Hey you... yeah you.... Have you ever worn some RPG shoes?? They have dark souls.

The best thing to do is make a long, unskipable, cutscene esc opening to the game that puts you on rails for an extended period of time. And then force the players to go through it on each and every single playthrough with no way of bypassing it without mods. Tons of popular “rpg” games do this so it must be a good idea! Why would a player want to quickly jump into a new playthrough with a different build? No they must go through the intro area 500 times to ensure maximum immersion.

Don't forget to make the numbers bigger. Just tack a few zeroes onto everything. Losers deal 12 damage. Champs deal 120 billion

Don't forget what RPG stands for: Really Primarily Grinding!

I think it's also pretty important to have an equipment system where the coolest things you could wear are pretty much worthless, and the things that actually give you the stats you need look completely ridiculous

A good alternative is tying overall XP to individual weapon or spell levels, so as soon as your player has maxed a thing he likes, instead of enjoying it he basically has to abandon it for another level 0 thing to avoid wasting XP

"Instead of Agility, call it Ferocity, and instead of Strength, how about Moxie" Man, this guy really hated Disco Elysium hahaha.

2:24 As a Kingdom of Loathing player, having Moxie be associated with Strength instead of Agility activated my fight or flight response.

2:20 Or better yet, instead of calling it Agility, instead have "Hand Eye Coordination", "Interfacing", and "Savoir Faire" as separate skills with somewhat different descriptions, but they pretty much end up being the same thing in-game

amazing. For my idea: if you ever decide to give good game development advice, I'd say call it: how to fail at failure

The Thesasurus part hit me right where it counts 😔- wait hol up. Striked me right where its embodied 😔

the bit 'change stats names' with Strenght to Moxie had me dying

Whatever you do, just make enemies universally scale with player level so they never feel progression outside of numbers being larger.

Alternatively, you could get rid of any progression system and make all the combat happen through single use items you can carry a limited amount of, with money used to buy more of these items as the only reward for battling, making it more worth it to avoid any enemy encounters because it only costs you what you need for the bosses We call it Paper Mario Sticker Star

Instructions unclear, made a rocket-propelled grenade

Tbh having TOO MUCH choice in making character builds is a burden as well. Like as I get older, I get more and more often stuck with complicated mechanics and an abundance of choice present in games like Pathfinder or Rogue Trader. All the talents, the archetypes, classes, and not only do you have to level up your character, but the entire party as well. Kinda made me appreciate the "take Axe skill = be good at Axes" approach, with a few caveats, ofc.

Definitely make sure that all your enimes drop loot that has progressively equal amounts of positive and negative effects so the player spends more time in the inventory screen than the actual game. Also make sure you can only carry five items at a time = )

And don't forget to add extremely tedious Battle with enemies that are damage sponges behind every corner, You don't want them to actually enjoy the Battle system

Dude this art is so simple but fun to watch. I'm currently making a Fire Emblem Romhack; so this is different.

- If you make an RPG with a classic random encounter system, make the encounter rate either stupidly high, or practically non-existent. That wait the player is either harassed by enemies when they’re low on health, or desperately walking in place for entire minutes as they starve for XP. - If you make players reload the last save when they die, perfect! Losing a half-hour or more of progress like that was sorely missed by players. Even better, don’t put a save point near a boss fight or even remind the player in some fashion to save before they go in. If they accidentally run into the fight and get trapped in it for an assured game over, that’s just a skill issue. Even better, if you *do* remind them to save, sometimes do so in rooms that lead to cutscenes where they *don’t* fight the boss, tricking the player into wasting all of their powerful items they saved up for this very moment. Oh yeah and *now* introduce your autosave feature that is a thing now. Not for any convenience for the player; Make sure the autosaves only trigger whenever it’d screw them over, such as aforementioned tricks to waste the player’s items, or autosaving *right as they die,* meaning they’ll always die upon loading in, bricking their save forever.

"10k skeletons that only two at a time every 20 minutes", the fact I've played RPGs that force me to grind that

2:48 well Lisa sort of does that. but then again even if the choices don't affect the ending, they affect the gameplay. I don't think it's always bad to limit an RPG to one ending, sometimes it's better for the story. In Lisa The Painful's case, the character you play is already on a path to self destruction, you just watch him progress down that path.

Great tutorial! Followed this to make an RPG game on steam and got zero purchases!

Always happy to see a new entry in this series!

2:30 Pulchritude. Vim. And Imagination, because naming the first two already sapped 100% of it.

The main bad guy says to the hero. "Wait for 5 minutes ill be right back" The PC chooses to wait and the bad guy says great ill stop being bad now. Game over.

We have diverse builds like the sorcerer, who can shoot fireballs! Or the ranger who can shoot arrows! Or the knight who can... shoot swords?

I assume this is intended as a satire of AAA level game design, but as somebody who enjoys playing amateur RPG Maker games I do think there are some legitimate points that can be raised for people looking to create casual indy games. The most important thing in my experience is to keep it simple. It is absolutely okay to be derivative in the bits that you don't want to focus on. Just be aware of what you're doing; chances are you're making a game to tell a story, so don't overstay your welcome with the grind. Focus on doing what you want to do and not getting distracted, players will have a much better time if the content of your game is what you're passionate about rather than you trying to come up with a completely original levelling system that you threw in because someone online told you XP was boring.

This is amazing, how did you get a hold of Bethesda's game documents?

I think the best way to make a memorable RPG is to follow exactly what the Sticker Star did. No story but tons of cutscenes, no basic attack, no agency in combat, no way of knowing how the damage you will deal, make movement in the level painfully slow, hidden action commands for the complex moves, that the strongest move makes your finger hurt, make the levels incredibly tedious to navigate, tons of backtracking, scripted boss fights who have cryptic solutions you won't know in the first stage, cryptic keys at the end of the level who will force you to even more backtrack and to replay the whole level a second time, an obnoxious and useless sidekick they force you to feel for when the game desperately needs that hint system, add mandatory secret exits, that one dead loses you up to an hour, hazards who instakill you, remove experience points with no payoff, make combat actually detrimental to engage into, make almost all your jokes bad paper puns, remove recognizable visual elements of all your important characters that have to be recognized, remove dialogue of all your beloved characters if you have those, and to put salt in the wound, make one world and 2-3 sparse levels good so you remind them how good it could have been, as well as your beta being what the public wanted for the most part. ... Yes, Sticker Star is THAT bad, I would say a bottom 5 game for mario and the worst since the Virtual Boy.

incredible, this ended up being a tutorial on how to make an MMORPG

1:24 There's an old TTRPG called Encounter Critical. It was a tongue-in-cheek stab at RPGs but it worked nonetheless. I bring it up at this point because the only way to improve your character's skills was to do something new. Repeating the same action over and over didn't give you any new experiences, just practicing old ones. Mull that over if you want to fail at failing while making your game.

How to fail at RPGs: "I love making sprites of enemies and forcing my turgid walls of text about how evil people are bad, but I hate programming precise, satisfying gameplay. So I'll just do basic add and subtract calculations, follow an online rpg programming tutorial to the letter, and now I can churn out gameplay like a sausage making machine!"

okay but moxie as strength would be iconic

Don't forget to put into game "umm akshually this game is allegory for depression", so it will be exempt from all the criticisizm since 1. Game is depression story focused so everything except story must be trash 2. If someone points out that your depression story is just trash and can be sumarrised in 1 sentence, then you can call him insensitive.

Most of the times multiple endings isn't the best option for an RPG, every character and the world progression is thought and made to tell a story, that may lose narrative strength if there are many paths to go for

Neat video. I see a lot of devs attempting to fail at making an RPG and I might end up doing that in the future too!

Parts of this video sound like they're describing the development process of Starfield, not gonna lie.

The RPG-7 (Russian: РПГ-7, Ручной Противотанковый Гранатомёт, romanized: Ruchnoy Protivotankovyy Granatomot, lit. 'Handheld anti-tank grenade launcher') is a portable, reusable, unguided, shoulder-launched, anti-tank, rocket-propelled grenade launcher. The RPG-7 and its predecessor, the RPG-2, were designed by the Soviet Union, and are now manufactured by the Russian company Bazalt. The weapon has the GRAU index (Russian armed forces index) 6G3.

Didn't know Bethesda followed this guide so closely when they were making Starfield. Wait, they're not even an indie developer... Oh well. And you can even make the game worse. Look, they didn't take your advice on not making a progression system, but instead made the upgrades so meaningless that the leveling system itself feels unnecessary.

You cant give out all of Todd's secrets

Maybe I’m missing something, but it feels like a lot of this advice focuses on western RPGs. It makes sense, since (shockingly) western RPGs are more popular in the west, but I would like to hear your input on JRPGs and how this advice would apply to it (or if not, what advice you would give).

This is the reverse Psychology that I can accept.

Instead of an RPG, just make a G got me dying 😂

Hmm... I'd imagine much of it is because of how content dependent RPGs are... which either requires a very long time or a lot of people, and either one of those means it costs more. The longer something takes and the more money it costs, the larger the risk. The larger the risk, the less risks you are willing to take in other areas to guarantee profit... not because you don't want to make a good game, but because it is a business that has to turn profits or everyone loses their jobs. If you are part of a large corporation the only goal is to increase profits and they could give a shit if your game is fun. Something like Baldur's Gate 3 is the culmination of many people's careers where they've been making the same genre of game for decades. Each time they've learned something and over a number of projects you are able to experiment through iteration. That kind of experience also means efficiency; I'm sure they have specialized tools that were built over all these years. Efficiency also lowers the cost. From a financial view point, having success means you might be allowed to take a bit more risk, or have a larger scope and budget for the next project, and as a company grows if there is stability the resources/staff will likely increase as well. The big key here is the company KEPT those employees for long periods of time, which makes me assume they compensated them fairly and had a good work environment. Everyone else these days is chasing short term profits over everything else, and the industry is a meat grinder where the average person won't even last a year... even after doing all the work to get to that point. On average they can take their skill set to another industry and get paid more; that is the reality of working in the industry. So oddly enough, if you want a good RPG I think the most necessary step is a company that is run correctly long enough to make it possible.

I was 100% expecting there to be a reveal at the end of the video like “this whole time I’ve been talking about a real RPG” lmao

To maximize grinding, make sure progression items are low-chance enemy drops. Nothing like having to grind past the next area to access the next area. It can be fixed with level-scaling which far outstrips any character not min-maxed in order to completely destroy any idea of character progress.

I recall an rpg i wanted to make as a kid with like ZERO planning. And i was gonna try to make it on Scratch of all programs

I have a huge world i have been thinking for most of my life, since i was a kid playing around with gamemaker 4 on win98. It's been developing. Got a lot of lore, haven't written down most of it. Spent a decade not doing gamedev at all, still the story evolved. I may someday put it into use. And it'll be great. Been doing a lot of failing at developing it this far. But it does feel like the start of it may be happening some time soon, maybe in the next coming decade.. Anyway. Scope creep. Yea that one breaks many RPGs. It grows too big to be accomplished by one person. And in that case it's best to put it in backburner. Make something less huge first. If the idea is that awesome, it'll wait. Maybe grow a bit too much in waiting, but no matter, you made something else in the meantime.

You should definitely idle it on top, what's not to love if you can both not play a role AND not play a game in an RPG !

I didn’t realize how much this would be a moment of clarity for me. Thank you.

love how these videos tell you how to do it right if you flip over the instructions

2:10 That's actually funny, I've been struggling with this exactly. For an RPG I'm designing, I want classic strength and intelligence stats for physical and magic damage, but there's a third damage output concept that's kind of unique to my game's universe... And I'm struggling so hard to find a name for it because there's no pre-determined stat that is remotely related to what the concept is, nor am I able to find a good word that accurately explains what it is and would be intuitive for the players. ... So I guess I'll call it Luck. That thing always does different things in every single game and is almost never clearly explained what it actually does, so it will fit riiiiiight in for that stat :V

Don't forget about having the enemies scale with your level. Basically making leveling up completely pointless, or in some cases, actually detrimental. Yes, I'm looking at you, Final Fantasy 8.

I have zero skill in game design but my dream RPG would include a fighting system similar to Yomi Hustle. I’d love to have that sort of skill and maybe one day when I can afford a PC I can begin the process of starting to learn how to make a game

Bethesda this was IRONIC, not a GUIDE FOR STARFIELD

You need to release "How To Fail - the video game".

Love this unique take on game development diaries! Easy sub, and I’m going to binge your content now!

Instructions unclear, accidentally made RuneScape

as a person who is new to developing RPGs, thanks now i know what to do

It's crazy for me how I managed to succeed in all failure categories of this video two years ago. I literally managed to make game so bad I didn't even wanted to test it (which resulted it to be buggy as well). But later I managed to make successful RPG game. But that's another story.

Gamefreak has already taken notes before this video 😂

this video explains exactly why west of loathing is a perfect parody

the "XP", "10K grind" "Options? Make them all essentially the same" got me thinking... "uh...Maplestory????"

Looks like bethesda saw this video while working on starfield and didn't understand it was ironic 🙃

You could follow all these directions and still make a better RPG than Paper Mario Sticker Star and the games to follow.

0/10 not enough quirky Earthbound-inspired RPG with hidden themes of depression and mental illness

2:12 league of legends, it's not armor penetration and cooldown reduction anymore, it's lethality and celerity ! Also thoses characters do'nt use mana, they use rage, steam, flow...whatever 2:48 terraria, melee was so problematic they even splited melee into "melee" and "true melee" due to the fact melee lategame was basically as ranged as ranged or magic

apparently the team in charge of all the assassins creed RPGs watch this video every day

Honestly, it makes me think of the game I made: Earthquake Warriors RPG. Worldbuilding VS Mechanics: My game is probably latter over former. I wouldn't call my game generic, far from it even, but I kinda just made a game for fans of fatfurs. I can't say I put that much thought into a game about fat animals and monsters who can become a huge, fat bosslike monster with the use of the Gordo Grande gems who also enchounter hostage situations that reward the player for not harming hostages. Like, when fighting the main boss of the game, it's mentioned that if your body is pierced or compromised, you lose the powers of Gordo Grande forever. This is... something I made up as I went. Then again, how seriously should a game about fat monsters turning into fat kaijus be taken? "Role Playing": Being honest, I'd rather like the character than see myself as them, so I tend to focus more on giving the characters cool designs and likeable traits over making them blank slates to see yourself in. The characters in EQWRPG aren't SUPER deep and they don't interact with each other much outside meeting for the first time, but they all have their own dialogue, and the one who does the talking is whoever your lead is. Progression: EXP? What's that!? The level of difficulty does increase throughout the game, but never tremendously, with the main way of "getting stronger" is by obtaining items that teach your normal characters new moves, or by coming across "Huggers" who will give your big, fat teddybear kaijus new moves + a friendly hug. Terminology: Pretty standard. Roles: I admit, I didn't put TOO much thought into this, but the game DOES have different roles, including glass cannon strikers, speedy support types, AOE specialists, etc. Each character has their own unique set of moves, and with 15 to try out, the fun is seeing what each character has to offer. Branching Story: Although EQWRPG is mostly linear, there ARE multiple endings. With one boss, you meet two rhinos who are trying to find their brother and joined the villains to stand up to bullying, though it's implied that their hand in the truly evil actions of the villains are non-existant. Yet, if you choose to fault these two and arrest them, you will end up getting a bad ending. The good ending requires understanding their story and agreeing to help, plus recruiting all the playable characters scattered through the game, which does take some exploration to do. It's not much, but it's something. To be fair, Earthquake Warriors RPG was never meant to be a masterpiece. It's just meant to be a fun little novelty game with a fatfur theme. Still, I have been on and off with this game with a finished 1.0 that I plan on expanding in the future with some new levels to use those 15 characters in.

i disagree about skill trees, they suck and are often organized poorly. a point pool i can buy skills from is always better and provides for more flexible replay and unique character combos

Generic xp points? Pffft. Nintendo did something even better than generic xp points. In Paper Mario: sticker star, the progression is a completely self-defeating mechanic. Only progression you get is picking up hearts for extra HP as you trudge through the most remarkably uninteresting version of the Mushroom kingdom to date, more powerful stickers (which are essentially just consumables) as you get into the later areas of the game, as well as more storage space for consumables. Speaking of which, almost every normal battle is made completely pointless because of it, as all you get are coins to buy more consumables, with no option to attack without using up said consumables. Wonderfully terrible RPG game design.

This reminds me a lot of "terrible writing advice"

I mean, it's funny, because half this video perfectly describes modern Bethesda.

We'll these are lovely. Thanks for sharing.

Meanwhile, in an alternate universe, Problem Slueth checks his stats: "Vim, Imagination, and Pulchritude"

That last piece of advice sounded like a game with a character called “spamt” or something 🤔

OKAY, this one HAS to actually be helpful to me.

The outcome remains the same Deltarune moment

Honestly the struggle I've been having is deciding on what style of rpg would fit best with the systems I've been cooking up lol

Moxie +1 Ferocity +3 Pinkheadstuff -1

"Instead of making an RPG, just make a G" My favourite line

You don’t really need to do something new. Hell, there are only so many ways to make a game, and even less that are actually fun, so there is only so much new you can have. You just need to answer the question “why would someone play your game, with all the other options for games, and generally for their time, attention, and money?” Could be you just do it better, or that the individual games lack replayability, but not the type of game. Or even just because it’s been a while since the last really good one and you are confident in your’s quality.

Instead "come at me bro" the skyrim should have told on of its iconic oneliners bandits say when they attack you.

1:02 so it's impossible then since there is no way that you can make mechanics that were *never* seen before

Every RPG that does not have a Necromancer Class that actually plays well has instant -20 Points

onnett been taking notes

i like this, i like this a lot, it inspires me

Amazing Video!

You didnt bave to do early FF so dirty with this video but you did

the reasoning switches between "trying to succeed but deeply flawed" and "trying to fail"

`Bethesda handbook woh and he mentions Skyrim before i could even send the comment XD ha!!!

the amount of games that actually do some of this is astounding lmao

Damn a starfield video from a year ago?

I think I missed this one the first time around. I'm here now.

I can name several games that follow everything in this video..

This honestly feels like a more fast-paced version of Terrible Writing Advice but with gaming, and I’m all in for it! 😂

2:47 You acedently gave good advice. This is what Toby Fox is doing with DeltaRune.

Instruction not clear. Now you get XP for Kicking Babies, eating the Dead in front of guards, and launching yourself in the catapault. Also, you need to jump down the Well of No Return to find the witch to spend your XP, and she only sells Levels in the form of Magic Spells that just make the game "harder" around you. to make matters worse, you occasionally get a text box saying "Level Up" in the top corner, but you can only access that menu after you save the game, and log out.

The only issue with this is the critique of gaining exp by performing actions in the world.. why on earth is that a bad thing? You say you want to favor player choice, but then say to implement essentially dnd's landmark progression if they're "working in their selected roll". Wtf? Seems incredibly restrictive to me.