Wondering if this is accurate & what folks can add... Abstractly, I think this is the sum of a cRPG: 1) Character Building / Choice - Who you want to be, what elements you want to emphasize 2) Briefing / Orientation - How you fit into the game world, who you are (apart from character generation), why you''re here, and hints at what you need to do 3) Training - Presents a broad sample of all of the important forms of gameplay in an area where death is unlikely and failure not particularly irreversible. 4) Out of the Nest - Start of the game proper where the Training area is either closed (Baldur''s Gate, Fallout I) or only marginally useful (Fallout II) 5) Core Loop - Involves progressively difficult iterations of - Traveling to explore, conflict and interact with opponents and / or NPCs - Character building activities (combat, training, solving problems for experience points) - Plot revelation (via NPC interaction, game world events, or solving clues / puzzles / quests) - Questing for questing''s sake or other reward (not for xp or plot, but solely for something to do, or for items not necessarily related to character building) Repeat until victory conditions triggered or time limit expires 6) End Conditions - A final point where via triggered condition or timelimit the player ends the game, engages in the final encounters and reveals the final aspects of plot 7) Optional Continue - Some games allow the player to keep playing after the main plot is solved. (Best when there are ancillary gameplay elements that are interesting enough in and of themselves, or when there''s some mechanism for continuously generated quests. Any improvements / corrections to this abstract? -------------------- Just waiting for the mothership...

What I would like to see added (and what I am trying to add myself) is to put NPC interaction in the character-building activities section as well as in plot revelation. I think character to some extent is influenced by who you hang out with.

-Sean