Design Paralysis: How to Overcome?

[Pine Towers]

For my non-commercial project with RPG Maker, I know what I want: To recreate the great adventurers I had in my childhood tabletop RPG group. I have these adventures, translated the script and the maps, but then...


... the combat system. Since that old days, three more versions of the rules were released, and I just can't decide if I want to go old school or up-date the rules to the newer ones.


Have you ever suffered from this? Not knowing which way to conduct your combat system?


Additional info:

Spoiler

I'm talking about the D&D franchise, off course. I don't know if I should stick with AD&D ruleset, go 4e or the new 5e. I would love some suggestions on how to break this tie.

 

[Wavelength]

My sincere suggestion would be to drop the D&D battle system entirely.  Very little about it works in a video game RPG, unless you're designing the entire game engine around it (like Neverwinter Nights does).  As an example, take the mechanic of "Missing" with your actions.  This provides opportunities for creative and exciting roleplay in a pen-and-paper D&D game.  In a video-game RPG, all it does is waste the player's time.


Recreate the adventures, recreate the setting, recreate the sheer joy that you and your friends had in your D&D combat sessions... but don't try to recreate the mechanics.  It will only frustrate your player.

 

[jonthefox]

If an RPG Maker game could successfully recreate the fun of D&D combat mechanics, I'd love to see it--but I have not seen it yet.  To echo what Wavelength said, there's just not many ways or opportunities to make things like misses and evasion fun or interesting in a turn-based jrpg, not to mention the fact that the engine is pretty wacky with how it does RNG.   

 

[watermark]

I actually tried to do this with DD 4th edition rules, but it got really, really difficult as you basically have to change the entire combat engine. Also it's a pain for the editor to adapt. In the end I gave it up cause it just wasn't working.


HOWEVER, I do think this is a fun idea. If you can manage to create a system based on DD or some other tabletop it would be great! In fact, let me go put in a request in scripts right now. Somebody should do this.

 

[Joewoof]

It can be done. However, you have to turn a "miss" into a meaningful and positive event. In a D&D system, a miss causes things to happen, while in an RPG a miss causes your action to flat-out fail. Dragon Quest 8 incorporates this for the enemy side very well, as an enemy preparing a massive attack can trip over and fall from overexertion - which is a moment of delight for the player. On the player side, this is more tricky. An alternative is to roll for a critical hit, and then if it fails, you land a normal hit. That way, the negative feeling of a failed action is lessed, and you get to keep the D&D high-stakes system. Just a thought.