If you can play a non-combat character in a (non-MMO) RPG, does it defeat the point to allow that player to employ combat proxies in order to get past some challenges? Assuming a mostly sandbox RPG environment, which approach do you think makes more sense if players can play either combat-oriented characters or non-combat characters: 1) To restrict portions of the world to either type in the interests of replay value and varied play strategies or 2) Always allow players to make it through all parts of the game regardless of their character class Here's An Example Let's say that you choose a healer or trader, two classes that aren't specialized in combat. The game world contains dangerous and civilized areas, the latter where it's easier to ply your non-combat skills, but the former where you'll make more money due to the risk. If you can then hire and control golems/guards/robots (or whatever) as combat proxies to get you through the dangerous areas, have I defeated the whole point of playing the non-combat character? That is, is an RPG more interesting because your roles/abilities are constrained? If I don't constrain you, what's the point of having classes anyway? Classes are supposed to be ways you can play the game, so I need some significant tradeoff. And if the non-combat characters can switch to becoming combatants, should the combat characters get to hire and control non-combat characters to get them through the challenges they're not specialized for?

I think it depends on the reason a player plays a non-combat character. A player could play it because the player wants to explore a non-combat way to beat the game. A player could also play it simply to experience the world from a character that can fight. I am guessing that the type of players in the first catagory is more than the second type.

In the way I do my own game, I allow proxy. The reason is that my goal is to depict cooperation, although none of the gameplay is really combative.

I think in your game, the player is playing a blank avatar with no backstory. The character is an extension of the player. I think that in that case, I would be interested (as a player), to hire from a few persistent sources in additional to memory-less sources.

For example, KillerX is an NPC. She take cares of your problems with humanoids, including badly baked gingerbread cookies. That could be fun, assuming that the goal of the player is to play as a trader. Being non-violent blah blah is not the point. They hire a consultant for the obvious reason that they don't have the xp or skills to talk to their trade rivals in their preferred language. So it is just like hiring a translator.

So if I want to cater to those players I would implement that option. In your two options I would choose 2 because I could restrict contents without restricting the world. For example, if the player does not hire the translator, the player could use other more expensive methods to resolve the problem. But if the player hires the translator, it opens a branch of new contents related the translator. So the player's different choices could open different means, but different choices could still lead to the same end.

All of the world is accessible, but the player gets to pick whether to reach a place by bus or by catapult. The experience of getting there by catapult is only for those that choose that method.

Through constraint you would encourage alternate thought patterns, regardless of if there is a way out of a constraint or not...

By enforcing a characters weakness you encourage players to consider those weaknesses and create ways around them, by forcing a healer to be unable to fight you make that healer decide how they approach a problem and resolve it, be it run through, hire another player/NPC to guard them, or simply not go there. There's a cost involved that the player would have to weigh up for that task or action.

If you leave out the means to mitigate the weakness you then create large restrictions on what content those players can access, in a way, penalising them for making a decision on player class and potentially waste the content that you have created for the player, alternatively you create replay-ability by encouraging the idea that if they try again as a 'warrior' as opposed to a 'healer' that they will gain a different experience from the time they invest into the game.

A current example of this kind of restriction exists in large scale MMO's where if you are not a social player, you ultimately do not get access to developed areas at end game. On the other side of the coin, non-restrictive games such as sandbox RPG's enable the player to do 'anything' and it becomes less engaging because of the challenge but more because of the range of options to the player... ultimately the scope changes.

In essence, there'd be drive for both styles of play... personally i'd go for a something in the middle where i'd be encouraged to look at the options to resolve a problem, rather than be completely equipped to handle everything.

I think more options are always best. For your sandbox world I am assuming that there is the possibility to be attacked by hostile forces at nearly any point. If so, the choices would be fight or run. This is the state of the game world and independant of what the player chooses to do with the world.

Allowing combat proxies would not restrict game play but instead expand it. As stated above, without proxies the player can choose to engage in combat or avoid combat, with proxies this is still the same but the player can choose to personally avoid combat while not being forced to run away from it.

Now having a combat proxy should be balanced in some way, high cost or some other offset that the player would not have to deal with if they engaged in combat themselves. On the other hand choosing not to participate in combat should allow the player to focus on other skills that compensate for this cost. Its all the joys of balance :)

I think in most cases restrictions are reasonable, but it is unreasonable to disallow the player to work around them. This can be a very fun and rewarding aspect of the game. I find trying to get the best of all aspects of a character a fun challenge and would be bothered by foolishness like not being able to hire a body guard for my merchant when he travels.

Isn't it enough that fighting as a healer or merchant with proxies is significantly different from fighting as a warrior? Wouldn't restricting the player such that he couldn't explore that aspect of the game entirely be a bad thing?

I think you're lumping too much stuff in one container. You're combining what a player's character can do in with where a player's character can go and what they can experience and accomplish.

Character classes are a mechanism to enforce dependency. This is great in multi-player games like D&D or MMOs, or even single-player games with a squad (where one player takes the role of multiple people). Single-player, single-character games with artificial ability restrictions are a whole different ball game. I don't see the need for artificial dependencies when the player has only one point of influence within the game.

You generally don't want to restrict a player from accessing content, because content is hard to make. It takes money. If you cut off huge swaths of your game from players, you're going to have to make up for it by creating other huge swaths that they have access to. That means creating more content than you'd normally make. In the case of non-combat specialization, you're going to have to create new pathways of access and movement within your heavy combat areas. You're going to have to create new goals or new ways to achieve the old goals. Whereas the combat character can slaughter his way through the bad guys and kill the boss, the non-combat character is going to require an equally satisfying way of handling the situation. Or you're going to have to figure some method of creating an abundance of equally satisfying content catering to the non-combat specializations. Are you prepared to create the extra content necessary to satisfy the multiplicity of specializations that you're looking to create?

To give a concrete example of what I'm talking about, look at Fallout. In Fallout, the player can choose to specialize his character in non-combat skills like Speech, Barter, Science, Stealth, and completely ignore combat skills. Even this terrible fighter can defeat the super mutants and the final boss. Black Isle went through the trouble to design multiple ways of overcoming each challenge. A player who chose to limit himself could still achieve all the same satisfying results as one who didn't, or specialized in a more combative role.

Generally, if my character's abilities are artificially restricted, then the method that I use to solve problems is artificially restricted, too. If I choose to be a computer programmer at the beginning of the game, because I like the sound of it, then I am likely going to be hacking computers to solve most of the problems in the game. That seems fine, on the surface. But what happens when I, the player, get bored of the hacking mini-game and want to start trying other ways to overcome challenges? Do I start a new game, and fight my way back to the same point I'm at now? In a squad-based game, I could shift my attention to the warrior, and let her do most of the problem-solving, or if my character's abilities weren't restricted, I could train towards being a fighter.

I certainly don't feel RPGs are more interesting when abilities are artificially constrained. However, they can be if they are crafted very carefully. Deus Ex is a great example of a game with a single character that promotes specialization in a good way. The player starts off as a generalist, with one or two skills a little bit higher than the others I think. Most challenges are simple to overcome, and the player can solve the first few missions in any way he likes. As the player progresses through the game, he is forced to specialize his character through his choice of perks (such as choosing to be invisible to computers, or invisible to people). The player's choice of training also influences his specialization because the later missions require more skill levels in hacking, shooting, stealth or lock-picking to overcome the obstacles. When I lacked skills to pick a lock, I didn't curse the developer for making my class unable to pick that lock, I cursed myself for putting too many points into my gun. Ion Storm did a great job providing multiple pathways to achieve the goals, as well as making specialization a gradual process - one that allowed the player to learn about the game before making big decisions.

Excellent post Kru, reminds me when I read the post-mortem to that game I found out one of their major design concepts was that the game would provide obstacles with not set solution, and then give the player a large array of multi-use tools and the freedom to create their own solutions. In implementation that got narrowed a bit and often the alternate solution was find an air duct to sneak through, but I think looking at the tasks within the game in that light is often best. In the case of the Wavinator's question here, I would suggest that the classes receive different tool sets but that all the skills still be looked at in that light. Perhaps the other classes could receive ways of dealing with situations in less direct ways by virtue of using their class specific abilities in innovative ways.