Dead State Interview

GameBanshee has an interview with Brian Mitsoda about Dead State. It has a lot of interesting stuff in it, but from a pure RPG design perspective, I found this perhaps the most interesting:

Unlike a lot of other RPGs, you don’t gain XP from killing things – you get skill points from completing objectives, which means that the player can go about things in any way that completes the task, rather than have to kill everything that moves. These objectives are both reoccurring and also reactive to events that have been set off by the player’s actions. In a lot of cases, avoiding combat or using the zombies against opponents is a better strategy than going in guns blazing. Reaching certain key milestones (like recruiting a certain number of strangers to your shelter) or making critical decisions in your role as a leader can unlock choices of new perks for your character. We definitely want to encourage players to play the way they want rather than grind for success.

Check out the full interview here. Hat tip to RPGWatch for the story.