Well said, Keith. I think that it is possible to support a good deal of "role" playing in a computer RPG.

Obviously, there will never be as much feedom as in pen n paper, but we can predict feasible things a player may do. We know that players may want to be terribly violent and kill every shopkeeper in town. They may want to steal from people also.

Also, I think it''s possible to support some of the different ways a player may want to handle solving a quest or whatever you want to call it. Of course, not every possiblity is supported, but if maybe 3 or 4 of the most feasible possibilities are supported, then that''s pretty good IMO.

(whats with stats)
The amounts of statistics that you have in a game not only have to be relevent but add to the games enjoyment/correct?

The main reason why statistics were brought into RPG''s was as to measure what a person could do when they were role playing. So really, any statistics that are brought into a RPG should actually be promoting the role of a character.

So what you need is a dynamic stat system where the stats page changes according to the character. Not every role that you could play in a game needs a strength stat and not every role requires an intelligence stat etc.




WE are their,
"Sons of the Free"

quote: Original post by MadKeithV

I think I just might have stumbled on the word that best describes how I want my roleplaying games....
believable
That''s not necessarily realistic ( heck, I think Tolkien''s world was believable ), and not necessarily detailed. It depends on the experience you want to offer your audience.
That''s why it''s so hard to figure out "what''s best". It all depends on what you want to offer, and what you intend your audience to be.

Keith, i think you''ve spoken truth for one.. or at least a truth i''ll agree is a truth
Realism is NOT the key here! realism simply is for REAL sims.. not so much RPG. I mean, sure you can role-play a guy from the 12th century or something.. but that''s a realistic SIMULTATION. Anything real is a SIM, period. A realistic medieval game is a roleplaying SIM.. hehe
Now that we''ve got that cleared up.. false worlds can be fantasy, sci-fi, etc. They all need to be believable though. If your world has big gaping problems.. then you''re not gonna have a very good game/story/etc Think of what makes a good book, and then what would put that player in the book. Read some good authors who make good settings like that. Now, here''s the thing.. the world has to be believable to no end I''ve sat and marvled at how some movies have such blatantly obivous errors that the designers tried to sidestep. Even Star Trek is feasible. Warp drive is a theory that COULD happen. That makes the best movies, shows, and GAMES when the possibilities contained within are believable. Why does the game "The Crystal Key" suck? It has a hardly believable plot line.. forget that the gameplay sucks and is trying to immitate Myst on all levels. Myst was realistic.. it had a very deep story in it that had the ability to draw you in. Same goes for Star Wars. Episode 1 sucked cause it had no real plot. Things happened that were a bit too unreal and too lucky. "ohh look.. what does THIS button do.. oops, i blew up the galactic empire!" i mean, come on.. that''s just LAME. no supporting elements to the plot half the time, no backing up of reasons why the plot worked. I''m wanting to know why the hell Obi-Won can''t do that frickin "toss the droids against the wall" trick in his old age. I mean, did he just FORGET?!
This is a serious case of simply taking something good and ruining it with too much flash.. like many RPG games today.

So what''s with stats? nothing! stats are only dependant upon the type of system you wish to put the player in. Either way, you need a story worthy of it. So you wonder what to do with stats? think about the type of game and try to make it depending entirely upon what you''d like. I''ve got a few games that i''m thinking about doing in the future. One has stats and levels, one doesn''t. It''s all about how you see the game as working with all the elements together. We have stats and levels because they work together well. It''s modular though, so take out stats and replace them with something else and hey.. you might have a winner!

J

Niphty, well said. I feel like I''ve said that before, but I guess I just meant to and never expressed it. It''s all about using stuff that works together for the kind of game you are making. If something doesn''t work for you, change it, but don''t fix something that aint broke.

I''m not sure how far you want to alienate realism from RPGs. I think that a certain amount of realism will add to the believability, and that''s always a good thing.

"Here comes armageddon, we're gonna have some fun.
Here comes armageddon, everybody grab your gun"

Well - this is interesting - does having stats mean that we reduce the believability of the world that we are in, for instance, having a human that is stronger than a bison because a stat may say so - just to balance out the game so that a human can kill a bison?

The one problem i forsee with the over use of stats is that they become to heavily relied upon. 2 people with equal strenth - there''s really no such thing.

I personally would like to see the statistic game logics made more dynamic in games. This way mood, health and chemical imbalances could be incorporated into a game.

To give you a very simple idea of what i''m talking about i''ll give this example. A column/bar is used to represent a stat. The top of the bar never remains put, it''s always fluctuating just a little bit.

That''s my opinion anyhow...



We are their,
"Children of the Free"

Stats obviously take over a game way too easily. Most games end up being controlled by them. Of course - the computer is still rolling it''s little dice inside to determine which two people of "equal" strength win a contest, but personally I think that when you are duelling out, skill should be a larger factor. A skilled person could eaily take out the average strong person that has little ability, yet stats are the common decider in many RPGs today. That, and equipment. Equipment has way too much of an effect on how good a player is in combat. Sure, it will have a considerable effect, but usually, if it isn''t strength, this is the deciding factor in single player RPGs.

Finding a weapon is good fun though, getting this massive sword that your player can just hold (due to the fact that there are strength restrictions on weapons most of the time) and getting the most out of your character (and not out of your role) is entertaining. But still I think that it''s just too much of the "role" playing genre, which hasn''t even been properly implemented on a PC yet because we aren''t going out to make RPGs, we are making some combat games with stats.

The same way RPG fans complain about the 3D shooter style games that have some vague stats and then run around saying they''ve played the best RPG when really it''s just outside that blurred line we''ve made. Are we making watered down combat based RPGs, or are we really making complicated first person/third person shooters?

I think that taking stats out of the character is a good start. Sure - it is ridiculous to allow a level 1 character wield a humungous sword when he''s a mage, but there are other ways of discouraging this, for instance, not make swords available to level one characters maybe that are mages? Or make it that mages have difficulty casting spells whilst wielding a sword rather than a wand? This is not only believable, but also suitable.

quote: Original post by Maitrek

Well - this is interesting - does having stats mean that we reduce the believability of the world that we are in, for instance, having a human that is stronger than a bison because a stat may say so - just to balance out the game so that a human can kill a bison?

That''s an interesting misconception. A lot of games do it, it doesn''t mean it''s right. I believe that it''s impossible to be THAT strong as a single person. It takes a whole teams of people to lift these things.

Now think.. there ARE people who can lift 450 lbs of stuff.. and more. However, they lift it on a bar. The animal would be too bulky to lift. And skill IS more important that stats! If you hit at some animal and missed, you''re likely to find yourself a blood stain on the floor Well, if you connect, you weaken the animal regardless of strength.. you do SOME damage. This could send the animal into shock or into a rage

As for how stats work out.. dyanmic stats aren''t the easy solution The problem is that almost all stats are dynamic. But you''ve got to remember.. strength is an "overall" thing. Until you could define a strength for each an every muscle.. well And that''s also just a measure of how well your muscle cells are working together to accomplish something. It''s been said that if all your muscles were to fire together at once, all cells, you could push a 2 ton object I don''t know how real or up to date that is, since i heard that in high-school.. but it''s something to consider. What do you actually measure when you say "strength" what does someone with more strength have? If you do strength as a muscle mass to weight ratio, you find that small people with medium muscles have the same number as a large person with lots of muscle. So if this is true, then should they be able to lift the same ammounts? no Is a smaller frame structure going to be able to have massive muscles? no! because they''re not capable of lifting heavy things due to the small frame size. This is why small people have smaller muscles.. and large people have larger muscles and more capacity for muscle. You hit the limit of the skeletal frame, and then what?

So now the question is.. what do stats actually measure?

J

I don''t know. Saying that a person is stronger than a bison is ridiculous, that''s all I know myself. If stats were relative to the creatures ability to contain muscle, then doesn''t that mean we need some kind of conversion ratio for each combatant vs combatant, thus basically meaning we have to have some kind of universal strength unit that represents the person actual ability to do something - so we can''t really avoid that. My only problem is that the character seems to have stats that greatly over represent it''s actual stats - stats seem to be making up the ground the lack of skills that the system has. ie - if the system has lots of skills, and skills play a big role, then the stats more accurately represent the character''s ability, whereas if the system has few skills involved, then it''s more likely the stats get adjusted alot to make things fairer...
?

Remember that if your making a RPG based in a fantasy setting then the acts and abilities don''t have to mirror real life. To me this is part of the fantasy.

I like the idea that my mortal human could (with the power of a potion) defeat a titan in an arm wrestle regardless of size and weight. It makes the imagination "click in" which to me is half the fun.

So stats are somewhat important to clarify these imbiguites in fantasy RPG''s in a strange way.

We are their,
"Children of the Free"