CRPG Parties in the Broken Staff System

CRPG Parties

In single character RPGs parties are not needed. But for the bulk of the classic CRPGs, parties were a staple. Multi-character parties are the default setup in the Broken Staff CRPG system.

The point of having parties is to increase options so that players have increase roleplaying options, flexibility in combat and non-combat situations and room for replayability.

Out of the box the party class is meant to be flexible and allow you to modify it to suit your needs.

Party.xml

Here’s a sample party:


<Party>
   <Id>party1</Id>
   <Name>My Test Party 1</Name>
   <Description>This is a test party to showcase how the XML file works.</Description>
   <Gold>500</Gold>
   <Characters>
      <Character>
         <Id>fighter1</Id>
         <IsLeader>Yes</IsLeader>
         <IsRPC>No</IsRPC>
      </Character>
      <Character>
         <Id>rogue1</Id>
         <IsLeader>No</IsLeader>
         <IsRPC>No</IsRPC>
      </Character>
      <Character>
         <Id>priest1</Id>
         <IsLeader>No</IsLeader>
         <IsRPC>No</IsRPC>
      </Character>
      <Character>
         <Id>mage1</Id>
         <IsLeader>No</IsLeader>
         <IsRPC>No</IsRPC>
      </Character>
   </Characters>
</Party>


The party fields are the standard id, name and description. There is also a gold field for party gold.

The unique element here is the list of characters. For each character there is an id that references a character in the Characters.xml file and two parameters.

Each party should only have one leader. RPC or recruitable player characters are NPCs that can join the party. They are optional if you do not want to include them.

Adding New Parties

It is expected that whatever game you are creating will be able to write out parties in the XML file. But you can also do so manually for testing purposes.

To do so you need to:

• Make sure any characters you are adding are already in Characters.xml. If not, you need to first add them. Remember to give them a unique id
• Add a relevant entry for the new party in the Party.xml file. This includes defining the id, name, description etc for the party and the id values for each character
• The you can load the party in the game you’ve created

Do you have any questions? Comments? Catcalls or inane observations?