08-17-2022, 09:57 AM
(This post was last modified: 08-17-2022, 05:25 PM by Flashlight237.)
I personally think this part is best written from the player's perspective, as it is always the player who uses items, so I think I'll handle this one. Feel free to make corrections or add in anything you think should be noted.
Section 4.5: Items
I'm marking this as Section 4.5 because this can generally fit under Section 4. So, items. Countless games have them. Items range from one-time-use items such as the Super Mushroom and the Potion from Pokemon, to items that can be used a seemingly unlimited number of times such as TMs from Pokemon and the relics of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Some items will even be used for exploration such as bombs for blowing up walls or puzzle elements such as the Blood Orbs from Epic Battle Fantasy 4 (or basically any item needed to activate certain gated-off areas for that matter). Each item has its uses even when there are seemingly none (save for intentionally useless items, but let's not get into that).
This section is best written from a player's perspective, as the GM typically just hands out the item and describes what its used for. Anything else involving an item is generally done by the player.
---
General Item Use
How items are used varied widely between genres of games or even games themselves. I'll cover all the bases I know I can here despite roleplaying environments typically revolving around more complex genres such as roguelikes, survival horrors, and RPGs.
Platformers - While Pac-Man and Adventure did set the stage for item use, I personally feel item use really kicked off with platformers such as Super Mario Bros. With platformers, items here are typically one-offs or collectibles for a standard platformer. Power-ups are a staple in the Mario games and are typically one-time use. Each have a specific use, like the Super Mushroom making you grow, the Fire Flower granting firebending abilities, or the Star granting you invincibility for 10 or 15 seconds.
Collectibles, of course tend to vary from things from key items such as Jiggies from Banjo Kazooie to simple things that just exist for satisfaction like the bananas of Donkey Kong 64. It basically depends on what you're playing, really.
Metroidvanias - About the only one I have played here is Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, and game featuring a cute-and-cuddly half genie girl that is fairly simple for these types of games. Items are typically used for health, ammunition, or even for some sort of key or quest.
Roguelikes and Dungeon Crawlers - So, Diablo, amirite? Well, Minecraft Dungeons works too. There are health pickups to be had, though you may come across some weapons, key items, or even treasures. In Polyedit2000's Anonymated Rubbery Processing Grounds, you see some admittedly creative treasures that each have interesting effects.
Survival Horrors - Okay, so these games. Generally, in a survival horror, items appear in distressingly low quantity if there are any. You can fight back with guns or a bat, but you might run out of ammo when ammo is scarce. Food items and medkits can be used for health as well.
RPGs - Okay, so we finally get to the main deal: RPGs. Basically items of nearly every type can be found and utilized in an RPG. More on that in the next section, as I do think it is more essential in a roleplaying session.
---
Types of Items
Okay, so we get to the meat of this section: the types of items players will make use of. As I said before, practically every type of item can and will get used in an RPG. These items are as follows: healing items, utility items, equipment, quest items, key items, and crafting material. I'll detail them each here.
Healing Items - Healing items are typically used to restore HP, MP, status effects, or any combination of the three. Status effects can range from standard ones like poison and burn, or more intriguing ones like doom and petrified. There are three ways of handling items from a GM perspective, which I'll cover here.
{Traditional Healing Items} - Okay, so what we got here are the usual potions, ethers, elixirs and stuff. These are a staple in basically any RPG. They have the benefit of being very easy to associate a use with, as they are alchemically associated with medicine, but in exchange, they would come off as boring to the more creatively-minded.
{Natural Items} - Natural healing items are, well, basically eating foodstuffs as items. Games like Epic Battle Fantasy, Eliatopia, and Helmet Heroes used this approach for items. I personally admire the creativity of foodstuffs being used as healing items as opposed to the standard items, as there are a wide array of food items to pick from. On the downside, there are concerns that mobs might heal themselves by eating something they found, even though I've legit only seen Night Stalkers from Eliatopia do it.
{The Hybrid Approach} - Why am I putting this here? Well, here's the deal. Pokemon took on a hybrid approach with items, opting to use both the traditional potions and elixirs and natural items in the form of berries. Potions are usable on the creatures themselves, but if you legit have a pokemon try and figure out how to use a potion... Well, it's just not gonna work. On the other hand, a Pokemon is consciously capable of eating berries in order to heal itself when held. I think the hybrid approach allows for the best of both worlds.
Utility Items - Utility items are used to buff allies, debuff foes, damage foes, or even get around the environment. Buffs can include passive boosts and positive status effects. Unlike key items, utility items can be used repeatedly.
Equipment - While the specifics of equipment can be covered at a later time, generally equipment is used on a player to strengthen a player. Weapons generally give players attacking power, shields and armor typically provide defense, and accessories usually handle, well, pretty much everything else you can give to a player. Sometimes these characteristics can be mixed. The Power Shield from Soda Dungeon 2 (which is not a true RPG, sure, but let's roll with it) provides 35 defense and 15 power for instance, plus it has a gem slot that would allow you to stick a gem in it for additional effects.
Sometimes, equipment can be cursed, granting debuffs instead of anything useful. Ideally, you should probably get that checked by a priest.
Quest Items - These are generally items that are used to complete quests, typically fetch quests. Some quest items are completely useless otherwise while other quest items are, well, the stuff you had been making use of for healing and utility purposes.
Key Items - Key items are unique items that are used or carried around for the main questline. There are few key items I can think of that can be used everywhere, like Bikes from the Pokemon world.
Crafting Material - These items are typically used for crafting. Generally crafting is used to create items, sometimes cooler than the ones you already have now.
---
Item Drops
Item drops are determinable by the GM. This is generally the most power a GM would have over an item outside some scripted event. Item drops are generally items granted when you kill an enemy. These are typically fairly small stuff or some chance-y deals to keep the game balanced. For example, if you were to kill a Creeper, you would get a base crafting material: gunpowder. The gunpowder would be used to make TNT, fireworks, or splash potions.
What item a creature may drop, and how often it would drop, usually depends on the creature. I personally think the handling of an item drop is trickier in a roleplaying session than it is in a video game as roleplaying sessions are run by people. A fairly high drop rate in a video game may be seen as a low drop rate in a roleplaying environment.
---
Item Rarity Tiers
Okay, so this is invented by Diablo, but was standardized by World of Warcraft. Item rarity tiers are used to increase the "Wow!" factor of the items you get in any session. While rarity tiers may vary among games, I mean Trimps has friggin TWELVE, the following tiers are commonly accepted as the norm.:
---
Addendum: It is noted later that items need to be carried in some way or form. It can be noted that items generally do not need to be carried in platformers (ex. Super Mario Bros and Donkey Kong 64); however, they can be carried for later use, like for example, in Super Mario World where you are given a single power-up slot for later use.
(Like I said, feel free to change or add in details where necessary.)
Section 4.5: Items
I'm marking this as Section 4.5 because this can generally fit under Section 4. So, items. Countless games have them. Items range from one-time-use items such as the Super Mushroom and the Potion from Pokemon, to items that can be used a seemingly unlimited number of times such as TMs from Pokemon and the relics of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Some items will even be used for exploration such as bombs for blowing up walls or puzzle elements such as the Blood Orbs from Epic Battle Fantasy 4 (or basically any item needed to activate certain gated-off areas for that matter). Each item has its uses even when there are seemingly none (save for intentionally useless items, but let's not get into that).
This section is best written from a player's perspective, as the GM typically just hands out the item and describes what its used for. Anything else involving an item is generally done by the player.
---
General Item Use
How items are used varied widely between genres of games or even games themselves. I'll cover all the bases I know I can here despite roleplaying environments typically revolving around more complex genres such as roguelikes, survival horrors, and RPGs.
Platformers - While Pac-Man and Adventure did set the stage for item use, I personally feel item use really kicked off with platformers such as Super Mario Bros. With platformers, items here are typically one-offs or collectibles for a standard platformer. Power-ups are a staple in the Mario games and are typically one-time use. Each have a specific use, like the Super Mushroom making you grow, the Fire Flower granting firebending abilities, or the Star granting you invincibility for 10 or 15 seconds.
Collectibles, of course tend to vary from things from key items such as Jiggies from Banjo Kazooie to simple things that just exist for satisfaction like the bananas of Donkey Kong 64. It basically depends on what you're playing, really.
Metroidvanias - About the only one I have played here is Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, and game featuring a cute-and-cuddly half genie girl that is fairly simple for these types of games. Items are typically used for health, ammunition, or even for some sort of key or quest.
Roguelikes and Dungeon Crawlers - So, Diablo, amirite? Well, Minecraft Dungeons works too. There are health pickups to be had, though you may come across some weapons, key items, or even treasures. In Polyedit2000's Anonymated Rubbery Processing Grounds, you see some admittedly creative treasures that each have interesting effects.
Survival Horrors - Okay, so these games. Generally, in a survival horror, items appear in distressingly low quantity if there are any. You can fight back with guns or a bat, but you might run out of ammo when ammo is scarce. Food items and medkits can be used for health as well.
RPGs - Okay, so we finally get to the main deal: RPGs. Basically items of nearly every type can be found and utilized in an RPG. More on that in the next section, as I do think it is more essential in a roleplaying session.
---
Types of Items
Okay, so we get to the meat of this section: the types of items players will make use of. As I said before, practically every type of item can and will get used in an RPG. These items are as follows: healing items, utility items, equipment, quest items, key items, and crafting material. I'll detail them each here.
Healing Items - Healing items are typically used to restore HP, MP, status effects, or any combination of the three. Status effects can range from standard ones like poison and burn, or more intriguing ones like doom and petrified. There are three ways of handling items from a GM perspective, which I'll cover here.
{Traditional Healing Items} - Okay, so what we got here are the usual potions, ethers, elixirs and stuff. These are a staple in basically any RPG. They have the benefit of being very easy to associate a use with, as they are alchemically associated with medicine, but in exchange, they would come off as boring to the more creatively-minded.
{Natural Items} - Natural healing items are, well, basically eating foodstuffs as items. Games like Epic Battle Fantasy, Eliatopia, and Helmet Heroes used this approach for items. I personally admire the creativity of foodstuffs being used as healing items as opposed to the standard items, as there are a wide array of food items to pick from. On the downside, there are concerns that mobs might heal themselves by eating something they found, even though I've legit only seen Night Stalkers from Eliatopia do it.
{The Hybrid Approach} - Why am I putting this here? Well, here's the deal. Pokemon took on a hybrid approach with items, opting to use both the traditional potions and elixirs and natural items in the form of berries. Potions are usable on the creatures themselves, but if you legit have a pokemon try and figure out how to use a potion... Well, it's just not gonna work. On the other hand, a Pokemon is consciously capable of eating berries in order to heal itself when held. I think the hybrid approach allows for the best of both worlds.
Utility Items - Utility items are used to buff allies, debuff foes, damage foes, or even get around the environment. Buffs can include passive boosts and positive status effects. Unlike key items, utility items can be used repeatedly.
Equipment - While the specifics of equipment can be covered at a later time, generally equipment is used on a player to strengthen a player. Weapons generally give players attacking power, shields and armor typically provide defense, and accessories usually handle, well, pretty much everything else you can give to a player. Sometimes these characteristics can be mixed. The Power Shield from Soda Dungeon 2 (which is not a true RPG, sure, but let's roll with it) provides 35 defense and 15 power for instance, plus it has a gem slot that would allow you to stick a gem in it for additional effects.
Sometimes, equipment can be cursed, granting debuffs instead of anything useful. Ideally, you should probably get that checked by a priest.
Quest Items - These are generally items that are used to complete quests, typically fetch quests. Some quest items are completely useless otherwise while other quest items are, well, the stuff you had been making use of for healing and utility purposes.
Key Items - Key items are unique items that are used or carried around for the main questline. There are few key items I can think of that can be used everywhere, like Bikes from the Pokemon world.
Crafting Material - These items are typically used for crafting. Generally crafting is used to create items, sometimes cooler than the ones you already have now.
---
Item Drops
Item drops are determinable by the GM. This is generally the most power a GM would have over an item outside some scripted event. Item drops are generally items granted when you kill an enemy. These are typically fairly small stuff or some chance-y deals to keep the game balanced. For example, if you were to kill a Creeper, you would get a base crafting material: gunpowder. The gunpowder would be used to make TNT, fireworks, or splash potions.
What item a creature may drop, and how often it would drop, usually depends on the creature. I personally think the handling of an item drop is trickier in a roleplaying session than it is in a video game as roleplaying sessions are run by people. A fairly high drop rate in a video game may be seen as a low drop rate in a roleplaying environment.
---
Item Rarity Tiers
Okay, so this is invented by Diablo, but was standardized by World of Warcraft. Item rarity tiers are used to increase the "Wow!" factor of the items you get in any session. While rarity tiers may vary among games, I mean Trimps has friggin TWELVE, the following tiers are commonly accepted as the norm.:
- Common (⭐) - Usually unmarked.
- Uncommon (⭐⭐) - Usually marked with green.
- Rare (⭐⭐⭐) - Usually marked with blue.
- Epic (⭐⭐⭐⭐) - Usually marked with purple.
- Legendary (⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐) - Usually marked with orange or golden yellow.
- Mythic (⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐) - This is a commonly-agreed on rarity tier, although the color used to mark this tier may vary. Red is a good marking color for mythic, however.
---
Addendum: It is noted later that items need to be carried in some way or form. It can be noted that items generally do not need to be carried in platformers (ex. Super Mario Bros and Donkey Kong 64); however, they can be carried for later use, like for example, in Super Mario World where you are given a single power-up slot for later use.
(Like I said, feel free to change or add in details where necessary.)