Role Playing Game: It's a term that has been literally flogged to death by the last generation of game development.
I have no problem with it's application when used in a tabletop RPG. Traditionally, this medium has the ability to have the player's choices affect the world in a meaningful way. Video games typically must define stories ahead of time, rather than adjusting on-the-fly like an RPG premade module. Video games lack a present-tense adjudicator however and they have difficulty interacting with a dynamic player. They must limit interactions or buckle under the pressure of handling every contingency.
A good dungeon master can handle a shifting plot-line.
In videogames, the term RPG has come to mean a game with advancing statistics, but this is only one common point that these games have in common with older games like DnD which actually focus on role playing.
Furthermore, statistic advancement has bled into every genre of video-game. This term is now so diluted that it doesn't really mean anything anymore. My take, the RPG designation should revert back to a tabletop term until videogames can catch up to a real life DM in ability to adjudicate autonomous decision making.
Hey Rusty! First off, I'm glad you posted this because I miss arguing with you about RPGs and other games.
ReplyDeleteSecond, I'm going to shock you by agreeing with your overall premise, that the term RPG has become horribly misused in modern games. I also hate that it's just become synonymous with statistical advancement and equipment slots. I blame it on Japanese RPG's, but whatever, plenty of American games do it now too. By that definition Diablo III is an RPG and that's a notion that makes my stomach churn. Almost every game does that these days, like you say. I guess it's in the hope that they can fool people into believing it's actually an RPG.
But of course, as you well know, there is one issue on which you and I disagree: that you can make a good video game RPG.
I am going to reference several games here, while I know you do not like them, they are among my favorite games, and their sales are high enough that I feel confident that there were many, many others who liked them too. The old Interplay/Black Isle/Bioware games Baldur's Gate I and II, Icewind Dale I and II, Planescape Torment, and the first Neverwinter Nights, I feel, were deep enough in content, that although there wasn't necessarily a DM there to manage a shifting plot-line (although in NWN you could do that too) there was just plain enough "stuff to do", that I feel you got the experience of a table-top RPG boiled down to its essence. I think what made it feel that way, was that there were story-bits, that affected your character. Things you had to do in the story itself, not just something that pinged you a level and allowed you to go into a level-up interface. Perhaps these games weren't as fun and dynamic as the very best tabletop games, but on the other hand, I'd argue, they were quite a bit more fun than some of the worst tabletop RPGs I've been involved in. And overall, they were on par with most.
So I can't help but feel, that it's not that game developers CAN'T come up with good RPG's, but rather they WON'T. I'm not sure if its because developers have become lazy, or if it's because publishers force the games to emphasize other, cheaper things. I wish I knew, because I feel this is fixable.
Dragon Age, for example, a game I know you hate, (but I don't think you gave it a fair shake) was described as the spiritual successor to the Baldur's Gate games, and overall I'd argue it lived up to it's billing. It had a ton of depth, and a storyline that gave you lots of choices for your character.
Now compare it to Dragon Age 2, a game that I found much, much less fun. They stripped it of all the fun bits that tied it back to the Baldur's Gate series, and instead focused on action and a scripted storyline that gave you far less freedom. I have no idea why they decided to move away from the things that made the first game so much fun, but I suspect it had to do with time and budget. They wanted to rush something out there to capitalize on the success of the first game, which took over 5 years to develop.
Finally, I'd just like to add, why can't we develop a game that is more or less just a DM toolkit? A graphical representation of a tabletop RPG? That's what the original NWN turned into. It became a platinum seller, primarily because it let DMs create their own adventures and worlds and then gave them the power to adjudicate them. Is it that we're afraid if we give that level of control we'll be excluding non-hardcore gamers? Well, who cares if it sells right? I think part of it is the publishers have no idea how to monetize a game like that once it's off the store shelves. The publisher these days expects to make money off of "RPGs" like they do MMORPGs. By selling stuff in game, or forcing a subscription fee on the player. Whereas, in a game like NWN there is no easy way to do it. Heck, I guess they even could put a subscription fee on it if they wanted to, I have no idea why they don't try it.
Ron, I think your post shows your own love and knowledge of the genre. I am spoiled in that I have had some very flexible tabletop experiences in which my friends and I engaged in actual roleplaying rather than going through scripted encounters.
ReplyDeleteThere IS a huge difference in the playing Baldur's Gate and LARPing. I'd much rather play BG than LARP, even tho I think LARPing is "more" of a roleplaying experience. Even I have my limits.
Neverwinter Nights is without a doubt an RPG.