RPGs, in the main, are a numbers game. Stats, to-hit, armor class, damage modifiers, experience levels – all those and more tend to become the player’s focus. Power gaming. Min/max. Munchkinizing.
With computer games, it doesn’t matter too much. The player, especially if solo, needs every advantage. As a friend of mine put it: “You have to win every combat. They only have to win one“.
In live gaming, it’s supposed to be different. But the advent of the D&D 3/3.5 rules, with their emphasis on power gaming, shows otherwise.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Once, I played in a system where a lot of the typical D&D trappings just didn’t matter.
In the early 80’s, I ran a Friday night online game on CompuServe. One of my players – a DM in his own right – invited me to join a game he was starting up. The system was called Bushido.
As you might guess, it was a quasi-real-world feudal Japan setting. Something a little different from the ordinary run of RPGs.
Actually, it was different in several important ways. Of course, there were plenty of numbers to get a handle on, which took awhile. And the manual was not exactly well-organized. You could pore over it for months and keep finding bits of information tucked away in odd places.
Gaining levels was the first change. Along with experience, there was on. On was your reputation, your honor, your personal standing, based on actons in the game. To advance, you needed not only experience points, but a minimum on score as well.
And the levels only went to six. Think about that for a moment in these days of 20+ characters. Six was it. The top. The max. The most you could have, ever.
So gaining levels was not a quick jaunt up a small hill. Of course, there were also skills and stats. These could be improved by various methods independent of level. So even at L6, your character could still advance in other ways (stats topped at 40, skills at 99).
The system was not heavy on magic items, either. The manual covered goodies in about two and a half pages. They were scarcer than birthday cards from a red dragon.
And you know what? None of that mattered. For one thing, I was lucky enough to have an excellent DM. He knew the system and the setting very well. He also knew how to set up and run a good story, with balanced combat.
For another, with level gains at a slow pace (very slow, as the sessions were two hours once a week), the emphasis on plot, and lack of magic items, the usual “gotta make level, gotta find goodies” just dropped out completely.
With no worries about making level (advancing skills was far more important), and no scavenging for magic items, I could concentrate completely on the game itself. Now, that’s a change of pace.
I doubt whether anything like this could make it in a computer game. Just the lack of Neat Stuff and high levels would turn off a lot of players. Besides, no pre-scripted story can match the flexibility of a live DM.
I also doubt whether many people would want to play something like Bushido live, even with a good DM. There would be some, naturally. But I wonder if the days of the “slow RPG”, whatever the system, are over. If so, that would be a loss.
Regardles, I can certainly say this: my participation in the Bushido campaign was the finest RP experience I’ve ever had. And that says it all.
I attended a lecture many summers ago (too many, I’m afraid) by Tracy Hickman – co-author of the Dragonlance book series (among others), and creator of the original “Ravenloft” modules for D&D.
He spoke on how to be a better DM. He talked about the three different kinds of gamers:
* The Hack-And-Slashers: They really love to bounce dice and kill things.
* The Roleplayers: They love to experience their CHARACTERS.
* The “Dumpies”: Dungeon Upwardly Mobile Professionals. The goal-oriented players.
He said if you have a group of all one kind of player, you’ve got it made. If it’s all Hack-and-slashers… then they tend to play in an “if it moves, kill it! If it doesn’t move, beat it until it moves.” fashion. They are easy to please. Give them stuff to fight, and keep the game moving.
The Roleplayers are the easiest to handle. You just get them talking to each other in-character in a bar or something, and you can go out for pizza. When you come back, they’ll still be in the midst of emoting.
The Dumpies always want a goal. They just need to have something placed in front of them to strive for. So long as they can see progress being made, they are happy.
The problem, of course, is that you normally get a mixed group. And even individual players may have a little of all three in them. That’s where juggling has to take place.
Roleplayers are largely S.O.L. in computer RPGs, but some games provide some exceptions. Computer games can’t come close to harnessing the potential of improvisational roleplaying with real, live people. All it can do is offer you a lot of interactivity and story options. Which is MUCH more expensive to provide from a development perspective than little numbers that go up.
As for the Dumpies and the Hack-and-slashers …. well, we’re almost overly catered to. Those little numbers reveal that our hero is definitely making progress… to what, we don’t know, but SEE how much better we were than we were four hours ago!
The classic approach to balancing a game to appeal to all three types would be to try and provide a healthy combination of story, mechanics (combat), and measurable progress (both story and stat-related).
One interesting approach that has only been rarely tried might be to get the computer to act as a live DM and dynamically change it based on player decisions. The problem is, of course, providing all the extra content that will only be enjoyed by 1/3rd of the players.
Heh, yeah, the three main types are well known. The Bushido campaign had all three elements, but the goal (as far as I was concerned) was to become Samurai. Everything else was incidental, though important ;)
And yes, it is very difficult to set up a campaign or even a short story that is balanced to appeal to everyone in the group.
That, I suspect, is why sometimes a group doesn’t work; the mix is too different.
Same with the campaign; if it appeals only to a minority of players, it isn’t going to work out well.
Persoanlly, I want all three in my games. But not too much of any of tehm, except maybe the goal. I am a very goal-driven sort.
I know this is off the subject a little, but I remember a magazine called Computer Gaming World. What I used to love about this magazine is a column each month called Scoroia’s Lair (and sometimes Scorpia’s Mail Bag, etc.). For years, Scorpia lead me to many wonderful games like the first Pool of Radiance (now almost 29 years old can you believe that?), or the next offering from the big three crpgs from Ultima, Wizardy, or Might and Magic (Looks like all three are now dead as well. Ironic isn’t it. I mean what was big 5 or 10 years ago are now gone.).
And then all of a sudden, Scorpia disappeared from CGW.
I don’t even remember a note anywhere letting readers know what happen to our favorite crpg reviewer with a sting. But, I do know you always told it as you saw it. And I always read your column each and every month in CGW. I am now glad that I found your website so you can lead into this wonderful world again.
Have you thought about bringing back the mail bag column where you answered questions from players that got stuck in a game?
John, thanks for finding us and the kind words. The columns, by the way, were Scorpion’s Tale, Scorpion’s Mail, and Scorpion’s View (they wanted that last one to be “wail” to rhyme with the others, but I put my foot down there…all eight of them!).
The mail bag was always a fun piece to do, but these days, there isn’t much mail asking for help. With so many resources on the ‘net, answers to almost any game problem can be found instantly, or even sooner ;)
In the absence of a forum, I hope I can get away with going off topic a bit.
When story DOESN’T matter in an RPG: (or, two games that have no plot)
I found a new game. Well new to me. It looks to be a small or independent publisher, and it plays like “rpg-solitaire”. That is you play for 10 or 20 minutes, but each game session has no relation to the prior one. I’m not sure what I think about that. I can see the logic, quick in quick out – down and dirty dungeon crawl. In fact the game’s name is even FastCrawl. I think I’d like it more if maybe your party was persistent and the dungeon and quest were not. Then you wouldn’t feel the need to keep track of anything, but would still have a feeling of progress. Also you can’t sell loot. hmm. Based on the forum, will all of 4 members and the oldest post being yesterday, this must be brand new.
Interesting, if nothing else.
http://www.pawleyscape.com/fastcrawl/
And an old game with no plot. You HAVE to download this. http://progressquest.com/ it’s just silly, really. Or more I should say it just really silly. Let it run for a day, it’s fun for about that long. Some actually have games running for months, I was going to do that on an old PC but I’m too frugal to leave one running needlessly overnight. Go check it out, but think silly. Maybe watch an old Monty Python first.
I have to say this: Progress Quest is brilliant! It tickles me pink, in fact. What a great idea this guy had!!
Hehe… I am Chirponius, a level 1 Battle-Finch Shiv-Knight. Man, that makes me grin just to type it. Hee!
I was reading through your archives, and came across this editorial. Paul Hume (co-designer of Bushido, Aftermath!, Daredevils, and, I believe, a tiny first game called something like Spacequest): now there’s a designer I wish had had a far, far greater influence on CRPG’s.
I think Bushido was beautifully designed. Everything in the design integrated so well together. As I recall, everything had six (or seven if you count the level 0 extras) levels: PC, NPC’s, monsters, equipment, poems, etc. And the distribution of any of these things was the same across the levels for the entire world (in this case, Japan), thus, no newby zone versus grand final foozle territory differences. Any first level character could kill an arbitrary number of (level 0) spear-carriers, but that was never the point. You were a small part of a much larger story and could grow to be that level six/large part of the world story. Or not. You could strive toward becoming a level 6 master poet (or courtesan, for that matter), if that were your thing. Your concerns as a PC were much more personal. The rules were certainly not complete, but they intuitively suggested a set of rules which were far more cohesive than say D&D or (from what little I know of it) GRUPS.
Mert, you are so right (and that’s GURPS, not GRUPS ;). Bushido was a good system, although you had to dig through the rules. And yes, the emphasis was certainly on the story aspects. I really liked that. So different from D&D/AD&D with its focus on power gaming.
Of course, you also needed a good DM who understood the game and how to run it. I was very lucky in that regard.
Whoa!
THAT’s a game i’d like to play!
With a very prepared and competent GM, of course.
XP, levels and plenty of magic item make a very poor setting, a not-plausible world, and… an “arcade” style.
While arcade-style RPG may be fun, they usually lack the “R”ole part, which IMO is the best one.
Yeah Looris, Bushido is one of my fondest memories from the good old days when I still played live (even if in chat).
Unfortunately, for all the talk about “story in RPGs” these days, the players are still looking for “loot and level” in their games.
Then again, The Witcher, so I’ve heard, isn’t quite like that (haven’t played it myself), so maybe there is some hope yet.