Oh my, hasn't this little thread blossomed into a beautiful young flower?
Good/Evil
I think good vs evil is altogether a pretty silly construct within a game. It really should be a graduation between moralism and sociopathy, both directly derived from the game's society itself, and not necessarily our own views.
The measure should basically be of the characters acceptance within society. For instance, in a barbarous society, brazen violence between members might be encouraged, as it culls the weak and the average physical prowess of the society improves. In the same society, learning and philosophical thought might be considered evil, because they threaten the very nature of the culture.
In either case, you're not necessarily doing what's good or bad, you're with society's outlook, against it, or anywhere in between.
Saint Proverbius said:
If you're willing to do something that qualifies as an easier route with complete and utter disregard for how it affects anyone else around you so that it only benefits yourself, then chances are you've just made an evil decision.
See, I'd like to see a setting where perfection of the self is attained through material gains, and so the more you can do for yourself, the more respect the world has for you. Conspiracy and collaboration makes you a worthless coward, and anyone giving charity is evil for tempting others into refusing to make their own way.
It could be beautiful, since basically every quest is essentially a corruption of the core beliefs of the culture.
WouldBeCreator said:
If a quest is interesting and engaging and the gameplay that makes it up is fun, and there's at least some tie-in to the overall plot, I don't see why a player wouldn't be willing to do it without a reward.
[...]
The risk of using experience as a reward for a core gameplay element is that the designer can be seduced into leaving in a bad design element because players will put up with it for experience.
Exactly right, and that should be the true gauge of something's worth as a gameplay device. Get rid of the Skinnerbox operant conditioning bullshit, and see if the game holds up on its own merits. If a quest/event leaves the player feeling unfulfilled unless they receive some kind of material reward, then the developer has dropped the ball.
That's why I can't really warm to Diablo (et al). It's not really much fun. The "enjoyment" comes from the progression of rewards, not the gameplay. And gameplay aside, it doesn't do much good for RPing either. The player should really be seeking out activities that are both enjoyable to them as a player, and appealing to their character personality. It really troubles me to think of all the gamers who aren't even getting as much pleasure as a crack rat.
Probably the biggest downside to downplaying "powering up" would be with regard to magic users. It is just so ingrained in everyone's mind that wizards start out as apprentices and grow in power, I don't think you could do as effective a story without that.
Well, I tend to think of levelling up as being the computer game equivalent of character development/exposition.
In other forms of narrative, there is always a hidden backstory and facets of personality that can be progressively recounted to the reader throughout the course of the story. There can even be various hooks employed. For instance, a horribly scarred character almost certainly has a story to tell, but may not be very open about sharing it.
And so while games and traditional narratives both permit situational storytelling, ie narrative elements that revolve around the events the character encounters in the course of the tale, games are sorely lacking in terms of background/hidden traits, unless there's an amnesia plotline.
Character progression can fill this gap somewhat, but rarely in a satisfactory manner. For instance (mind the cliches):
A seemingly ordinary guy with an office job , wife, kids, etc, is confronted by someone who has broken into his home. The intruder points a gun at his wife, and instinctly, he disarms his opponent, and crushes his windpipe with a single strike.
That's an (almost) unexpected turn of events, and it changes the outlook of both supporting characters and the reader toward the protagonist. There's no doubt an equally trite backstory to explain why the ordinary guy was able to kill with such finesse.
In an RPG, the historical reason for the action is replaced with a developmental reason. It's not something the player character could have done a level ago, and so perhaps there is some element of surprise for the player with regard to their accomplishment, but I don't think I've ever really seen NPC related narrative take notice of that sort of thing.
Something that I considered as apart of one of my pet projects a few years back actually plays on that sort of theme. You're one of about a dozen amnesiacs in a purgatory type situation, and instead of gaining levels, you have ability "flashbacks." You still choose them in the same manner you might choose a Fallout perk, but each one contributes to an overall picture of what you used to be.
The game itself revolves more around self discovery than (saving the world), and effectively has two threads of character development. What you're trying to be here and now (based on your actions and choices) and what you used to be (based on the actions and choices of your "meta" development.)
And personally I don't think that parallel is necessarily confined to the specifics of that particular game idea. I think it's certainly a step in the right direction of justifying character advancement as something more than operant conditioning rewards.
Hope something in all that made sense, it turned into a bit of a ramble...
