RPG’s and the Need for Evolution
For a while now (ok, a couple days) I’ve been trying to bang out my thoughts on the future of RPG’s. Anyone who knows me will tell you that RPG’s and me go together like oil and water. I’m going to come right out and say it: they’re boring. As far as I’m concerned, they are the antithesis of gaming. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the whole adventure stylie, more so that I think they’re taking a game dynamic created well before computers went mainstream (pen’n'paper & dice) and doing their best to directly transpose it - not translate - onto a digital format.
Here’s the thing: rolling the dice is key. Ever played a whole bunch of Monopoly on your computer? Me neither, and here’s the reason: sitting around the board, rolling dice and interacting with one another is more important where Monopoly is concerned than who owns Trafalgar Square, and it’s the same for role-playing. Sitting around around the table and rolling the dice is part of the core dynamic that is lost when it arrives on the computer.
I know the hardcore RPG players amongst us sit for hours re-rolling (read “re-clicking) to get better stats - how is this interesting people? More importantly, how does giving your character 12 dexterity instead of 11 directly affect the game play? In theory he can fire an arrow more accurately, but in practice your body count does not improve substantially enough to notice the difference. So you’re left with a minority who revel in the ability to click as many times as they please, rather than fielding the toss that the game gives them, and the rest of the players are hit with a bunch of numbers that means absolutely nothing to them, and as it would turn out, the game world itself.
The questions I pose to the hardcore among you is why is the RPG, its developers and indeed its players so un-willing to evolve and leave the tabletop dynamic behind? Surely Diablo and Dungeon Siege aren’t the standard setters for games that try to streamline the character creation process. Look at Project Ego: it is taking the essential element of the RPG - having an adventure and tossing out everything else that was not designed with this digital interactive medium in mind. Surely more developers can take a cue from this example.
It’s time for the RPG to grow up and evolve into something more befitting a video game. Nothing could possibly match the exact feeling that people who immersed themselves in table-top role-playing had, so instead of trying to emulate it, let’s create a new standard, one that’s worthy of this medium, one that will grow this genre and industry, and one where the action takes place on screen and not on the page.
posted by splash · at 3:57 am · filed under Editorials
Hmmm, this post seems more about dissing a genre than a really useful attempt to generate debate about the future of RPGs. Keep in mind that all games are subjective. One persons idea of fun is another persons idea of a complete waste of time.
Let’s face it, any game can be deconstructed into a relatively futile series of button pressing. This becomes even more appearent once you become involved in game development.
But hey, gaming is about fun. If someone has fun trying to roll up an uber character in Baldur’s Gate then who am I to say any different.
I’m also disappointed in the sweeping generalisations in this post. There has been some absolutely awesome roleplaying experiences on the PC and consoles over the years. I can look at just one example such as Fallout which had a great character development system, a great world and more.
Sorry dude, I know what your trying to say, but I think you missed the mark on this one.