213: Roleplaying: Evolved

[Jeff Tidball]

Roleplaying: Evolved

Games have evolved a lot in the last century or so, but evolution doesn't always mean progress. Jeff Tidball offers a broad look at roleplaying games, and explains why some of the genre's most fundamental mechanics may be holding designers back.

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[Gunner 51]

I'd have to disagree with getting rid of the level system in RPGs. I think the level system is a cap to a character's abilities which allows the player to gauge whether or not it's worth fighting a particular foe.

For example, one wouldn't want to tangle with a Minotaur Lord (Level 20 beast) in Oblivion right at the beginning of the game.

But the stats system is also a good idea, it helps flesh out a character better. If you want to be good with a bow and stealth, you can - just don't expect to be able to slug it out with half a ton of enemies at once like a warrior can. After all, your character is an assassin / thief - not a battle hardened brawler.

The stats and level system provide a good base for any character and NPC in a role playing game. But more fundamentally, it keeps the game fair.

 

[Keldon888]

I believe the stats and level system are as much for the player's ego as they are for any game mechanics.

We've all played pokemon, there is some pride in getting a team to lvl 100 status.

Or in some other RPG having X strength lets you wade through the lesser enemies with ease.

Play an MMO and suddenly your stats are how you compare yourself with everyone around you.

It's not so much an outdated method of character description as it is a tried and true method of showing progress and teaching the players about what they can and cannot handle and giving them a feeling of accomplishment.

 

[FavouredEnemy]

I think the major limit to the 'evolution' of roleplaying games is the gamers themselves: it is easier, and it is still fun to roleplay with and around stats. From what I've seen, you effectively have to ignore stats entirely for 4th ed D&D to roleplay (you can't hit anything unless you have at least an 18 in a stat, and from what I remember, you have to be outrageously smart or interesting with an intelligence or charisma of 18).

Roleplay games are about escapism - of being somewhere else, being someone else. Rolling a die and concluding either 'I kill you', 'I outsmart you' or 'I charm you' is it at its simplest form, and to be honest, not every roleplayer is actually as strong, as smart or as charming as the character they play would be.

There are plenty of games out there that do away with levels and stats and suchlike, but the limitation is the appeal of those games - gamers *like* fiddling with numbers. It's simple.

 

[DojiStar]

This article started off great, and I appreciate the perspective from tabletop RPGs....

However, for those into tabletop GNS (gamist-narrativist-simulationist) theory, narrativism is NOT necessarily "progress" -- it's just DIFFERENT. Dogs in the Vineyard and Primetime Adventures are good examples of modern narrativist games, where the emphasis is on telling a coherent and entertaining story and the game mechanics explicitly reinforce this. A gamist game (such as any version of D&D) is mostly about conflict between the players and the gamemaster. A simulationist game, such as GURPS, is mostly about running and, well, simulating a detailed and coherent world usually with a high degree of verisimilitude.

I agree that computer RPGs have traditionally been heavily gamist, but I'm not sure moving toward narrativism is the answer. I would argue stats usually help simulationist games, and computers are great at crunching huge numbers of stats and formulae without problems and can do it in the background. The problem with narrativism is that it is hard for a computer game to help you tell a coherent story; usually we end up with more railroaded scripted garbage and end up playing through a movie someone else wrote, which defeats the purpose of interactivity.

There are perhaps other routes such as emergent gameplay and players finding their own stories, such as Dwarf Fortress, but I would argue that's much more a simulationist game than narrativist -- it just simulates a world and any story there is to be "found" by the player rather than explicitly written by the game designer.

I guess to sum up I would say that it is probably very hard for computer games to replicate the experience of Dogs in the Vineyard or other tabletop narrativist games, as it would take AI capable of telling a story. I think it is better to play to computers' strengths at number crunching, stick with the stats, and develop rich and complex simulationist worlds instead where human players can find meaning in their own emergent stories.

 

[domicius]

I guess to sum up I would say that it is probably very hard for computer games to replicate the experience of Dogs in the Vineyard or other tabletop narrativist games, as it would take AI capable of telling a story. I think it is better to play to computers' strengths at number crunching, stick with the stats, and develop rich and complex simulationist worlds instead where human players can find meaning in their own emergent stories.

I would go a step further and say that most players of computer RPGs aren't even interested in roleplaying, or know what it is. In and of itself, roleplaying is an activity where the player rewards himself for playing a character well. It's like being an actor, but without an audience. It takes a good DM, or a well designed game, to actually provide an explicit "in-game" reward.

The closest thing to "real" roleplaying in the computer game world* is so-called "emergent" gameplay where the player can create his own "game" within a particular, erm, computer game. Setting your own goals and fulfilling them is a precondition to subsequently assuming a persona for your in-game avatar that is different from your own, and then playing the game in a manner consistent to that persona.

On the plus side, computer games are very good at putting the player in the position of a particular person, and allowing us to see what the world is like from their eyes. (aka immersion, which most table-top games struggle with).

*MMOs are clearly exempted because there are a whole lot of roleplayers in those games.

 

[Macar]

I was pretty dissapointed that after 2 pages of exposition, he didnt even tlak about exactly how to get rid of said vestigial numbers.

PS- Fallout was originaly aligned with steve jackson's GURPS- not dungueons and dragons as the person above me asserts. Unimportant detail.

 

[DataShade]

This article was ... bad. A three-page article that doesn't present its thesis statement until the bottom of the second page? Self-indulgence, thy name is Jeff Tidball.


First, you never actually make the case that levels are "vestigal." Levels perform at least two useful tasks: they present (if you're familiar with the Bartle Test) A-type personality gratification, and they offer a way to estimate parity between the player character and other characters or encounters. Some players or game designers may find levels so simple as to be simplistic - an insult to their skill or what have you. That is probably why games studios like Vampire: the Masquerade's White Wolf or Shadowrun's FASA released games without levels.

Second, while I'd never heard of your Dogs in the Vineyard example before reading your article, a quick glance through web resources regarding the game (especially http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/dogsinthevineyard/chargen.html) indicate the game's mechanic takes a point-build system of "dump your points wherever you want," mixes in the worst of D&D's "make sure you have thirty each of d4s, d6s, d8s, and whatever else," but with a "make up whatever you want" Feng Shui (http://www.atlas-games.com/fengshui/) attitude towards skills and abilities that is probably very empowering for people who don't like reading thick rulebooks, don't like being limited to the "official" sourcebooks, or who enjoy "battle of wits" scenarios (like the "wizard's battle" between Merlin and Mim in The Sword in the Stone, or the riddle contest in Neil Gaiman's Sandman between Morpheus and the demon).

**However, none of that is new or evolved.** You've simply defined a spectrum, Rigid Rules vs. Free-Form, and arbitrarily declared Free-Form superior.

 

[DeathQuaker]

Interesting article, but I agree with some other posters that some kinds of tabletop RPG styles aren't going to make it into CRPGs because they only work when you have the creativity of other players and a real, human GM at hand.

Frex, I love the pulp action "Spirit of the Century" (based on the Fate System), where the numbers are kept to a minimum and you just gain more schticks ("Aspects") after you finish an adventure, but we are not anywhere near a programming tech level where we could use that kind of system in a computerized setting. It requires both player and GM to be extremely creative and adaptive in how you apply your abilities and both your and scene Aspects ("I figure there are curtains in the room and I use my sword to cut them down, so I am laying the aspect 'Covered in Curtains' on the room").

Until we have sufficiently advanced AI, let games like that stay where they belong and work best: on the tabletop, with your friends and a good GameMaster.

CRPGs work using numeric mechanics because you don't HAVE a good creative GM there. You need a strong numbers system to determine probability in order to be fair. The ability scores and levels are there two things: mediating combat, and making sure combat remains balanced as your character gets more powerful, because the computer can't adjust for someone's tactics the way a GM can. The few CRPGs that have tried to have characters build their skills through a non-leveling system--for example, where you build a skill through using it--usually have resulted in very abusable and broken systems. Or at least systems where you end up hopping all over the continent in hopes of becoming more Athletic.

I think game MECHANICS need to be left as they work for what they do: resolving skill and combat challenges. For the rest, you need to improve WRITING, not the numbers. You don't have a GM, but you CAN have a good writer/area designer who tries to account for what a player might do in an area as much as reasonably possible, and I think the more we see that, the better. In my book, what usually makes a good CRPG stand out from a bad one isn't mechanical creativity, it's story and character design. The problem I see in contemporary RPGs is that there is an emphasis on production and appearance--in other words, all the money goes towards graphics and voice acting. The parts that need the most time spent on--story and world design--get gimped in the process. There's a reason why, even accounting for the starry mists of nostalgia, many of us long for a game like Planescape: Torment or Baldur's Gate 2 again, and it's certainly NOT because we are pining for the days of calculating THAC0.

(Well, I'm sure someone is, but let's assume the majority isn't, okay? )

If you re-made Torment now, it would be half as long, with half as many choices, and the creators would be complaining that they couldn't afford to pay Dan Castellaneta to read every single one of Nordom's lines (which would be reduced to three lines as a result). But, the publisher would promise us, you can see EVERY SINGLE SCAR in vivid detail on the Nameless One's back, so surely that's AWESOME! and why should we "kids" want lengthy dialogue (especially if you have to READ it! Pft! What kind of gamers read anymore?) and complex philosophy and grey morality anyway? It wouldn't matter at all if the game had the best most awesome and innovative game mechanics ever with no character levels; it would still be a shallow mockery of itself.

You can certainly reduce and streamline game mechanics (honestly, comparing the RPGs I played in the 80s to the ones I play now, most RPG mechanics have been simplified--not "dumbed down" but made more efficient, with fewer redundancies (really, Fallout 1 and 2? We needed "First Aid" AND "Doctor"?). You can get rid of levels, but you still need some way of improving your character (because it doesn't make sense that your character's abilities don't get better), and levels work. It's an easy way of seeing when and how your character improves in terms of external ability. And as for the more dungeon crawly action RPGs that have their roots in Roguelikes and before them Gygaxian dungeon crawls--number crunching is what that stuff is all about. Things can improve--but if we scrapped it all, what would really, truly work in its place?

It's not a matter of obsolescence, it's a matter of not fixing the unbroken.

 

[Alex_P]

This article was ... bad. A three-page article that doesn't present its thesis statement until the bottom of the second page? Self-indulgence, thy name is Jeff Tidball.

I agree. A long introduction followed by "Hey, Dogs in the Vineyard is pretty cool" really isn't a good article. Dogs in the Vineyard is five freakin' years old now! We've had plenty of time to grapple with its intricacies and really say something about it.

**However, none of that is new or evolved.** You've simply defined a spectrum, Rigid Rules vs. Free-Form, and arbitrarily declared Free-Form superior.

You're getting the wrong impression. Something the game's author stresses is that the rules are compact but they're also deliberately written to be demanding and intrusive rather than rules that try to "get out of the way".

DitV's design isn't about emphasizing freeform over rules. It's about this [http://lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=119].

-- Alex

 

[pneuma08]

I suppose I came in here to mostly echo what the others have said; i.e. what Mr. Tidball describes as evolution and "inessential statistics" are very much not so.

Visible statistics serve as a means of making ones character unique, and are essential in the clamor for both individuality among peers and variety within the game. For instance, the Strength statistic exists to be high as much as it exists to be low, as it describes both what the character has talent in and what he does not. This allows the character to "specialize" at the cost of less talent in other areas, which leads to different in-game abilities and different approaches to in-game problems, which in turn leads to different gameplay experiences. (NB: Fallout 3 is a terrible example of this for many reasons I will not get into here.) (Side note: I personally believe that it's this level of customization that really separates the genre of "role-playing" from its peers - i.e. you play the role that you want to play, not the one assigned to you by the game, with different levels of flexibility, of course. And JRPGs are on the whole different. But I digress.)

Levels and classes are different beasts and do serve purposes (namely, rough estimation of power and available specialties) but as with all tools may be more or less useful as the situation merits. For instance, in Fallout 3, levels are used to distribute (and eventually cap) hit points, free-floating skill points, and perks, and are therefore essential to the system. For how would they be distributed otherwise? In Mass Effect, classes are used to indicate what skills and abilities are available to the character, so not every character has access to (and by reasonable logic, would choose) the best weapons and abilities. At least in theory.

But that said, I do believe the article has merit, although perhaps not the one intended by the author (who seems eager to trim away what he does not like about the genre). As is stressed in the article, evolution is not the linear march towards the penultimate but rather a branching path, where the unsurvivable meet their end. Computer and video roleplaying games have yet to offer a separate path besides that of the heavily number-crunching games, and have yet to fully realize the potential for immersion. Modded Oblivion is the closest to this kind of experience, but really that's the only example that comes to mind. Now, there are many reasons for why this is, however, there is no particular reason why it shouldn't be attempted nowadays.

Although honestly, because RPGs are in some sense about growth and development of characters (in the computer sense, that equates to stats, as computing is pretty much the only thing computers do well), most of the time people want to see their growth and development. Hence, stats. So a more static medium might be better at immersion. Maybe we could see some radical experiments, like fuzzy dialogue trees (a la Mass Effect) and character-relationship development without the character-power buildup. Like a modern adventure game, a game about adventuring rather than the old-school "solve-the-puzzle-and-follow-the-plot". That would be cool.

Also, in steep contrast are JRPGs. You will level up but you won't even know it most of the time. Perhaps that would be better for immersion than the western approach.

 

[tgilbert]

I'll with others that the article was kind of a letdown... I expected 3 or 4 more pages considering its pacing.

But I think -- and it's hard to say without the article being "finished" -- that Jeff's suggestion was not the elimination of stats from the game's mechanics, but rather that the stats should not be at the surface as part of the player's experience.

I have to agree with that sentiment, in so far as I'd like to see more RPGs that can convey my character's "growth" and change through "softer" or "fuzzier" means. If I need to know that any specific stat is greater than an opponents stat in order to make a decision, I'm not really playing a role as much as I'm crunching numbers. In other words, I think stats are a *crutch* that we rely on to convey information we're not confident enough to express otherwise.

On the other hand, I agree with an earlier commenter's point about Type-A folks and numbers. So, I wouldn't argue that with or without numbers is a question of better or worse, just that it'd be interesting to see what game designers could do without having to show the numbers to the player.

 

[Alex_P]

Roleplay games are about escapism - of being somewhere else, being someone else.

Not everyone's in it for the escapism, though.

I kinda hate the escapism, actually. I don't play tabletop RPGs to escape anything or to become anyone.

-- Alex

 

[cobra_ky]

the fact is that the vast majority of RPG video games ultimately rely on the same system of character development. does EVERY game need an XP/LVL system? does every game require HP and MP in some form? tabletop RPGs have been much, much more innovative in design over the past few decades, which is the exact opposite of how it should be. i think that's the point he was trying to make.

 

[RiffRaff]

Hmm... didn't hate the article, but I tend to agree with some of the above comments.

My 2 cents: I play RPGs because they are a fun group game that you get to use your imagination to build a character to have whatever skills you want them to have. You get to be strong, smart, charismatic, whatever, even though you may not be in real life. The levels and points are there just define those abilities numerically (like an IQ or fitness test in real life).

I play certain video games because I actually have the talents necessary to play those roles. For all the "dice rolling/number crunching" in Fallout 3, if you can't aim and move your character using your thumbs on the joysticks you will still fail to effectively shoot enemies regardless of the in-game skills points assigned.

 

[SonofSeth]

the fact is that the vast majority of RPG video games ultimately rely on the same system of character development. does EVERY game need an XP/LVL system? does every game require HP and MP in some form? tabletop RPGs have been much, much more innovative in design over the past few decades, which is the exact opposite of how it should be. i think that's the point he was trying to make.

Maybe the solution is just to come up with a new genre. As we see here, intellectual prowess of a normal poster just can't penetrate the wall erected by the current definition of RPG and all it entails.

If we call it UEIS (user experience interaction simulator) maybe people won't have to go trough all the trouble of dissasociating all that terminology they struggled so hard to learn.

 

[psamathos]

I do think that the distinction between competitive games and RPGs is apt, although it seems that you're forgetting about adventure games. Stats like level and strength are there to summarize your player's progress and development. I would say this is what RPGs are all about: character development, which needs to be quantified in some way. You can do this with methods besides raw numbers, but often this is the most easily understandable way to track and express your character's growth. But if you're not interested in that and would rather have narrative, play an adventure game.

I'm beginning to think you just wrote this entire article as an excuse to use the word verisimilitude.

 

[pneuma08]

So, non-standard leveling systems. It's been tried a few times, the earliest being Final Fantasy...2 was it? It was one of the ones that wasn't released outside of Japan. It had an innovative leveling system, but because it was innovative it ended up being highly exploitable and hardly smooth at all. For instance, the way you got more hit points was by losing them - which makes sense logically, as your body adapts to the amount of damage you take, it learns to take more - but in practice it punishes smart play by avoiding damage and rewards neutering the last enemy in the battle and smacking yourself in the face with a rod.

Other non-standard leveling systems that come to mind include some of the SaGa games, Quest 64, as well as Morrowind and Oblivion. Those two Elder Scrolls are especially notable as they do use levels, but levels are gained after a certain number of Major Skill increases, which are gained from use (levels are used to increase hit points and general statistics, as well as monster level in Oblivion). But they have their kinks as well - in Romancing SaGa, the stat increases are largely random and grinding the increasingly tough scaled monsters is the only way to increase them, and in Oblivion the way to get the best stat increases is to level up as many Minor Skills as you can before getting enough Major Skills to level (in practice, the Major Skills are the skills you use least, rather than the driving force of your class as they are meant to be).

Furthermore, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines and Dark Messiah of Might and Magic (very wordy titles, to be sure) both use a point-experience system that allows you to distribute a pool of points across various statistics and abilities, which is the standard way of doing things over in tabletop RPG land. While it works well, it's hardly immersive as the player has to stop and check to see if he has enough points to purchase the next tier of powers, which he immediately gets access to. At least in Oblivion you don't spontaneously invent your next, most powerful spell in the middle of a fight with a necromancer.

(A funny story about Romancing SaGa and its scaling monsters: so early on in the game I ran across this one area that's guarded by a big, scary bug-thing. Being curious, I saved and went in, only to have my party be wiped clean, without making a dent in the thing. Okay, that area's meant for later, sure. So I went on a few adventures, did some story stuff, and eventually the story itself wants me to go back to that area beyond the bug-thing. So on the way there to the bottom of the dungeon, what do I encounter but another of those same things as a random, normal encounter, with a few extra baddies to go along with it! Yes, same attacks, same vulnerabilities, same monster. I didn't go on that many side quests, and although I was more powerful, it was still not an easy fight. It just felt...wrong.)