Customizando seu RPG

Esse tutorial feito pelo ArcHammer2 ensina como customizar ainda mais seu RPG, focando mais no personagem. Dá para customizar o sexo do char, alinhamento, tipo de skill, classe e a aparência! Dá pra mexer até mais combinando as dicas que o autor passa. O texto está em inglês.

ArcHammer2’s tutorial for customizing your RPG
(This isn’t copyrighted or anything, but don’t go around passing this off as your own, or I WILL hunt you down, I WILL find you, and I WILL hurt you severely.)

Okay, I was goofing off with RM2K a while back, and I came up with an interesting way for the users to customize their characters in-game.

This requires some knowledge of the way RM2K works, and some programming skills wouldn’t hurt either. If you have any questions, e-mail me at archammer2@hotmail.com and I’ll help ya out.

Okay, I had about 10 e-mails telling me how one could make the customized character gain magic at the level-up instead of my crappy method, so… Thanks to all of you! (Their names are at the bottom.)
Plus, I’m adding some special stuff I jst thought up a minute ago.

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I) Setting the sex (gender) of the character

This can be done two ways, both are fairly easy.
~Method #1~
1) Make two charters with similar stats, but make one male & one female.
2) In-game, make an event that will ask the player which gender they would like to play as. This could be something as simple as a black screen, or… just use your imaginations.
3) If they select the male character, put the male character in the party, and if they chose the female character, put the female character in the party.
4) Be sure that for every time events refer to the male/female charcter, that you put in an fork option.
Example: (character is male)=> Al: “Young man, be careful.”
(character is female)=> Al: “Young lady, be careful.”

~Method #2~
1) Make a charcter. It doesn’t matter what it looks like, because it’ll change shortly.
2) Make a new variable and call it “gender” or something to that effect.
3) In-game, make an event that will ask the player which gender they would like to play as. This could be something as simple as a black screen, or… just use your imaginations.
4) If the player selects male, change the character you made in step 1 to look like a guy, and set the gender variable to a number (make it something easy to remember, like 1 for a boy, 2 for a girl.)
The same applies if the player chooses a girl. Just change the character to look like a girl, and set the variable to a different number than a boy.
(this might be a good time to change the name of the character)
5) Be sure that for every time events refer to the male/female charcter, that you put in an fork option.
Example: (character is male)=> Al: “Young man, be careful.”
(character is female)=> Al: “Young lady, be careful.”

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II) Setting a character’s inate color

This will let the player decide what type of spells/techniques a character can use.

~Method #1~
1) This is going to use variables, so it might be a good idea to write down what elements you’re going to use, and what number you want to represent each number. (for example fire=1, ice=2, lightning=3, etc.)
2) Make a variable called “element” or “color”, or whatever.
3) Make an event that will ask the player what element they’s like to use.
4) Set the variable you made in step 2 to the number corresponding to the element the player chose.
Example:

<>Messg: What element do you want?
<>Show Choices: Fire/Ice
:[Fire] Case
<>Varable Op: [####:element] Set, 1
<>
:[Ice] Case
<>Varable Op: [####:element] Set, 2
<>
;End case
<>

~~Method #2~~
Okay, thanks to about 9 people, I now realize how to make this work.
The best way to do this is to make a different character for ever element, or class, or whatever.
The only bad thing about this is that if you’ve got a class system and an element system, you’re going to have to make a lot of characters. (i.e. 3 classes and 4 elements makes 12 characters you’ll have to make.
The class choice event would look something like this:

<>Messg: What element do you want?
<>Show Choices: Fire/Ice
:[Fire] Case
<>Change Heroes Party:AlexF-> Add
<>Change Heroes Party:Alex-> Remv
<>
:[Ice] Case
<>Change Heroes Party:AlexI-> Add
<>Change Heroes Party:Alex-> Remv
<>
;End case
<>

This makes assigning spells to a character a LOT easier.

~~Getting spells with Method #1~~

This is why I prefer Method #2 for setting a characters inate element.

~~Method #1~~
This is what I call the “Boss Battle Method”
Most boss battles are caused by an event. Just put a fork option after the “start combat” command. So it’d look something like this:

<>Strt Combat:Boss
<>Fork Optn:Varbl[####:element]-1
<>Change T.Skills:Alex- Fire->Memory
<>
:Excepting Case
<>Fork Optn:Varbl[####:element]-2
<>Change T.Skills:Alex- Ice->Memory
<>
:Excepting Case
<>
:End Case
<>
:End Case
<>

~~Method #2~~
I don’t really recomend this method, because I’m not even sure if it’ll work or not. (I’m fairly sure it will, but I sugest you use Method #2.
You’ll need to make a Common Event. If you don’t know how to make these, just hit “F8” and it’s the right-most tab.
Name the event whatever you want, and set it to “Parallel Process”
Now, in the Events Commands box, you’ll need to make a fork condition that will be used to give your character their spells.
Example:

<>Fork Optn:Alex Level -5Over
<>Fork Optn:Varbl[####:element]-1
<>Change T.Skills:Alex – Fire Memory
<>
:End Case
<>Fork Optn:Varbl[####:element]-2
<>Change T.Skills:Alex – Ice Memory
<>
:End Case
<>
:End case
<>

You’ll have to repeat this FOR EVERY SPELL LEVEL which is why I don’t really like it.

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III) Setting a character’s class

This is pretty much more of the same. Swithces/Variables. If you caught on to the last two sections, you should be able to do this on your own. But, for those of you who are just reading this part, shame on you.

1) Make a character. Lower stats are best, since you don’t want a mage with a really high strength. Okay, I know you’d want one, but usually a persons stats are defined by what class they are.
2) Now make either swithes for every class you’re going to use, or a variable that will be used for each class. (Example: If I wanted a Figher, a Mage, and a Rogue, I could make three switches or one variable.)
3) Make an event that will ask the player to pick a class.
4) This is easy, just choose what attributes the class would have raised, and raise them., and don’t forget to change the person’s title(degree) or graphics if you want.

Example:

<>Messg:What do you want to be?
<>Show Choices: Fighter/Mage
:[Fighter] Case
<>Change Hero Degree: Alex Degree – Fighter Set
<>Change Switch: [####:fighter]-ON Set
<>Chang.Ability:Alex Max HP->20Raise
<>Chang.Ability:Alex Attack->20Raise
<>Chang.Ability:Alex Defenc->20Raise
:[Mage] Case
<>Change Hero Degree: Alex Degree – Mage Set
<>Change Switch: [####:MAge]-ON Set
<>Chang.Ability:Alex Max MP->20Raise
<>Chang.Ability:Alex Mnd ->18Raise

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IV) Character’s Appearance

I just thought of this a few moments ago, so if it’s imperfect, forgive me.Let’s say that the player doesn’t want the character to be a certain way. Maybe the player wants different hair, different skin color, etc. Now the player can change that, too. This is so easy, I’m wondering if this would be a good adition for my Tutorial or not.
Okay, just make a room with several events. These events will be the same, except for a few key points. Just make the events look like different characters and set the event start condition to “Push Key”
In the Events Commands box, just put in commands that will change the character’s walk GFX and face GFX

<>Set Hero’s Walk Graphics: Alex->Chara1-2 Set
<>Set Hero’s Face Graphics: Alex->Chara1-2 Set
<>

That’s it! You might also let the player choose the sex of the character this way. Just fill the room with males and females, and depending on which one the player chooses, just add an event to change the Gender variable.

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V) Character’s Allignment

As your characters ask the good Dragon king Bahamut for help, he might look into their past to see if they’re worthy of his help. And it doesn’t matter if they killed all the bosses to this point, if they didn’t help that little girl in town find her kitty cat, he ain’t commin’ with you.
Alignment is fairly easy to do. All you need is a Variable with the name “Alignment” or something to that effect. Almost everyone has a starting event to their RPGs, so at your starting event sets the initial alignmet of the party (your choice on how high or lo the party can go.)
The next step is to set up events along the way that will either increase the party/character’s alignment or pull them closer to the dark side.
These events could be something like helping a little girl find her kitty, showing mercy to an enemy, or walking into a bar being blamed for starting a fight, getting arrested, etc. Naturally, people treat good people differently than evil people. You might want to make sure that you reflect this in your RPG.

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VI) Other stuff

Parts II and III can be combined in some interesting ways, if you’re willing to spend the time on putting these options in your RPG. Fighters don’t usually get really powerful magic spells, so aftert a boss battle, you could give the player strong spell if he/she is a mage, and a stong sword technique if he/she is a fighter. Still, that could get time-consuming if you’ve got a lot of elements and/or classes. Don’t follow the example of Final Fantasy 5, it had a great job system, but had crap for plot (IMHO).

Made by ArcHammer for the general populus.
Thanks to Haris Kovac, brady cash, Hitchhiker427, BurningShadow, Chris Scalabrini, Kelly Miller, et. al. for pointing me in the right direction with my element system.
Thanks to Don Miguel for translating this kick-ass program among others.