The DPS Game

DPS - Damage-Per-Second

While an incredibly useful tidbit of information in an action oriented game, it really is an overused metric, especialy in rpg type games. So how about a game that focuses on DPS?

You have HP (or life) and DPS. HP of oppenants should be scaled such that normal foes around your level should take 3-4 seconds to kill. These are the only two stats in the game. Maybe two more stats, one called focus that allows you more control over your DPS, and the other a 'stamina' stat that controls.

You can 'allocate' you DPS in several ways. You can have area affect, single affect, and ranges. Focusing all your DPS into a single melee target will give a more intense focus vs trying to hit everything in a circle around you.

Thoughts:

• keep the 'control' and 'stamina' stats. Control affects the ability to create ranged and area attacks. Increasing the stamina cost decreases the DPS penlty.
• thought - 'attacks' can be created with a variety of special effects. The effects have no impact on DPS
• thought - armor does NOT reduce DPS. Primarily visual, maybe have some rare suits that boost one of the 4 stats.
• 'weapons' and 'spells' have a minimal affect on stats. The primarily provide the set of visuals that can be used to construct attacks.

The core mechanic is DPS. Anything that distracts from that is bad.

Train Destroyer

Trains are the only method (for whatever bizarre reason) that certain kinds of goods can be moved about. For whatever equally bizarre reason, you want to shut down the trains. Now the problem with this is the rails, not the trains but the rails themselves are owned by the government. Blow up the trains? That's fine, security is their problem. Blow up the rails? Oh, you're in for it now. So the challenge of the game becomes to destroy as much as possible of the train without damaging the rails.

You get points for :

• Damaging cargo - usually by shooting it with weapons
• Destroying cargo - this is much more risky because the usual method of doing this is by blowing up the cargo container, which carries a high risk of damaging the rails
• Contaminating cargo - the cargo is intact, but in some way 'contaminate' so it is less useful than it normally would be
• Slowing down the train - no one likes late shipments. Doing so is dangerous, as the best way to do this is by taking on the engine, which is heavily protected. Plus, destroying the engine so the train stalls on the tracks will get you penalized as well.

*thought - rival companies hire 'lane pirates' to strike at each others trains. You can start out as a loner, and eventually either create your own group or sign up with an existing one.

Initially you have a very modest base of operations, with a simple strike flyer. You initially have to be cautions about which targets you take on.

*thought - trains can carry cargo for more than one company. In some cases you will have to be very careful not to hit the wrong sections of the train.

As you get better and earn more money, you can upgrade your craft and weapons.

Victory conditions could be crippling a certain industry, or taking down a monolithic corporation.

Misc Idea

Soul Forge

All creatures have soul energy. Some creatures, if the will is strong enough, can prevent the soul from leaving the plane and instead reform a physical body. Always needs a focal point, a shrine so to speak, and is very, very painful.

Mechanic - On death, player can relenquish sould (reload) or reform. Reform will take player back to a 'recall' point

It is possible to prevent a soul from reforming. Certain areas saturated with certain energies, or specific rituals cast over a room. (there are certain zones that you cannot reform from) Other techniques exist for preventing reformation, varying from simply difficult to extremly evil and forbidden.

The vast majority of creatures do not reform. Rather, they release their energy and their essence rejoins Existance, waiting to be reformed by Existance. Even if a creature reforms, they still release most of their energy.

Released soul energy can be abosrbed, or even crystalized. Absorbing is of medium difficulty, and the majority of sentinants (and some animals) can do it with training, though most don't bother. Crystalizing soul energy is much more difficult, and dangerous, since most creatures that have enough energy to crystalize are very aggressive.

It is possible to crystalize essence. However, doing so is a crime against Existance, and carries harsh penlties. It is also hellishly difficult. Crystalized essence may be several orders of magnitude stronger than normal crystalized soul energy, but few consider the price worth it, given that Existance will not rest until the crystalized essence is freed.

Soul energy can be used to:

• Enhance the body
• Enchance the soul (gain levels - very slow)
• Refresh the body/energy (restore health and magic?)
• Enhance weapons
• Enhance magic reserves/power

Skills are incresed by use, training, and study, in order of speed.

Tie in to NWN:
On death, skill check vs Harvest skill to determine Soul Enhance (xp) gained and free soul gained.

Conversation system to handle the use of free soul to enchant items and the other uses.

Idea fragments

Rune Lord - collectable rune game. Either done with cards or plastic chips.

Shopinator - How much shopping can you do in one day? Challenges include timing visits between stores, fitting stuff into carts, and irrate cashiers

A typing rpg. Sword and magic attacks are done via typing drills. The more powerful the attack, the harder the typing.