What Makes a Great RPG - The World
In my discussion on the "ideal" RPG yesterday, there's a reason I listed "A believable, compelling, and interactive world" first. Of all the factors that give me Ye Olde Thrill when playing an RPG, this is the area that excites me the most. Make me believe in the world a little bit, make me care for the setting and the imaginary people in it, and I'll forgive a multitude of sins in your game.

For the purpose of this article, "The World" means the physical environment of the game, all the characters inside it, and even the overall mood and "feel" of the game's setting.

So what makes it work? There are literally books devoted to establishing setting, mood, and character in fiction and film. Many of those techniques apply very well to the game world as well.

Besides traditional cinematic and literary approaches, there are probably an infinite number of possibilities for making a compelling game-world as well. One of the keys is interactivity, which I'll also bring up in an article on role-playing as a factor of great RPGs. There should not be large, empty areas with nothing to do - adventure and discovery should be lurking around every corner and in every other grid-square. The characters, monsters, traps, treasure, props, and locations should all feel like they belong.

However, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Many players find themselves frustrated and overwhelmed with too much detail and too much going on in the game.

Rather than detail all of the zillions of ways games do manage to make the game world come alive (and the ways in which they undermine the goal), I'll just cite some examples, and let other players speak their mind:

Examples
Origin kept trying to escape Britannia with the Ultima series, but the fans - as much as they wanted something different and new - really liked being able to go back to the familiar (but upgraded) stomping grounds that contained Lord British, Minic, Skara Brae, Trinsic, and the old named dungeons. The world had become alive to them, and had a history. Even if the city (and dungeon) layouts bore little in common with their older versions than the name.

Ultime VI and Ultima VII also offered an unprecedented - and largely unequaled, even today - level of interactivity with the world. These were the first games (to my knowledge) to offer crafting options to players. They also let you explore your homicidal tendencies to the fullest by offering a spell that would literally wipe out everyone on the planet in one fell stroke. This provided a depth of exploration that went beyond traversing geography. There was more to the world than what you could see as you were going from point A to point B.

Speaking of Skara Brae, the destroyed city with the ghostly inhabitants was one of the things that made Ultima VII my favorite RPG. The evening spent in Skara Brae was one of the best experiences I've had in the game. The plot and story behind it was a big part of it - a compelling world is inextricably linked to story and back-story - but the reason for town's destruction, the plight of the ghosts, and the mayor's sacrifice - all added together to make Skara Brae as close to a "real" place as I've enjoyed in a game.

Much more recently, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines had me hooked on the setting. The four cities (well, city blocks, almost) had the mood and feel down. Each setting had a distinctive rhythm and flavor, but they all felt like dark and seedy. The perfect urban jungles for modern-era predators to prowl - from the mundane psychos to the supernatural horrors. The characters, too, were distinctive and interesting. I found myself wondering during the opening sequence who all these characters were that appeared only briefly in the princes' court. They whispered to each other - they seemed to have agendas of their own. And they did. It worked.

And of course, there's Oblivion. The world itself - the physical geography - was absolutely amazing. Just setting off to explore the countryside frequently bore fruit - you couldn't go far before stumbling across some shrine or mysterious ruin. There were books, scrolls, passages, and conversations that hinted at some of these mysteries that helped build not only the believability of the world, but also built interest in its secrets. Unfortunately, where Oblivion - and all the Elder Scrolls games, I think - fell down is that all of this felt like ancient history. There was no feeling of things having happened days, weeks, months, or years before you arrived on the scene. Things are no longer in motion, except for a few connections via subquests. The non-player characters are likewise disassociated from each other except by deliberate plot threads. The random population of dungeons sure didn't help make them feel in any way integrated with the rest of the game-world, either.

Adamantyr in the forums pointed out another important feature: Exceptions to the rules and surprises. This is important in story and plot as well, but it is just as important in the characters and setting. Game worlds and mechanics are driven by fairly deterministic rules under the hood, which means everything tends to follow the same pattern. Having some great exceptions to the rules - weird things that don't follow the standard pattern - helps keep the player on his toes and thinking of the game world within its own context rather than as the underlying mechanics. Adamantyr explains that in Legends II for the TI-99, "When in a dungeon, you come across an imprisoned young woman who begs you to help her. If you do, you have her as a "quest item" until you leave the dungeon for the surface... At which point she backstabs your wizard instantly killing him, warns you to stay out of affairs that are not your concern, and disappears. Apparently she works for the bad guys, and they set up a little trap for you as a warning. " While perhaps cliche in pen-and-paper games, this isn't something often found in computer RPGs.

Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption had its faults. But I, for one, fell in love with medieval Prague as presented by the game. The "thees" and "thous" sounded awkward, and the dialog reached ultraviolet heights, but the whole culture of the medieval European city, ever dominated by the Catholic Church, juxtaposed with the very extensively detailed vampiric culture and backstory, made it easy to suspend disbelief.

And you need only look up the fanfic for various Final Fantasy games to discover just how those characters - as simple and and archetypical and laden with often poorly-translated brief dialog as they were - found a home in players' imaginations. The actual locations in the worlds themselves were sometimes disposable, filled with meaningless characters that endlessly parroted the same two sentences of dialog. But the primary characters captured the imaginations, and made players care about them.

Advice From Players
"For me, a good RPG offers an immersive, sandbox gameworld. Story and character development are secondary." - Maija, at TwentySided.

"I think a great RPG is immersing. Whatever the other qualities, if I get sucked in and feel like I’m there, a part of that world, that is a great RPG, whether it be computer or table-top." - Derek, at Twenty-Sided.

"I would say that the most important for me is that the characters are believable and sympathetic (both good and evil ones). But then that would count for any game with a story.... One example would be the characters of Hired Guns (not an RPG but a game with some RPG elements on top). All the characters in this game are brilliantly set up. From the broody portraits to the back story. They are believable and from the first moment on where you meet them you want to be their friend. I can't say that about too many other RPGs." - Lizardman, on the Rampant Games Forums.

"Intuitiveness is key - both to enjoyment and to immersion... I find myself walking away from many potentially exciting stories because it’s too much of a bother to make those stories into actualities - I’d rather read them. Finally, I consider fine characters to be more important than fine story, especially if I must choose one or the other. A fine story might be something to remember, but good characters will take a player from moment to moment within the game." - Ben Finkel, at Twenty-Sided

"I’m starting to feel like dialogue in games eats immersion, because, barring hard AI, characters can’t act like people, and poor dialogue is worse than none. More NPC interaction, but with less dialogue, that would be sweet to see." - Matt, at Twenty-Sided

"Looking at which games I thought were great, and why. Might and Magic 1: Great because there was an entire world to explore, in (for the time) ridiculous detail." -- Jeff, at Twenty-Sided.

"There needs to be a moment that will make you just HAVE to tell someone about it. Preferably more then one, but you really need the 'I can't believe that just happened. That is so cool/disturbing/amazing/unbelievable/surprising/awful" - I don't think it matters what adjective it spawns, as long as the player remembers it and tells others about it, even if it screwed his character. (It can't screw the player - it can't put the player in a place that continuing on from isn't fun. The CHARACTER can be hosed, the PLAYER needs fun) " - RandomGamer at the Rampant Games Forums

"Randomization does nothing but detract from detail and realism, and hence leads to a less immersing game world. Look at Morrowind, Fallout or Baldur’s Gate. The worlds are static and all the better for it. Nothing looks out of place." - SumeSublime, at Twenty-Sided.

"One thing that always gets me is when you’re put into an environment where there’s too much to do. I want to be railroaded for the first hour or two. Then bring on the immersiveness. But I want my beginning to be simple, straightforward, with a minimum of lasting consequences." - JoL at Twenty-Sided.

"It is like music or art, it has to have a feel that truly draws a person into it... The music needs to fit, and make the player feel something relevent to the current game state... Exploration needs to be a part of it." - DrSlinky1500 at the Rampant Games forums

"Interesting characters. Villains with no agenda outside of being evil jerks are tiresome and banal. Good characters without some quirks or flaws are usually pretty flat... I like large freeform worlds. I dislike when the “being on rails” metaphor extends to movement within the game world. If I can only go forward or back, then I’m going to get bored. Quickly." - Shamus Young at Twenty-Sided.

"Character interaction. Choice. Atmosphere." - DevNull at Twenty-Sided.

Links:
* What Makes a Great RPG?
* What Makes a Great RPG - The Answer?
* What Makes a Great RPG - Playing a Role
* What Makes a Great RPG - The Story
* What Makes a Great RPG - Mechanics
* What Makes a Great RPG - Everything Else
* What Makes a Great RPG (Twenty-Sided)
* What Makes a Great RPG, Part II (Twenty-Sided)
* What Makes a Great RPG, Part III (Twenty-Sided)

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Labels: Game Design, Roleplaying Games

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