quote: Original post by Wavinator

Usually, it''s a bad game when there''s no overarching situation to address. This produces meandering, pointless games that (unfortunately) some GMs don''t know how to avoid. Many I''ve played with, though, run their campaigns in a mission / quest based fashion. Heck, even the store bought modules ooze goals.

I personally am not really concerned whether an RPG is a toy or a game, as long as it is FUN. The thing is that there are many people who seem to want CRPGs to be all things to all people.

It would seem though that (as you say) there has to be something "higher" for the player to get involved in politics, friends, profit, creating works of art.. to make goals (other than "fighting monsters".)

They can''t just sit around... there have to be things that they have to react to.. whether that is (hiding from) vagrant hating police patrols wanting to kick the player out of the city for being a bum.

There seem to be people who want to become bakers in games! . Thing is that MAYBE there needs to be some higher goal available to people doing this?
(Baking bread and being able to do fun stuff like that on an impulse is cool! Not sure how to combine that with a quest.. the bakers vs. the Dough Boy anyone )

Who says it has to be part of the goal. Why not simply say "Enough of this. I'd rather be a baker" (to borrow your example). What's to say that you shouldn't be able to? There's no reason it wouldn't be fun if that's what you want to do. What would make it not fun is if you found out that being able to do it is really lame because it's not supported very well. In fact, if the fate of the world is massive destruction, why should the enemies suddenly stop dead in their tracks because you've decided to be a baker? Life should continue on. Now of course this makes for something difficult to code. *shrug* What doesn't?

-----------------------------
How _not_ to give a presentation for work:
"Now, this part is really cool...uh, oh! I know why that happened. I was changing some of that code today and forgot to change this file! I'll be right back." *running*.....
*running*
"What line was that?"

-=xelius=-



Edited by - Xelius on March 13, 2001 6:07:14 PM

  class CGame :: Public CToy   {   Protected:      Goals;      PlayingField;      Public:      Tokens;      Statistics;   }  

My attempt at humor.

Landsknecht

quote: Original post by Wavinator

It would seem though that (as you say) there has to be something "higher" for the player to get involved in politics, friends, profit, creating works of art.. to make goals (other than "fighting monsters".)

They can''t just sit around... there have to be things that they have to react to.. whether that is (hiding from) vagrant hating police patrols wanting to kick the player out of the city for being a bum.

There seem to be people who want to become bakers in games! . Thing is that MAYBE there needs to be some higher goal available to people doing this?
(Baking bread and being able to do fun stuff like that on an impulse is cool! Not sure how to combine that with a quest.. the bakers vs. the Dough Boy anyone )

Okay, time to trott out my favorite invented dichotomy: Finishers vs. Escapists

There are at least two types of gamers, those who play games to beat them (Finishers) and those who play to be immersed in a world (Escapists). The two don''t seem to mix often, but some people are degrees of both. Escapists tend to enjoy exploration and discovery. They don''t like time limits or other similar end conditions placed on them. As long as the game world keeps them entertained, they don''t need goals. They tend to just want to "bathe" in the milieu you''ve made up, follow their own course, and be able-- for a short while-- to pretend to be in another world.

So, your focus on entertainment is right on. For some, interesting things to see and experience are enough; but for Finishers, you need goals.



--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...

Before this goes into a flame war I guess I''d better show my face for my opinions:

1. An RPG by itself is a toy. If you look at any RPG rulebook, you will see that there is no goal to it. It doesn''t state victory conditions, and a lot of books go to great lengths to explain that there are no victory conditions.

2. Many DMs/GMs impose an adventure/campaign type structure onto the players, in order to have victory conditions of sorts. That means that a single adventure may be a game, or a single campaign. However, this is not a necessity. In my personal opinion, the very best GMs do not aim for victory conditions, but for the entertainment of their players. This would fall into the toy category, and not the game.
I, as a player, am never out to "win" an adventure. I am an Escapist, as Wavinator would say.

3. Most computer-based RPGs are not RPGs, but rather RPG adventures or campaigns. On a PC, very few designers have attempted or succeeded in doing without victory conditions, because it would alienate a lot of the Non-PNP RPG audience. This makes most "computer RPGs" games.



Now into moderator mode:
Luna : be careful picking at other people''s posts. Your loosely fitting definition of "Game" is not the mathematical definition. And, yes, there is an entire branch of math dedicated to games, called Game Theory.

Picking apart your post:
Risk has VERY well-defined victory conditions: someone can actually win the game.
RPGs do not, there is no point in the game where it''ll say "okay, now you''ve won, want to play again?". At least, most PnP games do not, while most CRPGs do, because they have this lovely CGI end sequence they want you to see.
Staying alive is NOT a victory condition. In fact, it''s an impossibility, because in the end everyone will die. You may call it your "goal" to stay alive, but that''s no victory condition unless being alive at a certain point in time is.

Going on to your question:
Life is neither a toy (there are grave consequences to your decisions) nor a game (there are no victory conditions as far as we know, unless you are religious and believe that if you make it to heaven or its equivalent, you''ve "won" life ).


People might not remember what you said, or what you did, but they will always remember how you made them feel.
Mad Keith the V.

quote: Original post by Wavinator

For instance, I want survival pressures out in the wastelands. While I don''t want to stop and drink water every few hours, I do want the game to care whether or not I''ve strode out into the blazing desert without a single thing to drink. I''d like the game to need me to rest, and find appropriate shelter before doing so (or risk bandits or monsters out in the open). I''d like the terrain to mean something and be a threat: for instance, I''d like to either have to risk climbing a rock face or find another way around.

Am I looking for a sim instead of an RPG? This is tricky, because under the right circumstances what I describe (the "Oregon Trail" type stuff) could be either.

That''d be really quite a good game if it could be a built. A life sim but set in an RPG world where you are presented with quests and all the usual crap. I''d imagine it''d be quite immersive too - learning to live, and being a different person alltogether, in a potentially very alien reality.

Add online play to that you''re looking at a whole new existence.

Well... it sounded interesting to me anyway.

quote: Original post by Wavinator

For instance, I want survival pressures out in the wastelands. While I don''t want to stop and drink water every few hours, I do want the game to care whether or not I''ve strode out into the blazing desert without a single thing to drink. I''d like the game to need me to rest, and find appropriate shelter before doing so (or risk bandits or monsters out in the open). I''d like the terrain to mean something and be a threat: for instance, I''d like to either have to risk climbing a rock face or find another way around.

I think that for my style of play / roleplay in Fallout 2 this would have been good fun.. I played it as a pacifist , thieving, talking skilled character. So instead of the game putting me into the middle of fights that I just ran away from, the game could have made me think of ways to avoid these things. This would have giving the player more APPROPRIATE tasks depending on how they want to play


Oh and if anyone has the links to the articles I am referring to: it would be cool if you could post them please! (Just 4 others 2 read). I have no words and I must design is referenced in the appendix of Game Design: Secrets of the Sages.

quote: Original post by Eight

That''d be really quite a good game if it could be a built. A life sim but set in an RPG world where you are presented with quests and all the usual crap. I''d imagine it''d be quite immersive too - learning to live, and being a different person alltogether, in a potentially very alien reality.

Add online play to that you''re looking at a whole new existence.

Well... it sounded interesting to me anyway.

Well, good, glad to know someone out there wants this. This is what I''m pondering, btw, in the "Stats heavy object / locations" thread, on how to get this kind of gameplay-- and more importantly, if it would be FUN!

quote: Original post by Ketchaval

I think that for my style of play / roleplay in Fallout 2 this would have been good fun.. I played it as a pacifist , thieving, talking skilled character. So instead of the game putting me into the middle of fights that I just ran away from, the game could have made me think of ways to avoid these things. This would have giving the player more APPROPRIATE tasks depending on how they want to play

I totally agree. Fallout, just like most other RPGs, doesn''t really support a noncombatant''s approach: Sure, the options may be there, but outside of combat (or talking to people to find the next point of combat) there''s not much to do . This can make the non-combatant''s game comparitively boring.

quote:
Oh and if anyone has the links to the articles I am referring to: it would be cool if you could post them please! (Just 4 others 2 read). I have no words and I must design is referenced in the appendix of Game Design: Secrets of the Sages.

You can find the excellent "No Words" article in the Writing section here.

And although it can get a bit long and verbose, I also recommend Chris Crawford''s Art of Computer Game Design (the analysis of what a game is, especially) which has been archived here.

--------------------
Just waiting for the mothership...

I''m hesitant to reply here because my response is rather off the subject. I just want to say that today games are HORRIBLE, and because of the catigorization that is fueling this argument.
For those of you who have played video games for the past 15 years, you''ve seen the games advance in graphics and degrade in quality. As I look at all the games I''ve played, and as many of my friends do as well, we realize that the best games were the ones that defyed the idea of the category.
Let''s look at some examples: Super Mario Brothers. When you compare to the original Mario Brothers, you see a LOT of differences. The point I''m getting at with this example is that Super Mario Brothers is one of the greates games, and I believe one of the reasons is because the DIDN''T stick with a category. They made their own. Same with the original Zelda. In fact, I could list dozens of "new" types of games that were successful, and the millions of spinoffs that tried to emulate the original. It seems to me that now when people make games the first thing they say is "Hmm, should we make an action game? A racing game?" I cringe at the thought.
Sure, planning and structuring a game is great, but categorizing like this is horrible. For most people, it holds them to a preset idea of what the game should be about. If they say they want an RPG, they have to have dungeons, characters with hitpoints, level ups.
I''m sorry for typing up such a lengthy post, but I just had to get all this out. I think that the gaming world would be sooo much better if people based their games on artistic ideas and plain ol fun instead of a category. Boy, can''t wait to see how people will bash me about this one.

--Vic--

quote: Original post by Wavinator

quote: Original post by Wavinator

Okay, time to trott out my favorite invented dichotomy: Finishers vs. Escapists

I'm impressed, to place all gamers in a possible two categories. Appears like you could define gamers like that. Hmm.
Actually, I might prefer to differentiate between these two groups more, by moving gamers into two categories, Immediate gratification gamers and Long term gratification gamers . Of course, now we are heading down the windy road of psychology, and the nature of people, but anyway, I'm falling well off topic so time to wrap this up.

Anything can be a game. It's all about perception. If I like throwing a ball against a wall, and set myself goals that give me enjoyment as I meet them, then I'd say it's a game. On the other hand, a person who has to throw a ball at a wall all day might not enjoy this.

A game is what you make it. Here's my definition: Anything that has a goal that brings enjoyment to the person trying to achieve that goal is a game.

"So much fun, so little time."
~Michael Sikora



Edited by - guardian_light on November 10, 2001 12:04:17 PM