person. Your game will be unique from my viewpoint.

This isn't difficult to do, and I think it would be interesting.

[shinyjiggly]

I'm wondering, if a character is killed-off by the story, would you make their equipped items un-equipped, or would you make their equipment go poof with them? Or would each character have special types of equipment that only they can use and nobody else which would remove the want or need to return the equipment?
Because I'm sure that somebody will definitely rage if character 2 got killed-off with the super-expensive super-armor on and they can't get it back because they were wearing it when they got removed from the party.
Sorry for the run-on sentences, it's kinda late and my concentration is poised mostly on this absurdly large laptop keyboard.

[Tsukihime]

I remember seeing it in FF5
Old man died, daughter took over with cloned stats and equips.

I liked it, cause I didn't like looking at an old man in my party.
There was no real difference in gameplay; only affected the story in that case.

I think there were a couple games I've played where if a character dies in battle...that's it the character's dead for good o.O
It was a TBS though, and of course the ones that die permanently were not key characters and didn't matter to the story.

This post has been edited by Tsukihime: Oct 18 2011, 09:26 PM

[Essenceblade]

You must pull this off correctly. You need to plan it out, and make it the least expected thing to happen. In FFIV for the DS they deliberately killed off the characters only for them to be replaced moments later. I.E Cid after you come from under the overworld, He just randomly decides to jump off the ship despite the fact they'd make it out. Make it sympathetic and as detailed as it can be. And don't make these "Deaths" too fluent. You don't even need to kill them, they can just dissapear, betray you or anything else.

[amerk]

It sounds interesting, but it can easily wind up as something that sounds better on paper than in action. Other games have done similar things, but not to the extent you are planning. As one poster noted, FFV. But that was one character, versus the whole party.

Even if the lost player's skills are distributed amongst the rest of the team, there has to be a cut-off. How many people are you planning to start with, and how many do you want to end with?

If you are planning to start with a team of 8+ with the ability to swap in and out, and slowly dwindle them down to the 4 you want remaining, that may work better than, say, starting with 4 and wind up in the end with 1, because most assuredly people will become more bored at the end of the game with 1 player than they would at the start.

Another idea could be to start the game off with a set of heroes, and all but 1 hero is left alive about half way through. That 1 hero, while gaining the strength of the dead, then must team up with a few lesser heroes to aid him on the rest of the journey.

[Sparrowsmith]

Same as what everyone else has said from me, make sure the deaths make sense.
Many games have an 'underdog', for example, who later learns to overcome their weaknesses and have a 'trust me, I can do this moment'. We're so used to seeing these pay off that seeing the runt of the party die this way would be shocking. Sure it would make the party stronger if anything, but we love rooting for underdogs. The 'leader' of the party will feel it's their duty to have protected that person, and this could lead to a decline in morale and eventually shrugging off the responsibility of leader to someone else in the group. That person makes a hot headed and bad call which leads to another death. The original leader takes charge again, but now shoulders the responsibility of both deaths. Towards the end of the story he sacrifices himself to both save the party and because he can't take the pressure of it anymore.

There you go, three deaths, at 1/3 intervals in the game, that flow from one to the other in an emotionally moving way.
Not great, but it took me a minute. I'm pretty sure you could come up with something better, so yes, I think you should do it I love a bit of originality in a game, it's refreshing to see new ideas.

That said, you could very easily get this wrong. The deaths should be foreshadowed in some way (in my examples the runt would consistently show weakness, the bad leader would consistently make poor decisions, and the main leader would show signs of depression) but always seem unlikely (the runt is showing improvement, the bad leader is keeping his cool lately, the main leader cheers up for the final mission), and yet the death should still make sense in retrospect (the runt got TOO sure of himself, the bad leader cracked under the pressure, the main leader KNEW he would have to sacrifice himself - he was happy because he knew he'd be free from the guilt soon).

So that's it from me. I can't say my advice is any good, but I hope you find it helpful.

[computerzombies]

I would love to work on this! If you are really interested in doing an RPG like this, please PM me. I could write plot/dialogue or anything else. I also have work examples.

[bulmabriefs144]

On scaling back... if you have more than 4 in your party list, realistically, you'll only need to scale back after 3 members are left. Also, unless you get down to just one, there's gonna be a limit on what you can remove (and by the time you're down to one, regardless of how you scale, the one dead = gameover may be too much to adapt to realistically).

So at this point, your character should either be nigh-invulnerable as a result and avenge their death, or concentrate their efforts on trying to get the party back together, or a Downer Ending.

Besides dead, this can work as a premise to a horror game where your friends "fade away" until it's just you left. The last 1/4 can be trying to figure out how to get them back, or turn it into a horror/romance style where just the gf/bf returns. Or you can end it there, with the last person beside the hero leaving.

This post has been edited by bulmabriefs144: Oct 24 2011, 06:02 PM

[Sparrowsmith]

On scaling back... if you have more than 4 in your party list, realistically, you'll only need to scale back after 3 members are left. Also, unless you get down to just one, there's gonna be a limit on what you can remove (and by the time you're down to one, regardless of how you scale, the one dead = gameover may be too much to adapt to realistically).

So at this point, your character should either be nigh-invulnerable as a result and avenge their death, or concentrate their efforts on trying to get the party back together, or a Downer Ending.

Besides dead, this can work as a premise to a horror game where your friends "fade away" until it's just you left. The last 1/4 can be trying to figure out how to get them back, or turn it into a horror/romance style where just the gf/bf returns. Or you can end it there, with the last person beside the hero leaving.

I have to agree with the horror motif, that would work well. Something really psychological would work well.

[bulmabriefs144]

Such as, if all the party members are part of a dream, or in the character's head? Yea, you can do alot with this.

I remember seeing it in FF5
Old man died, daughter took over with cloned stats and equips.

I liked it, cause I didn't like looking at an old man in my party.
There was no real difference in gameplay; only affected the story in that case.

I think there were a couple games I've played where if a character dies in battle...that's it the character's dead for good o.O
It was a TBS though, and of course the ones that die permanently were not key characters and didn't matter to the story.

This was pretty much how party changing worked in FF4. They had no party change screen, so they killed off extra characters. Many, many times.

This post has been edited by bulmabriefs144: Oct 25 2011, 08:31 AM

[Tsukihime]

Or they decided to go back home and do their homework.
Lol that's a great way to exit a character.

[Sparrowsmith]

Or they decided to go back home and do their homework.
Lol that's a great way to exit a character.

Put them in a haunted house where each of them leave out of fear, and those remaining assume the ones that have left have died, and yes that would actually be a gripping way to remove characters, barring you bring them all back at the end except for the protagonist who never left the house and has been driven insane.
But there would be better ways to do it than that

[Sol Fury]

I'm wondering, if a character is killed-off by the story, would you make their equipped items un-equipped, or would you make their equipment go poof with them? Or would each character have special types of equipment that only they can use and nobody else which would remove the want or need to return the equipment?
Because I'm sure that somebody will definitely rage if character 2 got killed-off with the super-expensive super-armor on and they can't get it back because they were wearing it when they got removed from the party.
Sorry for the run-on sentences, it's kinda late and my concentration is poised mostly on this absurdly large laptop keyboard.

I'll jump in on this one and throw in my thoughts with a "most certainly unequip them". Nobody wants to lose the good stuff when a party member leaves.

As far as having members leave goes, I am in favour of it to drive the story. If the story is a journey, characters will get tired of walking the earth and leave, if it is a war, there might be losses close to the cast. A well-executed departure can add some punch to the story. Especially if it is the right kind of unexpected.

[TheBen]

I'll jump in on this one and throw in my thoughts with a "most certainly unequip them". Nobody wants to lose the good stuff when a party member leaves.

Definitely with that there. There's no way I'm losing my $4,000 diamond sword because they decided to go off on a train to nowhere halfway through the game.

It would be quite a balancing act to have the party lose members continuously throughout the game - you want the remaining character(s) to be strong enough to fight for themselves without artificially decreasing/increasing enemy/actor strength or requiring grinding/frustration over too-hard enemies. You want it to be so that a member goes away just when the party has become strong enough to take down all but the toughest of enemies with ease, so you'll need to do a lot of beta testing to make sure your timing is perfect.

It actually seems like quite a good idea - instead of having one leader gain followers as the story progresses, it's about the sacrifices followers make for the leader. Or, better yet, it's about having the leader make a sacrifice for the followers, and one of the followers has to step up to the plate and become The Hero... you know. There are a lot of ways you can take this - just remember that balancing is key.

[Essenceblade]

Put them in a haunted house where each of them leave out of fear, and those remaining assume the ones that have left have died, and yes that would actually be a gripping way to remove characters, barring you bring them all back at the end except for the protagonist who never left the house and has been driven insane.
But there would be better ways to do it than that

I've always liked the ol' "One by one" concept. Out of most of the Horror Movies and Games I've seen, they are pulled off rather well with this idea. It adds both curiosity and further draws the player / watcher into the story.

[bulmabriefs144]

Better yet, you could have a main party plus extras, that caterpillar your party. Simon goes off to the bathroom, and never comes back. Jerry is heard screaming faintly. Et cetera.

Then you could make it more a mystery, trying to find out what's happening.

This post has been edited by bulmabriefs144: Oct 31 2011, 07:17 PM

[suthix]

absolutely interesting concept! and people mentioning it as a tool for a great horror game but im wandering whether this might make the game a bit challenging as well seeing you have only yourself in your party against an ultimate boss when your supposed to have 4! you probably need to scale done the difficulty as your party becomes smaller just like theben said?

This post has been edited by suthix: Nov 1 2011, 12:52 AM

[Essenceblade]

absolutely interesting concept! and people mentioning it as a tool for a great horror game but im wandering whether this might make the game a bit challenging as well seeing you have only yourself in your party against an ultimate boss when your supposed to have 4! you probably need to scale done the difficulty as your party becomes smaller just like theben said?

To be honest, you don't even really need "An Ultimate Boss" to achieve victory in a horror, most horrors are solved through the main characters' eyes, and not via a direct event. I.E, Solving a puzzle which means life and death. If you do have a last boss, yes, you will need to balance the difficulty a bit. I've played a few horror games whereas the last boss is defeated via A puzze solving, or Desiphering a code within a short amount of time or something, which makes a nice variation from the "Hack n' Slash" method. I've even played a few games whereas a boss is defeated with one action, both of which, if are pulled off rather well, can be amazing and add a rather unique touch to your game. You just need precise planning really, and know exactly how the situation will fall to that manner.

[Kaust]

I'm surprised no-one else noted that alongside losing equipment is losing the character's experience. Nothing bugged me more in the Grandia games than that they permanently removed several characters from your game and you were left with the 2 main protagonists and a bunch of half strength allies. They included some bonus xp items (I think it was something like Sue's notepad when she left) but they only gave a fraction of the xp lost.
I guess this matters less in your game where you wont be trying to cover for lost allies, but I can't help thinking that one guy you never used may end up in your party right at the end and just be constantly one-hitted.

The whole concept's cool though and does seem to lend itself excellently to the whole psychological thriller thing others were recommending.