Elvenshae said:
Hello again, everyone. Unlike some of you, I don't tend to visit internet message boards during the weekends. Hope you don't think you scared me off so easily!
Not at all my good man.
I grant that. What I don't understand, however, is why there must be a distinction between the possiblility of roleplaying where the table, dice, and imagination are the media and the possibility of roleplaying where the computer, internet connection, and imagination are the media.
There isn't one per se. However, one shouldn't base the limitations of the medium to an excuse as to its inability to improve. PnP is PnP, no way around it, and its the best roleplaying medium in existence. To an extent, live cosplay mixed with roleplay would also be. A computer, however, just because it cannot properly emulate PnP, shouldn't stick with the excuse of boring and non-descript roleplaying opportunities seen on every other attempt at a CRPG. How many times have we been asked to fetch something's head as prove it was slain? How many times have we had to save the damsel in distress? How many times have we been asked to save innocents from villains? Too many times. And yet, how many times can you say you were given a well-thought out, well structured and well presented way of roleplaying a villain, instead of just choosing "evil" dialogue lines and killing the occasional peasant? How many times can you say you went a step further and sold your family and friends into slavery, and were actually considered evil for doing so? How many times can you claim to have been able to spread rumours of underground resistance groups needing help? How many times can you claim to have been able to play a CRPG where the choices presented to you actually had an impact?
Certainly not as much as you were asked to help Joh Doe who got trapped in the cave; certainly not as much as being told to travel across the beautiful land of GenericMagickY'All and search for the 4 lovely artifacts of "teh d00m"; certainly not as much as being told you can choose to go either left or right but left or right will both end up in the same place; certainly not as many times as being asked to retrieve the mahvelous golden key which will open up a god-forsaken chest which has been in a god forsaken cave for thousands of years without anyone ever being able to open it.
Answer me this, are improvements upon the standardized roleplaying opportunities impossible to include? No. Would it help roleplaying in CRPGs that new types of quests, more relative to the game and more well designed to be included? Yes.
In Arcanum, it is not possible in the first mining town to set up shop, become a wool-importer, and eventually run for mayor; the game is not coded to allow this. And yet, no one here has any trouble speaking of the roleplaying possibilities that Arcanum brought to the computer. Why, then, this seeming inconsistency?
Simple, because it provided significantly less boring options, and more interesting and varied opportunities of roleplay. Again, the excuse. CRPGs cannot copycat PnP as a medium - but because they can't copy, doesn't mean they should. In the event of an inability to run endless options for players to decide, give several which are compelling, diverse and meaningful to the gameworld and character in question. In that case, eventually running for mayor sounds interesting - but if there is an inability to do it, why revolve around the fact we are all aware of that it can't happen? Instead of having people try to defend a game's weaknesses and repetiveness because of hardware limitations, people should actually circumvent said limitations. We don't necessarily need AI behaving like human beings, we don't need 560 km of gameworld, we don't need to be able to micromanage every aspect of our character, and neither do we need to interact with everything there is in a gameworld - what we do need is, and i assume most people here think the same, that whatever result is given us, no matter how incomplete when compared to PnP, to be well executed, entertaining, and innovative. At least, that it be different from HeadEx quests.
In short, less comparisons with superior systems, and more work and dedication to what one can work with should be the rule.
To whit, in PnP, all things are possible (or, at least, attempting them is possible). On the computer, currently, all things are not possible. More possibilities is an agreed-upon good thing; more is better, generally speaking. Arcanum and Fallout, which have many options in certain cases, are considered by the population of this board to have "sufficient options to be roleplaying games." NWN (out of the box), and, likely, BG and BGII, do not have "sufficient options to be roleplaying games."
Where, though, is the line? How many options - and what kind - are required to move from "not sufficient" to "sufficient"? Any halfway-honest logical examination must admit that the line itself is fairly arbitrary. Yes, 10 possible successful solutions to a single quest is probably enough to be considered by this board to be "sufficient." What about 9? 8? Is three enough? How about 2? What if there is a given quest that only has one possible successful solution - can you still roleplay while performing that quest?
"Halfway-honest"? Sure. Think of it like this. You're playing a CRPG that presents you with a situation for you to overcome. The situation in itself is not the issue, its HOW you can react to the issue. I don't pretty much care for the amount of ways i can handle a situation - they can be 2, they can be 12, they can be 34 ways. As long as they're interesting and flesh out the problem t hand. Roleplaying opportunities are first and foremost as priority, about the quality of said opportunities. Whats best to deal with an obstacle, 10 superficial lines which amount to only affecting it directly, or 5 that produce variations of solving the problem, like affecting it directly, circumventing it or bypassing it? When you come to a reluctant NPC that won't let you pass an entrance, what do you consider a better roleplaying opportunity? 1) To be given the choice to kill it, to bribe it, or to soothe it by giving it an obvious item that it wants?, or 2) To be given the choice to kill it, bribe it, soothe it, go around it and trying to find another passageway, influence it to let you pass, distract it so it'll leave its post, wait until dark to pass by when its asleep, or alter your physical aspect via magic so it'll let you pass?
Again, the example of CRPG limitation when compared to PnP. 50 different possible ways of dealing with a problem are nothing when compared to PnP, but are certainly more than the standard 8 which don't do anything different, nothing every other RPG hasn't showed it can also do. So there's no reason to not include more options to deal with problems, unless they have a meaning to the matter at hand. Its not a problem with amount in itself, its how that amount actually allows you to try different things, and how those things relate to the problem.
So here's the occasional jibe at Gaider: is it really that much better repeating formulaic, basic and reduced ways of solving quests in every game he does, or does he still speak from "personal experience" when he says there isn't a reason to include other ways of playing a game because some people don't play it that way? Hell, many people don't play RPGs - why does he make them? Many people don't care about D&D rules on videogames - why does Bioware include them? Its this kind of self-serving arrogance and flawed logic which irks me about his "work".
Someone later in this thread mentioned that he doesn't whine when, in a late 21st century cyberpunk campaign, he can't play a spell-wielding dwarven cleric of Moradin, nor a juicer/hacker in Napoleonic France. In the exact same way, the rules coded into the game engine can make it easier or harder to do what you want (by opening up or limiting possible actions within the game world), but they in no way stop you from playing out a role.
Actually it appears to have been me who didn't whined but i think you misunderstood. What i was saying is that multiplayer online functionality doesn't autmatically make people play he game as it should be played. Hence, why i wrote that (and i quote myself), multiplayer only makes players "be there", not "make them act as if they were there".
I say you misunderstood because we were talking about multiplayer possibly breaking the barrier and making online RPGs simulate PnP, but you suddenly talk about the game's own rules. I didn't said the rules would make it easier or harder to play a game - what i said is that people will generally fail at playing the game, not because of its rules, but because multiplayer doesn't make gamers acts as if they were there.
Given that, how can you possibly consider a single-player game a roleplaying game? All the other "players" are sets of 1s and 0s on your computer, and have absolutely no personality whatsoever. They can't possibly react realistically to anything and everything you do. Also:
PnP is inherently multiplayer, otherwise you're just reading a book or talking to yourself!
So, another human being responding to you through the intermediary of a multi-player program cannot be roleplaying, and yet, somehow, canned, programatic responses from bits of code *is*? How is that any different, at all, from a relatively complex choose-your-own-adventure book, which, you admit above, isn't roleplaying at all?
I consider a single player game an RPG because it has things which make it so. A setting, a gameworld, NPCs, quests, characterization, customization, interactivity, etc.. Not 1 or two factors, but all combined. In fact, people in online-capable multiplayer don't necessarly act out in the best intent of the game. Imagine a MMOG with Strategy and RPG elements. How does it help the gameworld, the story or other gamers to see some dwarf hacking away at trees just to increase his Axe skill, all the while saying "Fuk off n00b"? There isn't cohesion.
The single most important aspect as to why a single player CRPG is better than a multiplayer one is the constant, uncompromised credibility of its gameworld and flow. I'd very much doubt if i'd find enjoyment in Arcanum or Fallout if i'd see an NPC prostitute struting her stuff, and some player called JimIzUrGOD saying "Ya biotch suk my wily!!" to the NPC prostitute (who, incidentally, won't answer him). Or a spellcasting mage, with a 17 INT going about "Wuts ur name?". Better yet, how would an online mutliplayer CRPG set in a Victorian era would feel, if, in a court ball, you'd have one of the oficials asking "A/S/L, dammit!!" to the court lady next to him?
The majority of games has a level of suspension of disbelief in them, but some things are too much. In a single player game, wheter its simply single-player or party based, its designed to work without outside influence, where things will make sense, where things will happen in a credible way as not to ruin entertainment or that afforementioned degree of suspension of disbelief. In multiplayer online games, its usually governed by a noticeable amount of chaos, and socializing, and playing for one's own benefit. Its the tradeoff, i guess - i can more easilly adapt to the loneliness of playing a CRPG alone, than adapting to the lack of a sense of roleplaying a MP game usually provides (or its players provide, i should say).
On an aside i don't stop considering an RPG as an RPG just because its multiplayer. I simply don't see multiplayer, as it is now, capable of allowing for a better roleplaying experience. I also don't believe all online players are the standard AOL-caricatures; however i do believe the majority still has a long way to go when it comes to self-integration into virtual gameworlds.
I'm not sure about the last question, but as to the rest... Failure, whether in small things or in great, should be a possible path in *any* RPG. I'm sure, at some point in PnP, you've been hired to escort someone or something from one point to another, be it princess or plutonium. If there is no chance whatsoever of failure - loss of the item, banditry, runaway princesses - then what is the point?
The death of the PC is the most easily visible form of failure. It must be, by definition, a possible solution to any quest, although admittedly not a very gratifying one.
But failure to a quest is not the same as Game Over. In fact, many games already got to the point where its not only possible to fail in the solving of a quest and still allow you to proceed, but some also present minor variations of storyline and/or NPC interactions, given your achievements and/or failures. Faliling to save a peaceful village can lead you to become addicted to carrying self-help booklets at all times in your pockets, otherwise your AC and Quickenss decrease by 2
but it won't necessarily mean Game Over. Failing to save the Mayor might allow you to be given a chance to redeem yourself by saving an entire city. Failing to catch a train might give you time to sit back and tinker with that gun, optimizing it for triple-shot bursts. For instance, an example in the much loved/much hated Baldurs Gate - Captain Brage, whom you can cure of his madness, or who you can kill and turn in a bounty. Failure to save doesn't end the quest, merely gives you an alternate ending to it.
So failing a quest's goal may not be to fail it completely - its completion is still possible.
If anything, CRPGs tend to err on the side of too many possible ways to complete a given task and not enough ways to productively fail it: you are unable to locate the artifact in time, the evil wizard gets it and completes his transformation to a lich, and now you have to deal with his newer, more powerful form, rather than ending the game when the wizard gets the artifact.
And we know from Gaider that programming more things like that aren't worth it.