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Roqua
High Emperor
Joined: 02 Sep 2003
Posts: 897
Location: rump |
Michael C made a post breaking down crpg elements into a rating system in another post. I felt something about it was intrinsically wrong (though a good idea and a good, well thought out post). After thinking about it I have come to a conclusion that probably a lot of others have come to, but I just realized it.
When I first started playing crpgs they were combat management systems. Every other aspect of the game was added on to enhance the combat management system.
The best games had the best management systems. The more complex and option filled character creation and development, the more time you had to spend thinking about and making management choices that had large ramifications throughout the game.
Turned-based combat allowed much more detailed and thought-filled application of a combat management system. Combat was the focal application of the management system, where you could see how the management and resource allocation decisions you made applied to the reason you made them. And combat, like character development, favored those who were the best managers. The best managers were those with the longest foresight, had the clearest goals, had a great understanding of the rules, had an understanding that their actions had ramifications, and used resources in the most advantageous way.
Story could increase the enjoyment of the core management system, but if the management system was good enough on its own then story was not important. The games with the best management systems incorporated the management system into the story by NPC interaction and dialogue, moral dilemmas that resulted in decisions with management ramifications, and resource allocation changes.
A lot of new rpgs have made a drastic change in design by being mostly about story. The management system has changed from a management system with a focus on character creation and development being realized through combat, to a management system with a focus on npc interaction and moral choices being realized through story.
I would say examples of a combat management system are ToEE and Wizardy 8 for recent games, and older games like Buck Rogers, TSR goldbox, Darksun, Darklands, Realms of Arkania, etc. I would say story management systems are Gothic and KoToR.
Now there is some games with combat focus that have poor or nonexistent management systems like Diablo and Dungeon Siege. And then games like the original NWN witch have a detailed combat management system (d20) but without a combat application focus. Instead, the original NWN focuses on combat in an action oriented way like DS and Diablo, instead of a managerial way.
The combat management of rpg’s is slowly disappearing, and being replaced by story management with an action combat focus. Baulder’s Gate is not about combat management or character development, it is about story and npc interaction and story choices.
ToEE is a true combat management game which was not received well, but imagine if they added the same focus on story, NPC interaction, and moral choices as they did combat? Fallout 1 and 2 incorporated them both, minus story focus, very well. How much more popular would Fallout have been if they had a stronger plot and story focus?
Why can’t developers make a game that would please almost everyone (besides the mindless action combat lovers)? Why not combine the combat of ToEE, the NPC interaction of Planescape: Torment, the world dynamics of Gothic, the story immersion and moral dilemmas with ramifications of KoToR, and the character development of Fallout? Maybe with the modability of NWN?
There are clearly separate schools of crpgs now being the combat management system, the story management system, and the action system. It sucks how the combat management system seems to be dead or dying.
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Vegitarian is the Indian word for lousey hunter. |
Sat Feb 07, 2004 7:11 pm |
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piln
High Emperor
Joined: 22 May 2003
Posts: 906
Location: Leeds, UK |
I'm not really connecting with you on the combat management thing, I've never really regarded it as central to the RPG experience (computer or otherwise)... it seems to me more like a description of strategy/tactics games. Your first RPG experiences are different to mine, so it's no surprise that there are differences in what we regard as the "important" bits...
I used to play p&p before I played any CRPGs, and I also played some wargames and boardgames like WFB, 40k, Bloodbowl, Battletech, Car Wars. Those games seem to match the description in your 3rd & 4th paragraphs precisely, with deep combat management systems, long-term strategy as well as battlefield tactics, very complex character/unit creation, and development through experience. What set RPGs apart for me was the ability (through the GM's interpretation) to have my character do anything I could think of (assuming they were capable); human interpretation, and a flexible ruleset, meant that my route, my actions (including, but not limited to, combat), and to some extent the outcome of the story/adventure were up to me, and not dictated to me by the game (ie, fight, play ball, or whatever). Now a lot of the p&p RPGs I played did have complex combat mechanics (many were developed alongside wargames, and so parts of the rulesets were shared), and combat was the most obvious route through many adventures, but a game of combat management alone wouldn't be considered an RPG in p&p circles, it'd be a wargame. Furthermore, there are/were many great RPGs, like Paranoia, Twilight 2000, Over the Edge, Chill, in which the combat rules (or game mechanics in general) were very simple, and in most of those, long-term combat strategy was not a factor at all.
A good story, like you say, is not what makes an RPG what it is, but something like that - a good story, or a detailed setting, or interesting characters - is needed in order to offer choices to the player; if the framework isn't flexible, and instead players are offered only one course of action (fight/play ball) then what you've got (in p&p terms) is a wargame or boardgame, not an RPG.
I've always regarded CRPGs as an effort to acheive the same thing as their p&p counterparts, as closely as possible with the technology available at the time. Fighting has been a very prominent activity in the whole gaming medium since its birth (just like in all media... movies, comics, books, p&p adventure writing... ), so it's no surprise that it crops up in CRPGs a hell of a lot. To this day, CRPGs use combat as a "backbone" since it's just the most established and refined form of gameplay available - but if the most important part of a game is a combat management system then, just as in p&p, what you have is a wargame, or strategy game - a good example would be something like the XCOM series. You're obviously unhappy that this kind of gameplay is becoming less common in RPGs, but have you played the XCOM games? I'm being serious here... from what you describe, it sounds to me like you'd get exactly what you're looking for from those games (and the unofficial sequel "UFO:Aftermath" is out now, which supposedly returns to the style of the first two excellent titles), and others in the strategy genre.
Even old CRPGs like the early Ultimas, Ultima Underworlds, and TES:Arena & Daggerfall attempted to overcome conventions brought about by technical limitations (ie, over-reliance on combat) and recreate the scope and (IMO) the defining principle of p&p RPGs by offering a wide range of activities & solutions to the player, in addition to the option of combat. IMO, interactive storytelling and other types of non-combat gamplay are going through the same refinement process that combat has gone through over so many years, and they too benefit from the continuous improvements in game design and technology - as more gameplay alternatives are becoming viable (and their quality increasing), I believe CRPGs are (in general) getting better. The more flexible a CRPG is in allowing players to choose their course of action, the closer you are to the p&p situation of having an intelligent human interpreter between you and the gameworld, and so the closer you are (IMO) to what CRPGs have always attempted to be - the same as p&p RPGs, just in a different medium. |
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Sun Feb 08, 2004 1:36 am |
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Roqua
High Emperor
Joined: 02 Sep 2003
Posts: 897
Location: rump |
I would have to disagree. Ultima, Ultima Underworld, Arena, and Daggerfall were all very combat heavy games. Ultima 5 asd 6 was combat heavy (the only untima I played before that was Ultima for NES), and Ultima 7 did have a lot of story and a lot of talking but also was combat heavy. But Arena and Daggerfall had almost no story, and I really believe the whole management system behind TES is deffinitly combat focused.
6 of the 7 stats for D&D are for combat (mostly) and the 7th (charisma) has combat applications (like for the cleric, and now the sorcerer). I believe d&D is the first pen and paper game (I am definitly not sure), and I also believe it is a combat management system. ToEE has been said to be the most like a pen and paper experience yet in a crpg and I also believe that game is a combat management system. But I have never played p&p before so I wouldn't know from personal experience, but I would like to know from you why you believe d&d is not a combat managment system? Almost everything in it is about combat from stats to items to rules. It may not be a war game, but it seems like a combat game.
I agree with you on letting the player do whatever he wants and having the game be as open as possible, I just don't like how the games like this have a dumbed down character creation, character development, and combat system. ToEE proved combat D&D pen and paper combat (turned-based combat with an emphesis on the quality of the fight not quantity of enemies killed in a minute) is anything but boring, will NWN 2 have it? Nope. NWN 2 will be real time with an emphesis on killing 5 million enemies every 3 steps. I do not personaly believe that action systems are good systems or "progress" for rpgs.
The only thing I know about Warhammer is about Warhammer Online, I think that it looks good, but why is it so different from d&d? But I really don't like strategy games. I like character creation, development, and combat, but I also like story and NPC interaction.
Are there any computer game examples of the wargames with character creation and development I could try? Maybe I really am a wargame fan, and not an rpg fan, and I've just been playing the wrong genre.
I think X-com is great and one of the best games I've ever played. Character creation and development are pretty poor in it though, but the ability to build a permanent base and research technology kind of balanced it out. I downloaded the UFO: Aftermath demo but when I try to install it I always get the same error (error code -6003). I think x-com would have been better if it had character interaction, npc interaction, shops, quests and all the regular crpg fare.
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Vegitarian is the Indian word for lousey hunter. |
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Sun Feb 08, 2004 9:23 am |
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GhanBuriGhan
Noble Knight
Joined: 03 May 2002
Posts: 208
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The underlying question here is what value one places on the whole element of statistics in RPG´s, what you call the combat management system. When I played p&p, and computer RPGs didnt really exist yet, I imagined that computers would be a great aid for p&p RPGs, because they could manage the whole combat and character statistics, and we could focus more on the storytelling and less time adding up dice rolls and checking frighteningly long tables.
Nevertheless, like all the other geeks, I grew to like reading all these rulbooks, and the more complex the rule system, the more realistic the simulation of a virtual reality it allowed, the better.
So I ended up with a love-hate relationship with stats and complicated combat and character progression systems. On one hand I like the concept of planning the "ramifications" as you mentioned, of having many options for character and combat development and learning and testing all corners of a system. On the other hand I think it should be the job of a good computer RPG to make the underlying mechanics as invisible as possible. So I am a fan of games that allow a lot of freedom in the character creation (e.g. TES, Baldurs Gate) but otherwise focus on the illusion of being in a "real" alien world, so I prefer real time fighting systems and graphically detailed worlds (Gothic, TES) even if it means loosing some of the complexity of combat management. That is not to say I cannot enjoy a RPG with a tactical combat system, that can be very fun, however to me it somehow brakes the illusion of "being there". So my own favorite games are ones that have a complex and flexible management system, but make it as invisible as possible (TES, KOTR). |
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Sun Feb 08, 2004 10:00 am |
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Roqua
High Emperor
Joined: 02 Sep 2003
Posts: 897
Location: rump |
Where I disagree is with the world being "real" and "immersive." How civilized could a world be where you fight every 2 seconds? How would cities conduct trade? Fallout explains this with caravans and most of the random encounters are with people, possibly traders, or another encounter that makes sense.
ToEE also felt more real when it came to fighting and combat. The fights made sense and were done in a manner that makes sense. Both those games are turn-based.
If I was going to make a game the combat would be few and far between, and everytime you were going to get into a fight it would be a big deal that makes your heart race.
I think Daggerfall did it's fighting a lot better. Either you were in a town or a dungeon. Towns were safe and dungeons had enemies. So fighting was conducted in a someone believable manner. Morrowind had you being assaulted every 3 steps once you left town, even between major trade routes. The world was filled with guilds that supposedly also got missions to conduct but you alone could clear every knook and cranny of the island. Plus my big grievance with TES is that the character creation and development system it has punishes the person who creates a good character (having to make your primary skills secondary skills so the start lower and you can level faster and more).
Making immersive worlds that are "realistic" by history and npc interaction/schedules/etc is definitly a step in the right direction, but combat is a big part of realism and believability. One of my pet peeves with people that play mmorpgs that want people to roleplay in them is that the worlds are so intriniscly unbelievable that trying to believably roleplay is just silly. Without death there is no bravery or heroism. There is so many examples why mmorpgs are not roleplaying games, and will never be roleplaying games that it really deserves an editorial.
And my other problem with your thinking is that yes the rules are being hidden, but they are being dumbed down beyond reason. KoToRs combat falls alot closer to the retard end. Morrowinds combat (and the other TES games) is way to easy.
The trend of hiding the rules has parelleled the trend of making combat simpler and dumbing it down. But I think KoToR was a vast improvement over NWN's combat.
In a game I would develope most of the rules would be hidden, like in life. You would not be able to see your stats, and combat would be a huge deal.
An example of what I think is a great situation and a move in the right direction for combat in games would be an experience I had in ToEE. SPOILERS FOLLOW. I was playing through in Ironman and I just reached nulb all beat-up. I new there was an inn south (I forgot it was a bar and you couldn't rest there, I thought it was like the welcome wench). When I went in with just the intention to rest safetly, the lady picked my pocket and I caught her. I never back down from fights but I had to (through dialogue) because I new if I didn't I would get wiped out. That is a believable combat situation.
I think ToEE and FO 1/2 had the most immersive and believable worlds because combat made sense and was realistic as well as the world being the same. The only other games I can remember having to say "OH S**T" in a lot of combat situations is Realms of Arkania and Darklands (which had realtime combat). People get nervous before a fight and adrenaline gets going, if that doesn'y happen in an rpg then you really have to ask the question if something is wrong.
Peter Molinox (the creatore of Black and White) had an interview with CPU (Computer Power User) magazine in which he talked about how game design has gone from makeing a level challenging to making it do-able. People don't want to be challenged any more. People want simple and easy. What would happen if this was applied to literature? Would you read a book were the characters were never challenged and they just cruised through all the delemmas and saved the world without much effort?
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Vegitarian is the Indian word for lousey hunter. |
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Sun Feb 08, 2004 7:53 pm |
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piln
High Emperor
Joined: 22 May 2003
Posts: 906
Location: Leeds, UK |
I'm in agreement with GhanBuriGhan in terms of my tastes in CRPG mechanics... I think the ability for the computer to take care of much of the number-crunching and present it in ways that are actually tangible in gameplay (rather than just the character sheet) is a strength of the medium, and I prefer games that take that approach; but I do also enjoy games that leave all the number-crunching in the hands of the player, just like p&p RPGs (I too was a game-mechanics geek  ).
As for D&D, yes it was the first, and yes it was very much combat-oriented (isn't violence one of the first - and most frequently revisited - ports of call for all entertainment media?), but it wasn't just a combat management game. If that were the case, the role of the DM would not have been necessary. A human moderator was needed because of the virtually unlimited range of actions available to the player. If that wasn't the defining principle, then you could take it away and still have a p&p RPG - that's never been done, and is practically impossible. On the other hand, several p&p RPGs ditched combat management or complex rulesets entirely and still funcioned perfectly as RPGs. By the same token, wargames could be played with or without a GM, but could not exist without their combat management systems.
Like I said, I don't believe there's a great deal of difference between the defining principles of p&p RPGs and CRPGs, they're just two different media with different strengths, weaknesses and established techniques (in CRPGs, the computer must fill the GM's role, and therefore CRPGs that offer a comprehensive range of actions to the player are better IMO). I don't mourn the decline of CRPGs based around in-depth combat mangement, because that was never an important part of the RPGs I played, and if I want that kind of experience I can still find it in other genres (where such systems are central to the games).
[edit]: oops, another post popped up before I submitted - must type faster 
I haven't played ToEE, but I agree with your points about Fallout presenting battles and non-combat situations in believable ways. PS:T was similar. These games kind of illustrate what I'm trying to say - that combat itself is not the core of RPGs (that story, NPC interaction, etc. can be far more important), so surely the mechanics of combat are equally incidental. If you have a setting or story where battle is likely to feature heavily, then it makes sense to have deep combat mechanics, and character development geared towards building a combat-effective hero. Otherwise, neither of those things are important. So, if an ingredient can be toned down or omitted (if that's appropriate to a particular game), then it's not really a fundamental building-block of the whole genre.
I wasn't aware of that quirk of TES games' mechanics... I like those games' systems a lot, in principle (again, a good example of how to adapt to the advantages of the medium), but the games themselves have some strange balancing issues. Still, in the case of Morrowind, you could mod it and make the character development work how you like.
I couldn't get the Aftermath demo working either... annoying, I really want to try it out.  [/edit] |
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Sun Feb 08, 2004 9:36 pm |
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Jaz
Late Night Spook
Joined: 20 Jan 2002
Posts: 9708
Location: RPGDot |
Same here... I'm more with piln and GhanBuriGhan on this one. For me, combat management never was the focus of a 'real' role playing game (~p&p) for me, immersion was, and to get me immersed the combat rules had better be as simple as they came. Looking up stuff in tables was and still is a very distractive experience for me, and fortunately for my group of players as well.
The same holds true for my ideal CRPGs... the simpler combat management, the better, because complicated systems tend to distract from my immersion. Usually I steer clear of round-based combat in CRPGs, because whenever time stops to allow me to manage the party, the magic of the moment is killed. I can stomach round-based combat only when the rest of the game is SO appealing (by having great NPC interaction, for example, as it was with JA 1 and 2) I can overlook the combat deficiency.
I don't like round-based strategy games, either... to please me they must be real time with a most simple interface, or not at all. They are not immersive enough for me... and yes, I'm looking for immersion in almost every of my favorite gaming genres.
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Jaz |
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Sun Feb 08, 2004 11:21 pm |
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Roqua
High Emperor
Joined: 02 Sep 2003
Posts: 897
Location: rump |
I got UFO demo to work by downloading the 176 mb demo from the main UFO site, not the 142 mb demo from gamesites.
Do you guys inherently disagree with the three classifications of rpgs?
Combat management system: ToEE, Wizardy, M&M, Buck Rogers, REalms of Arkania, DArklands, FO1, etc.
Story Management Systems: PS: Torment, Gothic, KoToR, Ultima 7, BG 1+2,etc,.
Action System: Diablo, DS, Divine Div, NWN, IWD (I never played 2), old arabian D&D game, Morrowind, etc.
There are also hybrids. I would say FO2 is between combat and story management. BG1+2 probably is in between story and action but more towards story, same with Div div but more towards action. Daggerfall has great character creation but action combat so a combat/action mix.
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Vegitarian is the Indian word for lousey hunter. |
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Mon Feb 09, 2004 5:35 pm |
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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
This is an interesting discussion and I'm not sure my limited time will do it justice so aplogies for throwing out a few quick sentences that probably aren't well thought out.
As an old stat-monkey I can relate to Roqua's comments to a degree. The deeper the mechanics the more I enjoy a RPG and complex combat like ToEE is a joy. However, I agree more with Piln that freedom and choice are paramount and I've often fouind the difference between a good RPG and great RPG is the story.
I have no problem with stats being replaced by some more immersive element (although I personally like my stats) and I'm sure the genre will move in this direction. The problem I see is that current examples of this are dumbed down - it is hard to represent 346 (number chosen randomly) skills through other means.
And this is where I separate about choice. Choice alone does not make a RPG - it makes an adventure game - although they can be fun. Choice interpreted through a character's abilities makes a RPG.
Simplified skills systems (and other RPG mechanics) reduce the choice and range of character types and the impact they have on gameplay. This in turn makes the games less RPG and more adventure game. If someone can find a way to remove the stats but keep the depth, I'm all for it.
Got to run - hope this makes sense. 
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Editor @ RPGDot |
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Mon Feb 09, 2004 9:28 pm |
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Roqua
High Emperor
Joined: 02 Sep 2003
Posts: 897
Location: rump |
It does make sense and I agree. I especially agree with your remark"Choice interpreted through a character's abilities makes a RPG." That makes me think of FO2.
What do you think about the 3 catagories though?
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Vegitarian is the Indian word for lousey hunter. |
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Mon Feb 09, 2004 9:36 pm |
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