Author Ramblings, The road not taken PT.2: Crafting a System (Patreon)

---> THIS IS NOT A CHAPTER  <--- 

Back in January I wrote an Author Commentary about the molemen, and a story plot I eventually discarded due to time constraints. Today I thought I would talk about the very first iteration of DotF, and the System I had planned. 

One of the biggest challenges of writing a litrpg is creating a working 'system', and I don't mean the actual System that is in the story of DotF.

It is the laws that govern the litRPG-elements of the story, which in turn will have cascading effects on the whole universe. 

When I started planning out Defiance of the Fall I pretty much began with a few basic concepts I wanted to incorporate for the story itself, and then I started working on the System.

What many might not know is that I actually wrote the first draft of the first 5 chapters of Dotf in spring 2018, rather than May 2019 when I started releasing the story on RR. In this Author note I will show some of the earliest iterations of the 'System', and discuss the changes I eventually decided on when I rewrote it.

Defiance of the Fall is a blend of Xianxia and LitRPG, and I'd guess that the story is leaning heavier on the Xianxia side. But that wasn't always the case. The first draft of the story was supposed to lean a lot harder on the LitRPG-side. 

The idea was to follow the success of Randidly Ghosthound with a story in a similar vein, but one where I incorporated some Xianxia elements instead of the path/talent system (can't exactly remember how it worked in Randidly any longer)

This was the very first title screen after I had entered Zac's base attributes and his titles.  As you can see, only half of this screen actually survived. The idea was that the base attributes would have actually quantifiable outputs compared to the somewhat vague situation today.

Strength would simply provide P. Attack and a small amount of P. Def. Dexterity would give Speed  (while wisdom gave cast speed)  and a small amount of P. Attack.

Endurance was 80% hp and 20% HP reg, and Vitality the opposite. 

This was just the first part of the picture, the second was the equipment. I never got around to creating an "Equipment Screen", But the list of slots still remain.

In addition to this there would also be weapon slots, of course. Zac would first come into contact with this when he realized something was up, and he said "Inspect" while looking down at his hatchet.

At that point would he see [Woodcutter's Hatchet - Supbar], and that it provided 1-3 P. Attack.

There were a few more examples of these types of elements as well. For example, when Zac first managed to open his status screen, he would see that he had a debuff called "Bleeding," that reduced hp regen and gave a flat -hp/min regen. I also think there was a second debuff called Maimed that decreased his speed. 

So why is all this (and probably a few more examples that I've forgotten) gone?

As I wrote these things up and started describing how various parts of the system were connected, one simple question started to bother me.

What is HP?

It's a usually red bar that denotes how much life you have, and when you run out you die. But how does that translate into a real-world scenario? Say you get your arm cut off from a swing. How do you calculate the HP loss there?

And will the arm just grow back from the hp regen?

What about the numbers? You get hit by an axe in your throat. You have 2physical defense and the axe has 3 physical offense. Do you only take 1 point of damage instead of getting decapitated?

There are some examples of how HP is used in 'real' scenarios (D&D comes to mind), but it still irked me.

I quickly decided to scrap HP altogether, since it both felt like such a thing could diminish the excitement of a fight. I also didn't relish the prospect of having to write damage numbers over and over ad nauseam.

But when I pulled HP from the status screen things started to quickly fall apart. First was the HP Regen, of course. Then MP got pulled. Keeping the MP wasn't really a problem in my opinion. 

Skills cost MP in the first iteration (though I never got that far). MP in turn was just one's reserves of Cosmic Energy but quantified in an easily distinguishable manner. However, I felt that it would look weird to have MP but not HP, so It got scrapped as well, along with quantified skill costs.

These revisions caused trouble with the equipment. What was the point of having weapon damage when you don't have HP? It doesn't make sense when only one side is quantified. So weapons no longer had weapon damage.

At this point I decided to scrap the litRPG-styled equipment system altogether. Part was because it didn't make sense without the HP/MP, and part was due to convenience. It would be a chore to have to create attributes for one item after another.

Besides, finding new rings belts boots and other equipment would suddenly become a big part of the story (like most VRMMORPG stories today), and I wasn't interested in taking DotF in that direction.   

I still planned on having MMO-type rarities for all non-mortal items, but that was eventually scrapped in the second iteration, when equipment was incorporated into the F-A and Low-Peak scales instead along with almost everything else.

This eventually led to the current iteration (which has also seen a few retcons during release), where the universe was changed from a litRPG world into a Xianxia world wearing a litRPG coat. 

So I guess you can thank/curse me being too lazy to keep track of all those numbers for the heavy leanings into Xianxia territory. 

Let me know if there's any other subjects you want me to ramble on about.