There's Not Much Role-Playing in Role-Playing Games These Days

[sXeth]

Personally, after replaying Baulders Gate and Morrowind, there wasn't much role playing back in the olden days either.

If you've played Wasteland 2 or Pillars of Eternity (as they are more recent) you can see they same thing. There are many conversations where the NPC slightly changes the dialogue to acknowledge your response but the overall meaning of the dialogue stays the same.

Let's take the pivotal council meeting in Pillars. Your choices do make an impact at the end but your dialogue does not really impact the NPCs dialogue.
Playing these games make me realise they are all just like a telltale game.

Yeah, I don't know that the idea of any depth of the role-playing segment has every really popped up in video games. You need an adaptive element overseeing the story (in your tabletop or whatever, this is the game master), and generally a more interactive element (other players, or GM run NPCs). Otherwise you just have an ultimately linear set of options with basic effect at best.

There's what I call the Bioware route, because they hammered it home constantly (although others, like inFamous do it too). Here's your 3 options (typically Good, Pragmatic, and Baby-Eater). Back in their D&D days, it occasionally hampered your class choices a bit if you did the Baby-Eater thing too much, but not much else. Never ends up affecting the narrative though. The newer variation is to have a set of tones, that have even less effect overall.

Morrowind's roleplaying was largely to force replayability. It was still just sets of linear questlines like its successors. Just gated off within a particular playthrough so you'd have to do 2 or 3 takes to hit them all. Certainly a more logical case for immersion, but not much more then padding mechanically, with little effect on the main narrative.

Ultima had a bit of an odd case. 7 had the oddball sandbox stuff. You could literally be a bakers apprentice or whatever, but it didn't make much sense if any with the story. 4-7 had morality measures (though mostly based around theft or murder), and most companions would leave your side, potentially permanently, if you crossed a certain threshold (and evil characters were rare or utterly nonexistent). 4 & 5 were the strongest contenders, but while they required role playing, you didn't have much actual choice in the role involved. You had to be the Avatar of the Eight Virtues to complete 4 (which required doing various things that might be counter-intuitive to usual RPG mechanics). In 5 its not a victory condition anymore, although you're unable to level up if you've fallen too far off the scale, which of course can impede you significantly.

 

[Zydrate]

I seem to recall in Dragon Age 2 that if you favoured a particular style of response then the non-chosen dialogue Hawke had would start to tilt that way as well.

I wish I saw more of this, honestly. It mostly happened in random banter while you were running around and not engaging in actual conversation. I think it was fluid way to have your character fleshed out depending on where you mostly spent your "dialog" points. ME:A opens the way for it with a similar system and doesn't do anything with it. So far I've done an all logic/stern playthrough and nobody really called me out on the 'lack of emotion', and Director Tann complimented me on my pragmatism like, once. Currently doing a full empathy run but it may not mean much.

At least the original trilogy had something. You even had "evil scars" due to aggressive behavior akin to going Dark Side in their earlier Kotor games. Certain "really" bad decisions had far reaching implications that your teammates didn't really let you live down. In ME:A, no matter my choice the character will be angry for about one scene and not much after that. Drack and the Moshae come to mind.

I think ME1 was a surprise hit but now we all, including Bioware, fully expect and purposefully wrote this game to be designed around another trilogy so all this stuff feels like it means nothing, but might have implications in the next one or two games. I think that turns ME:A into an inherently flawed and weaker product until we get the "entire" story when everything comes out.

I like the game, but mistakes were made.

 

[Zydrate]

3) Initiate the relationship at any point in the game. I get it's playing with the "if we don't come back alive" trope, but having the relationship be official at the end of the game means is we only experience the honeymoon phase.

I like this and ME:A is a very, very slow step in the right direction. Some romances in Andromeda are easier than others, and you can basically sleep with Peebee, strings attached or not, just a few missions in and she'll make coy remarks about it through a couple lines of dialog. Meanwhile Vetra is a slow burn that you get a cute dinner date with damn near the end of the game.

(I can't speak for other characters yet cos I'm still early on Playthrough 2)

Multiple characters go at a different speed and that is a step in the right direction, but they didn't go the whole way.

 

[CaitSeith]

I would pull the rug off from their expectations. Dialogue choices that seem to be straightforward, but at the end it would work in reverse. For example, the better you treat your closest members of your team, the worse it gets for their hometown at the end. I would leave clues to the player about the outcome (or just reveal what's happening in a broad manner at mid-point) so the player doesn't feel betrayed at the end (unless the game itself is about betrayal).

 

[IridRadiant]

"Over to you, comments. What are some fun things you could do with the results of dialogue choices that don't become something a player might mechanically strive for? What games do you think do manage something like that? Or maybe you think constant dialogue choices are stupid and games should just let you pick your personality once at the start of the game and change all subsequent dialogue accordingly."

I think it would be interesting to have the character's personality chosen at the start become the character's street rep and affect the types (not the numbers so as to not make it a mechanical decision) of side quests you are offered. For quest creation economy, the quest giver would be different, the end objective or the motivations for going might be different, but the map and the encounters could be the same.

I would have a sliding scale of alignment in the background (but visible so the player can get feedback as to why their baby-eater isn't getting any of the saintly quests they may have heard of on the internet) and so that changes are visible if a player wants to roleplay redemption or falling. Having certain actions tied to alignment (Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark where stealing stuff makes you more chaotic comes to mind, as well as tearing down posters against Queen Jennah making you more ferocious in Guild Wars 2 - though the system itself is largely gone in that game) would help reduce the reliance on dialog and allow shifting by actions, not just words.

What would be more fun, but more variables to track, would be having individualized reputation by NPC. You could be a scalawag in one neighborhood, but a fine upstanding citizen in the next. Or just allow better opportunities to showcase skulduggery than instant lawmen alerts or head bucket accessories - you get a negative rep with that person if they discover stuff missing after you left and will bad mouth you later on. For systems that track NPC interactions off-screen, allow a chance for exchange of news to include exchange of stories about your character that influences their opinion of you if/when you meet them later. Traveling merchants or press could give your character a reputation that precedes your progress.

Some fun things that could be programmed into a game is NPC reactions and PC walking animations. Do the masses smile and wave at your approach? or hide their kids and keep their pitchfork between you and them? Do quest givers openly run up to you, O Hero-of-the-Hour, and beg a moment of your time? Do they demand it in their position of authority to delegate tasks? Or do the shadows whisper "hey buddy, I got something that might interest you..." while the regular quest givers sneer, cower, or flee? Does your character strut confidently, hunch over in secret, or amicably amble easily? Is your character so straight laced they march instead of walking? or so carefree they practically dance?

 

[ningenburajaa]

Tried sorting the steam shop by RPG titles? It seems these days that the definition is applied to any game that has a system where one can level up and/or equip gear. But yes, tying in-game conversational decisions to functional character stats forces the player into choosing to optimise their character move than the actual outcome of the situation. Divinity was a serious offender. If this sort of mechanic is to be used (which ideally, I don't think it should but I know making games is hard and takes a long time so I'm not going to begrudge developers from doing it at every instance), I think the details of the effects need to be obscured from the player. At least this way, the false dichotomy of a worthy and considered response vs abstract mechanical bonus doesn't interfere with the actual story.

I personally hope the Witcher 3 serves as the role-model for more games than does biowares hackneyed good/evil axis mallarky.

 

[HumanShale]

OK, back now, more drunk than I was before, and Id say what is the new frountier?

So much computer power put into graphics. The new frountier is AI.

A conversation tree can be done on an IBM XT. How many numbers needed to be calculated to get a pixel on whoever this idiot Rhyder's face is?

Put that power into machine learning, then we're talking about a new form of game.

 

[fractal_butterfly]

Also:

Do you want AI? Because this is how you get AI!

Yes. I am aiming for Westworld. Bernard's Westworld, not Ford's Westworld.

 

[Cade4stor]

The best system is the Dragon Age: Origins system of approval; if you stick with companions who share your roleplayed morality, the drive to please them keeps you in character, and you just bring others next playthrough.

Alpha Protocol BUILT on the foundations of origins with its sophisticated relationships, opening and closing missions for you, causing and averting betrayals, and opening different ending options or letting you skip or have different bosses in the end mission.

 

[Kenjitsuka]

And be called Saints Row 2.

And get married to the player.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

On the opposite end of this problem scale, you have so much RPG, that the game essentially becomes an interactive novel. Or as I call them; Rapid clickers until the next nudie scene. But back on topic, I think that because most gamers like action games, that developers have "streamlined" the RPG element so they can make an action game.

 

[immortalfrieza]

When anyone says there's "not much roleplaying" in an RPG that is an example of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy, something RPGs have been very heavily subjected to particularly recently. In reality the RPG has grown into a much broader genre of game than most people give it credit for. We have had RPG games where your role is to run around killing things, talk to people, and if any NPC asks you a question, they'll ignore you and keep asking until you give the answer they want. However, that qualifies as much as an RPG as Morrowind or Dungeons and Dragons or anything. Then there's open world games like anything made by Bethesda and Breath of the Wild and such, which have nothing BUT choices but the player consequently can't effect anything outside their direct actions because it would limit the choices. Open world games are as far as to the Pen and Paper RPG games as a video game is capable of portraying without other players and a GM around, they rely upon the PLAYER, not the game, to develop a personality for their character and develop goals and motivations for what they do, and while the set pieces are there it's ultimately up to the player to craft the story. Then there's plenty of games where there is basically nothing except combat, the survival and advancement of one's character is the entirety of the game, such as most Roguelikes.

ALL of these approaches and more are valid RPGs in their own right. An RPG is about playing a role, it's in the name, and that comes just as much from the player character being this strictly defined person with no actual choices to make as it is from being a player crafted in every respect player character that can basically do just about anything they want, and everything in between. By the very nature of stories and dialog the more freedom the player is given, the less coherent and thus attractive that story and dialog can be. In fact, in my personal experience it's the RPGs that have NO actual choices in the dialog or otherwise that have been easily among the best RPGs I've ever played.

It's very difficult to make dialog choices meaningful to the player because in the end, those dialog choices can't really effect much of anything. Many games have tried to have morality systems, reputations systems, alignment and character based dialog choices (see Tyranny for a recent game that already does what has been suggested in the article as well as a few things in the comments here) but however the developers decide to portray things in the end the choices are never going to have anything more than a very marginal effect on the overall story or even player character. This is because having a clear beginning, middle, and end is how stories have always been structured since ancient times, it's very very difficult to break that mold since that's how every writer and viewer alive has been raised to expect stories to unfold, and writers will always write stories in such a format whether they are consciously aware of it or not, despite any desire to do otherwise.

For instance, I could potentially try to make a game where the first 1/3rd of the game determines whether the player character is good, evil, or neutral, the next 1/3rd determining what kind of good, evil, or neutral the player character would be, and the last 1/3rd being said character deciding and executing how they are going to save/conquer/destroy the world for a grand total of 27 possible outcomes to the story, but regardless there is still going to be this overarching story encompassing every path, with all the same characters acting in basically the same way in every path, and the outcomes would end up very much the same from each other in most respects out of practicality if nothing else and even if I did manage to avoid doing that it would just devolve into complete nonsense that the player would have a hard time identifying with and thus caring about. Writers can want to and try to put all the quirks in their dialog and general story that they want to, but it's always ultimately going to a very superficial thing to the game at large due to an inherent bias toward traditional storytelling on both sides of the fence, and dialog with even minor characters is going to be just as shackled by this.

 

[Varis]

For me personally, roleplaying in roleplaying games is part the game's ability to immerse you in the story and the world and part you yourself willing to roleplay.
Imagination goes a long way, and I feel as long as the game gives you even the illusion of choice and consequence, that coupled with your own willingness to immerse yourself in the world and enhance the scenarios with your own imagination, the game can be really engaging and multifaceted.
Even if from an objective standpoint everything might seem inconsequential and railroad-y.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

I don't care what anyone wants to pretend, but none of the Mass Effect's have ever been role-players, so if ME:A contains 'less', then it ostensibly contains the same amount (Ren/Par was good for making your character look like a Sith when you went the 'My character's now going to be a complete asshat to everyone and everything' route, circa ME3, but not much else).

To me, role-playing ideally requires the player to create their own character, figure out their own behavioural responses, and then introduce that to a dynamic, open ended world where it can evolve its own arc, its own story. Skyrim was a bit of a shit game in many ways, but it's still a superior role-player than anything BioWare have ever or seemingly will ever craft.

Give a character a voice, heavily script their reactions and actions through one linear story, and you strangle the life out of purer role-playing. Hell, Elite Dangerous is a better, purer role-playing game than anything BioWare have done...

Imagination goes a long way, and I feel as long as the game gives you even the illusion of choice and consequence, that coupled with your own willingness to immerse yourself in the world and enhance the scenarios with your own imagination, the game can be really engaging and multifaceted.

Yup, imagination is what should, I feel, define actual role-playing; it should be a personally creative act (though it can only compensate for linear/fixed narratives so much. RP'ing in a Dragon Age, for example, is generally a far easier, more enjoyable experience than trying to assert any RP in a Mass Effect).

A while ago I got involved in a back and forth with someone here (I'm fairly sure I remember who it was), and they asserted that 'let's pretend' isn't good enough (re Bethesda's open-world design) - whilst for me it is practically the essence of it all.

In Skyrim an example I always use is the time when a sweetroll - in its own, very modest way - helped to reshape an arc... I'd never intended on that arc when I started the character, and I certainly never consciously thought 'Hm, y'know a sweetroll would be a perfect pivot point for this character!'. It just emerged, organically, out of the assets and environments and factions Bethesda provided the player with.

I created a role, I played it, and it evolved. It was never something the devs intended, nor would it be identical to any other player's experience with the game. True role-playing allows for unique stories to be told.

Fallout 4's main story is more or less an anti role-playing game (beyond Nuka World and Far Harbour there's barely any agency with what 'your' character's supposed to be), but the build mode is a remarkable tool of self-expression and narrative. I'd argue there is much greater role-playing to a player creating an environment to reflect their character's personality/history than anything in a BioWare game (it becomes environmental narrative unique to the player).

(btw, worth noting I love BioWare - and me dismissing their RP credentials has no impact on how much I enjoy their characters and writing. I don't really consider The Witcher to be a role-playing game, either, for very similar reasons)

Damn, Alpha Protocol is 7 years old, time flies. Still the best 4 dialogue tone options game out there, that came out before it became the norm (thanks Fallout 4).

It has almost everything; backstories which come up in dialogue options and give perks/skills, complex relations with NPCs to a mind-boggling degree, perks and skills to influence dialogues/choices.

But it has no custom character so I guess it's not a true RPG.

Whatever it was, I agree it had a helluva lot going for it, and I'd love Obsidian to take on a Dragon Age or Mass Effect (or even a TES).

 

[Janichsan]

Counter-point: there is at least one recent cRPG that the role-playing part quite well: "Torment: Tides of Numenera".

For those who haven't played it: depending on your dialog options and actions, you strengthen or weaken certain "tides", which are related to specific character traits. When you consistently pick similar dialog options, one or two tides become predominant. And how the NPCs react to you, and their dialogs actually change (to some extent) depending on the predominant tides. The effects are not hugely game altering, but it can affect the outcome of a couple of quests.

 

[sageoftruth]

I think Long Live the Queen has some mechanics that could come in handy. In that game it was more about the character's mood, rather than her overall personality, but the important thing was that her mood was not always affected just by her actions, but rather by the consequences of her actions, or just by stuff that happened to her.

In applying that to other games, I'm thinking, if you choose to be aggressive to someone and he ends up backing down, it will make you more aggressive, because your character just saw aggression get the job done. However, if it results in him getting punched in the face and beaten to a pulp, he may be less aggressive, since he was just shown that aggression can have consequences.

If there are no immediate consequences, you can default to the action and not the consequence determining the changes in the character.

 

[Catnip1024]

I much preferred the Dragon Age Origins method of giving you a load of lines in any assorted order, and letting you pick an option without necessarily having a clue where it was meant to be on the good / bad spectrum. Wheels just seem a bit half-arsed, to be honest. They may as well go the whole hog and get you to select the conversation route in the game set-up, so conversations become little movies.

But it has no custom character so I guess it's not a true RPG.

The character was totally customisable. You could give that posh white guy a lumberjack beard, sunglasses and sombrero while he was infiltrating CIA safehouses.

Dammit, now I'm going to have to do another Alpha Protocol run-through. By far the best game for meaningful choices out there. The fact that that received no sequel (or similar story in the same kind of setting, not necessarily a follow-on), when you see some of the garbage that has, is criminal.

 

[Zen Bard]

Honestly, I think role playing games would benefit far more from fewer mechanics as opposed to more.

There are three core elements for a good RPG; a role to play, a world that reacts to that role and a whole lot of imagination. Cumbersome alignment systems and dialogue trees can actually do more to hinder that last element.

Oddly enough, I've been having the most fun lately role playing in Skyrim, a seven year old game that was vastly criticized for the shallowness of its quest lines. And yet, it's precisely this shallowness that's made it so fun. The stripped down mechanics actually enable the player to graft their own stories onto the framework world and fully engage their imagination.

For example, in one playthrough, I decided to replicate Michael Moorcock's famous anti-hero, Elric of Melnibone'. With a simple backstory and a presumption that the Daedra were actually the Lords of Chaos, I could inhabit the role of Elric and play out my own narrative against the backdrop of the game. It was a blast!

In another, I played as an archer that was initially intended to be a roguish forest hero in the vein of Robin Hood (Errol Flynn version...not Russell Crowe). Then I discovered the Sneak/Archery synergy. From that point on, my whole gameplay style and character changed. With enough time, skill and perks, I became a bad-ass sniper who could sneak through any dungeon and slaughter all but the baddest boss with a single shot without ever being detected. For that, I had my trusty one-arm and block skills.

And that actually determined the role I played as the character. When I stepped into his Nightengale boots, I became calm, patient and morally ambiguous. I destroyed the Dark Brotherhood solely because they were atrocious at assassinations (honestly, who runs up to a man on horseback and attacks him with a pair of daggers in broad daylight?), but I also led dragons to towns so the guards would do the heavy lifting and I could strike the killing blow.

And in a small way, the world DID react to my presence. I incurred bounties, guards commented on my Daedric artifacts or snazzy Nightengale armor and recognized me as Dragonborn after vanquishing Alduin. This was far more fun than artificial alignment constraints or dialogue trees.

TL;DR - There are three core components to a good RPG, a role to play, a world that reacts to that role and one's own imagination. Adding more gaming mechanics tend to throttle the imagine component and, in my opinion, limit the role playing experience rather than enhance it.

 

[deadish]

Over to you, comments. What are some fun things you could do with the results of dialogue choices that don't become something a player might mechanically strive for?

Affect how the game plays out in line with your preferences?

e.g. You pick a faction because you like what the faction stands for. No mechanical advantage. You will just be doing objectives whose results, if you succeed, you agree with.

 

[SilverUchiha]

I like your idea of the stats being affected by dialogue choices and agree there is an issue of it becoming more of a mechanical focus. I propose a solution to that problem (or a couple solutions that don't have to be mutually exclusive).

I remember D&D introduced (at some point) flaws to help round out your characters that you took along with feats and skills (if you so chose to). What if by picking certain responses (like aggressive for your example), you gain a point in Strength or something. For every point you gain in strength, you set a level cap in another stat (say intelligence or wisdom [using D&D stats for this example, sorry]). Or, something more direct, could be certain missions in the game aren't allowed simply because they require someone who isn't aggressive and hot headed. Something less direct, but still more noticeable, could be tying that relationship idea you mentioned to the stat bonus. you gain strength, but maybe the blue girl doesn't like you being aggressive. Each stat offers at least one good romance option, but you can't get all of them.

Alternatively, maybe just allow you to set the personality at the start so you get one solid story with a solid protagonist. Especially if the choices don't REALLY matter enough to make a difference in the grand scheme of things.