Videogame based on LL ruleset

[Faust]

Hi all!

I'm Faust, I'm italian, and even if I am new here I played a lot with the retroclone that we all love

In fact, I liked it so much that it gave me an idea: what about a videogame based on the ruleset? I love creating and programming videogames, and I think a game which tries to be as close as possibile to the old school PnP style will be a nice idea. So, I posted this same question in some italian forums, and now that I've found the official one I'm going to ask here too.

Is there any problem with making a freeware game based only on the ruleset, with my own story, world and characters? Must I refer to the OGL or respect the LL trademark license? Or must I doing something else?

I'm asking that because I don't understand anything about legal stuff, so I wanna be as cleanest as possible about this. Thanks in advance for the answers!

[Craigers07]

Welcome Faust!

The idea has crossed my mind and probably has for many others here. Unfortunately, my body doesn't respond to everything that runs through my mind.

It's a great idea and I would hope it could become a reality some day. You'll have to ask Dan (aka Goblinoid Games on this forum) about any legal issues for the project.

What kind of basic design are you thinking about for it?

[Faust]

Thank you for the reply, I'll ask him about that asap

For the game desing itself, I was thinking something like this:

• The player must choose 4 characters that will form the party. He can choose premade characters or rolling the stats for each one of them
• The ruleset will be "basic" Labyrinth Lord or Advanced LL. The former will be simpler to implement, the latter will give more options to the players
• The graphic will be black & white 2D, like the illustrations on the old school manuals, without any 3D effects. The spells, the attacks and a few effects will be animated
• All the dice rolls will be animated on screen. You'll actually see the result on a real dice, just like a PnP session
• The "town parts" will have a static image of the town map, so you can click whatever destination you want to go (inside a house, for example). The dialogue between PC and NPC will feature multiple answers that can influence the story itself. The player also will have secondary options for pickpoketing and so on.
• The battles with monsters and NPC will adopt a digital tabletop system, with tokens which can be moved by the player and with a set of action you can make for each round. Something like Maptool, if you are familiar with
• I'm not sure what to do about the dungeon: surely only one room per screen will be shown, but I don't now if it's better to use a tabletop approach, like the combat system, or the town part system, with only images and commands.

This are the basics that I'm thinking about right now. What do you think?

[3llense'g]

Why is the game so simplistic graphically? Is it an Android or iPhone app or something? I'm sure you have a reason, I know I have.

[Faust]

The main reason is that I like simple old style games with very simple graphics, without too much stuff going on screen . Also, I think that it's the right style to use with this game

And no, it will be a PC game. I've no experience on mobile programming whatsoever, but maybe I'll do a port later, who knows

[3llense'g]

If you can program in Java you should really look into Android development, it's not hard at all.

[Faust]

To be fair, I've just finished some days ago an Arkanoid clone in Java. But with this one I was thinking to going with C++ and the SDL library.

So I was finally being able to send a pm to Dan, let's see the response

[Faust]

So, meanwhile I wait to see Dan's response, I'd like to discuss with you the character creation system

CHARACTERS

There will be premade characters, or else the player can make their own. The system will roll six time 3d6 and than the user will choose the other attributes

• Rerolling the abilities could be permitted?
  
  • If so, there will be unlimited rerolls? Or just a limited times for each character?
• Racial classes or the couple Race+Class? (the first is more intuitive and simple)
• Levelcap at 10 or 20? (Based on story advancement)
• Should the Monk be an available class? (Some people doesn't like them)
• Should the Assassin be an available class? (I don't like them XD)
  
  • If so, should all the rules for the missions be implemented ?
• Should multiclassing be permitted? (In LL multiclass=stronger character without real malus)
  
  • If so, should multiclassing be permitted to humans?
• Followers must be implemented at high levels?
• Any idea I didn't mention?

Let's see what you think about these points

[ArcherSix]

I wouldn't allow rerolls on the stats, and keep any pregen characters at that random level of abilities.


As for the rest, keep it as close to basic LL as you can. Save the advanced stuff for the sequel

Cool idea BTW, can't wait to see it

[3llense'g]

Followers (ie. hirelings) are possible from level 1. So if you want to implement it, it will be a significant part of gameplay. Race+class I think is actually more intuitive than race-as-class. I like ArcherSix's idea of making a Basic game and an Advanced sequel.