What do you think makes a game a role-playing game?

[Ismaul]

A P&P DM might be able to remember that a particular NPC has such and such an opinion of a particular PC, but a CRPG isn't likely to do much more than track that NPC's opinion of the PC along a given scale. Basically, if it can't be expressed or defined with numbers, a computer just can't handle it. That's why stats that are numbers are going to be necessary.

I'm not arguing on that. We could even say that everything in the game is only a combinations of zeros and ones. It's obvious that anything that needs to be remembered by the game is going to be transfered in numbers. What I was saying is that the stats and numbers are not necessary for the role or the roleplaying, even if they are necessary for the game.

But that goes for every game. They all have some sort of tracking going on in the background. Even if it's as simple as "Position in the game world: x=57485 y =3232". The tracking done by the game is the same as the gamemaster's memory of situations. It's only the computer's way of doing it.

 

[Human Shield]

The ingame character has to be defined with abilities that interact with the world.

You can say 5/10 or you can say "average" but the infomation should be relied to the player or it is just stupid (not knowing what your good at).

 

[roguefrog]

What I was saying is that the stats and numbers are not necessary for the role or the roleplaying

Well If I want to roleplay a smart charming guy, I'll have high charisma and intelligence. Those are stats that allow me to roleplay that character. They allow the character to talk and outsmart his enemies. Without stats theres no way to determine what the PC is good at. (hence I concur with Human Shield and the rest of the stat dudes)

 

[Spazmo]

What I was saying is that the stats and numbers are not necessary for the role or the roleplaying, even if they are necessary for the game.

...yes, yes they are. If there's no stats, no numbers, then there can be no reaction from the game. If you don't care whether or not the game responds to your role playing choices, well, that's fine. You can run notepad and roleplay your character there. You can even cook up some interesting NPC responses that fit with your role! It's win win.

For those of us who like having more reactive games, though, we'll have to either rely on what the designers have set up for us. In bad RPGs, that'll be one thing for everyone. In good RPGs, there will be a bunch of different possible outcomes from your actions. These will result from canned outcomes generated by designers (for example, game scripts say that if you rescue the orphans from the fire, the mayor gives you a medal) or by some slightly more complicated method (saving the orphans causes the mayor's reaction to you to increase by 20, which, on his reaction table, means he loves you to bits).

But that goes for every game. They all have some sort of tracking going on in the background. Even if it's as simple as "Position in the game world: x=57485 y =3232". The tracking done by the game is the same as the gamemaster's memory of situations. It's only the computer's way of doing it.

I'm really not seeing what your point is. Yes, that's the computer's way of doing it... and these are computer games. Seems like we're stuck with what we've got, no?

 

[Stark]

Stats
Phat Loot
Chosen One(s)
Orcs
My main character must start with Amnesia.
All gnome party members/NPCs must be annoying and voiced by the same voice actor.
Evil NPCs are master villains, evil PCs are schoolground bullies and shylocks.

DemonKing, you forgot to mention ability to roleplay evil: asking for reward upfront before taking up a quest.
edit: Oops! think it rolls under your last point. so you really have the complete list....

Paper doll inventory system.

Aha! Great mind thinks alike.

1) Immersiveness
2) Hard choices in plotting
3) NPCs that serve as more than in-game flags to sheperd me from place to place
4) Again, NPCs that flesh out the world so that if I'm going around saving the world I'm reminded why I'm doing it. Besides the power-trip.

these are nice to have features but by no means define a crpg. you can say the same for other genre too (adventure game, action game, FPS, etc).

 

[Ismaul]

Ok.
Here's an example.
When creating a character, you can say he's going to be highly intelligent, strong, but clumsy. In a standard rpg, you're going to transfer those qualitatives into 9 Int, 7 Str and 3 Dex on a scale of 10. Stats, again, are only a quantification of parts of the role. We don't need the quantification. We can stick to the adjectives that define the role even better than the numbers. One thing is sure, is that to work with a character described with qualities instead of numbers, the computer is going to transer those in numbers. The computer might define clumsy as "aptitude_dex=3", while standing in the town in front of the inn will be defined as "position in the game world: x=57485 y=3232". The game can still react to your roleplaying choices.

Numbers are needed for the machine to understand what choices you have made. They are not necessary for you.

 

[Spazmo]

But that's silly. You're not offering an alternate solution, you're just suggesting a further layer of abstraction on top of what's there anyways. Instead of getting a clear idea of my character's abilities in game terms, I just get a vague and useless qualification of "weak", "strong", "average" or something equally meaningless. I don't see how that'd help role playing in any way.

 

[Ismaul]

First, I pointed out how a role or roleplaying don't need stats. It's the computer that needs it. That was the issue we were arguing about.

Now, about what are the differences between having a stat system and an adjective system. I'm inclined to believe that a qualitiative system favors roleplaying. Since a role is first defined by qualities, staying at that state keeps the focus of the player on the role and not on the derived stats. In real life, you don't go around saying "yeah, that guy has an intelligence of approximately 4, he's got a reaction of -20 to me, but I won't start a fight with him because he's got a Str of 8". You'd rather say "yeah, that guy's pretty dumb, doesn't like me at all, but I'm not going to pick a fight with him 'cause he's pretty strong".

you're just suggesting a further layer of abstraction on top of what's there anyways.

Well, I believe it's quite the contrary. It's the stats system that's the layer on top of the adjective system, or at least, should be. Stats are the complexification, not the adjectives. A qualitative system only seems complex because we're used to the numbers.

Now, on it being more abstract than numbers. Sure, numbers might seem more objective. But who's to say that this "amount of intelligence" is equal to 7 on a scale of 10? Pretty subjective to me. Plus, irl, you don't know your stats on a given scale. No one can tell you've got 63% in mechanics, they just know you're pretty good. And, knowledge changes over time. Your 63% now might become a 47% in 5 years. Numbers seem more meanigful in the game because they are an end. You had 45% in barter before, now you got 47%. You're better. In-game, there's a minimal differance, if at all. People won't say "oh, you're such a better haggler now", they won't notice. Therefore, having qualitative aptitudes and skills makes more sense, because you actually know that if you become good at something instead of average, you will notice a difference (if the game isn't shitty).

Often, the game checks for a skill number. You've got medic more than 70, it opens an option. What if you had 69? There's no meaningful difference there. Yet, you don't get the option. While with qualitative description of the character, this can't happen. When given a scale of "no experience in the skill, basics, skilled, masterful and ground-breaking knowledge" (this scale is shitty, I know), every level in the scale is meaningful.

Since the qualitative description isn't an end in itself, unilke a stat sytem where you can say "this number is higher, so my character is better", the game has to give more importance to in-game recognition of your character's evolution. And that's a good thing.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

I'm inclined to believe that a qualitiative system favors roleplaying. Since a role is first defined by qualities, staying at that state keeps the focus of the player on the role and not on the derived stats.

The problem aren't the derived stats. The problem is what the player decides to focus on. Replacing quantitative ratings with qualitative ones is only giving the player a different thing to focus on when it comes to elements that define the role. Wheter my character has 90 (out of a maximum of 100) in strength ratings, or wheter he has a Good rating (out of a maximum of Godlike) in speed, I'm still being given means to rate my character by the token system.

Numbers don't take away from roleplaying - players who focus on numbers take away from roleplaying.

Now, on it being more abstract than numbers. Sure, numbers might seem more objective. But who's to say that this "amount of intelligence" is equal to 7 on a scale of 10? Pretty subjective to me.

Wheter it's subjective or not doesn't really matter to determining which is more abstract or objective. Also, it's just as subjective as applying generalist qualitative measurements to someone's abilities. In your example you can replace the quantative scale with a qualitative one, and a "7 out of 10" is just as subjective as "above average", or "better than most".

Plus, irl, you don't know your stats on a given scale.

There's quite a lot of information about you that you can keep a record of, on given scales. You can measure how much you can lift, how fast you can run, how deep you can swim, etc. The main difference between these scales and those found in games is that many of the scales on which you can be measured in in real life do not have a clear, absolute maximum.

No one can tell you've got 63% in mechanics, they just know you're pretty good.

You can be evaluated numerically on given scales. Your expertise in mechanics can be rated a certain percentage when said rating has a background scale being used.

Therefore, having qualitative aptitudes and skills makes more sense, because you actually know that if you become good at something instead of average, you will notice a difference (if the game isn't shitty)....

It depends on how the scale is made. On your follow up, you argue that there is no meaningful difference between a 69 or 70 value in a 0 to 100. But what if you had a qualitative scale that used one hundred different qualitative ranks as well? Same thing would happen, with qualities instead of numbers. You'd notice a difference, regardless of wheter you'd have a qualitative or quantitative system. But the wider the scale is the harder it is to note an actual difference - which isn't to say there isn't a difference or that it isn't meaningful.

While with qualitative description of the character, this can't happen. When given a scale of "no experience in the skill, basics, skilled, masterful and ground-breaking knowledge" (this scale is shitty, I know), every level in the scale is meaningful.

And it would be just as meaningful if the levels of measurement were simply called 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 instead. Replacing quantitative data with qualitative data isn't better or more refined in such a case. Again it boils down to how its used. In this case, less levels make character progression seem much more tangible than spreading the scale thin over dozens of levels.

 

[Drakron]

There is also the aspect of character advancement.

My character might start as not very smart but during the adventures he might became smart enough, removing the numbers also remove the ability to the player to understand how to advance his character.

RPGs are also about character advancement or you dont think thats a part of RPGs?

 

[Mulciber]

It sounds like this argument is more about absolutism vs. perspective now.The trouble is that we are always at the centre of our own universe- We don't rate our abilities against other peoples on an absolute scale ( from 1 to 10, for example), we rate everyone else's abilities against our own- "He's better than me at mechanics, but I'm smarter than him." The absolute system that is the industry standard doesn't translate this well.

 

[Sarvis]

How did an argument about what makes an RPG start without me?

 

[Fez]

Once we have got what makes an RPG an RPG pegged down, we can start on what is 'art' and what qualifies as 'art'.

 

[Human Shield]

I don't think advancement is a requirement, that would mean a D&D game in which you don't gain a level isn't roleplaying. If the world reacts to broad abilities of an in-game character, it doesn't matter if the character's skills get better or not.

 

[Ismaul]

The problem aren't the derived stats. The problem is what the player decides to focus on. Replacing quantitative ratings with qualitative ones is only giving the player a different thing to focus on when it comes to elements that define the role. Wheter my character has 90 (out of a maximum of 100) in strength ratings, or wheter he has a Good rating (out of a maximum of Godlike) in speed, I'm still being given means to rate my character by the token system.

Numbers don't take away from roleplaying - players who focus on numbers take away from roleplaying.

This is true to some extent. Player that focus on stats can be the problem, but it's more of a pnp situation. Currently, I believe it's the games that focus on stats.

Now, a stat based character sheet cannot encompass a whole role. If the game focuses on the stats, we get a truncated rolepalying game that will mostly be based on combat, which is the most obvious thing to stat out. Just look at the current rpgs coming out.

There's another thing we all wish for in rpgs, it's the reactiveness of the world, choices that have an impact, immersion, "make believe". We think of people qualitatively. Even if there are ways to measure skills, personnality and other things with some rating systems, we don't think about people that way. You don't say "on a scale of 0 (introverted) to 100 (extraverted), I feel he's at 23". You'd say "this guy is pretty reserved". That's why I believe a qualitative system favors roleplaying.

It depends on how the scale is made. On your follow up, you argue that there is no meaningful difference between a 69 or 70 value in a 0 to 100. But what if you had a qualitative scale that used one hundred different qualitative ranks as well? Same thing would happen, with qualities instead of numbers. You'd notice a difference, regardless of wheter you'd have a qualitative or quantitative system. But the wider the scale is the harder it is to note an actual difference - which isn't to say there isn't a difference or that it isn't meaningful.

You can't have a qualitative system with 50 "levels" of a skill. There's not enough different words to make one. The most you can have is around 10. Sure, people who like numbers and the illusion of improvement they provide won't like much a smaller scale, but I think it favors its implementation in-game. It's easier for a developper to implement the reaction of the world to your character's improvement when there is less "levels" in the advancement of the skill. Plus, the player has a more concrete understanding of his character's improvement, since the small scale makes improvement more significative (again, if the game isn't shitty).

There is also the aspect of character advancement.

My character might start as not very smart but during the adventures he might became smart enough, removing the numbers also remove the ability to the player to understand how to advance his character.

RPGs are also about character advancement or you dont think thats a part of RPGs?

Hey, I never shoved aside character advancement. Only you don't need stats to do it. You just need a way to compare your character with others, stats, words, appearance or else.

I don't think advancement is a requirement, that would mean a D&D game in which you don't gain a level isn't roleplaying. If the world reacts to broad abilities of an in-game character, it doesn't matter if the character's skills get better or not.

I think there is always character progression while roleplaying. It doesn't need to be in skill increase, it can simply be the character's life experiences that are greater after roleplaying that before.

How did an argument about what makes an RPG start without me?

Hop in. The more fools we are, the greater the fun.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

This is true to some extent. Player that focus on stats can be the problem, but it's more of a pnp situation. Currently, I believe it's the games that focus on stats.

Now, a stat based character sheet cannot encompass a whole role. If the game focuses on the stats, we get a truncated rolepalying game that will mostly be based on combat, which is the most obvious thing to stat out. Just look at the current rpgs coming out.

Agreed to an extent, but this focus on stats seems to be predominantly a problem with many games, and gamers. Roleplaying for the most part is handled much differently in videogames, and most gamers seem to adhere to the way it's handled and accept it as it is without question. After all, numbers work great as an underlying system because they are both easier to manage and give more specific information about the character. Games which focus on statistical management will likely have players focus on them as well, no doubt, but while it is true that there is a larger focus on statistics, I still believe this isn't a problem with statistics themselves but rather the mentality of those that develop and those that play games. Statistics can be as subtle or as ham fisted as developers want them to be. As an example, consider Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which reportedly has dozens of statistics that track down the development of the main character - they rarely get in the way of gameplay, or become the focus of the game (if at all). San Andreas isn't what I'd call an RPG (even if it does come close on some levels or performs better than some CRPGs out there), though, but it's an example of how statistical values and tracking can be used in much subtler ways.

There's another thing we all wish for in rpgs, it's the reactiveness of the world, choices that have an impact, immersion, "make believe". We think of people qualitatively. Even if there are ways to measure skills, personnality and other things with some rating systems, we don't think about people that way. You don't say "on a scale of 0 (introverted) to 100 (extraverted), I feel he's at 23". You'd say "this guy is pretty reserved". That's why I believe a qualitative system favors roleplaying.

Then again, while we may think of people qualitatively, we're not always evaluated as such. And that is pretty much the purpose of using quantitative methods of evaluation.

Still, it is possible to create a qualitative scale without having to do away with a quantitative one entirely. Much like your take on comparing character perceptions with our own in real life, you can have a general, quantitative display be the default character "sheet", and a deeper set of informations available as well. You can very well create secondary scales of evaluation for the purposes of allowing players to play, as well as roleplay, their characters without replacing a more objective and useful system for a more general, vague one.

Much like in real life, you'd have a general sense of how you (the character) was able to perform, but you could also access a set of more complex and objective information if you wanted (birth certificate, exam evaluations, etc.).

Fallout had a nice touch relating to this, even if it was just window dressing. On a scale of 1 to 10 in statistical data relating to attributes, there would be a quantitative counterpart displayed next to it on the character sheet, so that players got to see what exactly the number meant in more quantitative levels.

You can't have a qualitative system with 50 "levels" of a skill. There's not enough different words to make one. The most you can have is around 10.

Well, you could invent new words, or use ranks or titles to display advancement.

Sure, people who like numbers and the illusion of improvement they provide won't like much a smaller scale, but I think it favors its implementation in-game. It's easier for a developper to implement the reaction of the world to your character's improvement when there is less "levels" in the advancement of the skill. Plus, the player has a more concrete understanding of his character's improvement, since the small scale makes improvement more significative (again, if the game isn't shitty).

I agree a smaller, more meaningful scale would be preferable, though I find there is no reason to believe a qualitative scale woul be less effective or less concrete than a quantitative one.

 

[Ismaul]

Ok.
So basically, what you're saying is that it's the games that are faulty by the importance they give to the character sheet/experience system. While a qualitative system might reinforce the "make believe" component of a game system, having a qualitative or quantitative system doesn't have an important impact on roleplaying if the system is not as important as the role, the roleplaying and its recognition in-game.

I agree with that.

What we need is a better system of character developpment. IMO, what is clearly wrong is the experience and level system. Everything you do gives experience, which in turn permits you to improve skills and similar things. Character developpment is, in that regard, limited to skills developpment (and equipment).

Right now, the "character sheet" wants to be the center of all character definition and developpement. It fails at it, since it can't record role defining characteristics like personnality, beliefs or else. So, the solution would be to decentralize the character definition and developpement, removing the sheet's status of end-all be-all. If the sheet becomes only a part of the definition and developpment, or more, becomes only a way to see the current status of the character but not develop it, then it loses importance, which we can transfer to in-game recognition of progression.

One of the means to do that would be that after character customization, skills improve with use (and training). This ends most needs for character levels and experience. One of the consequences of that is that skill increase will occur more slowly. It's a good thing, at least for immersion, since it's pretty moronic to go from zero to Savior of the World and Destroyer of the Mighty Dragons (tm) in a week. Improving skills with use also reduces the character sheet to a character status sheet.

Another mean would be increase of in-game recognition to replace the loss with the sheet. The game that did it best was Gothic IMO, even if there wasn't speech related skills. Skill improvements were visible on the character (new combat animations). You actually felt you were "inferior" (lower level) at the start of the game. As the character's importance in the world grew, the responsability and trust the camp would give him were bigger. It's the first game that conveyed the acheivement feeling when you received a new armor after being promoted. The armor wasn't just a bigger protection number, it was affiliation with a group and a reflection of status. Even Fallout didn't convey that with the Power Armor. This is, IMO, the way to go with character progression.

 

[Astromarine]

First of all, I think the words qualitative and quantitative are being used in a wrong way. If you use bad-good-great-awesome-astromarine, there is no real and definable difference from using 1-2-3-4-5. It's window dressing, it's a way to take a quantitative scale and obfuscate it through recoding it to a different set of symbols. It is NOT turning it into a qualitative scale.

A qualitative scale, in my mind, is something akin to the PnP game Maelstrom ( http://www.indie-rpgs.com/reviews/18/ , http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/reviews/rev_735.html ), where for each of the possible characteristics (Mind, Matter, etc) you can have some "descriptors" that say what you can do when need arises.
The main characteristic of a qualitative system, for me, is that your character must be described on the sheet without establishing comparisons with anything. This is quite possible in a PnP, but really really hard in a computer game. Also, because of the lack of a comparative scale, it's hard to define advancement (after all, in WHAT scale would you advance?)

So assuming that for practical purposes in a computer game you would need a quantitative scale of some sort, the question is should that scale be obfuscated or revealed? I would argue for revealing it, but it's a matter of taste and wanting to preserve atmosphere. Just be aware that players who focus on numbers and advancement will quickly find themselves taking your obfuscated scale and mapping it to a numerical one in their heads anyway. It's a design call, but not very relevant in my mind.

 

[roguefrog]

It's all the same shit, different color.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

What both Ismaul and Astromarine said. I think trying to bring a more PnP vision into CRPGs and removing the focus gamers tend to have on powergaming instead of roleplaying has to go trough reshaping the concept of roleplaying when placed in the context of videogames and that is as much in the hands of developers as it is in the hands of gamers.

And Astro is right: as long as there is a scale of sorts, most gamers interested in powergaming will eventually focus on it and adapt to it. The sheet in this case, be it a collection of numbers or qualities, will always be their focus, hence why I've said I don't believe that changing the type of scale would matter all that much.

 

[Ismaul]

I'm all for a redefinition of roleplaying in computer games. I guess the argument we have about what makes a rpg comes from the divergences between what crpgs are currently and what they should be.

I don't know about Maelstrom, but obviously a qualitative scale should be more than bad-average-good. At the very least, it should have an adjective for "scale+attribute", such as bad+dexterity becoming clumsy. Implementing a scale like this might be a first step to a new character definition system.

 

[jsaving]

Stats represent those things that the designer is not interested in modeling in detail. To elevate them to a defining characteristic of RPGs is absurd. It's like saying that holes are the best part of doughnuts.

Not at all. If a game offers you all the dialogue choices in the world, and if each possible response gives you a different predetermined resolution to the dialogue, you've just made a very interesting adventure game. If a game offers you all the dialogue choices in the world, and if each possible response gives you an array of possible resolutions depending on the stats you have selected for your character, you've just made a very interesting RPG. It's the difference between a Choose Your Own Adventure book and a D&D module -- only one is an RPG even though both enable you to take on a role.

 

[Shevek]

Stats are legitimate abstractions of reality. People seem to forget this. I dont understand why saying something is "clumsy" is somehow better than it having a dex of 2.

Look at any major sporting event and you will notice some very specific definition of stats. They do not say Joe the Weightlifter is "strong;" they say he can bench x amount of pounds. Also, students do not have a "smart" or "dumb" rating; they have an X.X GPA and have a Y score on Z test. Anyone who has seen a beauty or body building competition know that they do not rate people as "attractive" or "ugly;" they look at % body fat, they use point systems to give bonuses and penalties to determine grace, and so on. Applying specific numbers to these things doesnt hinder whatever your quasi-religious notion of roleplaying is: it enhances it.

Also, I would caution against mixing up the sort of "roleplaying" you do at a psychiatrists office with what you do in "roleplaying games." People often confuse the two and they shouldnt.

 

[Claw]

Well, it appears this has become largely a debate about presentation. I would like to see an RPG which tries a presentation without numbers, if only for novelty value.
I'd also like more self-evaluation, or evaluation in general. Fallout used that a bit, but not thoroughly.
Also, non-numerical stats would seamlessly translate into the gameworld. Seeing a "very strong" or "handsome" NPC might actually be an accurate description based on their stats.

Regarding game mechanics, one element I liked about Gothic 2 was learning individual feats. That would also go towards reducing the need for a minute graduation of skill levels, as a skill would be determined not (only) by an abstract value but by the number of feats a character has learned.

 

[Claw]

Heh, I just stumbled across a somewhat relevant article on WoG. Apparently the developers decided to give up the percentage system from Gothic 2 altogether. Instead, the character will learn individual feats, like combat styles and special attacks.
So your combat skill will be based on the number of different feats you have learned, and I guess attributes may influence combat more directly, similar to how dexterity influenced success with "thievery skills" in Gothic 2.

So, an RPG system without numbers is coming. Less numbers anyway, as attributes will probably use numbers still.