Well.....I hate to do this to someone who''s got a good idea, and wishes to make his idea into a game. But I''d feel bad if I didn''t advise you against starting this project until your ready for it. Most beginners who start RPG''s never finish their game, because it ends up being more difficult than they expected. They also can''t keep their development team togeather. Personaly I think that staring an RPG game in 3d is even worse! You''d be amazed at the ammount of programming that goes into something as simple as PONG. If you want to continue learning I''d suggest putting this RPG on the back burner for a while. Get yourself "Tricks Of the Windows Game Programming Gurus", "C++ Primer Plus", "Code Complete", and a good math book which will cover everything from algebra to trig. A physics book wouldn''t hurt either. Then I''d start making some 2d games, maybe some tetris game just to see if you can get sound, graphics etc up and running with direct draw. Then maybe you''ll be ready to start doing some simple games in genesis. I wouldn''t create something as advanced as a RPG first though. I might create a 3d pong just so I could figure out how the engine works, how to do collision detection in 3d, how to place textures on objects, ect....After that you should be ready to create your RPG. I havent'' seen any articles on creating your own inventory system, but if you learn the fundamentals of a computer language you''ll have a real good idea of how to create one. I hope this helps you out. I don''t want anyone to start something they can''t finish and get all frustrated about it.