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How do you feel about innovation in RPGs?

How do you feel about innovation in RPGs?


  • Total voters
    175

mondblut

Arcane
Joined
Aug 10, 2005
Messages
22,205
Location
Ingrija
So I'm firmly in the "Revolutionary" camp. I believe that RPGs must evolve.

The last goldbox game has been made 25 years ago, and the last game bearing any resemblance to them and not produced by a lone autist, 15 years ago.

YOU'VE HAD YOUR REVOLUTION GOING ON FOR 25 FUCKING YEARS, YOU IDIOT.

25 years of glorious revolutionaries pushing RPGs against a wall, putting a bullet through the back of their heads, raping their corpses then pissing upon the remains.

Happy now? Not? Hmm, what could have gone wrong, I wonder...

We need new gameplay, new genre mashups, new systems, new worlds, new stories.

Try playing Tetris in VR set while riding a bicycle over highway. We'll call that a brand new, revolutionary kind of RPG in your honor afterwards, we promise.
 
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JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2007
Messages
33,052
Location
KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Innovation baby. I'm getting bored of the same old, same old. Gimme new settings, gimme experimental new gameplay ideas.

But most importantly, don't assume that "innovation" requires the abolition of old tried-and-true systems. Innovation can also come through evolution. Look at the classics, analyze what made them good, and take it to the next level.

The classics - Ultima, Wizardry, M&M - are the perfect example for innovation through evolution. When you play Ultima 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 you see how each improvement of the game through the iterations has evolved from already existing features. Same with Wizardry from 1 to 8, or M&M from 1 to 5 (6, 7, 8, 9 are their own thing, with 6 being revolutionary rather than evolutionary). World of Xeen is my favorite M&M, and it very much feels and plays like the older titles, only better.

There can be innovative elements in the most traditionalist of games. Take ToEE. I don't think there were any earlier games with such a smooth display of enemy mobs moving simultaneously. ToEE removed a lot of the tedium from turn based games with its simultaneous movement animation during enemy turns. Is it revolutionary? Is it a huge step for the genre? No, but it's an evolution and an innovation regardless.

What I wanna see more of is traditionalist games that don't just copy the classics, but ask: how can we make this good shit even better without changing it to the point of it being unrecognizable? You don't have to reinvent the wheel, but you can turn a simple stone circle into a spoked wooden wheel, and later you can even turn it into an air-filled rubber wheel.

What I'd also like to see more of is experimentality. Disco Elysium is a great example. It takes the basic premise of an RPG (you play a character whose abilities are defined by stats and skills), asks "how would that work out in the context of a noir detective game?", and does its own thing with it.
You don't have to do it like Disco Elysium, though. You can apply the same train of thought to other literary genres, and to other concepts.You could ask "what would an RPG where you play a spaceship captain look like?" and then design a system where most skills are associated with piloting spacecraft, and spaceships have their own stats, and there are two different combat systems for space and for planetary encounters, etc. You could ask "how do I turn a romantic comedy into an RPG?" and do that. It might end up like DE, without combat but intense dialogue and skillchecks. It might end up boring and forgettable due to the nature of its genre (romcoms are boring, after all), but it would be new and different and other designers can learn from its mistakes and its successes, if there are any.

Or you could try to design more intricate RPG systems, like the more complex pen and paper systems out there. D&D isn't the only template for RPGs out there, you know. What about GURPS with its advantages and disadvantages? When was the last time a game gave you a character creation that heavily emphasized advantages and disadvantages rather than just numerical stats? I can't remember any, other than Daggerfall. You can make combat more tactical (and enhance the dressup feature of RPGs at the same time :M ) by implementing detailed locational damage and locational armor systems. I'd really love a cRPG that uses Aftermath!'s systems. cRPGs would be perfect for complex rulesets like that, much better than pen and paper, because the computer performs all the calculations. But no, most cRPGs have relatively simple systems, nothing that's comparable with the more complex P&P rulesets.

Fun fact: most of the Codex's favorite RPGs were innovative at their time.

Wizardry 7? First game to feature enemy parties working towards similar goals as the player (parties that can collect map pieces before you get to them).
Ultima 7? First game to feature complex NPC schedules, high degree of interactivity with the world.
Fallout? It made C&C hip and cool and the SPECIAL system with stats, skills, perks & traits wasn't very common at its time either.
 

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,624
I think that the problem with "innovation" is that it is mistaken with evolution, which the Codex has an aversion to, in no small part because a) That's what game journalists and players say to justify moving away from traditional cRPG gameplay, and b) "Evolution" understood as "survival of the fittest" justifies that, i.e. there's no doubt that between Fallout and Fallout 4, it is the latter which is better fit to survive in today's market.

To me innovation is the idea of doing something new, or, at the very least, introduce something new to a given franchise. Pillars of Eternity lets you recruit mercenaries, for instance. Fallout let you join a caravan as a job. I think innovation in cRPGs has to come in the way of expanding what "role-playing" means, and not just "you pick your stats to kill enemies and ocassional speech checks", but in the form of actual in-game gameplay options.
 

DalekFlay

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 5, 2010
Messages
14,118
Location
New Vegas
I'm trying to think of big changes to the RPG formula that I've liked over the last 10ish years and struggling. There's not many really, and most of them suck (quest arrows, for example). That doesn't mean I'm opposed to change outright, but definitely put me in the centrist camp where we measure the merits of any possible change and stick to tradition in most cases.
 

Butter

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 1, 2018
Messages
7,523
We could have had glorious innovation this very year. I was prepared to never look at character creation the same way ever again. But you trolls just couldn't restrain yourselves. You had to make fun of Tim's triangles until he scrapped the idea and went with boring old numbers. Now we'll never know what might have been.
 

LudensCogitet

Learned
Joined
Nov 4, 2019
Messages
210
We could have had glorious innovation this very year. I was prepared to never look at character creation the same way ever again. But you trolls just couldn't restrain yourselves. You had to make fun of Tim's triangles until he scrapped the idea and went with boring old numbers. Now we'll never know what might have been.
Can't tell if this is a joke or not lol. I'd be ok with Tim's triangles. Of course it's possible he prototyped and found out it wouldn't work at all.
 

felipepepe

Codex's Heretic
Patron
Joined
Feb 2, 2007
Messages
17,274
Location
Terra da Garoa
I think the biggest issue I have if not the lack of innovation itself, we have seen very interesting ideas floating around. The problem is the lack of commitment to it.

For example, Vampyr was an interesting idea (doctor become vampire) in a cool setting (post-WWI London) and with a clever system behind it (balancing need for blood [aka XP] vs saving lives). It could have been an amazing game, but then the devs went "ok, this is an RPG, so let's add trash mobs" and ruined the entire concept of the game.

The genre is still full of sacred cows and "industry standards" that are either blindly followed or forcefully imposed by publishers. They make most games feel like something I've played before, the few innovative ideas get lost in a sea of mediocrity.
 

ScrotumBroth

Arcane
Patron
Joined
May 13, 2018
Messages
1,288
Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In
The genre is still full of sacred cows and "industry standards" that are either blindly followed or forcefully imposed by publishers. They make most games feel like something I've played before, the few innovative ideas get lost in a sea of mediocrity.

I mean, it's like that for a reason, look at Codex "muh combat" and "has been cultists" crowd. When a consumer has no capacity to appreciate new ideas, they go with new ideas as kamikazes almost.
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,087
Location
Bulgaria
I'm getting burned out on RPGs. They're stale and hidebound. When you crack open the virtual box you know exactly what you're going to get. You're a nobody/low-level adventurer starting from circumstances beyond your control, destined to rise to fame and fortune by killing thousands of mooks, to save/rule the world, by carefully considering which points to put in which slot of a spreadsheet and which shiny to equip in which slot. And then there's some kind of cliffhanger to make room for the next installment.

I'm not interested in that sort of thing anymore, and if I really feel the itch I can always go back to the classics.

So I'm firmly in the "Revolutionary" camp. I believe that RPGs must evolve. It's not enough to just make another power fantasy as another sequel in another franchise, or even to create a new franchise that's clearly inspired by some other franchise. We need new gameplay, new genre mashups, new systems, new worlds, new stories.

What's your take? Vote and explain your choice or we might never get this important question definitively settled.
Ahhh RPGs have been evolving for the last 20 years old man. What you would like to see is not innovation but new talented writers with interesting new ideas. Innovation is about mechanical and system change while your complain is about the staleness of settings and ideas. I believe that we should have both really,a good original game from time to time and save choice of getting a game inspired by classics. And we are getting them,the last year we got Kingdom come which was pretty innovative in its mechanics and ELEX which was a fateful PB game. We also got the Expedition games,which are all about conquering your enemies and have nothing to do with your view of cliche. In shadowrun you also play as a professional killer :).

For the genre part,well that shits evolve naturally. At this point there is not a genre that doesn't have RPG elements,fuck even football and racing games have it,and soon we will even get a star shoot them up porn rpg! Don't know what you are bitching about new systems and new genres,it is not like they could come out by just wishing for them!
 

Neanderthal

Arcane
Joined
Jul 7, 2015
Messages
3,626
Location
Granbretan
I'd like to see iteration, we've been on a steady roll of stripping features and problematic elements rather than improving them for decades now. Iterate on gameplay, experiment in setting and let narrative arise from and fuel both.

And no bloody Elves.

Obviously.
 

FeelTheRads

Arcane
Joined
Apr 18, 2008
Messages
13,716
Oh yeah, we have like a million good "non-innvovative" RPGs that we need some innovative ones.

Except we don't. So, first try to make those good before going with the wild ideas.

And of course, Junta is a moron crying for something that is already there, like he keeps crying about there not being enough "non-grimdark games" when pretty much every other game is a inspired by Blizzard or Pixar aesthetics.
There's plenty of "innovative" ideas, except they are shit. Well, too bad, right? Innovative doesn't mean good. So, fuck you, retard. Ask for quality before innovation for the sake of innovation.

Also, DE is not innovative in any way. Whatever qualities it has have nothing to do with innovation. It's also a shit game and an even worse RPG.
 

Giauz Ragnacock

Scholar
Joined
Jul 16, 2011
Messages
502
I cast for Revolutionary. We need good changes, and the way forward I think is to look at all the cool systems in table-top RPGs that it seems like no one tries. There are more than hp systems, narrative skill checks, freaking dialogue in combat rather than just silently taking turns bopping enemies, equipment that has narrative inertia (the most important consideration in what items one holds is often just what stats would be useful for combat), AI that does more than what would create interesting combat, etc. If we just keep trying to recapture the past we are always going to fail. Those games in our minds are just to big to say something newer that emulates them are wholly better games. If we do new things we will be able to say those old games never thought of doing this, and we can build new bases from which to generate nostalgia.
 
Self-Ejected

RNGsus

Self-Ejected
Joined
Apr 29, 2011
Messages
8,106
Father-of-the-Revolution.jpg
 

adrix89

Arbiter
Joined
Dec 27, 2014
Messages
700
Location
Why are there so many of my country here?
Revolutionary but only in the sense of a specific thing.

What I want is a Dynamic Sandbox World like in Kenshi.
I don't want to sit and manage a base all day like in DF or Rimworld but those are the only games that are even trying.
So I want something more in line with a RPG where you are adventuring around the world and exploring.
Roguelikes are kinda like this but they usually aren't about the world much and don't have as much simulation.

So as a "Genre" there is much development here so I would like to see more.
 

SniperHF

Arcane
Joined
Aug 22, 2014
Messages
1,110
With how infrequently we actually get extremely high quality RPGs I'd be perfectly happy with lots of high quality, but rote, RPGs. That would be a rather sizable step up from the current situation, better though it is than the dark ages.
 

lukaszek

the determinator
Patron
Joined
Jan 15, 2015
Messages
12,624
deterministic system > RNG
 
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