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Roqua
High Emperor
Joined: 02 Sep 2003
Posts: 897
Location: rump |
Priest4hire,
I can’t respond to most of what you said since you based it off of something I never said or implied. That being character creation.
My Betrayal at Krondor statement nullified it from being an rpg since your role in the game and throughout the game is set in stone. You’re character has no plot choices to make. The game is like a book. (I read the book based on the game and it was crap, so I guess the game is better than the book). The role is decided. How you behave and interact with the word is prefabricated. You cannot make any character based decisions.
It is the difference between freeform acting and script acting. If I give you a scenario and a character background and then scream “Action!” and you have to start making decisions and acting like the character whose role you are playing, compared to a set script, memorized, and going through the motions. Again, the difference between watching a movie, reading a book, or playing a video game compared to playing an rpg or a real crpg.
I do enjoy what you call roll playing, as I am a min/maxer from way back. But that doesn’t dictate to me what is an rpg or what isn’t an rpg. It dictates to me between rpgs I would like more than others; or, in my mind, a good rpg from a bad one. An rpg is an rpg is an rpg, good, bad, or ugly.
And it is binary. Its an rpg or it isn’t. Tastes and preferences has no impact on this, just as my likng zeros more than ones has no impact on what code does. If I like night more than day the sun will still come up. If I decided that day was actually night because I like night more than day it would make me crazy. And wrong of course, just as you are on this subject. Tastes and preferences has no effect on what something is.
This argument isn’t philosophy; it’s not ethics, epistemology, or metaphysics. This isn’t about what rpgs should be, or what you or I think they ought to be. It’s about what they have been and will always be.
And I don’t need to link to a website about Ford to know what production lines are about. In the name of fun, pen and paper games could of incorporated action elements. A new rpg called “Dungeons & Awesome Action” could come with rock’em sock’em robots (to decide melee combat), an elastic and a can (to decide ranged combat), and a mini bowling alley (to decide magic), and be more fun than any rpg ever invented so far. But guess what? It wouldn’t be an rpg any more. You can play “Dungeons & Awesome Action” all day and have a f’ing ball, but still wouldn’t be playing an rpg.
An rpg (be it on a computer or by pen and paper) has to provide a platform where you can create your own experience, and it cannot be influenced by your own physical abilities.
quote:
“A blind person, for example, would find any CRPG a difficult experience at best.”
A blind person would also have difficulty finding the dice, rolling them onto an actual surface other than the floor, figuring out what was rolled, and updating his character sheet, now wouldn’t he? And unless video games start shooting laser brail into blind peoples minds, I’m pretty sure the blind community won't be rushing out to grab the latest graphic cards or PS3.
quote:
“Knowledge of game mechanics, proper party composition, and effective strategy/tactics will allow an experienced CRPG player to do vastly better at a game like Wizardry VII than a newbie.”
And this is physical how? Oh yeah, its not. I was pretty specific. Unless it comes to a surprise to you that mental activities benefit from stronger mental facilities and capabilities. Anything that is supposed to require thought will always benefit from thought, its one of those truisms you just can’t escape from in life. There is no way to separate the mental aspects required for a game that requires thought, planning, imagination, and creativity. Rpgs have always separated the physical from the player and character. Always. Always. Always. (One more time for dramatic effect and in caps with exclamations) ALWAYS!!!!!!!!! If I were Steven Hawking I would attempt to punch you for being so offensive to cripples and invalids everywhere (or just drool).
There is no way around it. Correct is correct. I am correct, therefore I win.
Let me continue to win, since it is fun. Your assertion that 100% of crpgs have not had any role playing in them is false and grossly inaccurate, because I have role played in every crpg I’ve played. That’s like me saying there is no end to Doom since I never beat it. Its sounds like your the min/maxer if you chose to ignore the role playing tools the game gives you, and you pass up any opportunity to play the role you want to in order to make the “best” choice.
Let me define my criteria for what a role playing game is, then you can try and tear it apart. Then please give me your definition, because I know I can tear it apart.
A role playing game is a game in which you take the role of a character (that you created or not) and that lets you play that role how you see fit, or at least makes more than a passing attempt to support you playing the role how you see fit. Your physical skills and your characters physical skills are independent of each other. Your character is not limited or enhanced by your personal physical capabilities.
Being non-retarded (or only mildly retarded) I do have enough sanity to understand that roleplaying, a mental activity, cannot severe the mental aspects of the player and character. That is something that is self regulated and included in the title of the genre, and connot be magically tampered with. A genius can play a stupid warrior that makes all the stupidest decisions, but someone missing a chromosome or two will probably never play a genius wily wizard. That’s just how it is.
Gothic would be an rpg if it didn't have twitch combat, Betrayal at Krondor would be an rpg if it had roleplaying in it.
Thank you for entering the debate, I look forward to your response. I always enjoy a good argument. I hope more people jump in with their opinion.
_________________
Vegitarian is the Indian word for lousey hunter. |
Wed Apr 26, 2006 12:03 am |
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dteowner
Shoegazer
Joined: 21 Mar 2002
Posts: 7570
Location: Third Hero of Erathia |
I just want to know who's hacking Roqua's account. 
Carry on, folks. A pleasant debate, I must say.
I do think I see a bit of inconsistency from pseudo-Roqua.
quote:
Originally posted by Roqua
A role playing game is a game in which you take the role of a character (that you created or not) and that lets you play that role how you see fit, or at least makes more than a passing attempt to support you playing the role how you see fit.
You say that the definition of rpg is binary (izuhz & aintnahs) and your own admittedly excellent definition opens up a level of subjectivity as shown with my added boldface. Can't have it both ways, laddie.
_________________
=Proud Member of the Non-Flamers Guild=
=Benevolent Dictator, X2/X3 and Morrowind/Oblivion Forums=
Sorry. No pearls of wisdom in this oyster.
RIP Red Wings How 'Bout Dem Cowboys! |
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Wed Apr 26, 2006 2:07 am |
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Priest4hire
Head Merchant
Joined: 08 May 2002
Posts: 52
Location: Slocan, BC |
quote:
Originally posted by Roqua
Priest4hire,
I can’t respond to most of what you said since you based it off of something I never said or implied. That being character creation.
A brief examination of your prior posts speaks otherwise.
quote:
My Betrayal at Krondor statement nullified it from being an rpg since your role in the game and throughout the game is set in stone. You’re character has no plot choices to make. The game is like a book. (I read the book based on the game and it was crap, so I guess the game is better than the book). The role is decided. How you behave and interact with the word is prefabricated. You cannot make any character based decisions.
Sure you can. You can decide what skills to emphasize, whether to wander and explore or focus on the story, and what loot you will hoard. No role playing of course and they are a little banal but they are decisions. And in even the most open CRPG every line is scripted, every path already laid and every decision but a choice among options set in stone.
quote:
It is the difference between freeform acting and script acting. If I give you a scenario and a character background and then scream “Action!” and you have to start making decisions and acting like the character whose role you are playing, compared to a set script, memorized, and going through the motions. Again, the difference between watching a movie, reading a book, or playing a video game compared to playing an rpg or a real crpg.
Thank you making my point. You do a good job at it I must admit. Yes, reading from a script is not role playing even if you have 2 or 3 or x number of script choices. Making it up yourself, creating the performance rather than picking it, is what role playing is.
quote:
I do enjoy what you call roll playing, as I am a min/maxer from way back. But that doesn’t dictate to me what is an rpg or what isn’t an rpg. It dictates to me between rpgs I would like more than others; or, in my mind, a good rpg from a bad one. An rpg is an rpg is an rpg, good, bad, or ugly.
And it is binary. Its an rpg or it isn’t. Tastes and preferences has no impact on this, just as my likng zeros more than ones has no impact on what code does. If I like night more than day the sun will still come up. If I decided that day was actually night because I like night more than day it would make me crazy. And wrong of course, just as you are on this subject. Tastes and preferences has no effect on what something is.
Yet night and day are not binary states. Nor is any genre in film, writing, or gaming such a clean thing. All this talk about like and dislike is a straw man, and this attempt to lock RPGs into such a rigid definition nothing more than a rather weak false dichotomy. Why should anyone believe that while all other genres blend into each other the RPG genre is totally different? Why should the RPG be radically different than the action genre? After all, you are stating that even the slightest action makes a RPG into an action game yet the inverse is obviously not true.
Oh, and BTW you have just disqualified Wizardry VII. Or did you forget the lock-picking, trap disarming and door bashing mini-games? A tiny bit of action they have which means, according to you, RPG they are not. 
quote:
This argument isn’t philosophy; it’s not ethics, epistemology, or metaphysics. This isn’t about what rpgs should be, or what you or I think they ought to be. It’s about what they have been and will always be.
That's nice. Really.
quote:
And I don’t need to link to a website about Ford to know what production lines are about. In the name of fun, pen and paper games could of incorporated action elements. A new rpg called “Dungeons & Awesome Action” could come with rock’em sock’em robots (to decide melee combat), an elastic and a can (to decide ranged combat), and a mini bowling alley (to decide magic), and be more fun than any rpg ever invented so far. But guess what? It wouldn’t be an rpg any more. You can play “Dungeons & Awesome Action” all day and have a f’ing ball, but still wouldn’t be playing an rpg.
An rpg (be it on a computer or by pen and paper) has to provide a platform where you can create your own experience, and it cannot be influenced by your own physical abilities.
Hmm, who are you responding to? Yes, character interaction - not just combat as you seem to imply - needs to be derived from the character's abilities rather than the player. But in no game is this balance ever all the way to one or the other - even in P&P RPGs. You keep bringing up physical but do characters not have mental stats as well? Would it really be a RPG if the player had to solve a logic puzzle to cast spells? In fact, the mental side is a real issue in RPGs. That wizard with the 18 intelligence, for example, has a photographic memory. Thus if the player forgets some important tidbit the GM will simply remind him. Likewise a player who plays his half-orc warrior, the one with a peanut sized brain, with too much intelligence he can and should be penalized for it. Being able to play characters whose physical and mental abilities differ from your own is key to the RPG experience.
But so what? All this is doing is pointing out why action/RPGs are hybrids. That's nice.
quote:
A blind person would also have difficulty finding the dice, rolling them onto an actual surface other than the floor, figuring out what was rolled, and updating his character sheet, now wouldn’t he? And unless video games start shooting laser brail into blind peoples minds, I’m pretty sure the blind community won't be rushing out to grab the latest graphic cards or PS3.
Trying to have your cake and eat it too? Sight is a physical ability and you can't have it both ways. Besides, a blind person would have no difficulty rolling dice and since only the GM has hidden dice rolls the other players could just call out the results for him. Same goes for the character sheet. Another player could just update it for him. And these things are all mechanics. Mechanics are a necessary evil of RPGs but that's all. The real thing, the role playing, would be totally unhindered by his disability. Cases where physical disabilities do hinder role playing are just another proof that physical ability having no impact is currently an impossible abstracted state.
quote:
And this is physical how? Oh yeah, its not. I was pretty specific. Unless it comes to a surprise to you that mental activities benefit from stronger mental facilities and capabilities. Anything that is supposed to require thought will always benefit from thought, its one of those truisms you just can’t escape from in life. There is no way to separate the mental aspects required for a game that requires thought, planning, imagination, and creativity. Rpgs have always separated the physical from the player and character. Always. Always. Always. (One more time for dramatic effect and in caps with exclamations) ALWAYS!!!!!!!!! If I were Steven Hawking I would attempt to punch you for being so offensive to cripples and invalids everywhere (or just drool).
There is no way around it. Correct is correct. I am correct, therefore I win.
Speaking of which I'm sure you're aware that RPGs were never about winning. It is not a competition amongst the players. Thus while a base level of mental ability is required beyond that as long as you are having fun there is no better or worse. All this emphasis on physical is missing the forest for the trees.
A player who is shy can play an extrovert in the game. Bill, who has a hard time remembering his own phone number, can be a wizard with a mind like a steel trap. Dr. Bob the Neurosurgeon and master Parkour athlete can play that massive warrior who can only recognize himself in a mirror two times out of three and possesses the grace of a bull in a china shop. Probably finds playing a 'hulk smash' character relaxing. That is the point. It's not about being better and thus the players and GM simply tailor the game to suit their desires. Last time I checked you don't need experience or massive smarts to have fun. In fact, I've read articles talking about how the first time you play a RPG and have no idea what you are doing - making stupid mistakes and all - is often some of the most fun as well.
quote:
Let me continue to win, since it is fun. Your assertion that 100% of crpgs have not had any role playing in them is false and grossly inaccurate, because I have role played in every crpg I’ve played. That’s like me saying there is no end to Doom since I never beat it. Its sounds like your the min/maxer if you chose to ignore the role playing tools the game gives you, and you pass up any opportunity to play the role you want to in order to make the “best” choice.
Uh-huh, thanks for letting me know how I play games; I wasn't sure on that. No, it's not like playing Doom and claiming it has no ending because I never got there. And a game can not give you 'role playing tools' - whatever that's supposed to mean. It either allows for role playing or it doesn't. CRPGs do not. The closest they have come is in a game like Neverwinter Nights when you're playing with a DM and some buddies.
quote:
Let me define my criteria for what a role playing game is, then you can try and tear it apart. Then please give me your definition, because I know I can tear it apart.
Fair enough.
quote:
A role playing game is a game in which you take the role of a character (that you created or not) and that lets you play that role how you see fit, or at least makes more than a passing attempt to support you playing the role how you see fit. Your physical skills and your characters physical skills are independent of each other. Your character is not limited or enhanced by your personal physical capabilities.
Being non-retarded (or only mildly retarded) I do have enough sanity to understand that roleplaying, a mental activity, cannot severe the mental aspects of the player and character. That is something that is self regulated and included in the title of the genre, and connot be magically tampered with. A genius can play a stupid warrior that makes all the stupidest decisions, but someone missing a chromosome or two will probably never play a genius wily wizard. That’s just how it is.
OK, role playing is more than just taking the role of a character. It is creating the character of a character. Creating is the key word. If the game doesn't allow you to create the performance of your character it can not allow role playing. Picking and choosing is not creating.
Now, you yourself have already excluded gross physical disabilities from the physical skill part. So then it is fair to exclude gross mental deficiencies as well. In talking about physical ability vis a vis RPGs you seem to miss the reason for that separation: to allow the greatest flexibility in the role you can play. As I have previously pointed out RPGs are cooperative games and by drawing on the entire group you can indeed allow players to role play characters who possess mental abilities the player does not. That is how it should be.
quote:
Gothic would be an rpg if it didn't have twitch combat, Betrayal at Krondor would be an rpg if it had roleplaying in it.
Gothic is an action/RPG because character stats still play a significant role in character interaction but the control is too action based to be a CRPG. BoK is a CRPG by being well within the established area the genre itself defined.
OK, first off it has to be stated that RPGs are not CRPG and vice versa. There is no single definition for both because they are very different beasts. To quote Gary Gygax himself "They are really action-adventure games with a few RPG elements added." He also said in another interview " The so-called CRPG isn't role-playing. To whom does one role-play in such an exercise?" I agree with him on this.
So, a RPG is a game with enough of a framework to be a game that allows for, and encourages, role playing. You can't force role playing; only enable it. Beyond that you don't need combat or numerical stats or dice rolling or any of that. Just a game and role playing being enabled.
A CRPG on the other hand is a type of electronic game that borrowed secondary elements, mechanics and typical game styles, from the RPG world. It has stat based character/world interaction, combat based gameplay, and some type of world to explore. NPC interaction, inventory management, and branching dialogue & plotting is often present though also found in other genres, adventure games especially, and not found in all CRPGs. Basically it resembles, or is derived from, the original genre-defining CRPGs. The stats can be simple or complex so long as they are the primary influence on said interaction. A tiny little bit of action, like Daggerfall, isn't enough to tip it to action/RPG while one or two 'RPG elements' doesn't make an action game into a action/RPG. Thus if you need good action skills to succeed but stats are still a big part then it's an action/RPG.
Actually, that definition sucks since it's so bare. Stats, combat and a world to explore. But really, the genre has expanded and mutated so much that unless you refer to specific sub-genres it's hard to be any more specific than that. Anything else and you disqualify the very games that established the genre. Since these are 'known good RPGs' any definition that excludes them is flawed. Deduction whittles it down to that tiny definition.
The confusion between TBS and CRPG is proof of how far CRPGs are from RPGs. In the P&P world the difference is so clear cut as to not even bear mentioning. But stripped of what really makes an RPG an RPG and the CRPG resembles the TBS game so much that the creation of the 'SRPG' genre was inevitable. It would never exist in the P&P world but how could computer and console players not notice that the difference between established RPGs and established TBS games was pretty superficial. Thus the SRPG term came to be.
quote:
Thank you for entering the debate, I look forward to your response. I always enjoy a good argument. I hope more people jump in with their opinion.
Likewise.
_________________
Watch your back. Shoot straight. Conserve ammo. And never, ever, cut a deal with a dragon.
Grammaton Dragon
-==(UDIC)==- |
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Wed Apr 26, 2006 8:23 am |
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niteshade
Keeper of the Gates
Joined: 09 Jul 2005
Posts: 100
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This is where I wish I had played ROA 1 because I know Roqua holds it to such high esteem. But I can say that if you talked to any serious pen and paper roleplayer, they would say there is in fact no roleplaying in darklands, only roll playing. The game didn't even have any dialogue in it for the most part. You primarily just chose an option like "negotiate with the bandits" and it would tell you what happened based on the highest talking skill in your party. In my opinion it was pretty cool overall, but roleplaying purists have been denouncing things like this in P&P games for decades.
What it did have was a cool sandbox environment where you could go around and do what you want. You couldn't really change the main story though....there were 3 major goals to accomplish and ultimately they all had to turn out the same way.
So yeah I thought Darklands was a really cool medieval sandbox adventure simulator, but I thought Betrayal was more of a RPG just because you were more in the actual role of the characters, rather then many steps detached like Darklands.
On a side note, I played Betrayal of Krondor before reading the books and then read the second series of books which I actually liked alot (mostly). Then I went back and read the original series which I agree was pretty bad. |
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Wed Apr 26, 2006 5:01 pm |
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txa1265
Magister of the Light
Joined: 13 Apr 2004
Posts: 390
Location: Marlborough, MA USA |
quote:
Originally posted by Priest4hire
...
I agree with you <eyes bleed> but have to <gasps for air> take ... issue with ... <falls over and dies>
_________________
Dopelar effect (n.) The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
Check out my blog. |
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Wed Apr 26, 2006 5:17 pm |
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dteowner
Shoegazer
Joined: 21 Mar 2002
Posts: 7570
Location: Third Hero of Erathia |
Cmon, Mike. Sure it makes War and Peace look like a novella, but the post is pretty well-written.
_________________
=Proud Member of the Non-Flamers Guild=
=Benevolent Dictator, X2/X3 and Morrowind/Oblivion Forums=
Sorry. No pearls of wisdom in this oyster.
RIP Red Wings How 'Bout Dem Cowboys! |
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Wed Apr 26, 2006 10:39 pm |
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Roqua
High Emperor
Joined: 02 Sep 2003
Posts: 897
Location: rump |
Niteshade,
I liked the original books, and most of his stuff, but the book based on the game, and written after the game based on the story of the game, is not good. I really enjoyed the original series. Granted I was a mid-teenager when I read them.
But you are nuts-o if you think BaK had any roleplaying. And this statement has me questioning your sanity, “but I thought Betrayal was more of a RPG just because you were more in the actual role of the characters, rather then many steps detached like Darklands.”
You were not in the role, you observed the role. Compared to darklands where you are in direct and total control of the role(s).
And I do not know any rpg purists. Last I checked the three divides were gamist, simulationist, narrativist. They all play pure rpgs. They just put different emphasis’s on different aspects of roleplaying and rpgs. What does an rpg purist say? What is their take on systems like Burning Wheel’s ‘Duel of Wits’? Or the combat system in The Riddle of Steel?
You watch what happens in BaK, you make the things happen in Darklands. Darklands is only a roll playing game if you don’t or haven’t actually played it. I think BaK is much more of a roll playing game since you have no say at all and zero choices (dialogue choices=zero, cut scenes with no choice or roleplaying, just observation=100%).
In a roleplaying game like, lets say, Harn, your character has a skill called rhetoric. The character is skilled at dialogue, not you. You need to convince the Duke to lend you troops, you don’t have to make the convincing argument, you make the decision that your character will make the convincing argument, and let the dice roll. Lets incorporate this into a crpg. If the crpg has a high barter skill, you buy for less, sell for more. You don’t have any fancy dialogue option. You just have to know that action=reaction, or higher barter skill equals better deals. That’s roleplaying. You are playing a role independent of your own. You don’t need to make a convincing argument, the character does. What is said is purely aesthetic (artistically, not visually since it is sound I guess), the event and outcome are what is important. Hence, Steven Hawking can be a bard with a beautiful voice, and the people he plays his roleplaying game with do not have to suffer through monotone computer voice songs for hours.
So again, I win.
Dteowner (and P4H),
As p4h pointed out, everything in a game will always be hard coded. You can only do what the programmers allow you to do. So an allowance has to be made for crpgs compared to rpgs, since the boundaries are not limited by the imagination, or even what was thought of, but instead what was coded into the game.
The developers of the “rpg” have a choice. Code in the ability for the player of the game to play a role as he sees fit or not. Most “rpg” developers chose not. Even though the other option is a viable option. So, in doing that, they chose not to make an rpg. Just as when the decide to add twitch combat they chose not to make an rpg.
P4H,
I like the blind analogy. Because just as in pen and paper games, a blind man will need help seeing what is happening before he makes his choice of how his character will react to it, so will he need the same assistance in a crpg. Can he choose what to say in a conversation? Can he make a chose of what to do in a certain situation? Can he decide the next move the character he is playing is going to make? Or is he just listening to what is going on as his seeing-eye-midget is madly clicking away, engrossed in the hot action of the moment. Is he listening to what “the character who he is playing” was scripted to say when a dialogue cut scene script was triggered? I guess those are important questions to ask to find the answer to if he was playing a crpg or not, aren’t they?
And yes, night and day are not binary, neither are cold and hot, or love and hate, or even a light being on and off. But this is just leading to wordsmithing instead of debating the actual core points being made.
I concede the point that crpgs will never be able to compare to rpgs when it comes to sheer breath of choice and consequences. But the role playing, the choice and consequence, can be there. Instead of improving, providing more choices and consequences, games are removing them. They are becoming less rpg like and not more.
Lets apply your argument to AI. Since AI possibly will never be able to achieve the level of cognitive intelligence and functionality of the human mind, lets call it quits. Its ridiculous and a cop out. It’s a way of being able to stop progress, or call the devolution of this genre, a step forward. We quit so its okay. A crpg does not have to resemble its name sake and the reason it was created, or even try to come closer and closer to resembling/simulating this. Lets give up.
What should we call the games that will try to recreate the rpg experience on a different medium? “Real rpgs on the computer”? Isn’t that kind of long for the title of a genre? AI is trying to achieve intelligence. Crpgs should be trying to achieve what rpgs provide.
Quitting is not an exuse. Losing the way is not an excuse. Tastes and preferences are not an excuse. I like the rpg Chivarly and Sourcery because it has what I like in it, but I’m not saying Fudge isn’t an rpg. Its just not one I like. I’m more of a simulationist than a gamist or narativist. If my top 10 list had NWN, Kotor 1 and 2, BG 1 and 2, PST, U7, div div, etc in it my argument right now would be the same.
I am not talking about what ,makes an rpg good, my argument is about what makes it an rpg (or not).
quote:
Anything else and you disqualify the very games that established the genre. Since these are 'known good RPGs' any definition that excludes them is flawed. Deduction whittles it down to that tiny definition.
The games can and should be exluded as the genre advances and becomes more like what it is meant to be. I played the early rpgs (ega and on, none before ega really) and even though there are some that are still and will always be my favorite games. Like QfG (then Hero’s quest). I love this game. 1 and 2 (the one that didn’t get the svga upgrade and dialogue choice option by sierra, the real number 1). One of my favorite action games with rpg elements. And you are right. I can’t, in good conscience, consider Buck Rogers and rpg. There are no roleplying choices in it at all. But it will always be one of my favorite games. Just like BaK, just like Golgo 13, just like Gun Smoke, and just like Blades of Steel and Double Dribble.
But I do argee with almost everything you say, and Gary. But Gary is talking about what has been or is, like EoB, not what should be tomorrow if everyone didn’t just quit like a bunch off pansy ass sissy girls, with undies full of sand, chaffing them and making them pout. You can advance the real genre in a real way, which is and has been possible, and we now have the tools to keep advancing and getting closer and closer. Just like AI.
You don’t just give up. Man will never give up on the speed of light. Even if we never reach it we will get closer and closer, and maybe come up with a faster alternative (like warps or beaming or superfaxing or some crap). How does that song go? “Oops there goes another rubber tree, Oops there goes another rubber tree, Oops there goes another rubber tree PLANT!” The any did it, and a bunch of people that can come up with soil erosion can’t throw a little roleplaying su7pport in there, and advance more than graphics?
Rpgs and crpgs can be the same thing one day, and a lot similar today, so they should be. Yesterday means nothing. Just because trying to add in all those choices and options are hard is no excuse. Everything worth doing is hard. Making the right decision is usually the hardest decision. Taking the road less traveled is not the easy choice.
You guys can lay down and die. But not me. I’ll fight the good fight everyday. I make no excuses for mislabeling. I will not go quietly. I will be overdramatic and rub this crap fake rpg garbage on my genitals and urinate on them for all that is good and pure in the world. I do it for the scientists who decided that male sea cows give birth. I do it for the person who figured out that tomatoes are a fruit. But most of all I do it for the children. Those poor, poor bastards.
_________________
Vegitarian is the Indian word for lousey hunter. |
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Thu Apr 27, 2006 12:20 am |
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niteshade
Keeper of the Gates
Joined: 09 Jul 2005
Posts: 100
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Ah.....the book based on the game. I did have the misfortune of reading that. I think I got about a third of the way through before I gave up. You have my deepest sympathies if you made the same mistake that I did.
I must admit I have no idea what your talking about with the divide of gaming philosophies. Nor do I suspect that even the most die hard gamer I know has any clue what the gaming systems you mention are let alone has an opinion on them. I don't mean to imply they aren't valid, just that modern gaming circles and communtities seem to moved away from them. P&P gaming has changed tremendously and become quite a bit more mainstream in the past 5 years or so. Most of the people who seem to be accepted by the modern gaming community as roleplayers with a capital R (and I should state for the record that I think some of these people are pompous asses) would say that it's not so much the rules of the system that make for roleplaying as the player. But they generally decry the modern trend towards "roll playing" in modern P&P games. Your example from Harn is a perfect example of this, rather then playing out the discussion with the duke you are just making a roll. They would argue that doing this takes away from the role playing of your character and is simply rolling dice. If you didn't make any attempt at all to play out the talk with the duke and simply rolled dice, I think most of the gamers I know would consider that to be a little too "roleplaying light". But different people enjoy putting emphasis on different things, and I can understand your argument for why your way of doing things is more pure too.
On the other hand there is live action roleplaying which is considered by many to be the purest of roleplaying because you rarely leave the roll of your character. Everything you do from swinging the sword to running around the woods to talking to NPCs is done directly by you with no dice getting in the way (although you do still have skills which effect the results of your actions). Interestingly enough what you view as anti-roleplaying some view as the purest essence of roleplaying. Once again I don't necesarily agree with this line of thinking. But I've never heard anyone argue that LARPs are not roleplaying.
In truth I'd agree with you that BaK did have very little of what you'd traditionally consider roleplaying in it. But still there were parts where you had options on how to accomplish something and at least for me I found the stories and personalities were engaging enough to lead to some cases where I would take actions based on what I felt a character would do. But overall I agree with you, it was extremely light on traditional roleplaying.I just feel that Darklands had even less roleplaying in it. It was still a fun game. I loved the medieval German feel to it and all the options you had for it. It was actually the first PC game I ever bought (though I had bought many for other systems before that) and I spent quite alot of time with it. But I still don't think it had much roleplaying in the traditional sense. Perhaps you had the opposite experience and somehow identified with your Darklands characters and made decisions based on what you thought they would do. I've even known people who did that in games like Half Life. |
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Thu Apr 27, 2006 5:58 am |
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corwin
On the Razorblade of Life
Joined: 10 Jun 2002
Posts: 8376
Location: Australia |
This is one of the best debates/discussions I've read in ages!! Well done guys. Roqua, I agree with most of what you say and I too love BaK!! Where do we place the KotOR series? 
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Thu Apr 27, 2006 10:22 am |
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Priest4hire
Head Merchant
Joined: 08 May 2002
Posts: 52
Location: Slocan, BC |
Before anything else here I need to say why it is I get anal about the definition of what role playing is. After all, I'm more than willing to accept that RPG means something different in the computer/console world and I'm a believer that a word's meaning comes from how it's used not some fixed definition. In the P&P world role playing means something quite specific. Had it taken on such a meaning in the CRPG world, and it was understood that CRPGs are not built around this new thing, all would be fine.
That, however, it not what happened. Instead while the power of the term as the obvious true heart of RPGs was retained the literal meaning cut free so as to be made into whatever the group using the term wants it to be. This turns it into a weapon that can wielded to bludgeon those areas of the CRPG world that are deemed undesirable. If you can successfully own the term 'role playing' you can then simply use it to cut down any CRPG you wish in a debate. I have seen it used to mean just about anything to support every kind of CRPG imaginable - even action/RPGs have been supported this way. A term with that kind of power but no solid meaning is useless in real debate and since it is unlikely that it will resolve any time soon the term should just be dropped.
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Originally posted by Roqua
And I do not know any rpg purists. Last I checked the three divides were gamist, simulationist, narrativist. They all play pure rpgs. They just put different emphasis’s on different aspects of roleplaying and rpgs. What does an rpg purist say? What is their take on systems like Burning Wheel’s ‘Duel of Wits’? Or the combat system in The Riddle of Steel?
GNS theory. Where are you going with this? They are not hard categories but meant to illuminate the approaches that can be taken to RPGs. A single person could very well be, and probably is, somewhere in between those categories. As well there are other ways to break up players of RPGs. I can not speak for anyone else, but myself as a role player would say the combat system of The Riddle of Steel is just that; a system of mechanics. By itself it has nothing to do with role playing but is part of the game. Looks interesting though.
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In a roleplaying game like, lets say, Harn, your character has a skill called rhetoric. The character is skilled at dialogue, not you. You need to convince the Duke to lend you troops, you don’t have to make the convincing argument, you make the decision that your character will make the convincing argument, and let the dice roll. Lets incorporate this into a crpg. If the crpg has a high barter skill, you buy for less, sell for more. You don’t have any fancy dialogue option. You just have to know that action=reaction, or higher barter skill equals better deals. That’s roleplaying. You are playing a role independent of your own. You don’t need to make a convincing argument, the character does. What is said is purely aesthetic (artistically, not visually since it is sound I guess), the event and outcome are what is important. Hence, Steven Hawking can be a bard with a beautiful voice, and the people he plays his roleplaying game with do not have to suffer through monotone computer voice songs for hours.
You mean HârnMaster? At any rate I think niteshade is right. You are describing the very essence of roll playing. It's not so black & white but when it becomes about mechanics then it's roll playing. Again it needs to be pointed out that you can play a RPG, like AD&D, without ever role playing. I've been in groups like that. There is no such thing as a role playing system or role playing mechanics. Role playing is 'soft' in the sense it's not part of the hard structure of the game. That's one reason why CRPGs have no role playing. They are nothing but mechanics and systems and structure and role playing is none of those.
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As p4h pointed out, everything in a game will always be hard coded. You can only do what the programmers allow you to do. So an allowance has to be made for crpgs compared to rpgs, since the boundaries are not limited by the imagination, or even what was thought of, but instead what was coded into the game.
The developers of the “rpg” have a choice. Code in the ability for the player of the game to play a role as he sees fit or not. Most “rpg” developers chose not. Even though the other option is a viable option. So, in doing that, they chose not to make an rpg. Just as when the decide to add twitch combat they chose not to make an rpg.
You are looking at it all wrong - as though the number of choices dictated the relative 'closeness' of a CRPG to role playing. Role playing requires that the player can create his role. No amount of choices will allow that. Role playing is like writing a novel and what CRPGs offer is like a read-your-own-adventure book. No matter how many choices the RYOA book has it is not getting closer to being like writing a novel.
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And yes, night and day are not binary, neither are cold and hot, or love and hate, or even a light being on and off. But this is just leading to wordsmithing instead of debating the actual core points being made.
Nice dodge you mentioning night and day, merely an ironic remark, but failing to mention my comments on the behaviour of genres. At any rate you made the claim that RPGs are binary in the sense that only 100% RPG can be considered RPG at all but anything from 100% to 1% action is still action. The burden of proof is on you. Why should RPGs be different than every other genre in this fashion? For that matter does not the action/RPG genre serve a purpose? That, after all, is the real test. If I say that Gothic is action/RPG and Ninja Gaiden is action does not that suggest to the reader how the games are different? If so then it's done its job.
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I concede the point that crpgs will never be able to compare to rpgs when it comes to sheer breath of choice and consequences. But the role playing, the choice and consequence, can be there. Instead of improving, providing more choices and consequences, games are removing them. They are becoming less rpg like and not more.
Choice and consequence is not role playing. Hell, just about every game in existence has choice and consequence. You don't have to be role playing in order to make choices in a game. What part of choosing a dialog selection or application of a skill requires you to get into the head of your character and create a role? You can role play choices and consequence makes things matter but simply choosing is not role playing unless, as I stated, you actually role play the choice.
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Lets apply your argument to AI. Since AI possibly will never be able to achieve the level of cognitive intelligence and functionality of the human mind, lets call it quits. Its ridiculous and a cop out. It’s a way of being able to stop progress, or call the devolution of this genre, a step forward. We quit so its okay. A crpg does not have to resemble its name sake and the reason it was created, or even try to come closer and closer to resembling/simulating this. Lets give up.
Quit? Give up? What are you talking about? Recognizing that CRPGs are not RPGs and that as such they must be approached as different beasts has nothing to do with giving up. Animation is not live action but does that mean we should give up? Hardly. CRPGs can and should move forward but not towards some imagined RPG intention but towards those things that CRPGs are good at. It should have its own destiny not some bastardized version of the P&P RPG world.
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What should we call the games that will try to recreate the rpg experience on a different medium? “Real rpgs on the computer”? Isn’t that kind of long for the title of a genre? AI is trying to achieve intelligence. Crpgs should be trying to achieve what rpgs provide.
They can not do so. It is not a matter of AI but simply that P&P RPGs offer the experience of sitting around with some friends as you imagine and create a world together. So no matter how good CRPGs get, even when role playing is possible in a CRPG, it still is going to be a different experience.
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Quitting is not an exuse. Losing the way is not an excuse. Tastes and preferences are not an excuse. I like the rpg Chivarly and Sourcery because it has what I like in it, but I’m not saying Fudge isn’t an rpg. Its just not one I like. I’m more of a simulationist than a gamist or narativist. If my top 10 list had NWN, Kotor 1 and 2, BG 1 and 2, PST, U7, div div, etc in it my argument right now would be the same.
I am not talking about what ,makes an rpg good, my argument is about what makes it an rpg (or not).
Again the good/bad straw man. I get it. We are not talking about good and bad and that's nice. I am talking about CRPGs as being separate from RPGs and thus having different standards. I am talking about looking at the genre in an inclusive manner that seeks to understand why games are accepted as being part of the genre rather than trying to force my own narrow vision onto it. I come from the understanding that a genre is an artificial segregation that exists as a way break up the complexity of gaming into categories and thus allow consumers an idea of what they are buying and companies to know how to market and where to place the product.
Most of all I am coming from a place that says there are different visions of the CRPG, as shown in the various sub-genres, and they are all valid and acceptable and if anything the genre is richer for having them.
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The games can and should be exluded as the genre advances and becomes more like what it is meant to be. I played the early rpgs (ega and on, none before ega really) and even though there are some that are still and will always be my favorite games. Like QfG (then Hero’s quest). I love this game. 1 and 2 (the one that didn’t get the svga upgrade and dialogue choice option by sierra, the real number 1). One of my favorite action games with rpg elements. And you are right. I can’t, in good conscience, consider Buck Rogers and rpg. There are no roleplying choices in it at all. But it will always be one of my favorite games. Just like BaK, just like Golgo 13, just like Gun Smoke, and just like Blades of Steel and Double Dribble.
That makes no sense. How can a game be CRPG in '75 or '85 but not now? These games defined the genre and established many of the things we take for granted. Just as D&D defined the RPG world so they defined the CRPG world. Just because CRPGs were inspired by and come from RPGs doesn't mean they are RPGs. Making up some quality that RPGs are supposed to possess and then claiming that only those CRPGs that possess this quality are real CRPGs is just silly. CRPGs, not RPGs, define the CRPG genre.
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But I do argee with almost everything you say, and Gary. But Gary is talking about what has been or is, like EoB, not what should be tomorrow if everyone didn’t just quit like a bunch off pansy ass sissy girls, with undies full of sand, chaffing them and making them pout. You can advance the real genre in a real way, which is and has been possible, and we now have the tools to keep advancing and getting closer and closer. Just like AI.
What we are doing right now is advancing the CRPG - not making it closer to the RPG but making it a more evolved CRPG. That's good and I lament the lack of progress as much as anyone. But as Gygax says there is no role playing in CRPGs and 0 plus or minus 0 is still 0. BaK has 0 role playing. Fallout has 0 role playing. Do the math.
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You don’t just give up. Man will never give up on the speed of light. Even if we never reach it we will get closer and closer, and maybe come up with a faster alternative (like warps or beaming or superfaxing or some crap). How does that song go? “Oops there goes another rubber tree, Oops there goes another rubber tree, Oops there goes another rubber tree PLANT!” The any did it, and a bunch of people that can come up with soil erosion can’t throw a little roleplaying su7pport in there, and advance more than graphics?
Who said anything about giving up?
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Rpgs and crpgs can be the same thing one day, and a lot similar today, so they should be. Yesterday means nothing. Just because trying to add in all those choices and options are hard is no excuse. Everything worth doing is hard. Making the right decision is usually the hardest decision. Taking the road less traveled is not the easy choice.
If that is all you see for the CRPG genre, to be the same thing as a RPG, then why not quit? Give up now? All this time to create something we already have. That's just silly. We can not allow for role playing in a current CRPG. The base line would require AI capable of fully interpreting speech or writing and that's beyond us at the moment. And if anything this strange devotion to RPGs as the way and the light is holding back CRPGs. It bugs me to no end that the mechanics, the real strength of CRPGs, are still so primitive. In order to really evolve the CRPG will need to cut loose from the RPG world and plot its own course.
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You guys can lay down and die. But not me. I’ll fight the good fight everyday. I make no excuses for mislabeling. I will not go quietly. I will be overdramatic and rub this crap fake rpg garbage on my genitals and urinate on them for all that is good and pure in the world. I do it for the scientists who decided that male sea cows give birth. I do it for the person who figured out that tomatoes are a fruit. But most of all I do it for the children. Those poor, poor bastards.
Speaking of mislabeling I direct one to the start of my post. I believe that the CRPG will evolve in a very different manner than RPGs and that diversity in the genre, even if it's 'dumbed down' is still a good thing. Limiting ourselves to a single narrow definition aids no one and nothing. There is nothing wrong with favoring certain elements in the CRPG world and I certainly wish that the genre would be moved forward in a faster manner. But the 'true RPG' is about as silly as the 'true Sci-Fi'. It's a genre, an artificial grouping, and that's all.
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Watch your back. Shoot straight. Conserve ammo. And never, ever, cut a deal with a dragon.
Grammaton Dragon
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Thu Apr 27, 2006 4:58 pm |
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Roqua
High Emperor
Joined: 02 Sep 2003
Posts: 897
Location: rump |
Corwin, rpg. I go over this in a few of my posts. It meets the two requirements (but whether it is good or not is, of course, a matter of personal opinion).
Niteshade and P4H,
Lets all get on the same page. In every single pen and paper rpg, you play the role of a character that is represented in a game world by various stats/skills. That’s a fact. That’s how it is. That’s how it has always been, has to be, and always will be.
You play the role of a character: you imbue the character with personality and life. The numbers and dice dictate how the world reacts (and in what regard) to the decisions you make by role-playing the character as you see that character as behaving.
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You mean HârnMaster? At any rate I think niteshade is right. You are describing the very essence of roll playing. It's not so black & white but when it becomes about mechanics then it's roll playing. Again it needs to be pointed out that you can play a RPG, like AD&D, without ever role playing. I've been in groups like that. There is no such thing as a role playing system or role playing mechanics. Role playing is 'soft' in the sense it's not part of the hard structure of the game. That's one reason why CRPGs have no role playing. They are nothing but mechanics and systems and structure and role playing is none of those.
First off, no. I meant Harn. Harn denotes the HarnMaster system, of which there are many. HM, HM2, HM3, and HMG. HM3 is Columbia, Gold is NRC. So, as every fan of Harn says when referring to Harn in general, I meant Harn. When referring to a specific version, you use the version.
Secondly, I know Nightshade is wrong, as are you. What I describe is the second half of roleplaying. You decide that your character would ask the duke to lend him troops. The system then takes over. That’s not roll playing, that is how it is. If the Duke decided to lend you troops because you, personally, made a convincing argument that persuaded the GM, even though your character had a crap Rhetoric skill, was a herdsman and a son of a herdsman, and smelled bad and had a comeliness of 3, you are not playing an rpg. When you decide that your character is going to attempt to break through a door or pick a lock, you don’t actually try this in real life. You don’t have to recreate the actions you decide your character will take. The rules and system is there for a reason. This is the same reason Stephen Hawking can fly around, lift cars, and sing beautiful songs in an rpg, but can’t in real life. RPG. RPG.
To say someone is roll playing because they realize their character’s attributes and skills decide if the duke is persuaded or not, when playing an rpg, is pure asininity. I made up a new word to describe how ridiculous this is. Of course role playing in the role playing game sense means a particular type of role playing. If my wife role-played a French maid for an evening of fun and romance that would be a different definition than her role-playing a male halfing warrior in an rpg. Lets stop being silly. We are never going to get anywhere if we don’t even agree on common sense non-issues and just pitter-patter around trying to increase the asininity level with jibber jabber nonsensical blabbity blah.
You cannot play a role-playing game without role-playing; you can play one without role-playing well. Again, it is a mental activity. The tools are there, if you don’t use them, don’t insist they aren’t there out of stubbornness. I can play monopoly and not trade properties or buy motels, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t.
Things have definitions for a reason. If wrote a book about a thousand years in the future, after ww3, the world reverts to a feudal society and the protagonist of my story is an errant knight trying to find Merlin, is my story fantasy or sci-fi? Sci-fi for one reason. Since no one can say for sure that it is impossible, being in the future and all, it is plausible. The one difference between sci-fi and fantasy is plausibility. That’s it. 2001: A Space Odyssey was sci-fi in 2000, fantasy in 2002. One little word changes everything. 1984, same deal. Laser beams and swords don’t create the divide between sci-fi and fantasy.
You can heap malarkey all day, but logic is logic is logic. There is role playing in FO. I can decide to be a ass or mr. goody two shoes, play as a Outlaw Jose Wales type character or Waly Beaver type. In BaK who you are, what you say, how you act, etc, is all prescripted with zero choice. Nightshade, if you made choices based off of what your character would do in BaK, you are crazy. “Hmmm, he wouldn’t try and figure out the answer to the riddle of this chest. He also wouldn’t loot this corpse for another couple minutes.” That’s pure insanity. That’s like not taking the warp in screen 1.2 of Super Mario Brothers because you felt, in your interpretation of Mario’s character, he would wouldn’t smash that block.
If you insist that there is no support to play your character as you see fit in FO to a great extent, I must insist you never played it.
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“If I say that Gothic is action/RPG and Ninja Gaiden is action does not that suggest to the reader how the games are different? If so then it's done its job.
This is my argument. Things should be labeled correctly. An FPS must have first person view and shooting. A TBS must be tuned based and be strategic. An Adventure game must place you in an adventure. A flight sim simulates flight. A football game does what? Etc. Can /hack or whatever it called be considered an MMO? No. Why? Its not online and doesn’t have massive amounts of real players. See, logic. Logic makes sense. If an FPS had only isometric view, it would not be an isometric view FPS, it is an isometric action game with FPS elements. That gives you pretty much the exact idea of what the game and gameplay offers. Or what the thing is. As names and words are supposed to do. Just as an rpg with action combat is no longer an rpg, it becomes an action games with rpg elements. This is a little more ambiguous. Are the rpg elements like the Gothics or like the Diablos?
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“Quit? Give up? What are you talking about? Recognizing that CRPGs are not RPGs and that as such they must be approached as different beasts has nothing to do with giving up. Animation is not live action but does that mean we should give up? Hardly. CRPGs can and should move forward but not towards some imagined RPG intention but towards those things that CRPGs are good at. It should have its own destiny not some bastardized version of the P&P RPG world.
You cannot talk about mediums and genres as the same thing. “Animation is not live action but does that mean we should give up?” That is a silly analogy. RPG is a genre, animation is a format. But lets run with your analogy. Lets take an animated movie based off of a specific thing (a book in this instance) vs. a film based off of the same thing. Both mediums should use its strengths amd downplay or change acournding to its weaknesses. Someone said, in a similar debate, that in the LotR movie the Elf Queen giving a strand of her hair was too tricky to film on real life, so they scripted the scene and just had the dwarf talk about it. It is more than possible to animate, and do it well and more exact to the translation of the book to that medium. But both took the essence of what the scene was trying to do. Why did both cut out Tom Bombadil or whatever his name is? Its not a bad part of the book.
When you switch mediums, in our case c/rpg, you are switching from a live event to a manufactured event on a computer. It can be translated better and more accurately.
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“They can not do so. It is not a matter of AI but simply that P&P RPGs offer the experience of sitting around with some friends as you imagine and create a world together. So no matter how good CRPGs get, even when role playing is possible in a CRPG, it still is going to be a different experience.
Yes, as will be the experience of reading LotR and watching it. This didn’t give any movie adaptation, be it animated or film, the right to change what it is. You do not create a world together in an rpg, a world is created and you create a story in it. And you can play an rpg with “A” friend as this video proves http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7521044027821122670
And that friend can be replaced with a computer and a computer program as real crpgs prove.
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“I am talking about looking at the genre in an inclusive manner that seeks to understand why games are accepted as being part of the genre rather than trying to force my own narrow vision onto it. I come from the understanding that a genre is an artificial segregation that exists as a way break up the complexity of gaming into categories and thus allow consumers an idea of what they are buying and companies to know how to market and where to place the product.
”Most of all I am coming from a place that says there are different visions of the CRPG, as shown in the various sub-genres, and they are all valid and acceptable and if anything the genre is richer for having them.
Then why isn’t GTA considered an rpg? Why wasn’t it marketed as one? Not covered by this site? But BG:DA was? That adds up? That helps? Who does it help? Who is being helped?
Maybe video games, as a medium, are richer for them, but the genre is just diluted and meaningless, as well as mislabeled. Something is richer for making a term useless and not accurate at all? Maybe in girlland, but here in mantown we like things to be what they are. Hookers are prostitutes, not meter maids. Calling meter maids hookers advances nothing. In fact it is kind of derogatory to all meter maids. Just as calling a non-rpg an rpg is derogatory to all rpgs. It makes nothing richer. Good games make the video game industry richer and stronger. Mislabeling and misleading does nothing but those two things.
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“That makes no sense. How can a game be CRPG in '75 or '85 but not now? These games defined the genre and established many of the things we take for granted. Just as D&D defined the RPG world so they defined the CRPG world. Just because CRPGs were inspired by and come from RPGs doesn't mean they are RPGs. Making up some quality that RPGs are supposed to possess and then claiming that only those CRPGs that possess this quality are real CRPGs is just silly. CRPGs, not RPGs, define the CRPG genre.
No, these games did not define the genre. The tried to copy from a defined genre, and due to the limitations of their time, were accepted for what they weren’t. Due to advances in technology, we are able to produce games closer and closer to what the essence of the defined genre they are named after does.
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“What we are doing right now is advancing the CRPG - not making it closer to the RPG but making it a more evolved CRPG. That's good and I lament the lack of progress as much as anyone. But as Gygax says there is no role playing in CRPGs and 0 plus or minus 0 is still 0.
No, the CRPG is not advancing, it is devolving. When Homo erectus became Homo Sapiens, the Advancement of Homo Sapiens did nothing for Homo Erectus. What you call crpgs are not crpgs, they are something else. So something else is advancing.
And Gary Gygex also said Dangerous Journeys was going to be good, so I would hold his word as rpg scripter.
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“Who said anything about giving up?
You, you gave up before you even started.
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If that is all you see for the CRPG genre, to be the same thing as a RPG, then why not quit? Give up now? All this time to create something we already have. That's just silly. We can not allow for role playing in a current CRPG. The base line would require AI capable of fully interpreting speech or writing and that's beyond us at the moment. And if anything this strange devotion to RPGs as the way and the light is holding back CRPGs. It bugs me to no end that the mechanics, the real strength of CRPGs, are still so primitive. In order to really evolve the CRPG will need to cut loose from the RPG world and plot its own course.
See, you gave up before even starting. And if modern AAA rpgs haven’t cut loose from the rpg world and plotted their own course, I’m scared of what doing that will bring. But let me guess, Halo 3? Doom 4? Half-Life 3? Super Duper Paper Mario RPG? GTA with less stats? PS:T with no dialogue choices? Come on.
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“Speaking of mislabeling I direct one to the start of my post. I believe that the CRPG will evolve in a very different manner than RPGs and that diversity in the genre, even if it's 'dumbed down' is still a good thing.
Diversity is good when it is within a genre. Tristat vs. d20, etc. And any more dumbing down of the crpg genre will leave us with a $55 to $60 screen saver.
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“Limiting ourselves to a single narrow definition aids no one and nothing.
It kind of aids distinguishing between sci-fi and fantasy, catholic and protestant, scotch, bourbon, whisky, and Irish whisky, now doesn’t it? It helps tell the difference between all the forms of martini’s (including gibsons). A BA and BS. Biology from chemistry, and in numerous other ways.
The definition of a roleplaying game has two criterias. That leaves a world of unlimited possibilities and interpretations within the genre. Look at all the pen and paper systems, and all the homebrewed systems of those systems. And that wasn’t enough so people started larping. Whats the big deal, if the genre doesn’t do what you want, make a new one. Don’t cry.
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Vegitarian is the Indian word for lousey hunter. |
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Fri Apr 28, 2006 1:39 am |
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Priest4hire
Head Merchant
Joined: 08 May 2002
Posts: 52
Location: Slocan, BC |
quote:
Originally posted by Roqua
Niteshade and P4H,
Lets all get on the same page. In every single pen and paper rpg, you play the role of a character that is represented in a game world by various stats/skills. That’s a fact. That’s how it is. That’s how it has always been, has to be, and always will be.
You play the role of a character: you imbue the character with personality and life. The numbers and dice dictate how the world reacts (and in what regard) to the decisions you make by role-playing the character as you see that character as behaving.
Yes and no. This gets into why I called mechanics a 'necessary evil'. You must have then in order to facilitate world interaction and to clearly define the character in a physical sense. But they can and will simply replace role playing if you're not careful. Mechanics and role playing are supposed to work together with the former supporting the latter but when it become a crutch or start to replace role playing then you have a problem.
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Secondly, I know Nightshade is wrong, as are you. What I describe is the second half of roleplaying. You decide that your character would ask the duke to lend him troops. The system then takes over. That’s not roll playing, that is how it is. If the Duke decided to lend you troops because you, personally, made a convincing argument that persuaded the GM, even though your character had a crap Rhetoric skill, was a herdsman and a son of a herdsman, and smelled bad and had a comeliness of 3, you are not playing an rpg. When you decide that your character is going to attempt to break through a door or pick a lock, you don’t actually try this in real life. You don’t have to recreate the actions you decide your character will take. The rules and system is there for a reason. This is the same reason Stephen Hawking can fly around, lift cars, and sing beautiful songs in an rpg, but can’t in real life. RPG. RPG.
Now you're really missed the point and that particular example of appeal to ridicule just proves it. All you've done is supply an example of people who don't know what role playing is. Role playing is not convincing the GM of all things and if you constructed an argument that was elegant and sophisticated while your character has next to no verbal skills you aren't role playing.
But neither is thinking that you have a high rhetoric skill and you want some troops so you're going to roll some dice. Nothing there requires the creation of character and to pass up the opportunity to role play a scene such as interacting with a duke is straight out roll playing. That's why it's called that - you replace role with dice. And to reduce something as complex as a human and human interaction to a die roll...
" People who choose to remain in character in such games are often called "roleplayers"; in tabletop role-playing games, people who do not act in character are variously called "roll-players", "hack-and-slashers", or other derogative terms."
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To say someone is roll playing because they realize their character’s attributes and skills decide if the duke is persuaded or not, when playing an rpg, is pure asininity. I made up a new word to describe how ridiculous this is. Of course role playing in the role playing game sense means a particular type of role playing. If my wife role-played a French maid for an evening of fun and romance that would be a different definition than her role-playing a male halfing warrior in an rpg. Lets stop being silly. We are never going to get anywhere if we don’t even agree on common sense non-issues and just pitter-patter around trying to increase the asininity level with jibber jabber nonsensical blabbity blah.
Lead by example and stop putting words in my mouth. It becomes roll playing when you pass up the opportunity to role play for, or replace role playing with, die rolls. A human such as the duke is far more complex than that. In addition you're falling back into the winning/losing trap again. In role playing a scene well played out, even if you don't get the troops, is still better than a quick roll of the dice. It is about playing the role of your character not winning troops. If your character's character is such that he would inevitably get into an argument with the duke thus losing his chance to get troops and you decided to not play that out but rather roll the dice you would have not role played at all.
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You cannot play a role-playing game without role-playing; you can play one without role-playing well. Again, it is a mental activity. The tools are there, if you don’t use them, don’t insist they aren’t there out of stubbornness. I can play monopoly and not trade properties or buy motels, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t.
Actually you've done a good job of proving you can. But ever hear of free form role playing? A RPG is simply that with a game structure attached. You can role play as well with as without such rules and there forms of role playing games that don't involve such mechanics - mostly in the form of 'play-by-post' role playing. But if all I see my character as is a bunch of stats used to overcome obstacles I am not role playing regardless of whether I'm playing a RPG or not. No creating personality, no taking on the character and improvising his dialog and responses equals no role playing, good or bad.
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Things have definitions for a reason. If wrote a book about a thousand years in the future, after ww3, the world reverts to a feudal society and the protagonist of my story is an errant knight trying to find Merlin, is my story fantasy or sci-fi? Sci-fi for one reason. Since no one can say for sure that it is impossible, being in the future and all, it is plausible. The one difference between sci-fi and fantasy is plausibility. That’s it. 2001: A Space Odyssey was sci-fi in 2000, fantasy in 2002. One little word changes everything. 1984, same deal. Laser beams and swords don’t create the divide between sci-fi and fantasy.
So Sword of Shannara is really a Sci-Fi novel? Wow, you better get out there and let everyone know because it seems everyone, even Terry Brooks, is under the wrong impression. And thus in one stroke you illustrate the problem with rigid genre definitions and the fallacy of forcing your own definition of a genre without considering reality.
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You can heap malarkey all day, but logic is logic is logic. There is role playing in FO. I can decide to be a ass or mr. goody two shoes, play as a Outlaw Jose Wales type character or Waly Beaver type. In BaK who you are, what you say, how you act, etc, is all prescripted with zero choice. Nightshade, if you made choices based off of what your character would do in BaK, you are crazy. “Hmmm, he wouldn’t try and figure out the answer to the riddle of this chest. He also wouldn’t loot this corpse for another couple minutes.” That’s pure insanity. That’s like not taking the warp in screen 1.2 of Super Mario Brothers because you felt, in your interpretation of Mario’s character, he would wouldn’t smash that block.
You can make choices but that isn't role playing. See, you have yourself in a trap. Look back at the Gary Gygax quote. Note that this interview was around 2004 so we know it occurs long after Fallout came out. So either a) You know more about the real definitions of role playing and RPG than the co-creator of D&D or b) Fallout has no role playing. Which is it?
And what if you decide to play a character who has a phobia of dead bodies? Then he might never loot then and you would be role playing. Or not since you couldn't actually role play that element.
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If you insist that there is no support to play your character as you see fit in FO to a great extent, I must insist you never played it.
I insist that within Fallout there is no way to create a role. I can't even create my own dialog. How can I create the personality and breath life into a role when I can't even create for him a voice? Choosing actions is not role playing - breathing life into a character by creating him is.
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This is my argument. Things should be labeled correctly. An FPS must have first person view and shooting. A TBS must be tuned based and be strategic. An Adventure game must place you in an adventure. A flight sim simulates flight. A football game does what? Etc. Can /hack or whatever it called be considered an MMO? No. Why? Its not online and doesn’t have massive amounts of real players. See, logic. Logic makes sense. If an FPS had only isometric view, it would not be an isometric view FPS, it is an isometric action game with FPS elements. That gives you pretty much the exact idea of what the game and gameplay offers. Or what the thing is. As names and words are supposed to do. Just as an rpg with action combat is no longer an rpg, it becomes an action games with rpg elements. This is a little more ambiguous. Are the rpg elements like the Gothics or like the Diablos?
Place you in adventure? Did you actually think that one through because that describes almost any game with a lucid narrative. An isometric shooter has FPS elements? No, it's a third person or isometric shooter. FPS is a sub-genre of the shooter genre. Shooter includes FPS, TPS, SHUMP, gun games, vehicle based shooters, rail shooter and just plan old shooters. Now take Diablo. That game is a rogue-like. Say rogue-like and you have the random dungeons and loot, the hack and slash styling and even much of the flavor of the game right there. Rogue-like is a CRPG subgenre. Gothic on the other hand is a descendant of Ultima. That's another sub-genre.
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You cannot talk about mediums and genres as the same thing. “Animation is not live action but does that mean we should give up?” That is a silly analogy. RPG is a genre, animation is a format. But lets run with your analogy. Lets take an animated movie based off of a specific thing (a book in this instance) vs. a film based off of the same thing. Both mediums should use its strengths amd downplay or change acournding to its weaknesses. Someone said, in a similar debate, that in the LotR movie the Elf Queen giving a strand of her hair was too tricky to film on real life, so they scripted the scene and just had the dwarf talk about it. It is more than possible to animate, and do it well and more exact to the translation of the book to that medium. But both took the essence of what the scene was trying to do. Why did both cut out Tom Bombadil or whatever his name is? Its not a bad part of the book.
You're right although you missed the point as usual. RPG is not a genre in the way that fantasy is a genre after all. My point simply was that recognizing something as different is not the same as giving up. And a movie that translates a book as accurately as possible to the point of compromising the movie is still bad. And this still doesn't change the fact that you can't role play in a CRPG - a fact that so radically alters the CRPG as to make is a separate genre with an unfortunate resemblance in naming.
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When you switch mediums, in our case c/rpg, you are switching from a live event to a manufactured event on a computer. It can be translated better and more accurately.
Yes it can but at same time that's a factitious argument. From the beginning CRPGs established themselves as a different genre related to RPGs in only a superficial way. Since then all these developments like branching dialog and multiple paths have been CRPG developments having nothing to do with RPGs. RPGs don't use any of those. Some day AI will reach the point to allow role playing and at that time CRPGs will get closer. But that's neither here nor now. Until role playing, the creation of character, is possible a CRPG is going to be separated from RPGs by an impossible gulf.
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Yes, as will be the experience of reading LotR and watching it. This didn’t give any movie adaptation, be it animated or film, the right to change what it is. You do not create a world together in an rpg, a world is created and you create a story in it. And you can play an rpg with “A” friend as this video proves http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7521044027821122670
And that friend can be replaced with a computer and a computer program as real crpgs prove.
Of course you can play a RPG with just one friend. I didn't mean to suggest otherwise and it's irrelevant anyway. Nor do I know what sci-fi fantasy you live in. Battlestar Galactica perhaps. I could see a few hot Cylons around the table - preferable with slightly altered temperaments of course. But in the real world I would seriously wonder about the person who seriously suggests that any current AI can replace a friend around the RPG table.
But since you're happy playing dumb I'll try this again. In a P&P RPG you create the overall experience together. It exists only in the minds of the players and GM. As such it requires imagination since things are never literally shown to you. It is a social experience in which you create an overall experience together. The only way this could be replicated in computers is though androids filling in the human roles. Just the fact you are sitting at a computer looking at graphics changes things. Even play by post is not a identical.
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Then why isn’t GTA considered an rpg? Why wasn’t it marketed as one? Not covered by this site? But BG:DA was? That adds up? That helps? Who does it help? Who is being helped?
That's actually a good question. The obvious answer is th lack of stats. If you remember I mentioned that a CRPG needs stats and some kind of character growth. The GTA series has become more RPG like over time but the combination of action and no stats, like BG:DA has, tends to put it too far out of the CRPG core to be considered a CRPG. Adventure and RPG as well as action/adventure and action/RPG has always been a little difficult to separate.
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Maybe video games, as a medium, are richer for them, but the genre is just diluted and meaningless, as well as mislabeled. Something is richer for making a term useless and not accurate at all? Maybe in girlland, but here in mantown we like things to be what they are. Hookers are prostitutes, not meter maids. Calling meter maids hookers advances nothing. In fact it is kind of derogatory to all meter maids. Just as calling a non-rpg an rpg is derogatory to all rpgs. It makes nothing richer. Good games make the video game industry richer and stronger. Mislabeling and misleading does nothing but those two things.
A rose by any other name and all that. A genre can not be diluted since a genre is just an artificial grouping anyway. The CRPG label, for example, was created to cover those games that were considered to resemble RPGs. Still doesn't change the fact they are different genres. A single word can have 2 meanings after all.
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No, these games did not define the genre. The tried to copy from a defined genre, and due to the limitations of their time, were accepted for what they weren’t. Due to advances in technology, we are able to produce games closer and closer to what the essence of the defined genre they are named after does.
Yes they did define the genre. Yes they did try to emulate a defined genre but in doing so they created a new genre. Much as say rock was inspired by but is not blues. Though in this case part of the reason that CRPGs are different is technical in nature. Doesn't change the fact that the elements you claim are bring CRPG closer to RPGs were in fact created in the CRPG genre and are not part of RPGs.
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No, the CRPG is not advancing, it is devolving. When Homo erectus became Homo Sapiens, the Advancement of Homo Sapiens did nothing for Homo Erectus. What you call crpgs are not crpgs, they are something else. So something else is advancing.
And Gary Gygex also said Dangerous Journeys was going to be good, so I would hold his word as rpg scripter.
No, what I call CRPGs are not RPGs and thus are something else. Actual RPGs on a computer don't exist and what we call RPGs in the computer/console are actually CRPGs. Oh, and I have no idea what you are trying to say about Gygax or how it relates to his understanding of the true intentions of RPGs. But somehow I think the man who co-created the first RPG and played a huge role in RPG development know what he's talking about.
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You, you gave up before you even started.
Stow the ad hominem.
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See, you gave up before even starting. And if modern AAA rpgs haven’t cut loose from the rpg world and plotted their own course, I’m scared of what doing that will bring. But let me guess, Halo 3? Doom 4? Half-Life 3? Super Duper Paper Mario RPG? GTA with less stats? PS:T with no dialogue choices? Come on.
How about world interaction based not on very loose statistics but real modeling? Damage based not on a roll of a virtual die but the transfer of kinetic energy, location and angle of impact and the like? How about instead of 12 strength you actually balance slow and fast twitch muscle fibre and body body mass? RPGs use simple stats because they have to. A CRPG could employ far more sophisticated world and character simulation. I'd rather see stats die out as we know them replaces with real modeling.
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Diversity is good when it is within a genre. Tristat vs. d20, etc. And any more dumbing down of the crpg genre will leave us with a $55 to $60 screen saver.
Yeah yeah and we all speak in grunts.
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It kind of aids distinguishing between sci-fi and fantasy, catholic and protestant, scotch, bourbon, whisky, and Irish whisky, now doesn’t it? It helps tell the difference between all the forms of martini’s (including gibsons). A BA and BS. Biology from chemistry, and in numerous other ways.
The definition of a roleplaying game has two criterias. That leaves a world of unlimited possibilities and interpretations within the genre. Look at all the pen and paper systems, and all the homebrewed systems of those systems. And that wasn’t enough so people started larping. Whats the big deal, if the genre doesn’t do what you want, make a new one. Don’t cry.
Yet LARP is a type of RPG that doesn't fit into your definition of RPG. Hmm. Thing is I see that in reality CRPGs are this broad genre full if sub-genres and branches. You on the other hand refuse that reality and substitute your own. All you have is 'because I say so'. I, on the hand, can simply point to the accepted CRPG such as Rogue, dnd and Alternate Reality: The City. A genre is defined by how it is used not how you wish it was used.
You keep talking about labels and all that but who is it who is trying to retcon the meaning of RPG in the computer world in order to fit his own labeling based on some made up variation of role playing? Who is basing their definition off of some supposed 'intention of RPGs' rather than the reality of the actual development of the CRPG genre? I observe those games that have been accepted as CRPGs from '75 on and from that try and establish what holds them together. You have your own view and try to force that onto the CRPG world. I'll leave it up to others which is more science like and which religious.
Oh, and let me guess. There is no such thing as Biochemistry?
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Watch your back. Shoot straight. Conserve ammo. And never, ever, cut a deal with a dragon.
Grammaton Dragon
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Fri Apr 28, 2006 11:15 am |
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Priest4hire
Head Merchant
Joined: 08 May 2002
Posts: 52
Location: Slocan, BC |
OK, these huge über posts are getting a little too über. Not only are they time consuming to create and proofread but I end up spending all this time debating and supporting points over and over that any real meaning is getting lost in the crush of detail. It's hard to think of the big picture when you are focusing on one paragraph at a time. And after all that work I know it's going to be cherry picked and I can't even be sure I'm not doing the same no matter that I try to avoid it. Truth is I'm never that happy with the results anyway. So I'm going to try and lay down some very specific ideas here and get across what I've been failing to do all this time.
"A plot is about things that happen. A story is about people who behave. To admire a story you must be willing to listen to the people and observe them." - Roger Ebert.
I want you to imagine a radical role playing thought experiment. Take any game system, AD&D as the generic is good enough, and imagine you are given a character with just bare bones filled in; stats and a brief, generic, history as well as the name Bob. But in addition you are also given a list of decisions, choices in preset future events, that you must conform to. It would be lines that must be said to appropriate characters, actions that must be preformed and places that must be reached at specified times. A list if your character's fate if you will. Some choices may be obvious while other peculiar or even contradictory to previous choices. The question then is whether or not you could role play such a character or if all those predefined choices would prevent such. Before you read on I want you to really think about it for a moment and not just make some snap decision.
. . .
I myself believe that yes, you could role play such a character. Choices are much like plot - it's about what happens. The character does this or says that. It is a thin frame of a person, a skeleton if you will, upon which the meat of the character is hung. Forgive the corny metaphors. That Bob says this or does that is only the surface of what he is; only the banal details of his existence. Role playing breaths life not just by making decisions but by filling out the story behind those decisions. A person is more than merely the sum of a few select choices. This all sounds so pretentious and it's really not like that. Actually, its simply improv theater with the role player breathing life into the character by acting out that character. He takes the parts and creates from it a whole person of sorts. Creating the role is so key here I can not be overstated.
. . .
Now I want you to imagine you are given the character Bill. His character sheet is complete but there is no history. You are required to give him no personality but simply make choices you believe will advance Bill in the most expeditious manner possible. In other words much like pretty much every CRPG ever. The GM will allow you to provide no dialog for Bill but rather you must limit yourself to saying what Bill does. In addition you are given a short list of choices available in most scenes and must choose actions from that list. After some time the lists start to get longer and longer - so that when you might have only had 1 or 2 choices now you might have 5 or 6. Are you getting closer to role playing Bill?
. . .
When you're done bandying around Bill's predicament I want to image that Bob and Bill both travel to the same market. They both make their way to the same clothing booth. Poor old Bob has been predestined to choose the purple silk scarf. Bill on the hand, lucky cad that he is, is given the choice of a red shirt, green hose, blue gloves, indigo cap, purple silk scarf, and pinstripe braies. Each one provides a distinct statistical advantage which Bill's and Bob's players are made aware of. And the scene is on.
Now remember that Bob's player can do anything not overly disruptive with Bob - no burning the stall down or something - so long as the choice is the purple silk scarf. Bill's player can only indicate which item he likes but can choose whichever he wants. Here we have freedom of expression against freedom of choice. Which is more conductive to role playing and why? No need to answer just think about it. Is the heart of the character in the choice or the expression before, during, and after that choice.
. . .
One last experiment. In this one you never see a character sheet. You never play and game at all in fact. Rather every so often you are handed a sheet with choices on it. No explanation is given to the context or what anything means. You are just expected to pick one and give it back. These sheets are then given to poor old Bob's player. Who is role playing: you or Bob's player? Both? Neither?
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Watch your back. Shoot straight. Conserve ammo. And never, ever, cut a deal with a dragon.
Grammaton Dragon
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Fri Apr 28, 2006 3:49 pm |
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Roqua
High Emperor
Joined: 02 Sep 2003
Posts: 897
Location: rump |
I agree with your first paragraph (of the second post) wholeheartedly. But I do believe we were getting somewhere, but the core points where being lost in the shuffle. I had some good points to reply to your first post, but I’ll keep with the heart of the second.
But before we do let me give my own scenario. I started playing crpgs when you had to type in your own answer (like in QfG 1 and 2). The answer was barebones, and I had a vivid imagination. I would fill in the what was left out with my own stuff. I typed in “ask about kiss” to the centaur girl, but in my mind a lot more was going on.
Same with games like Darkland. Every one in the party was a fully fleshed character with different personalities and wants.
I like generic responses. I can make generic into something much better. If I were to make a crpg I wouldn’t have any preset dialogue for the protagonist. I would have sysmbols denoting different types of responses, and once you click a symbol you type in your own response.
Example: An armor smith says his mail costs 12 scroopity doos. You pick the anger symbol, and type in, (I squint my eyes and stare at the smith for a few seconds, then reply through gritted teeth) “I think I heard you wrong. I’ll shove this mail up your ass if you don’t make a better offer.” Or whatever you feel your character would say or do. After you type it in, the game makes an intimidation roll (since you picked the anger sysmbol, and the smith is cowed and offers a better price, or he responds however.
Its not perfect, but it does its job and retains the essence of role playing without forcing characters to have their characters say crap that they just never would. It’s a step in the right direction, even if it would be considered a step backwards by the majority of "rpg" fans.
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The question then is whether or not you could role play such a character or if all those predefined choices would prevent such. Before you read on I want you to really think about it for a moment and not just make some snap decision.
Yes and no. Sometimes, just as in pen and paper, you would be forced to act in a way that would go against your character to set the stage for the events to come. Rpgs will always have bottlenecks to fit through.
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Is the heart of the character in the choice or the expression before, during, and after that choice.
Both. Han shot first. That choice speaks volumes, as the fans expressed when the alien guy was edited to shoot first. Freedom of choice and expression are equally important in an rpg. Can I make the choice, can I express anything?
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These sheets are then given to poor old Bob's player. Who is role playing: you or Bob's player? Both? Neither?
Neither.
I will make a much better reply than this but my wife is waiting to watch a movie with me and is getting angry. (Eon Flux, I want to see it too).
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Vegitarian is the Indian word for lousey hunter. |
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Sat Apr 29, 2006 1:37 am |
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Roqua
High Emperor
Joined: 02 Sep 2003
Posts: 897
Location: rump |
Let my give you this scenario and you tell me if I was role-playing or not.
I was playing ToEE in ironman. I got to Bulb all beat up, and went into the tavern. The waitress picked the pocket of Brom. Brom doesn’t back down from fights. He is the death before dishonor type. But in this situation, Brom knew if he didn’t let it pass, him and all his friends would be slaughtered. He was faced with a hard choice that really made him see who he was: death or dishonor? But not just his death, he knew if he got into a fight, all his friends would die for his values. Should his friends die for his honor?
He ended up backing down. But it drove him nuts. It consumed him. He was constantly thinking of revenge. He lost face and had to get it back. He went back on his own and killed the waitress and a few others.
Now, the game interfered with my story. He was my only active character so when he died, the game ended. Of course he was my only active character because he had to take care of business own hgis own. So I cheated to get my game back where my story should be left off at.
Of course a lot more was said and done after, and even during (I pretend a lot more is said and done than what the game presents me with, and after all, role-playing is pretending right?). Is this role-playing? If not, why not?
ToEE gets slammed for having a barebones plot and not providing enough motivation and direction for the player. I loved it sincve it didn’t. I provided direction and motivation for each and every character in my party. Even for the party-npcs when I felt the game got it wrong. That allows me a lot more freedom to role-play. To reate my own story. To fill up the blank pages of the book with this adventure.
Am I crazy or am I doing it right?
_________________
Vegitarian is the Indian word for lousey hunter. |
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Sat Apr 29, 2006 2:23 pm |
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