I've been thinking about what makes turn based games fun and I was wondering what everyone else thinks. Here's my list:

1) You need to be able to estimate the cost of every move and know your chance of success before you attempt it.

2) They should give you information on every attack after its made:
Hero attacks Monster (Chance To Hit 75%) - Hit!
Monster is heavily wounded.

Monster attacks Hero - Hit!
Hero has a few scratches

3) There has to be a variety of weapons, so you can experiment with different strategies.

4) The monsters have to have unique strengths, weaknesses and behaviours so they don't get boring.

You also need to have a certain degree of complexity in the game, but not too much IMO. There can be a point when a player is too worried about figuring out the complexities of a game, and ends up not enjoying the actual gameplay of the game.

let me see.. to hit the monster i need a +7 less the ac of -2 and dont forget the to multiply the possibility of a block, parry , dodge and score. then of course you must be careful watching your step on terrain.. your boots give you a possibility of -2 attack then another possibiltiy of lightning hitting your sword as you swing because its raining. add another infravision bonus though because of your ranger.. ... ... ... 10mins later.. SCORE!

Turn based combat should also be easy accessable and playable. If I meet a group of goblins for the 24563th time I don't want to create and follow a complex strategy of moving the characters into position, casting the right spell and numerous other feats of micro-management. These things should be saved for the more difficult battles in the game; for the average Joe Schmoe badguy there should be an easier route.

The only turnbased games I played are strategy. Favourites are civilization or freeciv, age of wonders and battle for wesnoth (I made a thread about this game, check it out really cool and free).

Then I'd say it can be complex or not, I found age of wonders and battle for wesnoth aren't really hard but civilization is but that's because there's just too much too manage. Both are fun.

You shouldn't have to wait too long between turns.

One more thing for turn-based RPG:

I want to know exactly what an enemy is vulnerable to, and to what degree. I want to be able to select the weapon/spell/attack that will most hurt him and least drain my stamina/mana/etc. Also, I want to know what he can attack with and how much it can hit for.

Some kind of info that pops up, maybe on mouse over, of attack and defense stats.

I want to be able to switch into real time combat when I saw a skeleton for the 1000 time. It would be getting annoying having to battle the same thing over and over in a turn based mode.

That's a great idea aleph_null1. So you'd want text messages like:

"That attack didn't hurt him that much."

"That attack really seemed to hurt him."

That way you could learn the weaknesses of the monsters by experiment as you play the game.

[ 05-05-2005, 01:16 AM: Message edited by: David James ]

the actual combat of a game to me is not horribly entertaining in of itself if you are considering a turn based combat ala something like x-com or fallout. its what is outside of the combat that really makes a game be it turn based or real time.
it is true however that combat can become tedius and so a detriment to gameplay rather than a strategic/entertaining time sink. So, definatly would want to avoid a tedius ToEE style combat, and go something more like fallout which is a good balance of fast/slow pace since monsters generally get dead in the first round or two of combat.

Immersion, story, possibilities. That's what I want of an RPG. If not that, then a whole lot of challenging and fun battles [img]tongue.gif[/img]