Community Codex GOTY 2015 - Results

[Irenaeus III]

Well trolled.

 

[Lurker King]

Do you play actual RPGs, Lurker King? Or just videogames?

I played AD&D, GURPS and some White Wolf RPGs in the olden days.

Then you understand that you could have played a railroaded combat romp in any of those games, and as far as anyone is concerned you'd still be playing an RPG?

That is irrelevant. A game is a cRPG if it provides you with opportunities to role-play. A cRPG can provide you with the opportunity to role-play by killing things. That is one choice. However, if a game only allows you to kill things, then you aren’t role-playing any more. The fact that you only care about this option is irrelevant regarding the nature of the game. In the best scenario, you could argue that a cRPG it’s an attempt to imitate a pure combat focused campaign in a video game, but even in these campaigns you have less linearity and more choices than what most pseudo-cRPGs will offer.

 

[Excidium II]

It's not irrelevant. It shows it's a valid playstyle. Naturally some developers preferred to focus on that style because it's simpler to implement.

you could argue that a cRPG it’s an attempt to imitate a pure combat focused campaign in a video game, but even in these campaigns you have less linearity and more choices than what most pseudo-cRPGs will offer.

Because CRPGs are inherently more limited. By the same token even a P&P combat romp has potentially more C&C than AoD.

 

[Lurker King]

It's not irrelevant. It shows it's a valid playstyle. Naturally some developers preferred to focus on that style because it's simpler to implement.

you could argue that a cRPG it’s an attempt to imitate a pure combat focused campaign in a video game, but even in these campaigns you have less linearity and more choices than what most pseudo-cRPGs will offer.

Because CRPGs are inherently more limited. By the same token even a P&P combat romp has potentially more C&C than AoD.

Not a good point. We are talking about the nature of a game. A cRPG is an attempt to implement a RPG in a video game format. The defining feature in a RPG is the ability to roleplay or, to use your words, to satisfy different “play styles”. If you can only have one play style, then you are not playing a cRPG anymore, because you can’t roleplay. I think that the enormous influence of D&D, and personal preferences for combat focused superficial campaigns, lead most people to believe that anything that has stats and skeletons in it is a proper cRPG. It’s an understandable mistake, but it’s still a mistake. The fact that most people are wrong about this doesn’t make it right.

 

[Excidium II]

A cRPG is an attempt to implement a RPG in a video game format. The defining feature in a RPG is the ability to role-play or, to use your words, to satisfy different “play styles”. If you can only have one play style, then you are not playing a cRPG anymore, because you can’t role play.

You can play a role, within the limitations set by the game. Just like an actual RPG.

 

[Lurker King]

You can play a role, within the limitations set by the game. Just like an actual RPG.

You can play only one role because these games aren’t about role-playing, but about killing things. That restriction has nothing to do with the medium limitations, but with developers preferences about the nature of gameplay. They didn’t give a shit about role-playing, they just wanted to kill stuff in videogame format. You know what is the type of game whose main objective is to run around and kill stuff? Adventure and action games. Just because you throw some fireballs and goblins in it doesn’t make it a cRPG, because D&D tropes doesn’t encapsulate the nature of role-playing games.

 

[Excidium II]

You can play only one role because these games aren’t about roleplaying, but about killing things.

But that's wrong. "Killing things" is the context of the adventure, but there's various roles to be played within that context.

That restriction has nothing to do with the medium limitations, but with developers preferences about the nature of gameplay.

It has a LOT to do with medium limitations.

 

[taxalot]

Still not getting thr Undertale hate.

 

[Excidium II]

Still not getting thr Undertale hate.

5 mins sharing the same space with an Undertale fan will make you hate Undertale.

 

[Lurker King]

But that's wrong. "Killing things" is the context of the adventure, but there's various roles to be played within that context.

Oh, really? Please, humor me.

It has a LOT to do with medium limitations.

It has a LOT to do with INTELLIGENCE and PREFERENCE limitations. You just need text-adventures to provide opportunities to roleplay.

 

[Excidium II]

But that's wrong. "Killing things" is the context of the adventure, but there's various roles to be played within that context.

Oh, really? Please, humor me.

Different characters with different ways to go about killing things. Those are roles to be played in an adventure about killing things.

It has a LOT to do with INTELLIGENCE and PREFERENCE limitations. You just need text-adventures to provide opportunities to roleplay.

Ah, so roleplaying to you = CYOA?

 

[Jasede]

Wizardry is an adventure now! Only on the Codex, folks.
mondblut

 

[Excidium II]

Wizardry is an adventure now! Only on the Codex, folks.
mondblut

Aren't all CRPGs?

 

[Kz3r0]

Every game has C&C since it depends on player input that is processed and gives different outputs.

Dungeon Siege proves you wrong.

 

[Excidium II]

 

[Ninjerk]

But that's wrong. "Killing things" is the context of the adventure, but there's various roles to be played within that context.

Oh, really? Please, humor me.

Different characters with different ways to go about killing things. Those are roles to be played in an adventure about killing things.

It has a LOT to do with INTELLIGENCE and PREFERENCE limitations. You just need text-adventures to provide opportunities to roleplay.

Ah, so roleplaying to you = CYOA?

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

The Codex: Where Baldur's Gate is old-school, and Rogue isn't an RPG.

CRPGs are different from pen & paper RPGs only in that each one is forced by necessity to acknowledge the advantages and limitations of their respective medium. Logistics, for example, is disdained by the story-LARPers, seen by them as irrelevant to the core nature of RPGs and a drag on story-telling. However, logistical simulations of encumbrance & inventory space, food consumption & starvation, water consumption & thirst, lighting & night/day cycles, and stamina/fatigue are all far easier to calculate and demonstrate on a computer than in P&P. Although these elements have existed since the beginning of RPGs, they were generally greatly simplified or abandoned entirely in P&P games due to the bookkeeping involved. By contrast, Dungeon Master in 1987 successfully incorporated all these logistical elements with effects on gameplay. The "choice & consequences" so beloved by story-LARPers seemingly never applies to choices in combat, never applies to choices in exploration, and applies only to a limited extent to choices in character customization. Instead, they use the term almost exclusively for reactivity in the story, but this type of reactivity is vastly more difficult to accomplish in a computer program than in a P&P game where a human acting as dungeon master can improvise reactions to anything the players might do. CRPGs require any substantial consequences to the story to be programmed in advance in the same way as other content, which is an enormous expense of resources, and at most provides for several alternate routes through a game.

It would be possible to create a text adventure game with deep reactivity in terms of the story and the characters involved, but this would of course remain a text adventure game and not be an RPG. In fact, in 1985 Nine Princes in Amber did just that.

 

[Lurker King]

Different characters with different ways to go about killing things. Those are roles to be played in an adventure about killing things.

So different ways to the play the same role is to use different roles?

 

[Lurker King]

Wizardry is an adventure now! Only on the Codex, folks.
mondblut

So you just ignored all the arguments and repeat the same thing. What a waste of time.

 

[Lurker King]

CRPGs are different from pen & paper RPGs only in that each one is forced by necessity to acknowledge the advantages and limitations of their respective medium.

That it’s a different subject. Whatever are the limitations and strengths of the medium, the essence of role-playing games, by definition, is to role-play.

The "choice & consequences" so beloved by story-LARPers seemingly never applies to choices in combat, never applies to choices in exploration, and applies only to a limited extent to choices in character customization.

That is because you also have killing stuff and exploration in games from different genres, such as Super Mario Bros. No one in his right mind would say that killing stuff is not a choice, instead, what I would argue is that it’s just one role. If the game, by the very definition, is about choosing different roles, then you aren’t role-playing anything if you are stuck with one role.

Instead, they use the term almost exclusively for reactivity in the story, but this type of reactivity is vastly more difficult to accomplish in a computer program than in a P&P game where a human acting as dungeon master can improvise reactions to anything the players might do.

C&C is harder to implement, but being harder it’s not excuse to not implement any C&C in a game that should be about C&C, and doesn’t magically change an adventure game into a cRPG. That it’s like saying “Look, I know I was supposed to do a symphony, but that is too difficult. Instead, I will just use one tambourine, because using one percussion instrument it’s easier”. To insist on this analogy, it’s almost as if as the time passes, people would start labeling solos with tambourines as symphonies, and the idiots would be the ones who point the obvious: that is not a symphony, it’s a solo. I understand that it’s difficult to admit that we commit mistakes, especially when we are in the majority, but stop and think a little bit. Maybe, just maybe, you are wrong about this. I know that people on internet like to believe that they are epistemically infallible and dismiss every criticism without thinking, but think a little bit.

It would be possible to create a text adventure game with deep reactivity in terms of the story and the characters involved, but this would of course remain a text adventure game and not be an RPG.

Why? Because you don’t have exploration? What it’s exploration? It’s using one character model on a map? But in a text-adventure you are using one character model the whole time. Every time you choose an option to enter into a room or open the chest in a text-adventure scenario you are exploring. I think this exploration thing is just a red herring to dismiss anything that doesn’t look like some types of adventure games. Or maybe it’s the lack of stats? But that it’s nothing in the definition of RPGs that make stats necessary. They are important to make the role-playing subject to limitations, but they are not a conceptual necessity in any sense.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

So different ways to the play the same role is to use different roles?

Umm, yes? Playing an archer and soldier is different even though the whole point of the game is killing things. Let us say you rolled a melee soldier.

As a soldier, you might get wounded in a fight while as an archer you might not because you managed to keep your distance. While certainly meta it is still a c&c. In a tabletop, the GM might make the wounded soldier to face further difficulties narrative wise because of his wound, something unfortunately not simulated due to many reasons in video game RPG. In a video game, the consequence might be the need for the soldier to buy potion to heal himself. Not very grand, not telegraphed in text yes, but it still is a C&C. While also not put in a text box [YOU ARE WOUNDED, BUY POTION TO HEAL? YES/NO?], the player, role playing as a now wounded soldier, might also choose not to buy the potion, which might result in his death in his next fight. But on the other hand, the player might actually leveled up his "Block Skill" one level ago which result in the soldier blocking that one fatal blow, can now counter the enemy, and claim victory. Choice and consequences, see?

All of this are possible to be made into narrative. Instead of your usual combat log, the game designer might use a more complex one to weave a pseudo narrative. [Due to the wound from previous injury, SOLDIER died when the enemy attack him with his sword, dealing 30 damage/Due to his excellent skill and his time training his shield skill, the wounded soldier block enemy attack, resulting in 0 damage!]. Or the game designer might ops to do it AoD way, with teleporting and narrative text. Or they might not to implement it at all, like most game do.

You might argue that death in such game is meaningless because the player can resurrect themselves or perhaps save scum. But how is it any different that save scumming in AoD?

Look, I like good c&c on narrative. I even loathe blobbers and ARPGs, but your narrow definition of what constitute RPG and C&C is absurd.

 

[Lurker King]

So different ways to the play the same role is to use different roles?

Umm, yes? Playing an archer and soldier is different even though the whole point of the game is killing things. Let us say you rolled a melee soldier.

So “Knights of the round” for SNES must be a RPG, since you can use an archer or a knight. What about any other game that allows you to kill things differently? So, “Call of Duty” is a cRPG? What about “Mario Bros”? The fact of the matter is that even the more convict combat-fag doesn’t think like this. Being different in this sense means very little, because you are just playing one role, that is, to kill things. Different ways to kill things is different ways to implement the same role. You aren’t role-playing anything.

 

[Darth Roxor]

So “Knights of the round” for SNES must be a RPG, since you can use an archer or a knight.

there was no archer character in knights of the round

credibility = zero

 

[Lurker King]

So “Knights of the round” for SNES must be a RPG, since you can use an archer or a knight.

there was no archer character in knights of the round

credibility = zero

Oh, yeah! I always confuse this game with "The King of Dragons"!

 

[InD_ImaginE]

So different ways to the play the same role is to use different roles?

Umm, yes? Playing an archer and soldier is different even though the whole point of the game is killing things. Let us say you rolled a melee soldier.

So “Knights of the round” for SNES must be a RPG, since you can use an archer or a knight. What about any other game that allows you to kill things differently? So, “Call of Duty” is a cRPG? What about “Mario Bros”? The fact of the matter is that even the more convict combat-fag doesn’t think like this. Being different in this sense means very little, because you are just playing one role, that is, to kill things. Different ways to kill things is different ways to implement the same role. You aren’t role-playing anything.

And now you have just gone out of the topic of the discussion, that is C&C and its role in defining an RPG.

What constitutes a game to be an RPG is very board. You may see it in various codex threads, some of which you undoubtedly have read. If the game from my example has a fully realized inventory system, character progression system, etc2 (just look for the threads and read them), barring your very narrow definition of what role and C&C are, and in extension, what an RPG is, it would still qualify as an RPG in my opinion. Your argument "Then CoD is an RPG lol" could pretty well have been debunked in one of those threads, which I am too lazy to look for. The rebuttal of such argument might not appeal to you, but the same could be said for you argument being not appealing to me.

And now I rest my case, least this thread devolve into another what is an RPG thread.

EDIT: grammar correction, maybe? Dunno if I am making it worse or not