Vault Dweller's Theoretical Introduction to the cRPG genre, with Examples Aplenty

[Elwro]

Tags: Vault Dweller

We've all took part in "What constitutes a role-playing game?" discussions. If you're like me, you've decided to stay far away from such topics a long time ago. But there are still those adamant in their belief that the matter is possible to be (and should be) properly discussed. Vault Dweller of <a href="http://www.irontowerstudio.com/">Iron Tower Studio</a> shows the way in his detailed <a href="http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php?topic=186.0">piece</a> over at the <a href="http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/">ITS forums</a>. Here's a bit from the introduction:<blockquote>The only thing that everyone seems to agree on is that nobody can agree on what a computer role-playing game is. If you are told that a new shooter is announced, you have a pretty good idea of what to expect. If you are told that a new RPG is announced, that tells you nothing at all. Japanese or Western? North American or European? Action or story-driven? Sandbox? Dungeon crawler? Original or licensed? Who's the developer? With shooters it hardly matters who makes them. I'll be surprised if Far Cry 2 won't play like Far Cry 1, yet the difference between the same looking Knights of the Old Republic games is huge.
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So, hopefully, this handy guide will explain what role-playing is and isn't and help you understand the RPG market.</blockquote>There's a handy little dictionary of cRPG-related terms at the end, for example:<blockquote>Dungeon Crawler – a game designed by people who think that dungeons are the most awesome aspect in any RPG and the rest is meaningless garbage. These games offer you endless chains of dungeons to explore and loot.
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Licensed – reference to a setting that’s based on a licensed property like Dungeons™ & Dragons™, in which case the likelihood of running into an elf™ is 99.9%. There are rumors of an RPG based on Aliens™ where a spaceship filled the aliens ™ is crashed somewhere on the Sword Coast™ and the aliens™ start eating elves™. I’ve already pre-ordered.
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Classic – a game built around meaningful choices, dialogues, and role-playing as described in this article. If you don’t like classic, pick any other word.</blockquote>So, are old dungeon crawlers like Dungeon Master "classics" or not? Or maybe they are classics of just the dungeon crawler subgenre, not having much to do with roleplaying as outlined by VD? Read the comprehensive article <a href="http://www.irontowerstudio.com/forum/index.php?topic=186.0">here</a>.
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.rpgwatch.com">RPG Watch</A>

 

[Jasede]

He's way too new-school.

 

[muds_animal_friend]

Re: Vault Dweller's Theoretical Introduction to the cRPG gen

[emp. mine] Classic – a game built around meaningful choices, dialogues, and role-playing as described in this article. If you don’t like [the term] classic, pick any other word.

Ok, how about “arbitrary”?

 

[OSK]

How about "good"?

 

[Morbus]

I'd say "true" but that's me...

 

[Autowin]

What's pathetic is that the people who sell the new influx of players their games don't even know the difference between a real RPG (cRPG) and an "epic™" RPG©®.

Which is one of many contributors but, in particular, easily pointed out.

 

[avatar_58]

Well see his definition is off. (Oh god it's starting....log off, log off, log off) Is he saying all RPGs must be open ended and have multiple solutions?

What about RPGs that are slim on choices, but high on character stats and dungeon crawling? Excuse me but Eye of the Beholder offers NO choice, just dungeon crawling.

I'm in complete agreement that no one knows what a true RPG is. Mainly because my fav "RPG" is Ultima VII. However that game doesn't rely on stats at all, and when you look at it the only choices ever given to you are slim at best. It's more akin to an adventure game, except you don't "live" in a world in that genre.

I can interact with anything in U7. I need food. I need to stick to the virtues (or choose to ignore and steal). Does that not make it an RPG? Is Quest for Glory more of an RPG, even though most consider it 70% adventure?


Moral of the story? Who the fuck cares, just play the games and enjoy them.

 

[elander_]

I'm a GURPS boy so my vocabulary is a bit different. I understand choices as in if during character creation you are allowed to pick up N skills then the game should give you oppourtunities to use each one of these skills, not once but regularly during the game, otherwise don't give worthless and arbitrary skills to the player that can only be used once in one or two quests and give you 5xp. I translate consequences to reactions in GURPS jargon. Reactions is not just about saying 'hello handsome bard' or 'oh God your voice makes my ears bleed'. It's also about that noble you killed has a few friends who hired some assassins to hunt your ass for life.

A crpg can border the adventure genre or the simulation genre. Personanly i don't think a crpg can ever stand on a genre of it's own. This is a mix of genres and so there will always be people who are more inclined to one side than the other. I see nothing wrong with people having different tastes.

What pisses me off mostly is bad design and incoerent choices and reactions. D&D games have all those great dialog feats and amazing collection of stats and when you play the game they are all uselless except for combat. A bard is a really smooth talker but it never helps him or his party in anything. His musical instrument is used - this beyond stupid - to buff up his companions in combat. We can also find plenty examples of nerd crpg design with Oblivion reactions, worthless skills and amazingly sad and unfortunate dialog mini-games.

 

[obediah]

A crpg can border the adventure genre or the simulation genre. Personanly i don't think a crpg can ever stand on a genre of it's own. This is a mix of genres and so there will always be people who are more inclined to one side than the other. I see nothing wrong with people having different tastes.

I agree. RPG, in it's PNP heart, is a mixture of gaming genres. And there isn't one single recipe. A broad, inclusive definition of RPG serves everyone better. And the definition of sub-genres still allows for the endless debates we all crave.

A problem with VD's take is that CRPGS in 1990 weren't CRPGS. But if you travel back to 1990people would recognize them as CRPGS. If you travel ahead to 2020 and ask VD, he will likely have played some super CRPG that has convinced him Fallout is not a CRPG.

Once you admit that the definition of CRPG is flexible like this, you have to figure out what the authoritative source for the definition at any point in time is. Since role playing isn't a peer reviewed science, that honor falls on the unwashed masses, rather than self-titled experts. In orther words, real RPGs are Okami, FFVII, Mass Effect, and WoW.

 

[Gnidrologist]

VD's perception of how rpgs should be categorized pretty mutch mirrors my own beliefs. I understand the oldschool crowd would mostly disagree, because ''Bard's Tale and sutch are real crpgs, cuz they came first thus, they are true''. Maybe so. But i feel this ''new-school'' layout of the genre is mutch better for now days. Because it makes sense.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

It's a sad day when VD is referred to as being from 'Iron Tower Studio' with no mention of his Codex past.

 

[Joe Krow]

He understands the appeal of dungeon crawls about as well as Bethesda understands meaningfully choice. Masturbation should be a private thing.

 

[Shagnak]

I favour definitions that are written in a less exclusive manner.

For example, remove the "a game designed by people who think that dungeons are the most awesome aspect in any RPG and the rest is meaningless garbage" from the dungeon crawler definition and just leave "These games offer you endless chains of dungeons to explore and loot."

Then you have a category that can easily be mixed with Classic (or whatever). I don't see why you can't have "a game built around meaningful choices, dialogues, and role-playing " that also has a huge number of dungeons to explore and loot, yet they are presented here like it's impossible to have a pleasing lick of both.

Also, though I am aware almost all examples do, adventure games do not have to "progress from point A to point B to point C in a very specific, set in stone way". Fahrenheit is an example of an attempt to do otherwise (are there any others?).

 

[thesheeep]

True.. his definitions lack the possibility to combine them.
Just like Metal ... Symphonic Black Speed-Power Metal

Don't know if this was supposed to be like that or if he was aware of that.

But other than that, the definitions make sense, in most cases.

 

[obediah]

I favour definitions that are written in a less exclusive manner.

For example, remove the "a game designed by people who think that dungeons are the most awesome aspect in any RPG and the rest is meaningless garbage" from the dungeon crawler definition and just leave "These games offer you endless chains of dungeons to explore and loot."

Then you have a category that can easily be mixed with Classic (or whatever). I don't see why you can't have "a game built around meaningful choices, dialogues, and role-playing " that also has a huge number of dungeons to explore and loot, yet they are presented here like it's impossible to have a pleasing lick of both.

Vault Dweller (like most of us) is unable or unwilling to separate his opinion from his expertise when discussing RPGs. It's his right, and it seems to be the current style, but I think it would be a much better piece if he broke into two. The first a completely unbiased catalog of RPG motifs and sub-genres. The second would be his argument for why the label 'RGP' should only be applied to his preferred subset of the first article.

 

[fastpunk]

It's a sad day when VD is referred to as being from 'Iron Tower Studio' with no mention of his Codex past.

QFT

As for the whole definition thing I gotta agree with the old-school crowd, many games like the GoldBox ones had almost no c&c but they are RPGs, they spawned the fucking thing after all. However, I do believe that Fallout really moved the genre a few steps forward by bringing tons of c&c to the table; and that should be taken into consideration by any developer willing to make a quality RPG. It's progress, we gotta move forward.

 

[Elwro]

It's a sad day when VD is referred to as being from 'Iron Tower Studio' with no mention of his Codex past.

You think we (newsies) should point to his past in newsposts? It's an honest question, somehow it didn't seem... right for me to do so. Most (all?) of us here remember VD's relation to the Codex (=leading it). And if someone new comes who doesn't have this knowledge, do you really think we should boast that VD once worked here? It wasn't a "hey guys, I'm gonna concentrate on AoD so feel free to do what you want with the site" farewell.

Sorry if I'm being unclear. But there are many stories of e.g. young Polish sportsmen who are unwanted in our national team, so they change their citizenship - and when they achieve some success under another flag, we suddenly remember their origin and boast about it all the time. That's why I'm wary about such stuff.

edit: "Vault Dweller, now of Iron Tower Studio, formerly RPG Codex leader"? Really, does it sound right on a site which kicked VD out?

 

[fastpunk]

Actually, Vault Dweller would have been fine. "Vault Dweller of Iron Tower Studio" sounds like some dude from another community, which he isn't.

 

[Elwro]

Hm. That was just a method of putting the name of his studio inside the newspost. But point taken, will take care in future.

 

[Special_Can]

I just started playing video games in the last two years. I'm probably A little bit more of a graphic whore then anyone else here and not as knowledgeable of the crpg genre. I played Fallout, and overall found it average, but I liked the idea of choices and consequences. I like that Age of Decadence is taking this one step further, actually making the skillset useful, and having different factions, multiple choices to every* quest, tons of consequences(or reactions), and 7 radically different endings. This sounds like what people on the rpgcodex have been sucking each other off for the last 6 years or so, and is definitely what I'm looking for at this point.

I've played some of the old skool dungeon crawlers and I just can't get into them. Of course I don't like much new school crawlers either(or much games). I understand that's the "bisnis" here and I might eventually find one I like. Here's to hoping so.

The point of this post is that...well...let's hope Age Of Decadence raises the CRPG bar.

*Edit: Heh, I said Ever Quest.

 

[Shagnak]

The first a completely unbiased catalog of RPG motifs and sub-genres.

I guess even when trying to be unbiased, definitions can be contentious.

I often find that even something as simple as "action RPG" has differing meanings applied to it.

For example, this piece defines them it as "[a] game revolving around killing stuff". I've seen occasional arguments that match VD's definition - I remember DU arguing at one time that a TB old-school RPG was an "action RPG" purely due to its combat quota.

Whilst the combat emphasis may be valid, most people I know would also apply the requirement "...and is in real-time".

Some people would even go as far as to say that the realtime aspect is the main qualifier. For example, saying that games like The Witcher and the Gothics are "action RPGs" because of their realtime aspect - but I've always thought that was over-emphasizing the use of "real-time" as a qualifier.

 

[Autowin]

What about RPGs that are slim on choices, but high on character stats and dungeon crawling?

That's what people used to (properly) call an adventure game.

The key problem with the RPG genre is that it is poorly defined. Technically any game where you assume a role can be argued that it is "role playing" (which leaves out nearly everything but puzzle/academic games). However, that is a useless definition and thusly also a moot one.

While there is not much of an ultimate authority on games, I think most experienced gamers consider a true RPG to be a game where the player's decisions affect the outcome of the storyline rather than being static. If the definition were anything BUT that then it could be argued that any game with a character, plot, and an ending is an RPG. It is also assumed that there are a respectable amount of decisions that must be made, otherwise games like Half-Life (with the ending subway-car decision) would also be considered RPGs.

However, Half-Life is not an RPG because it has a 99.9% static plot, just as Halo and the Doom series do. Diablo is wrongly acused of being an RPG as well, when the only thing that separates Diablo from Doom is the statistics (items included) and a class system. Team Fortress 2 has classes and is not an RPG and nearly all games have statistics.

The only thing that all true RPGs have which no other genre does is a dynamic plot directed by the player(s) and due to that fact, it's what I use to consider what is and is not an RPG.

 

[aweigh]

Only 12 categories? WEAK

 

[Vault Dweller]

A problem with VD's take is that CRPGS in 1990 weren't CRPGS.

Sure. However, it's not "The evolution of CRPGs" article, it's something that deals with today's market and today's situation. I think it's obvious that my "North American RPGs" definition applies only to what we have today, as even 10 years ago the situation was completely different.

Once you admit that the definition of CRPG is flexible like this...

That kinda goes without saying.

Since role playing isn't a peer reviewed science, that honor falls on the unwashed masses, rather than self-titled experts.

I thought the Codex was created to take this honor from the unwashed masses and hand it to "self-titled experts", but my memory could be playing tricks on me. Not that I've ever claimed to be an expert on anything or claimed that the article in question is the absolute truth. From the article:

"In the end, you may disagree with my arguments and definition. At very least, it gives you a good idea of what kind of game we are making."

 

[Fez]

What I thought was sad was that this was spotted through RPG Watch. Well worth bringing to everyone's attention though as it is a good read.