[If Obsidian + Kickstarter = ?]

Please please please please make a janitor RPG. It would be a dream come true. Think about it. You could start off with just a standard mop, and as you defeat rats/villains, you'd level up and get access to newer fancier mops. This is just brainstorming, but here are a few quick examples: a two-headed mop, which grants the player the ability to mop twice as much in the same timespan; or an automatic mop, which would drain less stamina per mopping area; a laser-guided mop, which would increase your to-hit ratio; or water and soap, which would allow the mop to remove dirt from the floors, etc. There are so many possibilities, this thing could basically write itself.

 

The setting would allow for a vast number of possible locales; schools, fast food chains, Iraq, etc. You could also have underwater sequences where the player needs to mop areas under the sea. You'd be trying to mop the sea floor, while fighting off sharks and crabs and stuff and also having to swim back up for air (maybe a diving suit as DLC) - it'd create a great sense of urgency. Maybe in the final level, you could be on a spaceship and some of the other astronauts find some dirt on some of the controls and can't navigate properly, so you have to quickly dust it off before the shuttles crashes into the sun. Meanwhile, you'd have alien space pirates boarding and trying to keep you from doing your job.

 

It'd be party-based, of course. You'd recruit characters throughout your journey. A student in detention, a disgrunted fast-food employee, a talking dolphin, etc. You'd have different classes; mark 1 janitor, mark 2 janitor, mark 3 janitor, dolphin, astrophysicist. So, they'd all have different abilities like mop, critical hit: mop, make cute dolphin noises to distract enemies. So in the space shuttle defense, you could have the janitor mopping off the dirt off the controls, while the dolphin was distracting the pirates and the astrophysicist was backstabbing them with large physics books, and the marine would be blasting them with shotguns. The game would have destructible environments, so s/he'd be shooting off parts of the shuttle too. The janitor would then have to mop all the broken pieces back together so that the spaceship doesn't fall apart.

 

This is the perfect setting. RPG players love to grind. This is the perfect opportunity for them to grind. What's more tedious than mopping floors? NOTHING. This is the perfect grind.

 

Oh, also add in motion controls for the mopping.

[Rainbow Six: Vegas (review)]

I enjoyed Vegas 360 quite a lot. Possibly my favorite game on the system next to Gears. I didn't play it singleplayer, though. Did you play it coop at all, JE?

 

I would have liked a better mapping system (for mp, at least). And I do miss the map planning phase of the original.

[rpg mechanics 'n stuff]

I'm all for player-skill based gameplay if done right. Such a system could easily be integrated into a game in which meaningful choices in interacting with the world and characters can still be of prime importance. Problems can arise when you try to mix player-skill and character-skill in such a way that it becomes an awkward hybrid in which both sides of the coin are relatively shunned. If we look at, say, Bloodlines or Oblivion, the combat mechanics are pretty lackluster. From a player-skill perspective, they're pretty dumbed down and don't really require much skill. From a tactical combat perspective (via using proper character builds and fine-tuning ability selection, etc), it's pretty simplified as well. When such a large part of the gameplay involves combat, that can make a large chunk of the game relatively uninspiring.

 

The main thing I value from a roleplaying perspective is the ability for said interaction with the world/characters/environment, and applying choices that lead to real consequences in all of those. Whether it's tactical combat or based on player-skill doesn't really mean much for me. I can enjoy an action game based purely on twitch reflexes and love it, and I can enjoy a fairly deep wargame with an overwhelming amount of micromanagement. The essential part is that gameplay has to be compelling. Either test my reflexes or test my wits, but don't make me just click my way through endless hordes of baddies via simplified combat mechanics because it's supposedly the 'best of both worlds'. It's not.

 

Or if you're going to make a hybrid, erm, make it good. It can work, it just needs solid design. Don't just implement action components because it's the 'in' thing. The traditional fans will shun it, and the action fans will expose it for it being lackluster. Let's use an awkward example in Gears of War, which most people can enjoy. It's essentially an action game, but the devs implemented cover in such a way that the player has to try to 'outthink' the enemy, going for flanking maneuvers, suppression, etc. There's certainly a fair tactical component to the game. The action gamers can appreciate that, since the action component isn't being compromised (such as by making you unable to actually aim proper at your opponent because your skill isn't high enough), and in terms of action requirements, it's fairly easy to just aim at the enemy, so less skilled players can certainly get into it (and even be successful if they implement a good set of tactics). It's pretty solid design.

 

One can argue that not being to aim properly is a requirement for RPG systems, since the character invested in other types of skills instead. A diplomatic character shouldn't be a good warrior, after all. What I don't like about this particular school of game design is that once you make your character a particular type, you suck at the rest. Not necessarily a bad thing in itself, limitations can be good, but the problem arises when (since this ISN'T PnP) the game forces you into a particular set path. You can't make your own, after all, the devs have to design it. If you make a diplomatic character and the game only allows ONE real diplomatic route through the game, you're basically being railroaded. Yes, you chose that path, but you're not really making any more significant choices along the way. I'd much rather have the CHOICE throughout the game to make decisions based on whether those decisions are adequate or not given that particular situation, rather than choosing a particular path because I know my character is 'diplomatic'. Again, the problem wouldn't apply much in PnP, where you would actually *have* that choice, but in current RPG design, the relative lack of choices makes it pretty apparent. This is why I'd rather have a good combat system AND roleplaying system (which, of course, don't have to be mutually exclusive). Another solution could also to invest in actually implementing all those extra choices for each character 'type'.

 

Go hyperbole.