I have planed a whole bunch of RPGs till now and i think the amount will continue to increase within the coming days, weeks and month.
Therefore i have already got a few nice Ideas for a RPG.
Define RPG
RPG = RolePlayingGame and NOT Hack'n'Slay ( alá Diablo II or such )
get a Storyline
If you want to create a RPG you should get some general story-line ( something like evil vs good in a MidWinter Country most likly leads do HnS instead of RPG, so please think a bit about his important step )
Heroes
Please DO NOT create heroes that have no weaknesses and are only balanced within the amount and speed of damage-dealing. Make them Characters instead of slaying/leveling-machines. Let each of them say a few specific/characteristic senteces during the game, let everyone of 'em have an archiles verse ( something like a firemake hating to cross water and if he does he looses a level for the next 2 minutes, think about it yourself )
Creeps
On the most socalled RPG-Maps i've played the creeps are good for 2 things.
1. Xp
2. money
That is the idea of HnS NOT of RPG. Please mention that every Human, every Elf and, if you want to be truly exact: even every rabit and horse, has it's own character, it's likings dislikings and such.
Please don't decrade townfolk to a something instead of a someones.
Levels & Spells
You have to decide between 2 generally different ways here.
1st - get spells through levels
2nd - get spells throug learning ( from tutors in town 4 xampel )
Hunger, Thirst and Sleep
If you want to make your RPG something truly uniq, and something showing an imaginary reality you should, at least in my opinion, add this feature to your RPG
Limits
Choose your limits wisely.
if you are, for exampel, deciding that your heros are getting stronger not through fighting os such but throug learning from their xp, you may decide to have a max hero level of two but you need 2,000k xp to get there and in the context of this idea, you may spend xp to get spells, hp and such.
Realistics in VR
e.g.
A gathering of 2 houses and a shop may be a village, one is an eremit and 10 or more are a town.
An eremit may be visited by villagers and might even be the target for several pilgrims ( hope thats the right word ^^ not shure about it, sry ).
a town is an attraction to those from country. and a weekly marcet attracks people from very far.
This shall only show you, that you have to think about reality in the proper timeperiod and that you might add an awful lot af reality to your map if you trigger these events carefully and make the normaly deadlike townfolk walk around with their own desires.
Custom Files
In my opinion you don't need ANY Custom files. But the may add a flair to your map wich is missing otherwise.
I myself are first creating the whole "engine" and the basical terrain and such before going to what i call "Cosmetics". That way you'll see much easier what you _realy_ need and what is only a waste of space and time.
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I hope this short summary of items i am going throug if i plan to create a RPG is showing you enough of the things you wanted to now.
If you sucseed with only a few of these ideas, your RPG will be one of the best ever!
good luck, i'll be watching u *fg*