As some of you might know, recently I fell in love with Bioware’s latest title, Dragon Age.

Of course there are MANY reasons to love that game: but as game designer, the most interesting new feature (never seen before in a RPG game as far as I know) is the party management / relationship between the main characters and his/her companions.

Beside the possible romance outcomes, which are very nice, I also liked in particular the skill bonus that each NPC can get if you have a good relationship with him/her. I definitely want to do the same in my game Planet Stronghold. Beside raising the skills the “normal” way (through Training or winning battles / earning XPs) I also want to have a relationship value with each of them, and that value will give bonuses to combat. Of course also a negative value will give a negative bonus to combat.

Another very interesting feature is that the NPC actually interacts during the exploration dialogues. Evil / selfish characters will be annoyed if you try to help too much everyone you meet, while generous / brave characters will be pissed if you do evil action or if you refuse to help the weaks. This will require a bit more planning during the dialogues to check for all the possible companions present in that point, but will definitely add much more atmosphere and realism to the game.

I always liked the idea of your party NPC being not simple soldiers that will follow the leader blindly, but real characters with their own morals / thoughts that will change their opinion on you based on your actions.