There *can* be two skies - convergent definitions of RPG

[DraQ]

*Cue in Also Sprach Zarathustra*

    
 



Ahem.
To the point.

I've been thinking lately about mondblutian definition of an RPG. As we know it, his definition pretty much boils down to "ITZ A TACTICULAR GAEM, HURR."
It hit me, that while he is obviously off, he may not be that much off with this statement.

What is the single element that's pretty much defines RPGs? It's the character - not in the sense of given well defined protagonist, or fuzzily defined one which is better for LARPing. No, the character in RPGs is something that player can shape and which in turn shapes the way the game is played out in some way. In particular character's abilities are among the things shaped by the player and this is usually referred to as build.
Ok, but how is it different from characters in tactical games - how do RPGs differ from tactical games?
The answer hit me - tactical games are exclusively combat oriented, while RPGs seem to offer some extra-combat gameplay and relevant skills. So I propose a mondblut-compatible definition of RPGs - mechanically RPGs are tactical games with skillsets, gameworld and gameplay expanded beyond combat and tactical decisions.

But wait a minute - doesn't it contradict my own approach to RPGs as simulators of a character or adventuring party? I think it doesn't.
A tactical game is also a simulator of sorts, except rather than going up from basic mechanics towards increasing complexity, it goes down from general tactics towards finer detail.
A simulator will start with focus on mechanical details and by increasing range, scope and complexity of simulated events will allow higher level relationships to emerge as consequence of underlying mechanics ( ).
A tactical game will start with focus on abstracted tactics, but as detail increases it will allow mechanics to become subtler and more refined.

At certain level of detail and scope, both approaches pretty much converge.

The only sore point here is the story - scripted events have always been foreign objects from mechanics PoV, and while they may be indispensible, they will remain pain in the ass, as not just something computer can't handle on its own (as that's not much of a concern if you have proper skills) but as something rigid and unable to bend and change according to the mechanics - frictions and illogical dead-ends are inevitable here. It seems that the only thing that can help here is breaking large and rigid foreign objects into multitude of small and rigid foreing objects that can be handled independently and rearranged at will by the game engine, even if they remain just as inflexible.

Thoughts?

 

[Deleted Member 10432]

*Know* that there cannot be two skies.

 

[DraQ]

*Know* that there cannot be two skies.

You are not Dak'kon.

 

[Black Bart Charley]

Pretty much sums it up. You did a great job saving my time.

 

[Mastermind]

Pretty much sums it up. You did a great job saving my time.

 

[Lockkaliber]

That's my avatar bro, but it's all good. We can be green dragons together.

 

[DraQ]

That's my avatar bro, but it's all good. We can be green dragons together.

HoMM3 has some cool sprites, I always liked the green dragon in vanilla (non-expanded) game the most.

There has been quite an influx of dragon AVs on the Codex lately, it's hard to pick one.

 

[Gragt]

Oh no. Not again …

 

[mondblut]

I've been thinking lately about mondblutian definition of an RPG. As we know it, his definition pretty much boils down to "ITZ A TACTICULAR GAEM, HURR."

...how do RPGs differ from tactical games?
The answer hit me - tactical games are exclusively combat oriented, while RPGs seem to offer some extra-combat gameplay and relevant skills. So I propose a mondblut-compatible definition of RPGs - mechanically RPGs are tactical games with skillsets, gameworld and gameplay expanded beyond combat and tactical decisions.

You should have studied your copy of The Book Of Mondblutian Wisdom more closely, and the answer would have hit you much sooner.

The way I see it, an RPG was born out of a wargame the day when gamemaster said "well... there is a locked door in front of you, who tries to open it?" instead of "ok, ready for the next battle guys?"

(and that's only one out of many quotes which are sometimes so similar it's funny. search forum for mondblut "RPG was born". didn't knew i repeat myself *that* much )

 

[Serious_Business]

Sorry to break this down to you, but this post isn't very well written. "It seems that the only thing that can help here is breaking large and rigid foreign objects into multitude of small and rigid foreing objects that can be handled independently and rearranged at will by the game engine, even if they remain just as inflexible." Seriously? Did you even re-read that sentence? Call me dumb, but why should I invest efforts in figuring out such a convulsed train of thought that is basically not really saying anything new? I'm not even sure if this is proper techno babble - is "foreign object" supposed to be related to code or something? What does that even mean? What the fuck man

 

[Alex]

DraQ, do you know about the GNS system a few indies use to classify P&P RPGs? I think it can also be applied really well to computer games (with a few considerations). I ask because I see some similarities with the way you yourself tried to divide RPGs up. GNS, however, uses three categories (simulationism, narrativism and gamism), but the categories he uses are somewhat more abstract, so there is a lot of things that you probably wouldn't even have thought to consider simulation that he puts under simulationism. Anyway, check here if you are interested.

On the post itself,what is the purpose of simulation in the gameplay to you? I mean, what are the traits that you find desirable in the simulation subsystems of a CRPG? Myself, I like simulation systems that try to bring to life aspects of the game world, that try to take pieces of the game that otherwise would be static letters, words, pages and books and instead turns it into real items I can interact with. However, I would like to know what your opinion on this is before continuing.

 

[Alex]

@Serious_Business

I think DraQ's point is simply that game story can't really be computer generated. I think he is arguing that the best he can think of is breaking monolithic RPG stories into small parts that are either independent or that tell the game's engine how relate them.

For example, a city in a game might have various subsystems that affect an attribute called happiness. If this attribute drops too low, a few quests relating to the revolt of the citizens in the city might trigger. Following through with these quests, in turn, might have effects on other gameworld attributes, including the city's happiness. Thus, instead of having a monolithic story that, at some point, would have these rebellion quests available, you have a open gameworld where these quests are one of many options.

 

[Sceptic]

I propose a mondblut-compatible definition of RPGs - mechanically RPGs are tactical games with skillsets, gameworld and gameplay expanded beyond combat and tactical decisions.

I don't think I agree with this. I much prefer your earlier definition - "character's abilities are among the things shaped by the player." IMO this is enough to distinguish strategy/wargame from (C)RPG, where the player does not in fact shape the character's abilities - if he does in some way (see HOMM) then you've introduced RPG elements into your strategy/wargame, and then where the game falls on the axis depends on how much importance you give to these RPG elements; if they're a very small focus it's primarly a strategy/wargame (see Panzer General), if it's the main focus then it's a pure CRPG (see Pool of Radiance), if it's somewhere in-between then it's a hybrid (see HOMM). Of course it's not always entirely clear (see Warlords 3, which I consider to fall somewhere between HOMM and PG), but nobody said that a definition has to have every single game fall in its own box; as long as vast majority of games fall somewhere on the axis then you're fine. The nice thing about my (well, your, but since your stated definition shifted slightly from it I'll appropriate it as mine) is that it can as easily apply regardless of the presence of combat, so it can also be used to distinguish between adventure games and CRPG's too (since in adventure char's abilities are beyond player's control, and in fact are utterly set in stone), and with a bit of tweaking can also easily integrate action-RPG's: where direct player input supercedes character's abilities in shaping the world, but char's abilities still play a major role; as their role lessens you instead shift towards "action game with CRPG elements", but you're still on the same axis.

Extra bonus: my definition can also easily be integrated into Mondblut's (or vice-versa) as presented in this thread. It also completely bypasses the storyfag/mondblutian dichotomy (as well as the linear/openworld one for that matter), since it does not in any way rely on combat-heaviness or story-heaviness; the only caveat would be whether combat is influenced more by player or character skill (see action-RPG above), and likewise for story/dialog (therefore PST is not an adventure game - I can already see Mondblut disagreeing with this one though). You can then have fun splitting the genre into as many subgenres as you like based on combat vs exploration vs story vs C&C vs action vs dungeon crawling vs whatever the hell you want, but while it may be trickier to get everything lumped properly into neat subgenres I think using the 2 axes that I have already mentioned, plus maybe a third for story vs open-world, would allow for a pretty well defined categorization even for subgenres, and you'd be left with very few games that don't fit anywhere (and these probably won't fit regardless of the system you try to design).

 

[Mastermind]

I propose a mondblut-compatible definition of RPGs - mechanically RPGs are tactical games with skillsets, gameworld and gameplay expanded beyond combat and tactical decisions.

I don't think I agree with this. I much prefer your earlier definition - "character's abilities are among the things shaped by the player." IMO this is enough to distinguish strategy/wargame from (C)RPG, where the player does not in fact shape the character's abilities - if he does in some way (see HOMM) then you've introduced RPG elements into your strategy/wargame, and then where the game falls on the axis depends on how much importance you give to these RPG elements; if they're a very small focus it's primarly a strategy/wargame (see Panzer General), if it's the main focus then it's a pure CRPG (see Pool of Radiance), if it's somewhere in-between then it's a hybrid (see HOMM). Of course it's not always entirely clear (see Warlords 3, which I consider to fall somewhere between HOMM and PG), but nobody said that a definition has to have every single game fall in its own box; as long as vast majority of games fall somewhere on the axis then you're fine. The nice thing about my (well, your, but since your stated definition shifted slightly from it I'll appropriate it as mine) is that it can as easily apply regardless of the presence of combat, so it can also be used to distinguish between adventure games and CRPG's too (since in adventure char's abilities are beyond player's control, and in fact are utterly set in stone), and with a bit of tweaking can also easily integrate action-RPG's: where direct player input supercedes character's abilities in shaping the world, but char's abilities still play a major role; as their role lessens you instead shift towards "action game with CRPG elements", but you're still on the same axis.

Extra bonus: my definition can also easily be integrated into Mondblut's (or vice-versa) as presented in this thread. It also completely bypasses the storyfag/mondblutian dichotomy (as well as the linear/openworld one for that matter), since it does not in any way rely on combat-heaviness or story-heaviness; the only caveat would be whether combat is influenced more by player or character skill (see action-RPG above), and likewise for story/dialog (therefore PST is not an adventure game - I can already see Mondblut disagreeing with this one though). You can then have fun splitting the genre into as many subgenres as you like based on combat vs exploration vs story vs C&C vs action vs dungeon crawling vs whatever the hell you want, but while it may be trickier to get everything lumped properly into neat subgenres I think using the 2 axes that I have already mentioned, plus maybe a third for story vs open-world, would allow for a pretty well defined categorization even for subgenres, and you'd be left with very few games that don't fit anywhere (and these probably won't fit regardless of the system you try to design).

 

[tennishero]

 

[waywardOne]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNS_Theory

 

[Alex]

@Sceptic

Nice post, but I think an actual definition of RPGs wasn't really the point of DraQ's post. Rather, I think he was driving at that you could design CRPGs in such way that they would both be good strategic games and have good simulation, simply by treating strategic issues like combat as another field or layer of simulation. I am not sure this would work, but first I need to understand what DraQ sees as "good" simulation.

On your definition of RPG, what do you think of Ultima 7, Sceptic? I ask because the management of character abilities, while present in the game, has almost nothing to do with its gameplay, with what made it fun to play. In fact, I would say that you could take away the character attributes in that game without significantly changing the way it is played.

 

[Sceptic]

I think an actual definition of RPGs wasn't really the point of DraQ's post. Rather, I think he was driving at that you could design CRPGs in such way that they would both be good strategic games and have good simulation, simply by treating strategic issues like combat as another field or layer of simulation.

I feel stupid now - I reread his post and still see the definition as being his point.

On your definition of RPG, what do you think of Ultima 7, Sceptic?

Hah, I expected this one to come up. I can't do much about it, as much as I love the game - if I want to be true to my definition then it's a "simulation/adventure with RPG elements". The RPG elements are definitely there (stats), but their relevance to the gameplay is pretty minor, especially since the real-time combat and the lack of control over NPC's turns combat (the one element of the game where stats play a role) into a clusterfuck. Nothing I can do about it without being hypocritical. Though I feel a bit better about it because Pagan is even less of a CRPG thanks to combat being even more reliant on player skill and the arcadish antics being entirely reliant on them.

 

[Topher]

Where the hell was everybody last week in the topic Yeesh made about defining an RPG?

 

[RK47]

@Serious_Business
For example, a city in a game might have various subsystems that affect an attribute called happiness. If this attribute drops too low, a few quests relating to the revolt of the citizens in the city might trigger. Following through with these quests, in turn, might have effects on other gameworld attributes, including the city's happiness. Thus, instead of having a monolithic story that, at some point, would have these rebellion quests available, you have a open gameworld where these quests are one of many options.

Nice example, but is there even a game like that in the market?

 

[Alex]

I feel stupid now - I reread his post and still see the definition as being his point.

Heck, I reread too, and I guess you are right. The point in the original post that most stood out to me was "At certain level of detail and scope, both approaches pretty much converge. " and I guess I blew its importance out of proportion. Sorry.

Hah, I expected this one to come up. I can't do much about it, as much as I love the game - if I want to be true to my definition then it's a "simulation/adventure with RPG elements". The RPG elements are definitely there (stats), but their relevance to the gameplay is pretty minor, especially since the real-time combat and the lack of control over NPC's turns combat (the one element of the game where stats play a role) into a clusterfuck. Nothing I can do about it without being hypocritical. Though I feel a bit better about it because Pagan is even less of a CRPG thanks to combat being even more reliant on player skill and the arcadish antics being entirely reliant on them.

I dunno. I think that by slightly changing your definition, we could put Ultima 7 there wholesale without regrets. You defined RPGs as games where "character's abilities are among the things shaped by the player". How about if we change it slightly to "RPG is a game where the character's role is among the things shaped by the player". This definition would encompass the original one, as the abilities are one way to define a character's role, but there might be many others.

This definition includes, for example, the Might and Magic games, as the game allows the player to manage his character's roles in combat in a way that is meaningful. This role is initially chosen by rolling attributes and selecting a class to the character, but the choice continues throughout the game by selecting equipment, by deciding who drinks attribute raising potions, etc.

It would also include Planescape, even though it is about a completely different type of role (role in the story as opposed to role in combat). As a bonus, in this definition, your choices in dialog are as much part of RPG gameplay as character building.

Finally, Ultima 7 would also fit, for although the game is pretty much about exploration (like an adventure game), the game provides different consequences according to how you explore it. You may take a more epic role and follow the main quest closely. You may take a more "people's avatar" role and explore the lives of the various NPCs. You may take an explorer role and examine the wilderness, maybe look for a pirate treasure, etc.

On the other hand, a game like Zork wouldn't fit in the definition. Though the game is open to how you explore it, it doesn't provide significant differences to different approaches. Likewise, Doom isn't an RPG because, even though you take the role of a badass space marine, you are still restricted to that role, no choice available or necessary.

What do you think?

 

[Alex]

@RK47

I don't really think so, though there may be some old game or another that does this but escaped my attention. Still, this is the type of thing the Storytron could have done well, however development in that front was a little slow last time I checked.

 

[mpxd]

Alex:
If you clarify that "shaping the character's role" involves making irreversible/costly choices, I think you could make that definition work for most cases.

You'd end up making Deus Ex and System shock RPGs, but I guess that's acceptable. ME2 remains only partly an RPG, as your role really only varies between "shotgunner"/"sniper" and "heroic asshole"/"heroic dumbass" -- hardly a large shift. Elite's not really an RPG, as you can easily respec your ship for different roles and you yourself can switch between fighter/merchant/pirate without much trouble. Mount & Blade qualifies, on the other hand, since you have stats that strongly restrict what roles you're good at.

JA2's 'laptop guy' isn't really "shaped" during the course of the game at all. Napoleon in N:TW does get shaped by what you put him through, but his _role_ only changes slightly (governor vs general?) and it's at best debatable if he's the PC in the first place. Black&White (2?) -- same as Elite, plenty of roles for you to choose between, but no big penalty for suddenly deciding "hey, i don't want to train my creature anymore, i want to build houses and throw rocks instead."

 

[Alex]

Alex:
If you clarify that "shaping the character's role" involves making irreversible/costly choices, I think you could make that definition work for most cases.

You'd end up making Deus Ex and System shock RPGs, but I guess that's acceptable. ME2 remains only partly an RPG, as your role really only varies between "shotgunner"/"sniper" and "heroic asshole"/"heroic dumbass" -- hardly a large shift. Elite's not really an RPG, as you can easily respec your ship for different roles and you yourself can switch between fighter/merchant/pirate without much trouble. Mount & Blade qualifies, on the other hand, since you have stats that strongly restrict what roles you're good at.

I agree fully with you here. If the choice of roles isn't somewhat costly to change, then basically there is no consequence to these choices. However, is important to consider the gameplay of the game when considering this, I think.

Ultima 7, for example, doesn't penalize the player too much if he stops exploring one thing and starts exploring another. However, depending on how he goes about, the game will play differently. He may meet different characters, and have a different feeling for them depending on the role he chooses for himself. Since Ultima 7 is all about exploration, this is a significant change, a significant restriction. In Elite, however, this kind of difference is only incidental to the gameplay, and thus doesn't cut.

JA2's 'laptop guy' isn't really "shaped" during the course of the game at all.

I think, however, that JA2 is a special case. My feeling for the game is that is is an strategy game with very strong RPG elements, and I think it can be justified by thinking a little about what we mean by role. Consider X-COM. You have many characters there (soldiers) that are assigned roles (heavy weapons guy, scout, sniper, etc). However, these roles are only important strategically. The character themselves aren't much more characterized than a chess pawn. A similar situation arise in the game Magic: the Gathering. Players play wizards, whose roles can be greatly customized by the choice of cards. However, the game has no narrative context, even less so than X-COM! When a monster is sent to the cemetery, players are usually more concerned about any effects that might apply when this happen than how the monster was killed.

A game like Might and Magic might, at first, seem to be in a similar situation. However, I think that even though the characters aren't much more than a bunch of numbers, the way these numbers interact help the player link what happened to a "mini-narrative". For example, if your half-orc with STR 30 scores a critical in an annoying monster, you might take the time to savor the moment. In your mind's eye, his role as a muscle-bound barbarian slicing that stupid sprite in two is clear, instead of being simply a chess piece. This way the game plays urges the player to think of the game pieces as characters, not pawns.

So, in JA2, you have these characters, including one you create yourself. They receive lots of characterization. They have roles in combat and outside of it (while you can't choose the personality of the mercs, you can hire the ones you want so their interactions go certain ways). Most of the time, they really look more than simple pieces and, from this, the game draws its strong RPG presence. However, it sometimes happen that the characters become little more than pawns. For example when trying to win a particularly difficult fight.You end up using them as board pieces sometimes as, in the end, what matters most is the strategy, thus it being a strategy game.

Therefore, I think that if we define role as how the characters behave in the narrative (even if it is a small narrative created dynamically by the combat system), we can classify as RPGs the games we instinctively know as such and also gain some insight into games that don't even exist yet that would still please people that like RPGs.

 

[Norfleet]

JA2's 'laptop guy' isn't really "shaped" during the course of the game at all.

Yes he is! Laptop Guy is the IMP Merc. Why do you think that person doesn't get paid and never quits? Laptop Guy gains stats when you take the IMP test. If the one with the laptop gets killed, the one who is following picks up the laptop and types.