RPG

A playbook for role-playing games — stats and progression, inventory/equipment, quests, dialogue, and combat. This is a compositional skill: it ties data-driven content, dialogue, and saving together. It does not re-teach those primitives; it defines the systems that make growth and choice feel meaningful, and points to the skills that implement each.

When to use

• Use when building an RPG/JRPG/action-RPG: the player has stats that grow, an

inventory, quests, dialogue, and persistent progress.

• Use when designing a leveling curve, a damage formula, an inventory/equipment model, or a

quest state machine.

When not to use: permadeath dungeon runs with no persistent character → roguelike. Pure conversation/branching story → visual-novel. Open-world needs/crafting/base-building → survival-crafting. For the dialogue engine itself, use dialogue-systems.

Core loop

Explore → encounter (fight / talk / solve) → earn rewards (XP, loot, story) → grow (level up, gear up, unlock) → take on harder content. The fantasy is getting stronger and shaping who your character is; every system should feed that growth-and-choice loop.

Must-have systems

1. Stats + leveling — base attributes, derived combat stats, XP curve, level-up gains.
2. Inventory + equipment — data-defined items, stacking, slots, stat modifiers.
3. Combat — turn-based or action; damage formula, status effects, win/loss.
4. Quests — objectives, state machine (available→active→complete→turned-in), rewards.
5. Dialogue — branching lines, conditions on game state, choices that matter.
6. Save/load — persist character, inventory, quest progress, world flags, with versioning.
7. Economy + progression gating — gold/shops; gate power behind level/quest/region.
8. UI — HUD, inventory, quest log, dialogue box, character sheet.

Design knobs

| Knob | Effect | Notes | |------|--------|-------| | XP curve shape | pacing of power | Fast early, slow late (see refs). | | Stat→derived scaling | build diversity | One attribute shouldn't dominate. | | Damage formula | tactical feel | Subtractive vs. ratio mitigation (refs). | | Random variance / crit | swinginess | ±10% and ~1.5× crit are safe defaults. | | Drop rates / economy | reward cadence | Avoid trivializing shops with loot. | | Power gating | difficulty gating | Level/region/quest locks. | | Reversible modifiers | buff/gear correctness | Layer mods; never edit base stats. | | Choice consequence | role-play weight | Quest/dialogue flags should branch outcomes. |

Patterns

1. Derived stats from base attributes (recompute, never store as truth)

python
# Pseudocode. Base attributes are the only "truth"; combat stats are derived each time.
def derive(base, mods):
    s = apply_modifiers(base, mods)          # base + flat adds + percent, then clamp
    return {
        "max_hp":  20 + s["VIT"] * 8,
        "attack":  s["STR"] * 2,
        "defense": s["VIT"] + s["AGI"] * 0.5,
    }
# Equipping pushes a modifier; unequipping pops it. HP/attack recompute automatically.

2. XP curve + level-up

python
# Pseudocode. Quadratic curve: fast early levels, long late ones.
def xp_to_next(level, base=100): return base * level * level

def gain_xp(actor, amount):
    actor.xp += amount
    while actor.xp >= xp_to_next(actor.level):
        actor.xp -= xp_to_next(actor.level)
        actor.level += 1
        actor.base["STR"] += 2; actor.base["VIT"] += 2   # grant gains / skill points
        on_level_up(actor)                                # heal, unlock, notify

3. Quest objective update driven by game events

python
# Pseudocode. Game events advance matching objectives; completion grants rewards.
def on_event(kind, data):
    for q in active_quests:
        for obj in q.objectives:
            if obj.event == kind and matches(obj, data) and not obj.done:
                obj.count += 1
                if obj.count >= obj.needed: obj.done = True
        if all(o.done for o in q.objectives):
            q.state = "complete"                # turn-in grants xp/gold/items

Pitfalls / failure modes

• Editing base stats for buffs/gear → values drift and corrupt on save/reload. Keep a

modifier layer; push/pop it (Pattern 1).

• Storing derived stats as truth → desync after a stat change. Recompute from base.
• Runaway XP/damage numbers → either an exponential curve with no cap or a subtractive

formula at huge values. Pick a curve and a formula family deliberately (refs).

• Content as code → every item/quest hardcoded. Define items, enemies, and quests as

data (godot-resources / unity-scriptableobjects).

• Save format with no version field → old saves break on update. Add a version and a

migration path from day one (see save-systems).

• Choices without consequences → dialogue branches that reconverge immediately feel hollow.

Set flags that actually change later quests/world state.

• Quest progress not persisted → reloading loses mid-quest state. Save quest state, not

just completion.

Composition (build it from these skills)

• Dialogue: dialogue-systems (Yarn Spinner / Ink) — branching lines, conditions, variables.
• Persistence: save-systems — character, inventory, quest flags, world state, versioning.
• Content data: godot-resources / unity-scriptableobjects — items, enemies, quests, skills as assets.
• Combat AI: game-ai for enemy behavior; for turn order reuse the scheduler idea in roguelike.
• UI: game-ui-ux for HUD/menu layout, resolution scaling, and controller/keyboard nav; godot-ui-control for the concrete inventory, quest log, character sheet, and dialogue box.
• World: level-design plus your engine's tilemap/3D skill (godot-tilemap, godot-3d-essentials).

References

• For stat/damage formulas, leveling curves, turn-vs-action combat timelines, inventory/equipment

data shapes, and the quest state model, read references/stats-combat-quests.md.