gurugeorge
Arcane
Musing based on reflections stirred by the thread about Ironman mode.
There seem to be these two poles to RPGs (why two? there always seems to be two of things, except when there are three or four ).
Either you build a character that's a character, and let the gameplay chips fall where they may, or you tailor the build to beat the game (min-max). This is one way of putting the dichotomy but it has ramifications all the way through how games are designed.
It's been a perennial foofaraw in discussions about RPGs since forever - for some reason there's a lot of bad blood between people who like one or the other thing, because they think the other fellow is distracting the devs from making the kind of game they want.
And for a fact, it's bound to funnel a lot of design decisions, whether you're going primarily for one or the other.
One apparent paradox is that the former mode (rp) is thought to be "casual" and the latter (min-maxing) more "hardcore" - but surely it's the other way around? Surely making a clumsy chaaracter with a humph and a cleft palate and still beating the game with him is more challenging, and therefore more hardcore, than making the game as easy as possible by building a one-trick pony that beats all possible encounters?
This also has ramifications in terms of the difference between the attitude of engaging in some sort of lovingly-created gesamtkunstwerk and viewing a game (or even the devs, in a kind of meta PvP) as something to "beat." One would think that the competitive attitude is the right one, but isn't that only because when games started they were perforce technologically limited? And hasn't the aspiration always been to present a vritual world to adventure in virtually?
The other question is, is it possible to blend these two modes, or are they really like oil and water, and a game designed for one audience will never satisfy the other? (I think not, I think it's a question of relative weightings - the perfect RPG experience for me is one that's mostly linear, with no stopping and starting, preferably not even any re-loads at all, but I do like there to be a few encounters that are challenging, that I might even have to learn a few times. But my preference overall is for the forward momentum. But there's another paradox: you only really get true forward momentum if you've built an all-conquering monster. The geriatric with the humph is precisely the sort of character who's likely to get into trouble and have to stop and start a few times, and learn the encounter.)
As the reader might guess, I definitely lean towards the former, towards building a character first, and a bundle of stats second - but I'm not totally averse to the latter, sometimes the mood takes me, my blood is up and I enjoy a competitive challenge. And also, while making a build, I like to know what's what min-max wise, I like to read what the autists have figured out, so that even if I'm winding up a geriatric toy and seeing how it goes, I do want to min-max within those parameters (I want him to be the best fat old bastard he can possibly be).
There seem to be these two poles to RPGs (why two? there always seems to be two of things, except when there are three or four ).
Either you build a character that's a character, and let the gameplay chips fall where they may, or you tailor the build to beat the game (min-max). This is one way of putting the dichotomy but it has ramifications all the way through how games are designed.
It's been a perennial foofaraw in discussions about RPGs since forever - for some reason there's a lot of bad blood between people who like one or the other thing, because they think the other fellow is distracting the devs from making the kind of game they want.
And for a fact, it's bound to funnel a lot of design decisions, whether you're going primarily for one or the other.
One apparent paradox is that the former mode (rp) is thought to be "casual" and the latter (min-maxing) more "hardcore" - but surely it's the other way around? Surely making a clumsy chaaracter with a humph and a cleft palate and still beating the game with him is more challenging, and therefore more hardcore, than making the game as easy as possible by building a one-trick pony that beats all possible encounters?
This also has ramifications in terms of the difference between the attitude of engaging in some sort of lovingly-created gesamtkunstwerk and viewing a game (or even the devs, in a kind of meta PvP) as something to "beat." One would think that the competitive attitude is the right one, but isn't that only because when games started they were perforce technologically limited? And hasn't the aspiration always been to present a vritual world to adventure in virtually?
The other question is, is it possible to blend these two modes, or are they really like oil and water, and a game designed for one audience will never satisfy the other? (I think not, I think it's a question of relative weightings - the perfect RPG experience for me is one that's mostly linear, with no stopping and starting, preferably not even any re-loads at all, but I do like there to be a few encounters that are challenging, that I might even have to learn a few times. But my preference overall is for the forward momentum. But there's another paradox: you only really get true forward momentum if you've built an all-conquering monster. The geriatric with the humph is precisely the sort of character who's likely to get into trouble and have to stop and start a few times, and learn the encounter.)
As the reader might guess, I definitely lean towards the former, towards building a character first, and a bundle of stats second - but I'm not totally averse to the latter, sometimes the mood takes me, my blood is up and I enjoy a competitive challenge. And also, while making a build, I like to know what's what min-max wise, I like to read what the autists have figured out, so that even if I'm winding up a geriatric toy and seeing how it goes, I do want to min-max within those parameters (I want him to be the best fat old bastard he can possibly be).