RPG Report & Planescape: Torment

External Since: Apr 18, 2007 Posts: 150

On Mar 16, 12:15 pm, Gerry Quinn <ger....DeleteThis@indigo.ie> wrote:
> In article <ytqdnauSZbreZ0banZ2dnUVZ_ommn....DeleteThis@comcast.com>, "boolWorm"
> <zip> says...
>
>
>
> > "Gerry Quinn" <ger....DeleteThis@indigo.ie> wrote in message
> > > It's generally accepted that a focus on stats and levels is something of
> > > a blight on role-playing, or more exactly a strategic/tactical appendage
> > > that often tends to overshadow the role-playing body.
>
> > No, it's not generally accepted that stats and combat (to rephrase) are a
> > blight on roleplaying games. Wihtout them what you're left with is an
> > adventure game. Think about it. A character's choices affecting the game
> > world and any other non-stat element of RPGs can be in adventure games
> > easily. Adventure games can be purely "role playing games", if you want to
> > parse "role playing game" as its literal definition instead of the
> > connotations of stats-based game rules that it has acquired. Do you think
> > rulebooks for PnP RPGs have page after page of rules about what one can do
> > to "role play within a story" or are they devoted to stats and their effects
> > within the rule system? Why is one PnP RPG system better than another?
> > Does one allow better stories and character interaction than another? Of
> > course not. But the rule system matters. And I'd love to see one that
> > wasn't based on stats in one form or another.
>
> Leo has answered better than I can myself.
>
> As for your assertion that it has acquired certain connotation: there
> are two groups of people who claim this. First, those who think that
> Bard's Tale or Wizardry was the pinnacle of CRPG development. Second, a
> dwindling band of PnP fanatics who take the success of the CRPG as an
> affront and will say anything to detract from it; thus they find
> themselves in a strange alliance with their "roll-playing" polar
> opposites.
>
> There are many of us who long for more. We understand that stats etc.
> are part of a world simulation that forms a matrix in which role-playing
> can be supported. We understand that combat works so very well as a
> world interaction mechanism that we are even still trapped into over-
> using it most of the time. And we even understand that "roll-playing"
> (i.e. gaming the system in a strategic way, and micromanaging combat
> tactics) can be a lot of fun.
>
> But the role-playing, however much it depends on this matrix, is
> somewhere else. It's about decisions that affect the storyline, and
> thus, in general, the character's place in it, or at least his thoughts
> and emotions (as imagined by the player). The difference between a
> role-playing game and an adventure is that the adventure has only a
> single storyline - it tends to use puzzles or action sequences to meter
> the flow of content, just as a role playing game tends to use combat,
> but the mode of metering in content does not determine whether it is an
> adventure or an RPG.
So basically you're saying that a game like Fahrenheit 51 (or whatever
the name was) is a role playing game? you'll find it hard to convince
anyone of that, even the developers, and that game does have many
decisions in which the story changes depending on your responses.
So happens too in the japanese dating sims Smile

External Since: Jul 25, 2004 Posts: 13

Just for the record; I agree with you Leo. This is just how I view RPGs
and I wish there were more RPGs that emphasize role playing as you
defined it. I do consider Planescape an RPG as it definitely had me
playing that role.

Leo wrote:
> On Sat, 15 Mar 2008 09:34:15 -0700, "boolWorm" <zip> blabbed:
>
>> No, it's not generally accepted that stats and combat (to rephrase) are a
>> blight on roleplaying games. Wihtout them what you're left with is an
>> adventure game. Think about it. A character's choices affecting the game
>> world and any other non-stat element of RPGs can be in adventure games
>> easily. Adventure games can be purely "role playing games", if you want to
>> parse "role playing game" as its literal definition instead of the
>> connotations of stats-based game rules that it has acquired. Do you think
>> rulebooks for PnP RPGs have page after page of rules about what one can do
>> to "role play within a story" or are they devoted to stats and their effects
>> within the rule system? Why is one PnP RPG system better than another?
>> Does one allow better stories and character interaction than another? Of
>> course not. But the rule system matters. And I'd love to see one that
>> wasn't based on stats in one form or another.
>>
>
> I agree w/Gerry on this one. Not so much that stats and such
> are a blight on rpg's, they go well w/rpg's, often. But I don't think
> they are a necessary part of an rpg. A game can be an rpg still,
> w/out them. I consider the old choose-your-own-adventure books I read
> as a kid to be rpg's even, the ones for younger kids had no stats or
> dice rolling or anything other than making choices that changed how
> the story progressed. The more complicated ones did have dice, stats,
> etc.., and so were far more tactical, and were also great, but felt no
> more like role playing than the ones w/out. It was the control over
> the story of the character that made it feel like role playing, not
> the winning of tactical battles. In fact, if I spend 100% of my
> decision making time in a game making decisions that effect story,
> then that game feels much more like i'm playing a role, than if I
> spend 90% of my decision making timme in the game on tactical battles
> and only 10% on story altering decisions. Tactical battles themselves
> don't usually even alter the story after they are won other than - if
> you win, the story goes on, if you die, game over. This makes them
> more like an elaborate puzzle in an adventure game than any kind of
> role playing element, you must solve this puzzle to continue. (I
> remember in freespace 2 you could lose missions and continue on, but
> having won or lost would change what missions were available to you
> later, so that would be an example of battles actually affecting story
> rather than just being a mandatory obstacle).
>
> Tactical battles and rpg elements could go well together, and
> I like them together, but too often the tactical battles are
> emphasized, while the narrative of the story is purely linear
> w/perhaps 1 alternate ending that you get depending on one choice you
> make at the end of the game (which hardly makes it feel any less
> linear). There are some exceptions of course, but I'm talking in
> general.
>
> Also, being able to have different dialog options depending on
> your stats makes no difference if the different dialog options have no
> effect on the game/narrative, which is too often the case w/games that
> do such. I can say the rude thing, I can say the nice thing, but
> either way I end up being given the same quest w/the same result, the
> quest giver just speaks more rudely to me is all if I picked the rude
> dialog option. That doesn't make it feel more like a role playing
> game.
>
> If you play a role, in a game, it is a role playing game.
> What matters, in my mind, is the level of interactivity there is
> between you and the role being played.
>
> Another type is the type of game that is mostly narrative,
> almost cinematic, like watching a movie w/no interactivity. Can be
> fun, but the emphasize is elsewhere than role playing.
>
> And of course, another type is one that is more a strategy
> game than anything w/90% of it being battles and stats, w/10% being
> story and usually 0% interacting w/the story (the story being purely
> cinematic non-interactive cut scenes between battles). I enjoy this
> type of game, but its not exactly role playing heavy.
>
> If your interaction is limited to whether or not a battle is
> won and the game can continue or is suddenly over, then no matter how
> many stats there are, although it may still be an rpg, its only weakly
> emphasizing the rpg nature of the game. If your interaction affects
> the story, changes the narrative, and not merely in a 'win this fight
> or game over' fashion, but in a 'the story takes a different route due
> to your actions/inactions' then the role playing is emphasized more.
> In both cases said games might be rpg's, but the role playing element
> is emphasized more in one than the other. They might also be an
> adventure game, depending on how you define adventure games, and
> that's fine, call it what you will.
>
> The label we apply to these different types of games don't
> matter to me, call them all rpg's if you want. Call a doll making
> game where all you do is dress the doll and adjust its stats an rpg if
> you will, fine with me. Call a game of Chess an rpg because they
> added the ability to level up the pieces and play cut scenes in
> between mathes an rpg too. Although I disagree, I don't want to argue
> about that, because that distinction between rpg and non-rpg isn' the
> real point. I think what Gerry and I lament (and I apologize Gerry if
> I misunderstand you) is that there is a decided lack of a type of game
> we'd like to see more of. A 'type' of rpg that is largely missing.
> RPG's where you spend at least 50% of your game time making story
> altering decisions, where the narrative isn't linear (and I don't just
> mean non-linear in the sense that you choose the order events take
> place, sandbox style, but rather non-linear in the sense that its a
> completely different story depending on your decisions). It can still
> have stats and battles, could well compliment such a game, but such
> elements should be there to compliment the rpg, not to *be* the game.
>
> I think a game can be both an adventure game and an rpg too,
> both a strategy game and an rpg as well. But again, arguing over the
> distinction misses the point. Whatever all the types of games out
> there are called or labelled as, no matter how enjoyable many of them
> are, it doesn't change the fact that there is one type that is largely
> absent from the gaming scene. I'd just like to see that missing type
> of game gain more of a presence is all. The other types, the ones
> that are all over the market now, can stay too, many of them are great
> fun and give me hours of entertainment. But the rpg player in me also
> wants some of that which is missing, whatever label you wish to give
> it, I call it 'role playing'.
>
> Leo
>