Concerto RPG Home

An Introduction to Concerto

“Concerto: a piece for one or more soloists and orchestra with three contrasting movements”

“A role-playing game (RPG and sometimes roleplaying game) is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting.”

This is an introduction to what I call the Concerto RPG System, though a number of other musically themed names were considered as well. To be fair, I had looked through an entire listing of musical terms in order to narrow it down before I settled on my originally instinctive choice, Concerto. I would not be surprised if a later version of this RPG system were known as “the Fugue RPG system”, seeing as fugues tend to be even more complicated than concertos, but I digress.

Some of you may be intrigued by the name. Why name it “Concerto?” The main reason is because this RPG system is heavily influenced by the Arpeggio RPG System, created by the Great Oracle Lewot and used in his Ostinato RPG as well as KV’s Totally Original* RPG, albeit with some changes; the changes themselves are merely technical changes designed specifically for his RPG, but for the most part it incorporates the usage of the Arpeggio RPG System. Now this RPG system, while still influenced by the Arpeggio system, is a bit grander in terms of scaling, I would like to think, just as the concerto is to a regular arpeggio within it. Similarly, a concerto can incorporate arpeggios throughout its structure, and it is in this sense that the Concerto RPG System incorporates the Arpeggio RPG System.

Now perhaps you’re wondering what makes the Concerto RPG System differ from the Arpeggio RPG System. The original Arpeggio was designed to be simple and easy to use; in a way, it’s like actually playing an arpeggio of notes. The battle system is heavily influenced by that from the Paper Mario games, most notably the first, and it incorporates simple calculations as part of its battle system. Other parts of the system are a bit more complicated perhaps than this, but this is where the primary difference between the Arpeggio system and the Concerto system comes in.

You see, while Arpeggio is based on the Paper Mario engine, Concerto is more inspired by the Mario & Luigi engine. At the time of this writing, there are only three Mario & Luigi games, and no new ones have been announced as of yet. The first one, Superstar Saga, began the series on the Game Boy Advance system back in 2003, and it was well-acclaimed as one of the best Mario games ever made. My first encounter with the series would not come, though, until I received a Nintendo DS for Christmas 2005, accompanied by the second in the series, Partners in Time. Later on I would obtain the first, and both of these games have become apart of my list of favorite games. And finally, in 2009, Bowser’s Inside Story came out, and it became another favored game in the line-up for me.

But enough about the historical context of the Mario & Luigi series and more onto the actual point. Because the Concerto system draws more inspiration from the Mario & Luigi engine, the Concerto system has more complex calculations. It’s not to say these are anywhere near as complex as those used in the actual games; rather, the calculations have, for the most part, experienced trial and error before coming out to the final accounts you will see in detail. For instance, the formula for figuring damage is nowhere near as straightforward as with the Arpeggio system, but when one sees the formula in action, one might remark that it’s a surprisingly simple equation that differs greatly from that used in the games.

Another large change comes in the form of the addition of the Speed stat, as well as the ability to dodge and counter attacks. Normally, in Mario & Luigi, this would be indicated by an action command and be dependent on timing; however, being that Concerto is a text-based RPG system like its predecessor, there needs to be a conversion of sorts into something resembling dodging and countering, something I hope I have successfully achieved with the given formulas.

The third largest change one may note between the two systems is the expanded Exp system. Influenced again by the Mario & Luigi series, player characters are required to reach a certain total amount of Exp before they can reach the next level. Utilizing observations over the Level-Up rate in the games, I made an extremely simple formula that would replicate a similar growth pattern and extended it all the way up to Level 100; now a campaign may not require players to raise themselves up to this level, but it is there for those who wish to have it. To go beyond Level 100? Perhaps there’s a way, but for now it’s more than enough.

Some other differences between the Arpeggio system and the Concerto System include: the merging of the Weapon Triangles into a single Weapons Triangle; the addition of four new elements, added to the original eight elements from Ostinato and the extra two elements added into KV’s TORPG, giving a total of fourteen different elements; the indication and separation between items and equipment; the inclusion of badges into the system; an expansion on a player character’s inventory every now and again; the Roulette Boost, given to a player character each time they level up; and much much more.

As I have said, the Concerto RPG System is much grander and more complicated than the Arpeggio RPG System, and thus it is not to be trifled with lightly. If you don’t feel comfortable keeping track of all the math involved in this RPG, then it is advised that you take a look at the Arpeggio RPG System, as it was specifically designed to be more simplistic than the Concerto. However, if you’re up for the challenge, then I think that you will be able to enjoy yourself quite a bit with the Concerto RPG System.

A bit of closing: the Concerto RPG System is a bold attempt to incorporate more complex maths into text-based RPGs, and this is merely the first movement. All stories, in some way or another, have three movements, like a concerto: the Beginning, the Middle, and the End.

And this, my friends, is only the Beginning...