The Essentials of RPG Design 241
simoniker writes "As the latest in his Game Design Essentials series for Gamasutra, writer John Harris examines 10 games from the Western computer RPG (CRPG) tradition and 10 from the Japanese console RPG (JRPG) tradition, to figure out what exactly makes them tick. From the entry on Nethack: 'Gaining experience is supposed to carry the risk of harm and failure. Without that risk, gaining power becomes a foregone conclusion. It has reached the point where the mere act of spending time playing [most RPGs] appears to give players the right to have their characters become more powerful. The obstacles that provide experience become simply an arbitrary wall to scale before more power is granted; this, in a nutshell, is the type of play that has brought us grind, where the journey is simple and boring and the destination is something to be raced to. Nethack and many other roguelikes do feature experience gain, but it doesn't feel like grind. It doesn't because much of the time the player is gaining experience, he is in danger of sudden, catastrophic failure. When you're frequently a heartbeat away from death, it's difficult to become bored.' Harris' Game Design series has previously spanned subjects from mysterious games to open world games, unusual control schemes and difficult games."
Role Playing (Score:5, Insightful)
Real men role play with pencil and paper, or nothing at all.
Not just RPGs (Score:3, Insightful)
This is pretty true of gaming in general these days. Many old games had the threat of failure (take a look at the list of challenging NES games), and you'd have to start over. Some old greats simply got harder until they beat youâ"like Tetris for example. Now of course it's a foregone conclusion that the end user will eventually win simply by persisting long enough.
It's not nearly on the same scale as Nethack versus modern RPGs of course, but the drop in difficulty is certainly not limited to the RPG genre.
I have to wonder if the shift toward online multiplayer (such as in the FPS genre) is at least in some small part due to people wanting to find the difficulty and challenge that no longer exists in most single-player games.
Disagree strongly (Score:5, Insightful)
From the writeup, it sounds like the author is one of the players who never makes it past the mid teens, because he constantly takes risks with his character and will inevitably lose.
Re:Role Playing (Score:5, Insightful)
I got into a discussion last week with an old friend about how World of Warcraft replaced Dungeons and Dragons for him. I, being a curmudgeon, pointed out that MMO's seem wholly lacking in placing the player as the sole hero of the world. And the mechanics of the game, just lead to number crunching, and acquiring loot. Even in those instances where World of Warcraft tries to thrust you into a story mode of defeating some world destroying foe, it is diminished by the fact you can do it over and over again. And millions of other people can do the same heroic world saving. Computers still have a long way to go in making up a story. Bree Yark!
Re:Importing characters from earlier games (Score:1, Insightful)
One of the major pitfalls of importing characters is such:
Oh look, I just beat the game. I have the planet killing weapon. I know levels one, two, and three of every spell. I've got ninety nine's for every item in my inventory. My Gold/Gald/Gil/GP/Etc is maxed out too. I stopped the evil force that was about to (destroy the earth with a meteor)(end mankind and consume time)(open a gate to an evil artificial intelligence to end life)(resurrect an even more scary monster from beyond the grave).
Let me import my character for the sequel. Aaaaaaannnd, it's all gone. Somehow all of my gear disappeared, I've got to start from the beginning and kill giant spiders, rats, and thugs. My muscles have atrophied, my aim has gone to zero. I've got base vigor (what the fuck is the vigor stat supposed to do, anyways?!), and someone jacked all of my cash.
Re:Not just RPGs (Score:5, Insightful)
how about... (Score:4, Insightful)
we just give up on mmo's and micro transaction based flash games and go back to some good old Tabletop Gaming with friends that uses our brains and some funny looking dice - if you really need a computer, there are excel characters sheets and virtual dice that will run on any platform?
http://www.rpgnow.com/ [rpgnow.com]
http://www.yourgamesnow.com/ [yourgamesnow.com]
http://www.paizo.com/ [paizo.com]
http://e23.sjgames.com/ [sjgames.com]
Re:Disagree strongly (Score:5, Insightful)
From the writeup, it sounds like the author is one of the players who never makes it past the mid teens, because he constantly takes risks with his character and will inevitably lose.
But apparently has fun doing it that way. If the way you play takes the fun out of it, maybe you're the one doing it wrong. Now, a good game isn't so impossibly difficult that the only way to succeed is grinding but isn't so watered down that everything feels like a grind.
Re:Importing characters from earlier games (Score:5, Insightful)
In every RPG I've ever played you start out pretty weak and helpless, and work your way up to being an unstoppable demigod. Starting the next game out with god like powers is going to ruin a lot of the game.
The only RPG I've really found character importation to be nice on was the Quest for Glory series. It helped that that series was mostly a point in click adventure game though, and being all powerful doesn't get you through the game alone.
Re:Disagree strongly (Score:4, Insightful)
Grinding too long will kill you via corruption. It's advance in the game or have no chance at success. There are also level limits on some of the quests that, while not mandatory, are pretty much necessary for the special endings (and for certain classes, very much necessary for a regular ascension).
There is also the fact that the more time you spend on a level, the more likely it is for an out-of-depth monster to come and kick your ass.
In short... try ADOM. It's definitely a roguelike, but is different enough from a lot of other roguelikes that the gameplay is, IMO, much better.
Re:Role Playing (Score:5, Insightful)
This is interesting in that your friend apparently views the game differently from you. That is, WOW is a social venue with a game attached that gives you something to do with your friends. The friends are more important than the game. Blizz has taken pains to ensure accessibility for a large number of people. The system requirements are low, the interface is responsive, and the game itself is extremely easy. All this improves the network effect of the game.
Re:Role Playing (Score:3, Insightful)
CRPGs still have a long way to go, when compared with PnPRPGs. Some of the very best content I've ever experienced in the latter was a collaboration. The player did something completely unexpected and we ran with it - as though it was the actual idea the whole time. Hours of prep-time go in the trash (in favor of ad-lib crap made up on the spot), but the player comes away feeling like they really MATTER in that game world.
Re:worst shortcomings are usually crappy stories (Score:4, Insightful)
Never played Dungeon Siege, eh?
Re:Importing characters from earlier games (Score:3, Insightful)
Seems like there's a middle ground where the designer could provide for a dual path experience. Create levels and challenges that can't be solved using the god-like tools developed in the previous installment. Newbies to the 2nd installment could play through and gain the tools they need along the way. Imports could play through and still be entertained by the challenges and gain new tools.
I think it's limiting to assume that any uber-powerful skill can be applied to solve any kind of problem.
Re:Role Playing (Score:5, Insightful)
There are different approaches to playing pencil-and-paper RPGs. Some people play socially, to be doing something with their friends. Some play to win, and will abuse the rules. Some like impromptu acting. Some like poking around in somebody else's imagination. None of these are inherently good or bad, but there's been plenty of conflict when people didn't realize that their colleagues were playing in a different style, or wanted something different out of the game.
Any MMORG will do for social players, really. Actors probably will avoid computer RPGs. The tourists will be happier with a rich and detailed world. The rules lawyers will like a game with complicated rules and, preferably, a real goal (although they're perfectly happy setting their own).
Re:What makes Japanese games tick (Score:3, Insightful)
On one hand yes. On the other hand, sometimes its asif the authors of these stories just got their copy of The Hero with a Thousand Faces" [wikipedia.org] and are just using it as a checklist. It'd be nice if sometimes things got switched up or 99% of the plot wasn't discernable from the first training mission.
Re:Disagree strongly (Score:5, Insightful)
IMHO, probably the best compromise between the two is the often hated "checkpoint" system, where you can only save a set intervals. Sure this means that if you work at it long enough, you can beat the game even with "bad" playing, but it also means you can reasonably take risks and actually have fun instead of tediously grinding your way to godhood.
For a Roguelike, this could be implemented as an autosave every time you go down a level, with death resulting in a restart at the beginning of the level. Sure it will take the "challenge" out of picking up random potions of Blindness or Weakness and having to drink them because there's no good way to identify them otherwise (scrolls of identify being considerably more rare than the random potions you will pick up), but that is not exactly a loss that I would mourn.
I know people will argue that "but if you beat the game you won't feel the need to play it anymore!", but to be honest after a few bullcrap deaths in most Roguelikes, I don't feel like playing them anymore anyway. I'd wager that 90+% of the people who have ever played Nethack have never seen more than the first dozen levels or so, and have not played it nearly as long as a traditional RPG.
Re:worst shortcomings are usually crappy stories (Score:5, Insightful)
If you insist on having personal stats that advance independently of the equipment, then just make it be a linear progression based on the amount of time spent doing stuff. You use melee weapons a lot, your melee skill grows. You use the bow, that grows. But if you don't use staff weapons, then that stat never progresses.
They tried that in Final Fantasy II. (I don't need to add the "J" any more, do I? Everyone knows FFII as the NES game by now, not the US release of FFIV, right?) It sucked.
The problem is that it takes mindless grinding from "grinding to raise every stat" to "grinding to raise a single stat." So in that game you'd find yourself wandering around getting attacked, ignoring the enemies, and then fighting amongst yourself to boost HP and weapon skills to the point where the enemies in the next area wouldn't kill you. It also meant that you could easily gain useless equipment. (Great, I've got the Staff of Pwning, and everyone is Level 1 Staves.)
The whole bit about having numerical stats and assigning points is a holdover from pencil and paper gaming.
(There's no rule about responding in order, is there? Er, anyway...) I disagree. The numerical stats and assigning points are done in computer RPGs because the run on computers. A computer is good at handling numbers. When you get right down to it, every computer game has these numerical stats. For example, in an FPS, each weapon has a different damage stat and enemies have different health and armor stats. The player might not see the stats, but ultimately, every computer simulation basically handles things using numerical stats.
What I would agree with is having "large jumps" in power levels is a hold over from pen and pencil days. There's a reason that the level cap in WoW is 80 and the level cap in D&D is 20. (I think?) In WoW, the computer can easily handle the larger range in values, where a human with pencil and paper would easily get bogged down if they had to keep track of everything.
I think they should just ditch the idea of leveling. If you just make it equipment-based, you start out with crappy loot and get better loot the further you go. Better loot means you can take on bigger tasks.
The problem with that comes when combined with:
What absolutely must be avoided at all cost is making the player feel like he has to consult a guidebook on how to play the game.
Leveling allows a player to adjust difficulty within the game. If you absolutely suck at the game, you can grind until you get higher stats and reduce the challenges to the point where you can handle them.
If you tie advancement to equipment, if the player sucks at the game, they're either SOL because they can never gain more power until they overcome the current challenge, or they have to look into a guidebook to discover which pixel the Staff of Pwning is hidden under.
Otherwise, I agree - you shouldn't need a guidebook to be able to generally play the game. The game mechanics should be easy enough that you don't need to worry about permanently screwing up your character. Good PC applications have an "Undo" button for a reason - the user/player should not be punished for experimenting. ("Save repeatedly" isn't acceptable for a PC application, it shouldn't be for a game, either.)
But computer games are always going to have stats, and allowing grinding to advance turns out to make the games more accessible to a wider range of skill levels. The best players can blaze through at low levels, while the worst can slowly slog along.
Re:worst shortcomings are usually crappy stories (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nethack is a winner (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:worst shortcomings are usually crappy stories (Score:2, Insightful)
In his (and my) defense, "pushing the envelope" is in the hand of the mailer.
JRPGs and Western RPGs are not the same games, and they're largely incomparable. Sure, they both have characters, levels, advancement, and worlds. But the similarities really end there. Contrary to what TFA does, lumping the two together in an attempt to produce a "grand theory of RPG design" is not really productive. They're different games for different people, and trying to claim one genre is better than the other is just childish and annoying. You might as well try to claim that science fiction is better than fantasy.
I just replayed Chrono Trigger (Score:2, Insightful)
JRPGs are narrativist RPGs (Score:3, Insightful)
Japanese RPGs focus on telling an interactive story (and placing game & combat mechanics on top). This is radically different from the western RPG model of simulating a character in an environment (and placing game & combat mechanics on top), but it's no less role-playing. Look up GNS Theory and The Big Model, sometime.
If your main interest is exploring a world, play Western RPGs. If your main interest is getting a cohesive narrative, play JRPGs. Either way, don't fall into the "No True Scotsman!" fallacy and declare everything that it's your favored style of play "not actually RPGs."
Re:Importing characters from earlier games (Score:2, Insightful)
In every RPG I've ever played you start out pretty weak and helpless, and work your way up to being an unstoppable demigod. Starting the next game out with god like powers is going to ruin a lot of the game.
Then you change the rules of power:
* The source of power you use has become bankrupt. All "spells" stop working.
* The more powerful metals experience an effect similar to rust. Suddenly than bronze sword and steel plate become more powerful than mythril.
* You suffer a curse because your might hurt the wrong person. Now the more strength you use to accomplish something the weaker you become. Sure you have 25 strength, but try an break that door and you lose HP.
* The big baddie you fought last time was just a mere drone. Feeble compared to the mighty armada that is about to descend upon you and your world.
* You died. Now your offspring must take up the mantle. Sure they inherit your +5 Battle Axe of Butt Kicking, but they aren't powerful enough to wield it yet.
There are tons of way to make people weak again. Just play around with these concepts; make what they have useless, make what they have unusable, make the foe resistant to their power, make the foe more powerful.
Re:Role Playing (Score:3, Insightful)
So long as the same, or similar engines are used for future games, all the enhancements can be rolled into new releases. Giving us all a game that includes player driven model of PnP, but with the ease of use and graphical power of a CRPG.
Re:What makes Japanese games tick (Score:2, Insightful)