“Do you think the game has access to government records? Would make for an easy way to quickly generate a town full of diverse NPCs,” Nabiki mused out loud. She was disturbed at how much the program knew about her and Ryoga.
“Empty Seas? Huh?”
“No, NPCs. Non-player characters. Player characters are the people you control to play a game. Non-player characters are the people you have no control over with whom you interact. It helps give a sense of really being in a fantasy world. My guess is we started the wrong program, now that I think about it. Most RPG makers don’t have facilities for making a player, at least not right away. Player generation is usually done when you start a game. But your not playing a game, you are running a utility ... that means a program that’s a tool to do stuff, that makes the game. Well, makes the world of the game, and passes that to the game engine. We should be given a blank map where we can design a city or a dungeon. A collection of maps becomes all the cities and dungeons in the game. Maybe a master map for the wilderness and locations of the cities and dungeons and castles and ruins and stuff. And there is usually an event editor, monster editor, weapon editor, spell editor, and so on. You can use the packaged in media and generic weapons and spells, or provide your own graphics, images, sounds, and music and make your own magic and things.” Nabiki trailed off into thought.
“Uh, OK Nabiki. You kinda lost me there,” Ranma remarked uncertainly.
Nabiki didn’t seem to hear him, but after a moment she did snap her fingers. “That’s it. This is probably a player hacker or editor. So you can cheat your character into the good stuff. It would only work with existing players, thus why it pulls from the NPC database. I bet you could make a new player with it too, but I bet it is more for tweaking the players you make in game, so you can playtest it better. Well, as long as we’re saving the files, we should be able to play with these. Better then making someone from scratch. Plus it’ll be fun, playing with characters that look like people we know. Kinda like custom Sims people. I know Jun likes to make her Sims look like idol stars.”
“Er ... OK. You sure know a lot about this game, I thought it was new.” Ranma slowly backed away from Nabiki; she was scaring him.
“What? I never seen this game before. But I tried once to make a game with the Bard’s Tale Construction Kit, but never got very far. To make images you could import, you needed to save them as ILBM files and I don’t have an Amiga nor could I find DPaint anywhere. I tried again, later, with the Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures. But, I never did carry though and finish it. After a fashion, all RPG makers are similar. It’s just the game engine and it’s capabilities that makes one different from the other.”
“I’ll take your word on it. So, then ... can I keep having fun with Ryoga?”
“You really should be thinking about it strategically. You need to work out what would make him valuable to an adventuring party.”
“Party? Kasumi is going to be mad if we invite people over without telling her first. Plus, why would I want to party with Ryoga. He’s always so depressing to be around.”
Nabiki palmed her face into her hand. “Never mind. Look, make sure he’ll still be useful in a fight.”
Ranma looked at Nabiki sideways, “This is Ryoga. Why wouldn’t he be good in a fight?”
Nabiki sighed and decided to give up while ahead. “What I mean is, let’s develop a well balanced team. People with different skills so that together we are prepared for anything. Let’s start with Ryoga. What should we do with him?”
“Hmm, oh? I was thinking ... what if his girl side was different from his boy side, would that work?” Ranma looked like he had something in more mind.
Nabiki thought for a moment, wondering what Ranma might subject Ryoga to. “I don’t know, but we can try.”
Ranma’s grin grew, like Christmas had came early. “I was thinking, you know, that maybe Ryoga-chan can be the one chased by all the perverts.” Ranma punctuated his statement with a wink at Nabiki. “And, don’t you think she would just look so cute in a nurses uniform? Skirt and all.” Ranma was having difficulties keeping a straight face.
Nabiki felt herself fighting down the giggles. “A healer, huh? That is a very useful person to have on campaigns.”
“What’s a campaign?”
“You’ll see. Go on, see if you can change Ryoga, I’ll keep an eye out if you make a mistake.”
Ranma tabbed over to the stats for the girl form and found a box for affinity and checked it. In a neighboring field, he wrote in pervert. Then, he raised the rating to its strongest.
“Did you notice that, Ranma?” Nabiki stopped him.
Ranma turned to look at Nabiki, “Notice what?”
“That as you increased the rating, this number here decreased. I think it is skill points that you can spend. Spend it all, and you can’t make anymore changes. But, if you get rid of something, you’ll probably get points for it back.”
“Is that bad?” Ranma worried.
“Naw, that’s pretty normal for RPG games. It just means that you might have to sell off some his fighting skills to afford the healing skills for his healer side. Instead of just adding onto what he already has.”
Ranma’s smile morphed into a smirk. “So, he’ll be a cute, girly nurse with no fighting skills ... he he he.”
Ranma, with Nabiki’s help, changed Ryoga’s girl side class into a healer, made her much weaker but faster, a pacifist that doesn’t like to fight, and perky all the time. Ranma and Nabiki chuckled over the changes, thinking that if the real Ryoga ever saw the computer game one, he’d flip.
“Say, I got an idea.” Nabiki took the keyboard from Ranma, ignoring his protests. “Let’s make it so the girl side is unaware of the Jusenkyo curse. She doesn’t know she is a boy or turns into one, and she only remembers the times she’s a girl. Ryoga’s boy side, though, can be aware. That would be funny, huh?”
“He he he, great idea Nabiki.” Ranma approved of that little twist.
“Here you go. Now you’ll have to give her some healing spells, skills, equipment, and other things she might need in a game.” Nabiki passed the keyboard back to Ranma.
“What do you suggest?”
“Well ... a nurses uniform, of course.” Nabiki winked at Ranma. “Bandages, herbs, perhaps a small knife, water jug ... and, I don’t know, some tea.”
“Got it. Hmm, spells. I think She’ll start with heal, focus, and detox. Sell off all of these more advanced martial arts techniques and leave just the basics, and I can transfer those skill points to advanced healing techniques: bandaging, suturing, herbal medicines and lore, shiatsu, acupressure, acupuncture, field surgery, and such. Can you think of anything more?”
“Nope, but we can come back to this file if think of anything else. Don’t forget to save. Not bad, kinda lackluster. I think changing people into their opposites, or something they are not suited for, must be penalized with lower points to use. OK, now for his male side. Then we can move on.”
Ranma tapped his finger to his cheek, deep in thought. “Well, let’s keep this normal, for Ryoga I mean. That way we got a good fighter and a decent nurse, just add water. So, no changes other then equipment. Hey look, he already has his battle umbrella, a backpack, and a tent.”
“Right, give him ... oh ... sword, leather armor, and wooden shield. Those are usually what people start off with.”
“OK, done and saved.”
“Who’s next, Saotome?” Nabiki was starting to get into the fun of the game.
“Well ... if it can change curses ... do you think it can remove them too?”
Nabiki blinked in response. “Shall we find out?”
Ranma went back and typed his name in the proper box. After hitting enter and save, the screened filled out with his profile. A bit of trial and error later, Ranma pouted in disappointment. “Costs too much to remove the curse. Looks like changing it is free, though.” Ranma sighed. “I should of figured.”
“There, there.” Nabiki patted Ranma’s arm. The effect, though, was ruined by the smirk on her face.
“What to turn it to? Hmm...” Ranma pondered what he considered the most important choice for his game avatar. If it wasn’t going to be a girl ever again, what could it be instead. Lost, as he was, in thought, he didn’t noticed Nabiki stealing back the keyboard.
“I got an idea, Ranma-baby.” Smirking mercilessly, she was already changing his curse.
“Huh, aw man. Come on, let me do me.” Ranma pouted.
“Hush, it’s my computer, and it is just a game. We can always change it later, but I have some ideas already.”
Nabiki was busy making her changes. Ranma looked over her shoulders to see what she was doing. The computer version of him no longer turned into a girl. Instead, Nabiki made his Jusenkyo curse turn him into a prince. Ranma snorted with derision at that. She then tabbed to the stats for the prince and changed them around so the prince was opposite to Ranma’s normal form. The prince side of his computer avatar, or what the two thought was just a computer avatar, was made more intelligent and less physical. Prince Ranma would be a weaker fighter, but very strong as a psychic-mage. Ranma had a good pool of starting points and a number of very high level skills that were worth a lot of points themselves. Nabiki quickly removed many of his more physical skills and traded them for knowledge, etiquette, refinement, noblesse oblige, and tastes for the finer things in life, among other changes that Nabiki felt would be proper for a prince, including removing his fear of cats. Besides making the cold water side the opposite of what Ranma was normally, she also developed the character as a strong psychic. A number or Ranma’s special skills did fit in here, such as his ability to stand on vertical surfaces, or the trick he picked up to run along the ceiling from the Martial Arts Tea Ceremony, and his umi-sen-ken. However, he needed some basic psychic powers. So, Nabiki gave him telepathy, time dilation, and stealth. His hot water side would still be a strong fighter, but she made the prince be quite different from that. Finally, she gave him silk pants and a silk shirt much finer then what he normally wore, a crown, a katana, and, for laughs, a fairy godmother.
Hitting save, Nabiki called Ryoga’s file back up. One quick change later and she was done. “There, now he has to bodyguard the prince whenever he’s a guy and you change.” Nabiki and Ranma chuckled at that little change, sure to cause Ryoga no end of annoyance if the game was real life, unaware of the irony of the situation.
“OK, what kind of fighter do you want your other side to be? I think a monk would be good.” Nabiki turned to ask Ranma.
“Aren’t monks pacifists? What kind of fight would one put up?” Ranma had met many Buddhists monks that practiced martial arts, from whom he learned much. However, they pursued the art for Zen like transcendental reasons divorced from applications of a beat down. Ranma knew that they would fight if it became necessary but that the lifestyle they followed eschewed needless violence and rarely, if ever, did they use the art for anything but self-improvement. He had a lot of trouble picturing any of the monks he had met throwing down with the likes of Ryoga.
“Well, most modern computer based RPGs are based upon older paper and pen RPGs. Those are themselves inspired by popular literature, such as Lord of the Rings, as well as old legends, myths, fables, and stories. One common style of RPGs is based upon the Dungeons and Dragons world, though that isn’t the only kind. Basically, in D&D, a monk is someone who dedicates their lives to the pursuit of martial arts. If they don’t have a similar monk type here, or if it is not a good fighter, we can try another option.”
Ranma only gave it a moment’s thought. “Go ahead then.”
Nabiki got busy clicking away. “Looks likes monks are not only fighters, but can cast some spells too. Not as well or as many as magical users, but they do have a definite magical bent to them. But, it looks like you need to choose a deity to follow. Any you like?”
“Susano’o was kick ass, so him,” Ranma replied immediately without any thought or hesitation.
Nabiki wrote the name Susa-no-O-no-Mikoto into the appropriate field. “OK, that is taken care of. Now that you got a higher power to serve, lets balance your stats. I mean, you’re strength and speed are through the roof, and your dexterity is nothing to sneeze at. And while your intelligence is decent, especially for any normal person, it is quite low proportionally speaking compared to those three. So, I’m spending some points to raise your intelligence four or five points, and your luck score needs raising too. And honestly, afraid of cats... that has to go. Hmm, now for spells...”
Ranma interrupted her musing. “Don’t I get a say in this?”
“Nope,” came the reply. “I think fireball, feedback, and shield would make good choices. Have to keep the team rounded out.”
“Feedback? Does that have something to do with eating?” Ranma, to his credit, never had a chance to go to a concert or be exposed to sound systems. As such, he has never had a chance to hear the term feedback before.
“I think that spell heals you by transferring your injuries and afflictions onto an enemy. Basically, your hp goes up at the expense of the bad guy’s hp going down. OK, now for inventory. Quarterstaff, of course, monk robes, flask, backpack, and tent for starters. This ought to do, so now save.” Nabiki wrapped up her modifications to Ranma’s profile. She did have to get one last dig in. “Though it is a shame to not have your cute little girl side run around the computer game. I don’t think Ryoga’s girl side is nearly as big breasted as you are,” she teased Ranma with a smirk.
“Laugh it up,” Ranma said as he took the keyboard back, “but the next person will be...”
(Posted Sun, 09 Dec 2007 05:36)
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