Yesterday, I commented on an article on RPGwatch about roleplaying in single-player CRPG’s, and the valid points it brought forth. There were many excellent remarks from readers, which served to bring home the main issue: that solo RPG’s don’t really allow for much “being in character”.
Then I read Bruce’s very interesting article on role-playing, which contends there are multiple styles of play, especially as applied to live games with a DM, either online or off.
what it all comes down to is that roleplaying is really an illusion. Most adventures, campaigns or scenarios are already “fixed”, even with a live DM. Major incidents have been set up, and the DM is going to make sure they occur.
Of course, players in live games do have more leeway than in the computer kind. And sometimes dice rolls can bring about unexpected consequences. However, typically the DM will guide the players through to the desired conclusion, one way or another.
It is what happens along the way that creates the fun. Part of that is “roleplaying”, pretending to be someone you aren’t. So why not dispense with “roleplaying” and just be ourselves?
That would be tough in a fantasy setting. How many of us know how to swordfight? How many of us can cast spells? How many know how to disarm traps or pick locks?
A modern-day setting is no easier. I’ve used computers for many years, but I don’t have the least idea how to hack into one. If the adventure called for hacking skills, well, don’t ask me!
By creating these alternate personas, we give ourselves interesting and powerful abilities, plus the opportunity to act in ways that might be inappropriate or even illegal in the real world.
Which brings us back to the matter of solo CRPGs. As I note from some of the comments to the previous post, a lot of this roleplaying is completely imaginary. It takes place mainly in the player’s mind, and has little or no effect on the game world itself.
In fact, it usually can’t affect the world outside the limitations set by the designers. This is likely the reason that many players say they “play themselves” in the sense of personality. There isn’t much reason to do otherwise.
So in both types of games, live and computer, there isn’t too much difference, as far as roleplaying goes. It’s just that, with other real people, there’s more fun to it.
I have to agree. It’s really all an illusion… but a fun one. Isn’t there some law I’ve heard before about how the number of people involved in the game increases the fun of the game? Guess it’s the same thing here.
I’m not sure why but reading this got me thinking about “Second Life”. When I beta tested this game there wasn’t much roleplay going on. However, I tried it again about 9 months ago and found alot of roleplay going on. The games open nature with no scripted events allows for such flexibility that you can successfully roleplay anything you want as long as you can design it or buy it from someone else in the game.
The article also put my mind to thinking about the game Sociolotron. It’s an “adults only” game with more roleplay than I had seen in a long time. The combat is minimal, non-combat isn’t penalized, and the game allows for the most heinous of acts ever in PvP yet the player base polices itself quite well and hunts down “undesirables” and relentlessly hounds them in a old west posse kind of way. If it weren’t for the horrible graphics, worse animations, and bad customer service this game would be top notch. It’s like a graphical MUDD in many ways. It’s also a 21 and up only game. The game also mandates roleplay and seriously frowns on OOC topics and conversation and dissuades players from revealing any details about theirself.
My point is that perhaps it’s only in open ended playing fields where the designers give the tools of creation to the players, and (possibly) limit the player base that actual “roleplay” can blossom.
This would be consistent with why so much “roleplay” happens in NWN.
I don’t agree. At the very least, it depends on the game you’re in. One of the things I enjoyed most in my own “live” games was planning adventures that resulted from the players’ choices, and that I designed with the characters’ particular personalities in mind. The best offline DM’s I know do the same thing.
That’s what I love about long campaigns, even if, alas, age and duty make them hard to do. That’s also part of the reason I’m friendlier to solo adventures than some DM’s - I don’t want the players constantly split up, but letting them run free from each other now and again lets me give them adventures specially designed for them. It’s also a major reason I like small groups to begin with - having seven or nine PC’s around can be very stifling for the whole roleplaying experience. (In fact, I actually like having 2-3 players, but have had good experiences with up to 5-6.)
(Of course, the first few adventures in a campaign aren’t like that as much, because players and DM alike have to get used to the characters, and the parameters of the world; but if the game goes on a while, it’s very much like that.)
This ties in to what you were writing before about romance in RPG’s - the thing is, even watching a good romantic comedy (or romantic subplot in a different kind of story), what makes it work is seeing the right boy end up with the right girl, not just generic-boy-meets-generic-girl. In a CRPG, that’s hard to pull off for the PC, because that PC has to do for so many players with so many concepts (even if they aren’t “playing themselves”). In a live RPG, by contrast, it is possible and desirable, and can be extremely beautiful. (After the characters have been “established,” of course, preferably well established.) For some PC’s, it can.
Some of the most in-depth roleplaying I’ve done has been chat-based freeform RP. You create a character and play out that character’s reactions/lives/hopes/dreams/fears, etc. solely based on how the character would react. I imagine some folks were playing themselves, but I wasn’t (good grief, I hope not anyway since eventually my character became a vampire!) The characters all evolved over time and sometimes seemed to “take on a life of their own” wherein we would know the character would do something one way, even if we ourselves would do it a different way.
I imagine it’s that same sort of thing at work in Second Life or the other open games/settings - you’re free to make a character that is not based on stats and interacts only with other characters created by other people.
I think I always thought of that sort of RP as more like writing a story - you imagine what the characters are like and have them react accordingly, thus creating their role.
You can do that only to a limited extent in CRPGs because your general role in the story is pre-defined. You can imagine that the character you’ve created is swept along by events and fate, but as was pointed out previously, even in DM-run games there’s a preset series of events and an outcome that is pre-ordained. It’s the journey that counts.
They needn’t be preset or pre-ordained. That’s easier for the DM, at least in some ways, but not necessarily the best.
There’s a lot to be said for freeform; but there’s something about a system that makes a better “anchor” for long games - maybe because the ability to succeed or fail holds the interest longer. (I won’t claim to know the reasons; I simply note that freeform games, even good ones, seem to have less staying power than the other kind.)
Yes, I agree that freeform games seem to sort of dry up a lot faster than system-based ones. People drift away for various reasons, characters die and the player doesn’t want to invest the time and effort in making a new one, the group has an internal falling out, etc.
I guess you’re right about the system based DMed games not having to have a preset end, though that’s certainly the case for a CRPG. I’ve never played one that didn’t have a preset end, though, except short “into the dungeon” jaunts that were solely for exploration and fighting (and treasure looting!) purposes.
X and GelleKlara,
You may want to read my article about this and I think you’ll understand what Scorpia was saying better. What you are calling “free form play” is actually called “narrativist play style.” What you are calling “pre set” is actually called (by Ron Edwards anyhow) “Simulationist play style.”
Please keep in mind, though, that both are an “illusion” to some degree. You are either constrained by a tight plot or by the shared imaginations of the other players. One is “more free from” then the other. (And thus arguably, less of an illusion.) But there is really no such thing in PnP RPGs of being able to do whatever you want unless it’s just a DM and 1 player and the DM doesn’t mind letting the player basically decide everything for themselves.
Gelle - true by nature; though some CRPG’s (Arcanum, the Geneforge series) do have “multiple choice” in the endings.
Bruce - I read it, but the categories you’re using don’t quite line up with the distinctions I’m drawing here.
Of a certainty the games I’m talking about are “simulationist” in the sense that the DM rightly sets the limits of what the PC’s can do. And the game is ultimately driven by the adventures and the story.
They are “narrativist” in the sense that PC choices really do change the story and its ending, often sending it down a pathway the DM did not originally plan. When that happens, he may have to do a lot of planning between sessions, and sometimes call a halt in order to re-plan; the players aren’t “making the world,” but their choices in it have freer consequences than in stricter games.
What I was arguing with was Scorpia’s assertion that “most adventures, campaigns, or scenarios are ‘fixed’…even with a live DM.” This is not at all my experience, though I have certainly known a few who ran their games that way.
(What I’m talking about may be especially hard to do in NWN-online type games as opposed to stricly-human-moderated ones; I have never played the former.)
My incoherent rambling on the subject in general.
I was working on it a couple of days ago based on the GameWatch article, but the discussion here kinda crystalized some of my thoughts.
Summary: There is no “R” in SINGLE-PLAYER CRPGs. Never has been. Probably never will be. And it shouldn’t be a goal.
Very interesting, Coyote. (Without giving anything away - do you recommend this “Cute Knight,” btw?).
Actually, I think Coyote’s view of “Role playing” and my view of “Roleplaying” are actually not mutually exclusive at all.
He’s calling it what it is and I’m calling it how it’s used in the PnP AND computer world. There has been a long disconnect between the word and it’s use in gaming. I think this is just symantics, really.
Fact is, a CRPG is just as much an RPG as a “gamist” PnP RPG. Neither has any “role playing” going on.
According to the commonly used definition of “roleplaying game”, this is fact. According to the “true” definition of “role playing”, gamist PnP isn’t role playing at all.
If you take “role playing” to mean I’m acting out a role to someone… well then you DO actually have to be doing this with someone else because… well because… that’s the definition of the word. So a single player CRPG could *never* have any role playing in that sense.
(Ooo… guess you *could* call it “role playing” if you thought of it as you’re role playing to yourself. But now I’m getting way to technical.)
But by this definition (obviously a technically correct definition btw) then you’ve also eliminated a huge portion PnP RPG groups as well — specifically the gamists.
So it’s really depends on how you’re using the word. There really isn’t any more or less to it.
X, I see your point. If the DM prepares between sessions, possibly completely unplanning and replanning, then clearly those games are considerably less “rigged.” Perhaps you might even make the case they aren’t “rigged” at all. For example, if the players all, at the very last moment, make some choice that completely destroyed the carefully planned final battle that the DM anticipated, the DM could either improvise an alternative or he could call of the finale and come back next week. So I see your point.
On the other hand… having been a DM for a very long time… I have a hard time believing there isn’t at least *some* rigged portions. I know of no DM that doesn’t occaisionally rig the dice because he wants to keep the story going. I think this is just good DMing. (DMs can NEVER “dice cheat” in my opinion. It’s just their job!) So I’d have to say that I still believe that your DM did do some rigging of the game for the sake of the story just because this is expected of DMs and it’s actually the right thing for them to do in many cases.
Okay, I’m done incoherently ranting on and on.. and on… and on…
Oh, I’m not denying that there’s always some “card forcing” that goes on. I’ve sure done it. Just that it needn’t, not even usually, dominate the campaign. (I think our views are not really far apart.)
(And there are those beautiful moments when an adventure or subplot is ’specially designed just for that player and that character…because the DM and player know each other well enough to make it work…)
X - I constantly recommend Cute Knight. :) At least trying it out. There’s a free demo. I *KNOW* it’s not for everyone… not by a longshot.I didn’t think I’d enjoy it either. After all, it’s got “girl game” written all over it. But after trying it out I had to admit it was a lot of fun. But it’s worth taking a look at the demo just to check it out.