Role playing and progression

[eli]

Talking about genres, Is progressing (better loot, new abilities l, advances in the main story) an inherent aspect of role playing games or games in general? (Adventure games like zelda being much more focused on that aspect).

 

[Wunderbar]

duh

 

[Bruma Hobo]

It would be cool an RPG about regression, imagine a dungeon crawler with no end goal like Telengard, where your PC gets weaker the more you play until he dies of old age.

 

[thesheeep]

There are games in which you don't progress at all (as a character that gets stronger in some way).

But I'm not sure if I ever played an RPG in which you don't progress at all.
The genre would probably allow for it - as long as the core of RPG, the character stats determining the outcome vs the physical player skills, remains - but it would be one hell of a boring ride.
So I'm not really surprised if there are none or almost none of that kind.

 

[Arulan]

It would be cool an RPG about regression, imagine a dungeon crawler with no end goal like Telengard, where your PC gets weaker the more you play until he dies of old age.

RPG Codex: A Post RPG Role-Playing Game

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Talking about genres, Is progressing (better loot, new abilities l, advances in the main story) an inherent aspect of role playing games or games in general? (Adventure games like zelda being much more focused on that aspect).

Character progression, in terms of the innate capabilities (hit points, spell-casting, to-hit chance, etc.) of characters increasing with experience, has been an intrinsic part of RPGs since their creation, and the equipment/inventory aspects of RPGs similarly include an expectation of advancement over time as the character acquires more and better items.

It would be cool an RPG about regression, imagine a dungeon crawler with no end goal like Telengard, where your PC gets weaker the more you play until he dies of old age.

This game already exists and is called real-life.

 

[Alienman]

It would be cool an RPG about regression, imagine a dungeon crawler with no end goal like Telengard, where your PC gets weaker the more you play until he dies of old age.

Sounds too much like real life.

Damn Zed Duke of Banville was faster

 

[eli]

Talking about genres, Is progressing (better loot, new abilities l, advances in the main story) an inherent aspect of role playing games or games in general? (Adventure games like zelda being much more focused on that aspect).

Character progression, in terms of the innate capabilities (hit points, spell-casting, to-hit chance, etc.) of characters increasing with experience, has been an intrinsic part of RPGs since their creation, and the equipment/inventory aspects of RPGs similarly include an expectation of advancement over time as the character acquires more and better items.

I am talking about the actual action of role playing tho. As i understand role playing it doesn't actually require to advance in any form of a game. Take a game like skyrim but remove any kind of progress and you just have a game where you can LARP forever and do radiant quests.

 

[Butter]

Talking about genres, Is progressing (better loot, new abilities l, advances in the main story) an inherent aspect of role playing games or games in general? (Adventure games like zelda being much more focused on that aspect).

Character progression, in terms of the innate capabilities (hit points, spell-casting, to-hit chance, etc.) of characters increasing with experience, has been an intrinsic part of RPGs since their creation, and the equipment/inventory aspects of RPGs similarly include an expectation of advancement over time as the character acquires more and better items.

I am talking about the actual action of role playing tho. As i understand role playing it doesn't actually require to advance in any form of a game. Take a game like skyrim but remove any kind of progress and you just have a game where you can LARP forever and do radiant quests.

The progression system is the only remaining vestige of RPG-ness to be found in Skyrim.

 

[Ol' Willy]

There are three main types of character progression in games:

1) skill/stat based, where these parameters rise up and character(s) becomes stronger

2) equipment based, where character obtains better equipment and becomes more powerful (pure version of that with no skill system whatsoever is Stalker)

3) unit based, where player replaces weaker characters with better ones (more common to strategy games, but also could be found in JA2)

Majority of the games across all genres have at least one of aforementioned systems of progression, sometimes two. RPGs are characteristic for their extensive use of the first and second ones, interweaved together.

 

[samuraigaiden]

The Call of Cthullu PNP RPG has a regression system in the form of insanity. In CRPGs one easy example dying of old age at 27 in Wizardry.

 

[JarlFrank]

Talking about genres, Is progressing (better loot, new abilities l, advances in the main story) an inherent aspect of role playing games or games in general? (Adventure games like zelda being much more focused on that aspect).

I mean... isn't every game about progressing through its "story"?

Even Doom is about progressing from episode 1 to episode 2 and then 3 and then fighting the Spider Mastermind. That's progression.

I can't imagine any game that isn't an abstract one-screen puzzle game without progression, if you define it like that.

 

[ProphetSword]

Don't all games have a form of progression? I don't think you can even have a game of any type without any sort of progression. Video games, board games, children's game (like "Tag," for example) have some sort of goal and therefore have progression. It's a different kind than you might find in a CRPG, but using "Tag" as an example, you progress from being "IT" to not being "IT" or vice-versa.

Even a jigsaw puzzle or a model has progression, and I'm not sure they qualify as games. You start with a lot of separate pieces and progress to having a finished element.

 

[Zombra]

Talking about genres, Is progressing (better loot, new abilities l, advances in the main story) an inherent aspect of role playing games or games in general? (Adventure games like zelda being much more focused on that aspect).

I am talking about the actual action of role playing tho. As i understand role playing it doesn't actually require to advance in any form of a game. Take a game like skyrim but remove any kind of progress and you just have a game where you can LARP forever and do radiant quests.

Eh. Having a sword in it doesn't make a game an RPG.

I suppose it would depend on how elaborate the initial character creation was. If there were a sufficiently advanced system with thousands of mechanically different ways to build your avatar, leading to a multiplicity of distinct playstyles, I guess that would qualify. Many tabletop RPGs don't have mechanical advancement as a central element. For example, look at Champions, a hugely complex system for designing superheroes and villains and letting them fight. There is technically an experience/advancement system but it's so peripheral to the core of the game that one could eliminate it with little to no impact on most campaigns. Yet it is certainly an RPG.

So I would say advancement isn't strictly necessary - but it needs to be made up for with other things.

Of course, you might simply mean "a game in which you play a role" ... in other words, every game ever. In Donkey Kong you "play the role" of a very athletic plumber chasing girl and gorilla.

 

[Old Hans]

Talking about genres, Is progressing (better loot, new abilities l, advances in the main story) an inherent aspect of role playing games or games in general? (Adventure games like zelda being much more focused on that aspect).

yes unfortunately and it is really stale. every time I see that color coded loot I know what is coming. Id much rather have cosmetic items and a set difficulty based on encounter design