Not just black smithing, but the professions would work along the same lines to.
Basically... I want to take 2 items: A bronze sword and iron ore... and turn it into one item: an iron sword. Thats simple enough, but then I have a problem...
Since multiple characters use swords... that means a character might have a bronze sword... and another one might have an iron sword... and some mithril ore to upgrade the iron sword into the mithril sword. Idealy If I have a bronze sword and iron sword in my inventory and both ores, I'd like the shop keeper to ask if I'd like to upgrade the iron sword or the mithril sword?
This is tricky because there will be 96 weapons in the game total... so I'm thinking this means a lot of trees or something. Im thinking each black smith will have a different area of expertise... A sword black smith... an axe black smith etc.
Any suggestions?
A fairly nifty way of going about doing something like this is to make a chipset-based menu (or picture based if you're pro), and then have a simple event for every choice such as "To create/upgrade this item, you must possess a -mithril ore- and -iron sword- to create -mithril sword-." and then give the player a choice. If they choose yes, then have the event check (via conditional branches) if the player has all these items, and if not, perhaps add in a "You still require # (ingredient)/s to make this item." by use of variables or just a conditional branch/remove item combo, adding the items back to the inventory after this check. And then just put this in your game where it works like a common event, something you call whenever you reference a blacksmith. By either changing the hero graphic to a cursor, or just removing the party and then adding in the cursor, that should be all you need.
Dalkin you don't mind if I incorperate an idea similar to this into my game? The characters won't be the smiths but the materials idea would be a great feature.
I don't think you need to ask permission to have a blacksmithing system in your game. I can name quite a few games both rpg maker and not that have it; it's not necessarily a new idea. I actually think there may be a tutorial or two on how to get that to work (Including what Verilo said, of course :P)