More "realistic" RPGs (also, party vs 'solo' RPGs)

[dagorkan]

Realistic in brackets because a game can be realistic within the context of it's setting, using magic, or faster than light space ships, or orcs doesn't count. I mean gameplay difficulty realism, what your character can achieve, the probability of death in combat or attempting stupidly risky things, your skill levels compared to ordinary humans etc.

Realism is something I'd like in RPGs though I know most of you don't like realism, pretend you do for the sake of argument.

Most RPGs have gone with a stupid "The One" concept (Planescape, Fallout, NWN2, Oblivion) which would not be that bad if it was an exception but it's more like the rule. Fallout might seem fairly realistic at first but you end up killing several hundred bandits, a dozen Deathclaws, scores of Super Mutants and more rats and radscorpions than you could count. You've taken maybe a thousand bullets and broken each limb several times but somehow that was never a setback and barely slowed you in your quest to save the world.

I think a large part of the problem is the reliance on hit point, skill and loot scaling up at a ridiculous rate as you go through the game, obviously an attempt by bad designers to keep players interested. D&D often has this built in unless the adventure has sensible XP and loot rewards, more low level - D&D 3rd ed is actually fairly realistic up until level 5 and then breaks down. I once read an interesting article about trying to adapt D&D 3E to be more realistic which basically involved segmenting each level into four, rescaling XP per level and skill points so that a level 6 character would be the equivalent of a level 20 in the default game.

Anyway, here's my list:

1/ Realms of Arkania I: Blade of Destiny
2/ RoA 2 + 3 (you were higher level but the game mechanics are inherently more difficult)
3/ A NWN1 mod called Tortured Hearts, basically level 1-5 though it had a dozen or so play hours
4/ The Prelude to Darkness demo
5/ Darklands
6/ The first (low-level) Gold Box games, Pool of Radiance
7/ Return to Krondor
.
.
.
Not bothering to number past that/ Baldur's Gate, Fallout, the Wizardries, Daggerfall, Arcanum, NWN

What I conclude from this is that party-based (and not faggot Biowarian "companions", or Fallout/Arcanum-style followers who just tag along to get killed, though only one character really matters) are going to make more effort to be realistic than character-focused games. A party-RPG is one with four, but preferably six or more characters you directly control, who 'matter' equally and where development/customization is more about tactics than ego-whoring. The decline of the party-rpg is probably the cause of the decline of good RPGs. How many party based games have been released in the last decade? A small fraction.

Everything is being geared towards the teenage fantasy super hero, saving the world, and that is probably the cause of the shift toward fluff rather than substance also. When everything is about a special individual of course you're going to want to customize it's hair and clothes and obsess about the inventory, looking at yourself in the mirror and decorating your house. When only one character matters you have to scale up fluff as well as the unbelievability to compensate.

This has to stop.


Bonus topic:

What could revive party-RPGs? What, if any, where their flaws and what kind of party-RPG would you like to see made today?

 

[Dark Elf]

I'd like an RPG where fights are few and far between, and fights to the death are even rarer. It would be far more realistic if people gave up when sufficiently wounded, especially if the fight was triggered because you stole a spoon out of their cupboard or something equally trivial. Preferably an ironman game where wounds fuck you up real bad and magic/high tech means of healing are expensive and hard to get. That would definitely encourage a more thoughtful gameplay and selection of skills. Of course, it would require some massive effort in the way of dialogue options and the like to feel right, and you also need a way to somewhat reduce the grim possibility that your character ends up a good-for-nothing cripple halfway through the game no matter how you play.

 

[dagorkan]

I'd like to see Realm of Arkania 1/2's realism/difficulty becoming the industry standard.

Look at what we've been offered recently:

Mass Effect
Oblivion
NWN 2
The Witcher
Gothic 3
Dungeon Siege 2
Fallout 3
Titan Quest

All of these games would have been ridiculed fifteen years ago but they squarely representative of the mainstream today.

 

[Texas Red]

"Most RPGs have gone with a stupid "The One" concept (Planescape, Fallout, NWN2, Oblivion) which would not be that bad if it was an exception but it's more like the rule. Fallout might seem fairly realistic at first but you end up killing several hundred bandits, a dozen Deathclaws, scores of Super Mutants and more rats and radscorpions than you could count. You've taken maybe a thousand bullets and broken each limb several times but somehow that was never a setback and barely slowed you in your quest to save the world."

To be sure, FO is more realistic because success in combat depends largely on your gear. A low level character with Power Armor can clear out a town but a high level character with a starting gun will die easily.

 

[Darth Roxor]

After reading this thread, I went to the toilet and had a kind of a cool idea (how come all good ideas appear in the toilet?). A party-based RPG with a group of commandoes/swat team/whatever, each specialising in different things. Think like, Commandoes: Behind Enemy Lines, but with stats and the other regular RPG stuff. I don't think I can recall an RPG like that, and I believe it would be amusing.

On topic though:

I'm currently keeping my fingers crossed that SoZ will be some sort of an electroshock to the corpse that is party-based RPGs.

Most people say that they dislike P-B RPGs, because they 'can't roleplay more than one character' or that it's pointless, because in the end, the party is even more overpowered than the 'superman' single hero concept, but I think that parties are vastly superior to single characters. First of all, if you can customize your party completely (like in, for example, IWD) it may lead to some wacky and fun to play combinations, which leaves a lot of room for the player's creativity. Second, parties are a lot more 'realistic', with each character specialising in one specific type of 'living' than the concept of a lone hero who can run around shooting lightning out of his arse, dual-wielding crossbows, and at the same time pick-pocketing all the rats that are currently targets of his diplomacy. Third, party-based RPGs have a lot more tactical combat most of the times. And fourth, if one person in the party dies, you don't have to reload instantly, but it still leaves you in serious shit quite often, and may lead to some interesting and desperate situations, when you have to survive without one of the most important characters, and the feeling when you finally push back the dreaded enemy with all your characters nearing death, but alive and safe for the moment is just great.

 

[Squeek]

This genre is in a bind, IMO. It's arcade-game interpretation vs. every other way of using a computer to depict RPG. There needs to be a split, IMO, where one goes one way and all the others go another.

Emphasis on state-of-the-art graphics has reached a point where most fans find it hard to even imagine a CRPG working any way other than the way they do now, games where you steer a character around whatever place it's in and interact with whatever's there. But they could work a whole lot differently.

Just like stories can be told or depicted in a variety of ways, these games where players are cast into roles could too. There's no rule that says CRPGs have to be mouse-driven. They could be driven by decisions. You could think your way through them instead of merely navigating your way through them.

 

[S_Verner]

I actually think that if Bioware somehow manages to lose it's death grip on the D&D license we will get some good games made using it, the new edition has made classes have specific, focused roles, which, while not a thing, in itself to be proud of, is much better than 3.5/3.0

 

[Bluebottle]

I actually think that if Bioware somehow manages to lose it's death grip on the D&D license we will get some good games made using it, the new edition has made classes have specific, focused roles, which, while not a thing, in itself to be proud of, is much better than 3.5/3.0

You mean Atari, right? It's been a good long while since Bioware made a D&D game, really.

 

[Volourn]

"All of these games would have been ridiculed fifteen years ago but they squarely representative of the mainstream today."

L0L Do you really believe this shit? Doubtful. thes egames would have done extremely well 15 years ago.



"I actually think that if Bioware somehow manages to lose it's death grip on the D&D license"

Except as Bluebottle mentions, BIO hasn't done a D&D game in awhile (since HOTU). It's Atari with the 'death grip'. And, oh with Atari, we just recently had MOTB which is fuckin' awesome.

And, 3.0/3.5 is much better than 4.0.

 

[IlkuWarrior]

After reading this thread, I went to the toilet and had a kind of a cool idea (how come all good ideas appear in the toilet?). A party-based RPG with a group of commandoes/swat team/whatever, each specialising in different things. Think like, Commandoes: Behind Enemy Lines, but with stats and the other regular RPG stuff. I don't think I can recall an RPG like that, and I believe it would be amusing.

I had this very idea. A party-based rpg, but skills like swimming, climbing, disguise, etc. would become very useful, because you could use them as in the Commandos games. It would even work with medieval/fantasy settings. Getting an archer to climb a cliff and rain death from above with better view and range while the rest fight the enemy face to face would offer a huge advantage.

I think that party rpgs simply offer a different experience than character based rpgs. It's not a question of better or worse, but it is true that there haven't been any lately.

What I would add to them would be to try to give the characters you make a bit of personality. I'm not sure what the best way for that to be tho. Maybe certain race/class combos would have different attitudes, or maybe you'd pick from a big list of allowed "attitudes" for your characters, as you could with for example voice packs in IE games/NWN. Then you could throw in what valve did with TF2/L4D: when certain situations in the game arise, a character/characters throw a one-liner. Like if somebody is hurt, characters could comment that they need to heal/rest/be more careful/not fuck around/stay out of my line of fire more, depending on what way of response would be appropriate for the chosen attitude. Maybe even short banter between characters if a right combo of personalities are chosen...
[Party enters new area]"This place is huge!" "Like yo' mama!", and so on...
If implemented right I think it would help create a bit of a connection between the player and the usually lifeless characters in party-rpgs.

 

[dagorkan]

"All of these games would have been ridiculed fifteen years ago but they squarely representative of the mainstream today."

L0L Do you really believe this shit? Doubtful. thes egames would have done extremely well 15 years ago.

You're right, I'm not psychic and can't go back in time, I don't know if they would have sold or not, but I'm saying they were a lot less common, not the majority of games. How many Party RPGs have been developed in the last five years (NWN doesn't count, because there's one character more important than the others)? Solo "save the world" super heroes have gone from maybe 30% (generous) to 95% of RPGs.

 

[The_scorpion]

: when certain situations in the game arise, a character/characters throw a one-liner. Like if somebody is hurt, characters could comment that they need to heal/rest/be more careful/not fuck around/stay out of my line of fire more, depending on what way of response would be appropriate for the chosen attitude. Maybe even short banter between characters if a right combo of personalities are chosen...
[Party enters new area]"This place is huge!" "Like yo' mama!", and so on...
If implemented right I think it would help create a bit of a connection between the player and the usually lifeless characters in party-rpgs.

sounds very familiar

combine great tactical combat with this kind of character interaction for an instant classic. it doesn't need much more.

 

[IlkuWarrior]

: when certain situations in the game arise, a character/characters throw a one-liner. Like if somebody is hurt, characters could comment that they need to heal/rest/be more careful/not fuck around/stay out of my line of fire more, depending on what way of response would be appropriate for the chosen attitude. Maybe even short banter between characters if a right combo of personalities are chosen...
[Party enters new area]"This place is huge!" "Like yo' mama!", and so on...
If implemented right I think it would help create a bit of a connection between the player and the usually lifeless characters in party-rpgs.

sounds very familiar

Well, yea :D

Though I wasn't thinking of the exact system JA has, but that is the general idea, just modified to work with a pregenerated party, instead of hiring specific mercenaries, allowing for more customization...

 

[Elwro]

Have you guys played Robinson's Requiem? Now that was a hard survival-type game. I wanted to call it "realistic" but then remembered it took part on an alien world, but you know what I mean.

This is the ultimate test of human endurance in an alien world--a survival / adventure simulation set in a startlingly realistic virtual environment the likes of which has never before been seen. You are imprisoned on an alien planet --Zarathustra-- and your aim is to escape. If you have to amputate one of your own limbs in order to survive, then that's what you must do.
To escape, you'll need to use the environment and your cunning, and do anything necessary to stay alive--including amputating your own limbs. Features more than 100 variables in real time; your body temperature, stress, fatigue, pain, coughs, malaria, poisoning, fractures, gangrene, hallucinations... Deal with diseases and health hazards and fight off predators.

A better write-up at Abandonia:

What makes the game interesting are the aspects that make the game difficult and complex. If you are not careful while you descend from a steep slope, you may break a limb. If you swim in cold water, you could get sick or suffer from frostbite (if you get out of the water, that is). Also, you won't keep taking hits until you die; if you take too many hits, you could fall unconscious for a while, but you may awaken slightly recovered. You will also need sleep, but different factors may affect whether or not you can sleep. If you can't sleep due to anxiety or pain, you could use tranquilizers to make yourself sleep. It is also possible to collapse from exhaustion.

Unlike many adventure games, you can also manufacture items from other items; for example, morphine and a syringe would produce a morphine injection, while some cord and a branch would make a bow. Robinson's Requiem isn't a very stupid game, either; if you were making clothes from animal skins, the amount of material would determine the article of clothing you would produce. However, the game won't keep making shirts for you unless you already have one, and will make the next largest article instead. Also, your character requires food from time to time, so you must make sure he is fed whenever appropriate. You must make sure you aren't eating something potentially harmful, however; rotten meat, for example, isn't the best midday snack.

 

[janjetina]

As far as "realism" in terms of combat goes, one does not need to look further than Jagged Alliance 2 or X-com. It shouldn't take too much effort to redesign the character system to allow for more RPGish character development. Add non-combat interaction both in-party and with the outsiders and make it more complex and a part of the gameplay mechanics (choices and consequences) and it's all good.

 

[dagorkan]

Why do I start a thread on RPGs and all you guys can talk about is squad based combat games?

@Elwro, I've been meaning to play that game for a while, I think I will now.

Is it worth skipping RR and playing Deus Ex Machina directly? It is supposed to have an improved interface.

 

[Heresiarch]

Have you guys played Robinson's Requiem? Now that was a hard survival-type game. I wanted to call it "realistic" but then remembered it took part on an alien world, but you know what I mean.

That game was crazy. I remember I was a teenager (or a kid?) and thought "wow cool, realistic survival game!" and man, that game was fucking hard. And the control was awful. My favourite part is if you use the knife on your character's arm you'll cut it off (with a painful wailing). And THEN you can cut off your OTHER arm. And if you're quick you can cut off your legs too (with your knife in mouth I presume). Then you die. Awesome.

Wanna replay it someday though.

 

[SkeleTony]

Re: More "realistic" RPGs (also, party vs 'solo' R

Realistic in brackets because a game can be realistic within the context of it's setting, using magic, or faster than light space ships, or orcs doesn't count. I mean gameplay difficulty realism, what your character can achieve, the probability of death in combat or attempting stupidly risky things, your skill levels compared to ordinary humans etc.

I tend to separate the terms "realism"(which IMO should not even exist in RPGs) and Logical Consistency(which, to me is of the highest priority in game design). The former is, as you describe, about the settings. The existence of things which cannot exist in real life(magic, super mutants in a post-apocalypse etc.) and so forth.

The latter is about how 'realistic' the game mechanics are. The old Pen & Paper RPG RuneQuest(not the new crap from Mongoose Publishing) achieved this better than any other game. It was not only the first system to offer percentile-based skills, 'magic points' and so forth(contrary to D&D's stupidly over-complicated nonsense) but character attributes such as "SIZE" were quantified and affected things like melee damage, ability to don armor and wield weapons, modifications to skills like Dodge, Hide, Sneak, etc.

It was also the first "universal" system(ala GURPS, HERO etc.)

Remains one of the most remarkable and influential game designs ever created.

Realism is something I'd like in RPGs though I know most of you don't like realism, pretend you do for the sake of argument.

Well, I can stand 'realism'(if you are talking about what I think you are talking about) to an extent but games that have your PCs catching deadly diseases and dying from infection after ever combat encounter(I am looking at YOU Realms of Arkania!!) I am less eager to bother with than I am to try out some console arcade game(and I HATE console games!).

I WOULD like SOME realism however in the form of doing away with this idiotic concept of 'Hit Points' that magically increase as you gain levels/kill monsters. RQ, JA2 and a few other RPGs do not employ this stupidity and they do not suffer for it. If a game designer wants to emulate heroic fantasy then simply make heroes/pcs harder to hit lethally(Conan almost never gets slashed in combat and when he does he manages to turn the would-be death blow into a mere graze). Skills like 'Parry'/shield & Dodge, use of armor etc. can go a long way if done right.

Most RPGs have gone with a stupid "The One" concept (Planescape, Fallout, NWN2, Oblivion) which would not be that bad if it was an exception but it's more like the rule. Fallout might seem fairly realistic at first but you end up killing several hundred bandits, a dozen Deathclaws, scores of Super Mutants and more rats and radscorpions than you could count. You've taken maybe a thousand bullets and broken each limb several times but somehow that was never a setback and barely slowed you in your quest to save the world.

Yeah, I am all for a system closer to Jagged Alliance 2 where some injuries simply cannot heal without application of 'Doctoring' by a learned professional. But I also have no problem with such a system being less than totally realistic(wounds which you must literally wait around for several hours in real time to heal would be a no-no).

Everything is being geared towards the teenage fantasy super hero, saving the world, and that is probably the cause of the shift toward fluff rather than substance also. When everything is about a special individual of course you're going to want to customize it's hair and clothes and obsess about the inventory, looking at yourself in the mirror and decorating your house. When only one character matters you have to scale up fluff as well as the unbelievability to compensate.

This has to stop.

I think it is way simpler than all that. Console styled 'dumbing down' occurs because twitch gamers breed like flies. They outnumbered us by a vast amount even in the early 80s and now if you were to pose as a newb at some forums(other than Codex) and ask "What is an RPG?" you would likely get a shit TON of "Final Fantasy/Zelda/Phantasy Star" dumbfuckery and, if you were lucky a single person talking about actual RPGs that the rest had never heard of or dismissed as "old timey games that were invented when graphics sucked!".

Bonus topic:

What could revive party-RPGs? What, if any, where their flaws and what kind of party-RPG would you like to see made today?

The independent scene. Would require a ton of programmers and artists to start working on such games and achieving notable success to get the attention of the big guys, who would then turn around and try to ruin the whole thing all over again.

 

[SkeleTony]

Why do I start a thread on RPGs and all you guys can talk about is squad based combat games?

Jagged Alliance 2 IS a RPG. RPGs by definition ARE squad level tactical games(not necessarily "combat" but you can see why this is usually the case). That is what separated the first RPGs from their ancestor "War games".

 

[Heresiarch]

JA2 also have stats, dialogues, fully fleshed out characters with unique personalities, c&c (lol), weapon and armor upgrades, multiple way of problem solving etc.

 

[SuicideBunny]

That is what separated the first RPGs from their ancestor "War games".

weird. i always thought what separated them was that players controlled individual units rather than armies and most importantly that units had statistics that could be improved and carried over between games.

 

[Wyrmlord]

I'd like to see Realm of Arkania 1/2's realism/difficulty becoming the industry standard.

No, please, no.

Yes, offering challenge is a good thing. It's a wonderful thing. I have played RPGs like Betrayal At Krondor and Ultima Underworld and I love them for their uncompromising challenge.

But RoA - *falls to his knees and claps his hands together* - dear God, no.

No game hurts a man's ego or humiliates him as much as RoA. The entire game is a long sadistic excercise in kicking the player in the teeth and laughing at him. It feels like a long downhill track, where all you can do is struggle to survive.

Yeah, playing RoA only requires some perseverance, and is not that challenging once you put your mind to it, but what depresses me is having my party suffer all sorts of ailments, running short of food, losing mana, and having to be on guard against ambushes before they have started to get anything done already. Around the beginning of the RoA2, I was thinking: "Is all this worth a 1000 ducats?"

It is not the hardest game out there, but the thing about hard games is that difficulty causes you to get greater satisfaction when you find the powerful item with which you can finally start kicking ass on all those annoying enemies. The tradeoff is the positive rewards. RoA doesn't feel...rewarding. In this game, you are constantly stuck under a huge pile of shit, and your tradeoff is merely being able to stay on top of it.

Basically: in most games, if you do things right, you get rewarded. In RoA, you do things right, you don't get punished.

As for what this topic is about, yeah I agree with you.

 

[theverybigslayer]

The more realistic rpgs need to implement the shitting and ass-wiping. Of course you can leave out the ass-wiping if you are playing a barbarian. I wonder why Molyneaux has not recognized this yet?
Here is a tutorial for this new feature:
http://everything2.com/node/711977

 

[Shoelip]

That is what separated the first RPGs from their ancestor "War games".

weird. i always thought what separated them was that players controlled individual units rather than armies and most importantly that units had statistics that could be improved and carried over between games.

Yeah, last I checked, it was the fact that you play a single character that separated D&D from Chainmail.

 

[The_scorpion]

Why do I start a thread on RPGs and all you guys can talk about is squad based combat games?

Jagged Alliance 2 IS a RPG. RPGs by definition ARE squad level tactical games(not necessarily "combat" but you can see why this is usually the case). That is what separated the first RPGs from their ancestor "War games".

squad based combat games can be RPGs, but they don't need to. I understand people arguing "i can't rolepay 12 characters" and they're right. At the same time, squad interaction may yield more character development than your pale, generic "little-boy-grows-hero-saves-world" storyline ever can.

(as a sidenote, latest ja2 1.13 development allows to create up to 8 or 10 or whatever party members according to your taste, not pre-selected. The normal maximum is 6, but you can use more slots to generate larger parties. So Icewind dale style party generation is also possible in ja2, depends on your taste and use of new features.
It is even fairly easy to put in custom voice and faces, i'll tell you what, there's no character that gets you more involved in the game than one talking with your own voice. At least for me that's the case. You may also want to RP some very different characters, then it's a different story.

What people are interested in are probably not arbitrary defintions of what is an RPG and what not but the gaming experience.

and some squad based tactical games may deliver aspects of the desired gameplay experience.

sorry for OT

IMHO, realism has become an awful "Unwort" in metagaming lately. It's used as pretext for all kinds of retarded perversions, so i'd say it's easier to argue about a game's inherent logic or consistency or whatever. But realism is overloaded and overused as a metagamin term