quote: Original post by Hase
I think you´re trying to go too far, too fast. RPGs are essentially about playing a role, and that role has to be both different from the players own identity (or it wouldn´t be as much fun, I can be me in real life every day) and customiseable by the player. And then you have to act on the traits and abilities of the persona you created and shaped. That´s what RPGs are about, in their core essence.

Hmmm, I don''t believe anyone is promoting the idea of playing the role of yourself. Instead, the idea is to place the player in a role that enables the player to exploit real psychological and societal techniques over mouse clicking and traditional stat based techniques. And I am not sure discussion and exploration of such ideas should be considered going to far, and too fast.

quote: Original post by Hase
The adventures in RPGs will always be of the problem solving type, and I think there is nothing wrong with that. What you are suggesting is a different genre entirely.

Maybe so, but it is still role playing, and that is really the only definition in the acronym RPG.

I dont really see whats so bad about providing the player with "yet another problem solving tool". Problem solving is what adventure (rpg) games are about, the genre of the classical adventure is dying because of its inherent (?) linearity. So we´re going to have to have something new.

I am not saying that you should transplant your basic Lucas Arts or Sierra type of interface onto the classical RPG, and I don´t think that discussing types of interfaces is the point here, but the basic approach of finding a path between the adventure and the RPG is imo a good one.

I think what this whole discussion comes down to is "more immersive worlds". The initial point was how to get away from the classical hack ´n slay RPG thing, towards something which doesn not put as much emphasis on combat.
The best possibility to provide an environment that is not purely focused on one thing (killing, finding keys to doors) is to make the environment more responsive, more intelligent and more reactive. Which, unfortunately translates into more dev costs.

One possibility (which I would prefer at least for key game elements) are scripted events, where the player is provided with a large but limited range of choices.
The other is creating an environment which will react to the player of its own accord. This is presently possible for physics simulations, gravity, water, noise, etc.
For human interaction I think that we´ll have to rely on scripting for a while longer (although there was a pretty interesting idea that popped up in the *cough* other *cough* forum).

btw: there´s a pretty good lecture by Harvey Smith (ion storm) on that topic - it´s in the news.



I dont think that stat-based actions are a bad thing, because if you take away stats (which by themselves have many fans), you take away the players control and insight over his/her characters advancement, which you have to have in a way.
And you will always have mouse-clicking, as it is simply the preferred interface of the masses. Interface designs will have to be much cleverer in the future, as the casual gamers market is becoming increasingly important, so if we are talking about interface ideas, i think that our ideal should be the simple click.
If you dont have stats, you will have a hard time accurately representing the different characters a player can choose, which will in its last consequence move the game further away from the definition of RPG.

bisho_pass: you want the player to explore realistic social interactions, with accurately modelled psychological behavior, right? I think that is impossible without having stats for your characters, including the players character.
Now I think that you have to give the player some information about the characters skills and abilites, because otherwise he/she won´t be able to act according to the characters strengths and weaknesses. If you don´t give any feedback about the characters skills, then you have reduced the RPG to a possibly multilinear adventure game.

quote:
Original post by Hase

RPGs are essentially about playing a role, and that role has to be both different from the players own identity (or it wouldn´t be as much fun, I can be me in real life every day) and customiseable by the player.

Playing your own identity can be alot of fun and involve a lot of role play too if your self is put in situations that will most likely not happen to you in the real life (playing the _role_ of a general, a smuggler, an intelligence agent etc). You keep your abilities, your personality, your talents, it''s just the role that changes. In fact I''d enjoy such a game much more than the average RPG, where my success in the game relies almost solely on the stats of the character.

quote:
Original post by bishop_pass

Yeah, but what I am trying to promote, without an explicit example, because it likely doesn''t exist, is to do away with the stats completely. Or at least to the point that they are not attached to any one player''s set of abilities.

In other words, there is no stat called political skill. I want the player to be politically skilled, not some number defining the player''s political skill. I don''t really see this working in the context of a offline single RPG, but in a MMORPG.

I think there''s no harm in keeping the stats. The stats are simply game resources and only affect the game world. The challenge is to make a game that puts the emphasis on player to player relations.

Even the political skill may be useful in such a game - assuming there are NPCs, this skill might influence them. Still, the real life political abilities of the player can be very important.

RPG -> Role Playing Game... originally these meant D&D and whatnot, which are much much more than just hacking up monsters for hours on end... the problem is, combat is easily programmed for a game, whereas all of the other stuff (puzzles, alternatives to fighting, etc) was handled by the DM or GM... and THAT cannot be programmed because there are way to many possibilities. so, when RPGs went from "real life" D&D to computer versions, they lost almost everything except the fighting. i would love a game that had less combat (well not really, but at least other stuff to do since it is no fun chopping up orcs for 3 hours just to get strong enough to survive the next dungeon), but a lot of people who think "RPG" means the video-game genre, will be quite pissed when they find no hack-n-slashing... they might go as far as to say "hey this is an ADVENTURE game, yuck!"

--- krez (krezisback@aol.com)

quote: Original post by Hase
bisho_pass: you want the player to explore realistic social interactions, with accurately modelled psychological behavior, right? I think that is impossible without having stats for your characters, including the players character.
Now I think that you have to give the player some information about the characters skills and abilites, because otherwise he/she won´t be able to act according to the characters strengths and weaknesses. If you don´t give any feedback about the characters skills, then you have reduced the RPG to a possibly multilinear adventure game.

What exactly do you mean when you say ''give the player information about the character''s skills and abilities''? The character''s strengths and weaknesses would be the real strenghts and weakness of the player playing the character and the stregths and weaknesses of the situation the players has immersed the character into.

quote: Original post by Diodor
Playing your own identity can be alot of fun and involve a lot of role play too if your self is put in situations that will most likely not happen to you in the real life (playing the _role_ of a general, a smuggler, an intelligence agent etc). You keep your abilities, your personality, your talents, it''s just the role that changes. In fact I''d enjoy such a game much more than the average RPG, where my success in the game relies almost solely on the stats of the character.

This captures the spirit of what I am proposing: A pitting of real talents between players playing the roles in a campaign.

quote: Original post by Diodor
I think there''s no harm in keeping the stats. The stats are simply game resources and only affect the game world. The challenge is to make a game that puts the emphasis on player to player relations.

Even the political skill may be useful in such a game - assuming there are NPCs, this skill might influence them. Still, the real life political abilities of the player can be very important.

I agree that stats still define attributes of the game world.

quote: Original post by bishop_pass

What exactly do you mean when you say ''give the player information about the character''s skills and abilities''?

I would like to keep closer to the RPG, where the player can choose a character (not just a role) which is different from his real-life persona. This also means that the character evolves during the course of the game, on a path that is independent with the players evolvement.
In the classical RPG, this means that the character can learn things like lockpicking and swordsmanship (bland example, but it will do), while the player does not have to. I would like to see this continued in the future RPGs, possibly in a more subtle form. I think this is one of the points that make RPGs attractive, not just to play another role, but to play a different persona.
This line between player and players character becomes blurred when social interaction is concerned, there one would probably have to use a system like you suggested. In Baldurs Gate this was done by changing the dialogue options according to the charactes Charisma or Wísdom stats, which, although not a bad idea, was a bit confusing, because you tend to identify more with your characters when in dialogue (the player/players character gap becomes more narrow) and therefore do not expect different individuals to have different options. This may also be due to the fact that you tend to place yourself with the whole party, and not so much with one individual.





I think your approach could make for some interesting gaming, although I would see what you propose (at least to its full extent) more under the heading "The future of the Adventure Game".

quote:
Original post by Hase

I think your approach could make for some interesting gaming, although I would see what you propose (at least to its full extent) more under the heading "The future of the Adventure Game".

Funny, I was convinced this was "The future of the Strategy Game"

Edited by - Diodor on October 14, 2001 10:49:37 PM