KickStarter Do episodic RPGs exist?

[FriendlyMerchant]

Neverwinter nights had an episodic format with its chapters. You play the first chapter and when the chapter ends, it's treated like the end of a game and your character is exported. Then you start the next chapter either importing the character and his inventory used in the last chapter or making a new one. The release was not episodic as all chapters for the official modules were released when a module was released. Then there's some custom modules which were released by chapter, notably the "Swordflight" and "A Dance with Rogues."

 

[Pocgels]

I'll second live a live. Very unique game. Helps if you think of it as more like the Twilight Zone than a regular TV drama.

If you're willing to count JRPGs, I think Trails in the Sky fits the "episodic" description. Each chapter has its own antagonists, location, player characters (outside the main two) and story arc. Once you finish the area, everything is wrapped up, and your two main characters move on. There's some foreshadowing and returning characters, and there's only a handful of chapters, but they feel much less loosely designated than the chapters in Baldur's Gate, for instance.

As for RPGs with self-contained episodes that are so independent that you could theoretically play them in some random order (like you would watching a sitcom or something) ? I can't think of any. Maybe if you count hub -> mission type RPGs like the Shadowruns, that could qualify.

 

[Comte_II]

Tabletop rpgs like Conan D20 or Monster of the week are meant to be episodic.

 

[Bad Sector]

Neverwinter nights had an episodic format with its chapters. You play the first chapter and when the chapter ends, it's treated like the end of a game and your character is exported.

AFAIK your character is exported for any save that the game is made (or to put it differently, the game is importing characters from savegames).

But yeah after rusty's clarification i also thought of NWN1 - and other games that had act-based progression since most of them treat the main story as an overarching thing while focusing on act-specific missions in the meanwhile (most older Bioware games are like that but also games like Witcher 1). I did forget that you can start a later chapter in NWN1 (never did that myself :-P) with different characters, so yeah that also seems to fit the bill perfectly. Also in general it seems NWN1's approach to modules can fit the episodic approach almost perfectly (the only thing i'd like it if the game had would be some functionality for module authors to handle higher leveled characters because i like the idea of having a character that goes to lots of adventures across modules, but after a while once the PC reaches a high level combat becomes too trivial).

 

[luj1]

NWN is episodic, not only it has chapters but HotU is a direct continuation of SoU

Also back in 2003 Bioware ran a competition to create a linking module, I believe Nether Scrolls won

As for the "no bad guy until it becomes important" a clear example is Morrowind, rusty's favorite

 

[Ontopoly]

but more like an episodic TV series

The word you are looking for is probably "procedural", not "episodic".

Darklands comes pretty close.

I think the better term would be Monster of the week or planet of the week.

Dragons dogma reminds me of this, where you have the main plot being relevant in the beginning and end but the middle is filled with unrelated quests. Fight a Griffin that's attacking people, investigate those ruins, etc. None of those quests really push the plot forward until the king decides you're strong enough to fight the dragon

 

[Roguey]

As for the "no bad guy until it becomes important" a clear example is Morrowind, rusty's favorite

Morrowind has a clear goal from the start.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

Tabletop rpgs like Conan D20 or Monster of the week are meant to be episodic.

Because of that, I'd include FRUA with all the various modules. You can put your party through an adventure of the week as long as you transport them to modules that correspond to their current levels. Thank you, rusty_shackleford , for creating another thread where I can preach the greatness of FRUA.

 

[gaussgunner]

Look what just popped up. 4 episodes so far. This guy's been around almost as long as Jeff Vogel, so the usual problems with new devs trying to use episodes to "bootstrap" do not apply. (Care to comment about that geoffdunbar?)

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...he-giant-king-rtwp-episodic-indie-rpg.144159/

 

[AbounI]

There was the Winter Voices project about 10 years ago, and now, it's for free on steam, though I dunno if the project is fully finished or not.


Also, I'm thinking about the Chaos Chronicles Realms Beyond episodic project, for which we're waiting the third part to be announced

 

[KateMicucci]

That is, very little or no "main quest"/arch-villain -- or if it does exist, mostly background until it becomes important -- but focusing on solving episode-style adventures.

I thought of this while trying to slog through PoE, Kingmaker and other very long games. I wished that they had been split up into short episodes so that if I wanted to go back and try it with a different character, I didn't have to play through the beginning again, and could instead see the large percentage of the game I hadn't got to yet.

If you designed RPGs like this, you could also deliver a long game without needing a deep advancement system. Instead of levels 1-20 you could have have four episodes of levels 1-5. And the player might pick a different character for each episode as e.g. fighter, thief, wizards, thot to experience each class instead of having to see the same content again.

 

[KateMicucci]

Episodic might not be the right word, but I think it kinda is. You don't want an open world with nothing but sidequests, you want several independent mini main quests each with their own associated sidequests.

I would bet very few developers actually release episodic RPGs as separate mini-sequels or DLCs. Some aspiring devs talk about it as a way to generate income before finishing a full RPG, but I've never heard of them following through. It's not that they don't have enough money to finish it properly (nobody does, not even AAA's) it's that they don't even have a clue. Episodic releases can actually prolong the production time; they still have to build the whole game, they only save on MQ writing/scripting, plus they have to deal with the technical and narrative complications of tying in future episodes. It probably only makes business sense for shovelware devs, so when you see it you assume it's shovelware, and that's another reason for serious devs to avoid it. And who needs episode/DLC sales to generate income when there's kickstarter and early access? So tl;dr I wouldn't expect to find anything but shit in that tier.

Good point here. It is probably easier to create an OPEN WORLD rpg than an episodic rpg.

 

[koyota]

Good point here. It is probably easier to create an OPEN WORLD rpg than an episodic rpg.

Just wrote the name before without giving any explanation, but since we have had multiple Live A Live suggestions:
If it only had a tiny bit more RPG to it, is Weird West not a very strong example of what Sir Rusty is looking for?

Different episodic stories that all have entirely different themes, goals and end-bosses set in the same open world.
Yet it is all set in an open-world where the actions that one character did to that open world, will stay persistent as you play the other characters.
It feels like multiple different first 1/3rds of an open world RPG.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

The original Freedom Force is exactly this. There are vague hints that there is some sort of big bad manipulating all of the other discrete villains, but they’re basically just quick asides.

One could argue that the sequel is episodic as well, but I think its pretty clearly just a three act structure with relatively discrete acts.

 

[J1M]

I'll second live a live. Very unique game. Helps if you think of it as more like the Twilight Zone than a regular TV drama.

If you're willing to count JRPGs, I think Trails in the Sky fits the "episodic" description. Each chapter has its own antagonists, location, player characters (outside the main two) and story arc. Once you finish the area, everything is wrapped up, and your two main characters move on. There's some foreshadowing and returning characters, and there's only a handful of chapters, but they feel much less loosely designated than the chapters in Baldur's Gate, for instance.

As for RPGs with self-contained episodes that are so independent that you could theoretically play them in some random order (like you would watching a sitcom or something) ? I can't think of any. Maybe if you count hub -> mission type RPGs like the Shadowruns, that could qualify.

Isn't Live Live just a copy of the ideas and art style in Octopath?

 

[Acrux]

Live a Live was originally a Super Famicom game in the 90s, so if anything it's the other way around.