About most cRPGs : A mutation?

[Alex_Steel]

Heya! Newfag here, although I've been lurking since 1986.
I was reading the other day the "What Does Old School RPG Mean To You?" thread and I was thinking about those old cRPGs.

An RPG in its first form (p'n'p DnD), was a game where you could change the story with your actions. It was game of c&c as we say it. Also, there were lots of combat rules, a way to create your own character and the DM could create his own world.

So, if you remove from DnD the c&c and reduce it to a predefined story, what do you have? You have a game like Hero Quest with more complicated combat rules. And Hero Quest is no RPG. It has some RPG elements, but it is not one. If I remove the pawns from chess for example, I'm not playing chess anymore. It will be similar, but it won't be chess.

If most of the first cRPGs were games with no dialogue options or a way to affect the story at all, then it is like playing DnD without the talking/affecting the story part. Or Hero Quest.

I have the opinion that most cRPGs are a mutation of the original. The creators of these games:
1) wanted to make them with c&c but had limited resources(money, diskette space, whatever)/didn't know how. Still, it had some DnD rules (or was a DnD look-alike), so it had to be an RPG.

and/or

2) had not realised how an RPG is played. They just dungeon-crawled or played linear stories with their DM guiding them like puppies and that is what influenced them. They still thought they were playing an RPG but in reality they were playing Advanced Hero Quest.

So, why the RPG title to all these games? Well, marketing makes the world go round. Role Playing Game is a catchy title, better than dungeon crawler or adventure. Also, it looks like an RPG. There are monsters, stats, a party of characters, tactical combat, an inventory, etc.

Hey, where are my story choices? I'm not asking for something perfect but give me a break! An RPG needs at least some c&c or it's not one! Where are they??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyFpOp8Ft0Q

It would be nice to hear some opinions on the subject. My Greek open mind ( ) is ready for different opinions.

 

[MMXI]

Yep. Wizardry wasn't an RPG but some random Japanese visual novel "game" is because it's designed as a flowchart. Thanks for enlightening us!

 

[Vagiel]

First of all what really separates old school dnd from a war game is not C&C is LARPing and certainly that was, thankfully, missing from "old-school" computer RPGs. C&C is a side effect of human involvement. It is nice to have but certainly not what defines an RPG tabletop or otherwise. There are other genres that do the whole C&C thing much better.

The choice that you get in old-school RPGs is the choice that really matters. You get to actually play the game instead of being constantly bombarded by quest markers, hints and pop ups telling you where to go and what to do. Getting an arbitrary choice, after being driven through such a roller-coaster, to go left or right (see help group A or group B) does not a an rpg make.

By the way nice first post! I am sure you will fit right in.

 

[JarlFrank]

My Greek open mind ( ) is ready for different opinions.

Too bad you don't have enough money to bribe anyone into believing your opinion.

 

[7hm]

An RPG needs at least some c&c or it's not one!

Fuck off.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

By the way nice first post! I am sure you will fit right in.

Welcome Volourn. That's a very intelligent first thread you wrote there, I am sure you'll make a great addition to our community here.

 

[Fowyr]

5/10. Try harder.
You never saw typical dungeon crawl modules? C&C my ass.

 

[Marsal]

My Greek open mind ( ) is ready for different opinions.

Too bad you don't have enough money to bribe anyone into believing your opinion.

Coming from a German, I find this highly amusing. He has your money. You do know you're not getting those billions you gave the filthy Greeks back? You think they're selling you everything they've got, but it's all worthless junk anyway. Instead of throwing good money away, you should kick them out of EU, fire up your Panzers, collect the debt and then be all

of Krauts.

 

[commie]

Of course there's C&C in a dungeon crawler! Do you go with the cleric or the druid? Do you multiclass with character X or not?

 

[laclongquan]

Nice effort! too bad it doesnt work as expected.

5/10

 

[Admiral jimbob]

Of course there's C&C in a dungeon crawler! Do you go with the cleric or the druid? Do you multiclass with character X or not?

Wizardry 6 has C&C that allows you to reach a diplomatic solution with the villain, gain an extremely powerful artifact as a reward and import it into the sequel. This also has repercussions with characters you can meet in Wizardry 8, ten years later. Beat that Witcher

 

[Wyrmlord]

Doesn't Wizardry 7 also have other competing adventurers, who dynamically change the world in various ways due to their presence?

 

[Daemongar]

Well, hold on there, OP. The original D&D had C&C, but there were limits. You run the Tomb of Horrors module, new rooms do not spring up because of the player actions. The last room does not have two demi-lichs, or a gorilla with an uzi based on the player actions. The module was fixed but the players could manipulate the outcome up to a point.The ultimate point was killing the "last boss" or finding the secret. This has been adequately mimic'd and is still a part of RPG's and most action and adventure games.

5/10. Try harder.
You never saw typical dungeon crawl modules? C&C my ass.

Damn, missed this. Fowyr says in 10 words what i said in a bunch.

 

[Alex_Steel]

Reminder: I never said all of them. I said most.

Yep. Wizardry wasn't an RPG but some random Japanese visual novel "game" is because it's designed as a flowchart. Thanks for enlightening us!

Where are my character creation/advancement and combat rules?

To clarify, an RPG is the whole package. There must be a choice for talking or fighting or sneaking or whatever, whenever it is reasonable. There must be a character creation/advancement thing. There must be a way to affect the story with your words and actions.

If you remove the talking option, you get Advanced Hero Quest. If you remove the fighting option, you get an adventure video game. etc

First of all what really separates old school dnd from a war game is not C&C is LARPing and certainly that was, thankfully, missing from "old-school" computer RPGs. C&C is a side effect of human involvement. It is nice to have but certainly not what defines an RPG tabletop or otherwise. There are other genres that do the whole C&C thing much better.

No, I don't say it is what defines it. But it is a big part of what separates it from Advanced Hero Quest.

The choice that you get in old-school RPGs is the choice that really matters. You get to actually play the game instead of being constantly bombarded by quest markers, hints and pop ups telling you where to go and what to do. Getting an arbitrary choice, after being driven through such a roller-coaster, to go left or right (see help group A or group B) does not a an rpg make.

By the way nice first post! I am sure you will fit right in.

I agree although that is a choice you make in real life. No good GM gives off-game knowledge to his players. Except if they are retarded and he gets paid some serious cash for it.

Thanks!

You never saw typical dungeon crawl modules? C&C my ass.

Well, hold on there, OP. The original D&D had C&C, but there were limits. You run the Tomb of Horrors module, new rooms do not spring up because of the player actions. The last room does not have two demi-lichs, or a gorilla with an uzi based on the player actions. The module was fixed but the players could manipulate the outcome up to a point.The ultimate point was killing the "last boss" or finding the secret. This has been adequately mimic'd and is still a part of RPG's and most action and adventure games.

I know what you mean, I've played ToH. Yes, there very few options for talking in these modules, besides the fact that PCs can talk to each other. But remember that they can be used as part of a campaign. And don't tell me that you could make an entire computer game out of ToH or anything similar. The map is tiny.

So, 5/10 is pretty good in my book.

How did this old philosopher say it? Ahh yes!

Métrion áriston (Mediocrity is best).

 

[Mastermind]

! An RPG needs at least some c&c or it's not one! Where are they??

The only c&c an rpg needs is the choice of skills and tools to aid you in the popping of moles.

 

[mondblut]

Five years ago, every comment would be like this:

Mission accomplished.

 

[MMXI]

Mission accomplished.

 

[Chloe]

Well, as far as your query goes, I would say you are right regarding Wizardry. It was not an RPG game. One has also to look into the fact that what that separates an old school DND from a war game is actually C and C which is quite contrary to popular beliefs. In fact, it is Larping that has more of a say when it comes to the distinction between these two.

 

[Gord]

You shouldn't confuse PnP RPG with cRPGs.

The former has a human DM that can dynamically adapt to the players choices.
While he still wants to tell a story, players have much freedom in how they react to the it.
Of course, the quality of the experience depends a lot on the skill of the DM.

A cRPG is very restricted in comparison. You can only use the possibilities the devs have made available to the player.
Early cRPGs focused more on dungeon crawling and solving riddles, but offered a fairly complex set of rules for character creation and combat. (If you could take away the rose-tinted glasses, they too would be met with nothing but butthurt, though. That's the nature of this place.)

Later on the focus began shifting towards telling stories (and ultimately lead to deluded devs with Hollywood aspirations and the dreaded tyranny of "accessibility"). First through gameplay, later more and more through cutscenes.
Ultimately telling a story in a cRPG will always be limited by available options. Unless you create a AI that's able to react to every idea of the player you have to go with whatever the devs give you. And then they still want to tell you their story, which means you do have to follow that through their way.

 

[coldcrow]

Although I am not too familiar with the roots of computer gaming I think it is safe to assume that the C&C aspect largely stemmed from adventure games. Imho the 'R' was defined by the fact that the player took on the role of a character with its physical and mental capabilities defined by some numbers.
The story aspect came later and is not, per se, bad but just another element. If focused on too heavily you will end up with the current interactive movie crap.

Also good fishing attempt.

 

[laclongquan]

I wouldnt say 1page thread is a good attempt. Mediocre, only.

 

[CorpseZeb]

How did this old philosopher say it? Ahh yes!

Métrion áriston (Mediocrity is best).

Be he don't meant 5/10 by that...

By the way, about DM and cRPG, today we have pretty powerful procedural algorithms capable doing many of DM things, we have four core processors able to copy with that algorithms, but we don't have an audience of gamers willing to accept randomness and meaningless of procedural worlds (vide reception of E.Y.E or Hellgate or Dins Curse). Story uber alles. Story macht frei.

 

[felipepepe]

You shouldn't confuse PnP RPG with cRPGs.

The former has a human DM that can dynamically adapt to the players choices.
While he still wants to tell a story, players have much freedom in how they react to the it.
Of course, the quality of the experience depends a lot on the skill of the DM.

A cRPG is very restricted in comparison. You can only use the possibilities the devs have made available to the player.
Early cRPGs focused more on dungeon crawling and solving riddles, but offered a fairly complex set of rules for character creation and combat. (If you could take away the rose-tinted glasses, they too would be met with nothing but butthurt, though. That's the nature of this place.)

Later on the focus began shifting towards telling stories (and ultimately lead to deluded devs with Hollywood aspirations and the dreaded tyranny of "accessibility"). First through gameplay, later more and more through cutscenes.
Ultimately telling a story in a cRPG will always be limited by available options. Unless you create a AI that's able to react to every idea of the player you have to go with whatever the devs give you. And then they still want to tell you their story, which means you do have to follow that through their way.

Great post, shame it's wasted on bad troll topic.

 

[Flatlander]

RPG as a genre classification has evolved to the point where it's so meaningless that it would be best to abandon the whole term (the mainstream is not going to do it, at least as long as it sells). Just like the [strike]text adventure[/strike] Interactive Fiction folks did we should come up with some new and prestigious name for Codex approved RPGs.

With a little spin it could be presented as the natural evolution of the old school Bio/Beth RPGs, as everyone knows that Oblivion really wanted to be a turn based & isometric game but the technical restrictions of the time didn't allow for complex rules and stats so they had to go the all action and presentation route instead of the way of the more complex games like KotC and Deadstate that are possible with modern technology.

In worst case we could at least get rid of these 'Zelda is my favorite old school RPG evar'/'Real PnP is not possible with computers so everything goes as long as I can LARP' discussions.

TLDR; it's time to evolve the genre and get rid of the stale (although so dearly loved) parts of the old genre definition, like voice acting, awesomeness, graphical bling and trying to please the (LA)RP crowd.

 

[Alex_Steel]

You shouldn't confuse PnP RPG with cRPGs.

I'm not confusing them. The first designers got confused and named their games RPGs. I realize that a computer game is restricted but I also realize the effort to deliver the right product.

Later on the focus began shifting towards telling stories (and ultimately lead to deluded devs with Hollywood aspirations and the dreaded tyranny of "accessibility"). First through gameplay, later more and more through cutscenes.

This is true for all videogames, not just RPGs. We can't blame just RPG designers for having more cutscenes. Most game designers these days put more cutscenes. Unfortunatelly, it's a damn market trend.

Although I am not too familiar with the roots of computer gaming I think it is safe to assume that the C&C aspect largely stemmed from adventure games. Imho the 'R' was defined by the fact that the player took on the role of a character with its physical and mental capabilities defined by some numbers.
The story aspect came later and is not, per se, bad but just another element. If focused on too heavily you will end up with the current interactive movie crap.

Also good fishing attempt.

A tRPG has one thing that sets it apart from a wargame. The choice of a player to affect the story. The choice to play a character and through different actions, to receive different results.
That part was entirely absent from most of these early games. No dialogue, no choice, nothing that makes a game an RPG along with combat, character creation/progression etc.

Did the game designers not have the resources to make it? Did they not know how to do it? Did they not care? Had they not realized what an RPG is?

Just think of this.

If I create a game with dialogue, story options and combat but no character creation/progression (your character is always the same), would you call it an RPG?
What if I remove combat entirely (combat happens in cinematic, you have no control over it) and leave just character creation/progression, dialogue and story options? Is it an RPG?

P'n'p RPGs where quite successful back then so I would say that 'RPG' as a term back then was like 'app' is these days. A buzzword. You want at least some success? Better jump on the RPG/app bandwagon! Give those consumers what they want! Give them a half-assed form of a program/game and tell them it's what they want.
Are you surprised game designers are still full of promises but in the end, most of the times you get disappointment? It's marketing and its modern form exists since the 70s.

You may call it fishing but I call it an argument, each has his own view of this thread. Should I be surprised very little arguments are presented in this thread? I'm not.

Most of the answers in this thread are as if they are coming from typical extremely religious people or kids. They don't like their worldview to be challenged but guess what. The Vatican didn't like it neither my little cousin.
In the end, the earth is not the center of the universe and Santa doesn't bring presents.

Thanks to anyone that actually answered.