Game Design: Emulating the Table?
The appearance of Dungeons & Dragons coincided with the appearance of commercial videogames. And no, I don't remember the actual appearance of either. I wasn't even in school yet! I was apparently playing cowboys and indians or something at the time, tying up my cousin to a tree (true story, according to her mother, though neither of us remember it!).

Since the early videogames of that era were not exactly stellar fantasy simulations, D&D was really where it was at for us geeky young fantasy & SF fans. Except for joining the SCA or something, D&D was as close as one could get to being able to participate in a medieval fantasy like Tolkien's books. That was still the case when I started playing, in 1981. A friend of mine, Boris, once exclaimed his professions of faith prior to a session, "It's the best game there is, and the best game that ever was!"

Arguable, definitely. But I wasn't about to.

And our games were filled with arguments over the rules, silly behavior, party infighting, out-of-character tangents, downright asinine antics, and probably some revelations about the darker side of our souls and fantasies than we'd ever want anybody to analyze. But we kept coming back, because we were having a blast. I'm still playing (albeit with a different rule system) every weekends, nearly thirty years later. That says something. I'm not sure I want anybody to analyze what that it actually says, but hey... there ya go.

So it's no surprise that the early computer RPGs (back then neither D&D or the games referred to themselves as "role-playing games" - the games came first, the inadequate name came a couple of years later) sought to emulate the tabletop experience. Minus the rules arguments, I guess, though often keeping some of the other elements. Even the party infighting, in some games. The rules were remarkably similar. A player familiar with D&D would have no problem "rolling up a character" and playing the computer games without looking at the manual. Maybe "Constitution" was renamed "Health" and "Wisdom" was renamed "Willpower," but the players already knew the basics of games before they opened the box. All they needed to know was the keyboard commands.

So here we are, thirty-ish years later. The tabletop experience has changed a bit - we're on a 4th major revision of the D&D rules (well, 5th to 7th if you include the ol' "Basic D&D" editions 'n stuff), and there is a plethora of games that explore different aspects of the social RPG experience. I played one indie dice-and-paper game called "Inspectres" a couple of years ago that used a reality TV-style "confessional" to influence the direction of the storytelling. Weird, but cool. On the flip side, you have D&D 4th edition, which more closely resembles a board-game or MMO than it's immediate predecessor (though in some ways it's probably moved a little closer to its original incarnation in function, if not form). Some other games, even back in the day, embraced a deeper simulationist approach, with detailed charts and dense rules for everything. For some folks, that was the improvement. For others, it was exactly that kind of thing their games "evolved" away from.

And the computer games! Computer games have leapfrogged their tabletop cousins in potential for living out fantasy. I mean, with a Wii controller you can literally swing an air-sword in the air to slay stunningly rendered 3D monsters now... who needs to be rolling dice? There's no need to call out, "I waste him with my crossbow!" and then determine what happened - you just aim and pull the trigger - or press the button. And your average gamer has quite possibly never rolled a twenty-sided die in an honest-to-goodness table-top game of D&D in their life.

So is it finally time for computer RPGs to bid their ancestral home goodbye, to quit trying to be a copy-of-a-poor-copy, let the niche hobby tabletop RPGs do what they do best, and evolve into something greater and different and more *cough*mainstream*cough*? A lot of noted game designers believe so. I probably shouldn't blame them if they do.

Clark Peterson, co-founder of Necromancer Games, once shared a story from GenCon when he and a bunch of friends from the industry were playing D&D. Some obvious fans of the World of Darkness series (by White Wolf) walked by his table, and began making loud, disparaging comments about the kinds of unenlightened, unsophisticated gamers would actually derive entertainment from such a poor, hack-and-slash game like D&D.

Little did these folks realize that the people at Clark's table were some of the very designers of the game system they held as superior. They just chuckled to themselves, kept right on playing, and had a blast.

I think that story may be analogous to how computer RPGs may be "evolving" away from their tabletop roots. Sure, hiding the stats, focusing on the immersiveness (back in the 90's it was referred to by the overly-grandiose term "virtual reality") and action may be a great way to go for many games, and may take good advantage of the strengths of the platform, as well as the experience and preferences of the development team. But is there really nothing left of the tabletop experience worthy of emulating in a computer RPG? Is there nothing else the dice-and-paper RPGs and cRPGs have to teach each other?

I don't think so.

Labels: Game Design, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 5:30 AM (Permalink) 7 comments links to this post

 
The Spirit Engine 2 Review
Craig Stern (of Telepath RPG fame) reviews The Spirit Engine 2 at his new blog:

The Spirit Engine 2 review

Labels: Indie Evangelism, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 5:34 AM (Permalink) 3 comments links to this post

 
Top 10 RPGs of the Decade at RPGamers
RPGamer (which as a matter of policy does not touch indie games, alas...) has an article up announcing their picks for the best RPGs of the decade.

The Top RPGs of the Decade at RPGamer

While I don't know if their pick for #1 would be the same as mine (actually, I know it's not), it's definitely become one of my all-time favorite RPGs.

Labels: Mainstream Games, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:53 AM (Permalink) 9 comments links to this post

 
Facebook Ultima?
Maybe not by such a name...

But Richard "Lord British" Garriott hints that his venture into casual portal-based games may still have something to offer the ol' hardcore RPG faithful...

"Today we're talking about the Portalarium," Garriott said. "We have yet to announce quote-unquote my game.. what motivates me is to go back and make Ultima-esque, familiar Ultima-esque games. But I believe the right place is to do that on this platform."

Braced for the Skeptics, Richard Garriott Challenges Gamers and Teases What's Next...

Labels: casual games, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 7:56 AM (Permalink) 3 comments links to this post

 
Nobody Wants to Be an RPG!
First it was British game development's biggest mouth, Peter Molyneux, claiming that "Fable 3 isn't an RPG." After years of saying he was going to redefine the genre, he changed his tune to say he's going to abandon it. Kinda.

Now, the exemplar series of Japanese RPGs (jRPGs), Final Fantasy, is apparently abandoning the RPG genre as well. The RPG "template" was just too stifling, and the creators were aiming to go off in new directions without any preconceived expectations and requirements.

At least, that's what they are saying now.

Kat Bailey notes this recent trend in her article, "The Loneliest Genre." Mass Effect 2 (and Mass Effect 1) really look like hybrid FPS / RPGs to me (which, I stress, is cool and all...) While Dragon Age: Origins (which I still haven't played) sounds to be pretty much good ol' RPG on the inside, a lot of the marketing did try and make it feel like... something else.

Are RPGs once again for geeks only? Are mainstream game developers are trying to attract the "cool kids" by avoiding the stigma of the RPG label? Is this why nobody wants to be an RPG?

Or was it because you have doofuses like me who create RPG purity tests every every time some marketing goober decides to slap an RPG label on a game (back when it used to be cool, I guess) because it has elves or stats in it? And the RPG fan base goes nuts tearing apart games that don't adhere to the standards set by the faithful?

I don't really know what the root cause might be. I don't know if this is even a trend or a bump in the road or just plain old developer ennui at having made the same kinds of games for years and wanting to do something different.

From my own perspective, I prefer the idea of the genre expanding rather than contracting. And I especially don't like the idea of the definition of RPG contracting around some "evolution" in a direction that is not inclusive of the classics of the genre. I tend to think the latter is pure marketing hype / crap ("our new game redefines RPG! Everyone will follow the trail be blaze!" that suckers some naive journalists into buying it.

I personally think my own definition of an RPG - which still (mostly) holds years after I wrote it - is pretty dang inclusive. And I'm really pretty happy about game-makers pushing the comfort zone a bit on what constitutes an RPG. Just so long as the effort isn't accompanied by an effort to diminish what has come before. I have strong retrogamer tendencies - I do go back and play the old stuff, and I do recognize that those games are still fun, years later - maybe klunky and a little hard to figure out at first (probably not an insignificant contributor to RPGs' reputation for not being mass-market-friendly), but definitely still fun. Don't try and pretend that we were all under some mass delusion at the time, and that the gaming experiences we knew back then are better off dead and buried.

So where does the genre go from here? I'd be lying if I said I wasn't alarmed by the trend to abandon the label by big-ticket titles. It feels like a conscious marginalization of the genre ("This can't be an RPG, it's too fun!"). But by the same ticket - if it's really not an RPG, call it like it is. But I tend to think that the RPG tent is big enough to encompass an extremely broad subset of games, and I'd like to see it grow.

Labels: Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 6:04 AM (Permalink) 11 comments links to this post

 
Eschalon: Book II Trailer
The trailer for Eschalon: Book II, the sequel for the best-selling indie RPG (wait for it...) Eschalon Book I, is now available:

Eschalon: Book 2 Trailer

The new game continues the storyline and setting of the original, but with an all-new adventure - and some new graphics - which includes:

* The ability to play as either a male or female character this time
* Higher-resolution graphics
* Weather effects - which have an impact on the game (not just for eye candy)
* More skills, and better skill balance from the first game
* Improved UI
* Equipment presets
* Multiple difficulty modes

Eschalon: Book 1 won high praise for managing to capture a lot of the "old school" flavor of the games many of us loved back in the 80s and 90s, but combined it with nicer graphics and the niceties of the modern user experience. I expect to see the sequel take that winning combination and push it even further.

I am looking forward to this one!

Labels: Game Announcements, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 12:51 AM (Permalink) 4 comments links to this post

 
A Use For Microsoft Surface...
Somebody's finally come up with a legitimate use for Microsoft's "Big-A** Table."

Labels: Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 3:07 PM (Permalink) 3 comments links to this post

 
Create Your Own Epic RPG Title
Game creators!

Can't come up with a title for your magnificent magnum opus RPG? Do not fear, we've got you covered! This process guarantees an epic-sounding name to go with your awesome RPG. And it has a 50% chance of sounding like something that was badly translated from Japanese, to boot!

Instructions: Roll a twenty-sided die for a word from Column A, and roll it again to generate a word from Column B. If you don't have a twenty-sided die laying around, you should hang your head in shame.

As a bonus, you can either swap the order of the words for maximum effect. "Symphony Accursed!" You can add the word "The" to the beginning of the title, but be warned that it sounds less Japanese that way. An additional variation in some cases may include pluralizing the noun.

Column A: The Adjective!

1. Eternal
2. Accursed
3. Darkened
4. Deadly
5. Blighted
6. Valiant
7. Blackened
8. Glorious
9. Ancient
10. Forever
11. Final
12. Victorious
13. Never-Ending
14. Spirited
15. Crimson
16. Epic
17. Dauntless
18. Malignant
19. Savage
20. Arduous

Column B - the noun

1. Symphony
2. Night
3. Darkness
4. Nightmare
5. Struggle
6. Twilight
7. Dawn
8. Despair
9. Onslaught
10. Anguish
11. Spirit
12. Revenge
13. Heart
14. Sword
15. Blade
16. Flame
17. Eternity
18. Lament
19. Conflict
20. Quest

Be warned, however, that this process only creates 20 x 20 x2 (for reversing the order) = 800 possible game titles, which means they'll probably all be used up by next week. So get them while they are hot!

Labels: Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 5:11 AM (Permalink) 12 comments links to this post

 
Misfit Monsters Redeemed...
I am SO getting this book the moment it comes out.

Pathfinder: Misfit Monsters Redeemed

"With the trepidation of an adventurer exploring a dungeon with a sweating forehead and a 10-foot pole, Paizo proudly presents Misfit Monsters Redeemed, an in-depth look at 10 of the lamest, most-hated, and flat out goofiest monsters ever to haunt a fantasy roleplaying campaign. People tell us we can improve any monster, so we’ve recruited the most misunderstood denizens of fantasy roleplaying to put that theory to the test.

"This soon-to-be legendary 64-page full-color volume includes all-new backgrounds, expansions, and tips for monstrous lovable losers like the adherer, delver, dire corby, disenchanter, flail snail, flumph, lava child, lurker above, tojanida and, of course, the insidious wolf-in-sheep’s clothing. The gaming world will never be the same again!"

The flumph. Can they possibly make the flumph cool?

Labels: Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 2:41 PM (Permalink) 0 comments links to this post

 
Mass Effect 2: The Future of RPGs?
I haven't played Mass Effect 2 yet. I haven't even finished Mass Effect 1 yet. It was kinda fun, but didn't really suck me in very much. But the hype surrounding Mass Effect 2 makes it sound like it's a whole new deal! Matthew Erazo of GamerNode writes an article putting Mass Effect 2 on a pretty high pedestal:

Why Mass Effect 2 Is the Future of RPGs

In it, he explains how Mass Effect 2 has corrected all of the mistakes of the RPG genre, which he explains, "is so riddled with cliches and rip-offs that it no longer knows what message or experience it wants to deliver. RPGs are supposed to deliver rich stories, interesting characters, and engaging worlds to explore, yet they are so bogged down by useless micromanagement, xeroxed stories, and boring characters."

Um, yeah. Bad games abound in every genre which have those problems. But I want to see how Mass Effect 2 does this all better than everyone else. This could be worth taking notes on! Let's see what makes Mass Effect 2 so awesome. It sounds like this is something I can't wait to play!

Let's roll and see what the future holds:

#1 - No More Stereotypical Characters!
"Each character in your crew, with the exception of two, are fleshed out and have histories, personalities, and demons. What begins as simple characterization leads to deep conversations about past lives and mistakes. Every time I spoke with a one of my crew, I learned something new or helped with their loyalty mission, which shed even more light on them.Most RPGs don't even approach this kind of character development. They are copies of previous roles, with personalities that are common to their profession."

I'm with ya here, Matthew! But I don't think this is a future / past issue - merely a quality issue which a lot of great RPGs of the past have shared.

Although most don't focus quite so deeply on talking with NPCs repeatedly over time to plumb the depths of their character history. That brings up some scary memories of me being cornered at a game store by some kid who hasn't had a bath in at least a week telling me all about his character. I kept saying, "That's nice," while pretending to be fascinated by those books that were a little closer to the door...

Still, while not unique to Mass Effect 2, it sounds like they did a good job here, to which I will offer a speculative "bravo" based on someone else's review. Awesome.

#2 - Player-Driven Story
"Yet in ME2, you can alter the story based on your choices. You're not bound to any strict storyline. You can choose to gain your crews' loyalty, or you can choose to not care about any of them, just the mission. Yes, there is a base plot here, but you can build your own story with it."

Awesome. Truly open-ended, dynamic player-driven stories! This is one of the goals from my old "What makes a great RPG?" article series. Of course, we've had a lot of games where you could run through basically the same storyline with a significantly different flavor based on choices (for example, the way of the Jedi or the way of the Sith?), and we've had games with big changes to the endings based on choices throughout the game (Fallout, for example). And games where you could really chart your path through the story very differently (Deus Ex). But where you could truly alter the entire story based on your choices? This is something of a holy grail, and I'm glad to hear ME2 finally pulled it off. I wasn't sure it would be done in my lifetime.

#3 - The End of Cutscene Dialogs and Evil Dialog Trees
In ME2,"the dialogue wheel allows for flowing conversation." As far as conventional dialog trees, he says "While this does work if the characters aren't backed by voice actors, when there are abrupt pauses in conversations, it takes you right out of the experience."

Okay - the problems I perceive with dialog trees really has nothing at all to do with whether or not voice actors are involved. Is this much improved over the dialog wheel in Mass Effect 1? While that was an interesting variation on the dialog-tree theme, it was still very much just a dialog tree.

But hey, maybe ME2 is different and they did something really cool with it, as he seems to be talking about something totally different here. Outstanding!

#4 - No More Inventory!
"You never have to keep track of your inventory, or gather tons of loot that will serve no purpose other than to be traded for currency later."

Um... okay. I kinda like loot. Hell, that was pretty much the entire gameplay of Diablo II, and I sank way too many hours into that game than I'd like to admit. It was.... what was that word again? Oh, yeah. "Fun."

But I agree that a game doesn't need to have an inventory system to be a great RPG. I mean, I was a hardcore fan of the dice-and-paper RPG "Champions" (before it became an MMO) way back in the early 80's, and there was really no inventory in that game either. And it rocked. But I more than just hesitate to state that it's anything that should be done away with or evolved away from.

#5 - No More Stats! They Are Bad, Too!
Other RPGs "...are so weighed down by confusing combat systems and the always-imposing thought that you can break your character at anytime. Trying playing through the original Fallout or Fallout 2 without some sort of character guide so you don't make a useless build. Or take a look at Arcanum's character screen. While the game's story, world, and character progression are excellent, there are about 20+ stats that you can build, all of them vague and confusing. You never know which one to really build or where to invest. It's overwhelming and is just not fun at times."

Hey, I didn't use a character guide...

But I agree that staring at a big complicated character creation page without a firm idea of what's in store in the game going forward can be intimidating. I mean, sure, if I was playing old-school D&D, I'd use Charisma as my dump stat, but I don't know about this game...

But hey, it sounds like I may be philosophically in the same ballpark here. You should not be able to "break" your character just because you didn't realize that Underwater Basket Weaving wasn't ever going to be used in the game. I think the stats and character building aspects of a game should be part of the fun! RPGs should help players get over the hump to where the prospect of leveling fills the player with excitement and a sense of empowerment over the plethora of options they have to make their character More Awesome and give them a totally unique approach to tackling the challenges of the game --- all of which should be viable. Neat!

So does Mass Effect 2 manage to accomplish this RPG Nirvana? Let's see:

"Instead of having countless stats which lead to countless ways to break your character, each crew member has around six powers to upgrade."

Oh.

#6 - Fixed Progression!
"There is no loot, and money and experience are set, guaranteeing your steady progression through the game. You'll never encounter a boss that is a higher level than you, forcing you to go and grind to try to level up."

And here I was thinking that having the game auto-scale the encounters to your level was bad. Instead, we auto-scale your level to the encounters.

This is progress?

#7 - In the future, RPGs Will Be First-Person-Shooters!
"And by making combat a straight shooter, you don't have to worry about pumping stats into helping you aim or worrying about mana/energy to use powers. The combat is endemic to your skill, and powers are governed by a simple cooldown, allowing you to focus on the action."

...

Uh...

*blink*

My, look at the time! I just remembered I have some library books I have to return, or something.

Labels: Mainstream Games, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 5:13 AM (Permalink) 18 comments links to this post

 
Why Making RPGs is Hard...
The Amazing Spectacular World of Banov has an outstanding article up about the difficulties of making RPGs:

The Problem(s) With RPGs

As Banov states, "Basically what I'm getting at here is that making an RPG is hard and not to be attempted by the inexperienced. I'm not saying it's impossible, but in terms of game making RPGs pose way more obstacles than any other genre of video game I can think of."

I love that he notes that the problem is much more than the technical challenge of making an RPG - the first issue most people think of when discussing the challenges involved - but also very challenging artistically. If I can paraphrase his explanation - people expect to consume a LOT of unique content in an RPG. A lot more than they'd expect to consume in any other genres. And trying to keep it fresh and interesting the whole way through is not easy.

Which is why, in spite of the game engine doing so much of the technical work for them, RPG Maker users aren't quite flooding the world with commercial-quality content. It's still a ton of work to develop a fun, original, non-derivative creation regardless of genre. But for some of the reasons Banov suggests, RPGs tend to be among the most difficult.

Labels: game development, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 5:33 AM (Permalink) 3 comments links to this post

 
GameBanshee Game Of The Year Awards
RPG site GameBanshee.com has posted its game-of-the-year awards for 2009. They tapped a few folks to help out this year, as this was a REALLY good year for RPG fans.

GameBanshee's 2009 Game of the Year Awards

If you have any bones to pick with the write-up on the indie RPG of the year, then take it out on me. They let me participate, as I don't have any skin in the game this year. But I think a lot of folks here will agree with the choice of the winner. It was the runner-up that was a real challenge. There were a TON of indie RPGs released last year, and many were very high quality. There were at least a half-dozen indie RPGs last year that might have won first or second place in previous years.

And it's only getting better! Or worse, if you are a developer eying the competition, as I am... Since 2007 or so, the "indie RPG" niche has really blossomed in terms of quantity AND quality of games. I wouldn't have believed it in 2004. But then, in 2004 "indie RPGs" largely meant "Roguelikes and Spiderweb Software." And now.... wow. Explosion.

I am thrilled to be involved with it in my tiny way.

Labels: Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 7:18 AM (Permalink) 6 comments links to this post

 
Game Design: Pulp Fiction - And Games, Part 1
A few weeks ago, I came across an old article by Lester Dent (aka "Kenneth Robeson"), creator of the pulp action hero Doc Savage. His article was about how to write a 6000 word pulp story that will sell. Or would sell, if the era of the pulp magazine wasn't a half-century dead-and-buried.

Dent made no bones about calling his method a formula. Maybe we can simply call it "highly structured." But within this tight structure, there is not only plenty of room for creativity and craftsmanship... it is absolutely required. If anything, Dent's formula was simply a pattern to present novelty in a gripping but standardized manner.

As I was mulling over some of my favorite RPGs and adventure games, and distinguishing what made them become my favorites while others never quite pulled me in, I realized that they often shared a few traits in common with Dent's formulaic yarns. I doubt any game designer ever used Dent's formula and tried to adapt it to their games, but I think they had a similar handle on what makes a gripping story, and how to present it to the player quickly so that they are sucked into the game world quickly and feel compelled to see it through to the conclusion.

I wonder how one might apply something like Dent's pulp story formula to stories in computer games. Specifically RPGs and adventure games, as those are kinda house specialties here at Tales of the Rampant Coyote. Not that I'm advocating any kind of assembly-line approach to story-making for games. But - frankly - a lot of games (including many, many indie games) are weak in the story department. Or, rather, they may have good stories, but their presentation is weak. Speaking for myself here - I know I can use any crutch or cheat-sheet that I can find, so I'm really just thinking aloud here.

There's no good way to map a linear storytelling methodology to what should be a non-linear medium, but maybe some cool ideas could be borrowed here and applied to make a better game. Or at least a better game story. I'm going to break this out into a multi-part series simply because there's a lot to chew on.

On Making an Interesting Premise

I think that one of the cardinal sins of an RPG is to be generic. Once upon a time, the scarcity of similar games let them get away with it. But so many games - including indie games - serve up a big ol' rambling dish of backstory without anything to really set them apart. You are introduced as generic hero (or heroes) to play - perhaps of your own making - and then face some simple, generic quests to start out your experience and familiarize yourself with the game.

And all this time I, as a player, wonder why I should care. Why is this? Why can't games kick us in the pants right off the bat? It's not like it hasn't been done several times before in RPGs.

First of all - a good story needs an interesting foundation. The basic plot and setting on which everything else hangs.

Dent suggests four unique elements to form the foundation of the story. I doubt he intended these to be the only four, but they were what he worked with. Dent suggests 1) A unique murder method for the villain, 2) A unique item the villain is seeking, 3) A unique locale, and 4) Some kind of menace to hang over the hero like a cloud. Dent says having one of these elements is nice, two is better, and having three would be "swell."

Okay - so it's gimmicky. So what?

A Different Locale

In fantasy games and space opera, coming up with something truly 'different' can be challenging. Different is sort of the standard in this genre. And so we end up with a lot of games in meaningless variants of some fantasy world, with some war going on in the background between good and evil. Ho-hum.

But there are some good examples out there. In Knights of the Old Republic,you wake up in a space ship in the middle of a battle, set in the Star Wars universe in an era long before the movies! And how about Planescape: Torment? You don't get much more unique than that. Sure, it was a licensed setting (like Star Wars), but it wasn't something the average computer RPG player had experienced before. And in a genre where high fantasy and incredible magic is the rule, going more down-to-earth and realistic may actually be unique. I actually really enjoyed the medieval towns of Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption because of their verisimilitude. I've never studied what medieval Prague was like, but the heavy Catholic influence and realistic, historical touches made the fantastic elements really pop.

And I guess it should be mentioned that with RPGs in particular (Adventure Games typically don't seem to have this problem), simply breaking from a Tolkienesque fantasy world can be pretty unique in its own right. A game set in Tsarist Russia or steampunk Victorian England or some other alternate-historical location might not need much more to make it feel unique. Making it marketable is another question.

A Different Murder Method or Different Villain Objective

How about the murder thing, or the villain's sought-after item? This is surprisingly more challenging in a fantasy or SF world where anything is possible with little explanation. A wizard did it. Wizards can do anything! Well, a wizard, or an engineer remodulating the phase-coupling on the sensor dish array and routing it through the phaser banks. But if a game story writer resists the urge to hand-wave it away, it's still possible.

Take Ultima VII - The Black Gate. You start out with a strange, ritualistic killing to solve. The murder isn't really the focus of the story, but it (and murders like it) help drive the hunt for the killers, and the larger plot surrounding them. Adventure games, again, tend to do better here, as the solving of mysteries (in the form of puzzles) forms a stronger basis for the genre. And they aren't afraid to get a little more silly.

In fantastic or high-SF environments, the theft or pursuit of something moderately mundane can be exceptional. The gold, jewels, and magical Sword of Universal Annihilation get left behind, but poor Simple Simon was turned into a duck and his apple pie was stolen. The first of a rash of pie-thefts. That's interesting! Weird, but interesting.

A Menace Which is to Hang Over the Hero Like a Cloud

Dent doesn't elaborate on this, but I take this to mean some kind of looming, direct and personal threat to the hero. Not just a generic threat to the kingdom or world at large, but a personal danger to the hero himself or those with whom he (or she) is closest. Something that compels action.

There are plenty of decent examples of this. The Vault needs a replacement water chip in 150 days or it will fail. Sephiroth slays Aeris. Bastila is kidnapped and tortured to serve the Sith. Gabriel Knight suspects the recent apparently voodoo-related murders are linked to the nightmares that have plagued him all his life. The Avatar is used by the Guardian to find (and destroy) a threat to his evil plan. The Dark Savant personally begins hunting down the party. LeChuck is going to marry Elaine unless Guybrush does something!

This is so much more satisfying to me than a story with a threat that might as well be addressed, "to whom it may concern." If my custom party of adventurers don't make it to the end, anybody else could come in behind me and finish the job.

So there are some concrete examples of how a game's story might be made to help it stand out among the competition. And believe me, with so many indie RPGs coming out these days, there's plenty of competition. Next time I will talk a little more about Dent's story structure, and how more pieces of his "formula" might be applied by designers and story writers.

Labels: Adventure Games, Game Design, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 6:07 AM (Permalink) 2 comments links to this post

 
Tales From the Table: Mr. Realism
A story of dice & paper RPGing. Lessons to be applied to the computer-game variety are left as an exercise to the reader:

The "Dungeon Master" (we'll call him Derrick) bragged about he played strictly by the rules, and that players just couldn't handle his dungeon. We finally gave him a chance.

He demanded that we very carefully note every item we purchased in town, where it was located, and perform full encumbrance calculations. This wasn't a big deal at first. But then, after we entered the dungeon, he had people slam the door shut behind us and seal it shut. No saves, no checks, we were simply trapped inside. Ah, well, we figured --- it's all part of the game.

The first encounter was pretty typical, against a bunch of kobolds. Then a fight against four goblins left one member of our party at negative hit points, and our cleric had run out of healing spells. Derrick cackled when he told us how many days it would take for someone to recover those hit points naturally, and then asked us how much food and water we'd brought with us. Then he informed us that most people in his dungeon died of thirst. Oh, and what were we going to do for light sources? Especially since our source of Light spells was the guy at negative hit points.

Some of us decided to scout ahead. We found a pit with a rope leading down into it, about twenty feet deep. I said, "I sheath my sword, unsling my pack, and sling my shield over my shoulder. Then I climb down the rope."

Derrick howled with delight. "Since you are trying to climb down the rope one-handed, you fail, and fall twenty feet to take..." he rolled the dice and continued, "seven points of damage!"

That left me at one hit point remaining. "Um, what do you mean left handed?"

"You have a shield, right?"

"Right."

"You stupidly tried to climb down the rope while holding your shield."

"No, I didn't. I told you I slung my shield over my shoulder after removing my pack."

"I didn't hear it."

I asked the other players to back up my story. Two of them did. Nobody else was paying much attention to the game anymore.

"It doesn't matter," Derrick said, "I didn't hear it. So you tried to climb down with a shield in your hand, and fall."

"Don't I get some kind of roll? Intelligence roll not to do something stupid? Or a strength roll? My strength is 18/82..."

"Doesn't matter."

"Fine."

The session ended twenty minutes later. Strangely, nobody in the party felt the urge to continue the adventure in another session.

Labels: Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 7:01 AM (Permalink) 8 comments links to this post

 
Depths of Peril 50% Off - This Week Only
One of my favorite indie RPGs of *all time* is now 50% off. That's $9.99. The game is WELL WORTH IT. You've heard me gush about it. I'll gush some more in a minute. But here's the links:

Buy Depths of Peril (Windows)

Buy Depths of Peril (Mac)


Okay, in case you haven't heard me gush about the game lately - here's the deal:

Depths of Peril! Take the basic gameplay of Diablo. Several classes, randomized maps, lots of skills, practically infinite equipment, and so forth. That's all cool. And if that's all it was, it would be a competent indie Diablo clone.

But Soldak Entertainment, which is (for the time being) basically one guy by the name of Steven Peeler, decided to use that as just the core of game - the launch-point, not the full design. This guy decided to go about two steps further than that.

First of all, and best of all, he made a dynamic, interactive world where your decisions mattered. Things happen in natural progression, and the world won't wait for you. What may begin as an uprising of monsters out in the forest may - if nobody takes care of it - gradually escalate until eventually a force of trained boss-mobs and their legions launch a full-scale assault on your town. An illness may evolve into a plague if you don't find the cure, and may wipe out several villagers (until they get resurrected - as for the adventurers, death isn't permanent) - including those shopkeepers and quest-givers that you needed.

Or you can complete these quests and reap the benefits.

This little innovation really helps make the world come alive. But there's more to it than that.

In the city of Jovik, you aren't the only adventurer in town. You are the leader of one of several "covenents" - basically bands or clans of adventurers. Each one has a goal of eventually rising to take control of the town. You can do this by a combination of diplomacy, enhancing your prestige through service to the town (mainly adventuring), and out-and-out warfare (either directly, o through manipulation). You may have to compete with the other covenants to recruit the best up-and-coming adventurers and outfit them (and your covenant house) with the best gear. You can even team up with allied covenants and share in the adventuring together.

Depths of Peril - to me - represents what cool stuff indies can do. Note that Depths of Peril isn't for everyone - mainly because the world is cool and everybody has different tastes. It is not even in the same neighborhood as a casual RPG, so it's probably not the best introductory fare. It's a hardcore game for RPG fans. And it's half off.

Get it while the gettin's good.

Labels: Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 5:35 AM (Permalink) 4 comments links to this post

 
So What Does "Old-School" RPG Style Mean?
Kat Bailey comments on efforts to bring back that old-school flavah by mainstream RPGs in 2009:

2009: The Year of the Old-School RPG at 1Up

Dang - I refuse to get a PS3, but Demon's Souls and Valkyria Chronicles are looking pretty cool. But that's besides the point. As an indie game developer and self-proclaimed "indie evangelist," I have to admit to feeling a little defensive at the premise here. Hey, whadayamean mainstream games are going old-school? That's now the indie niche, leave it alone, guys! But really, I'm not exactly seeing a return to the era of Might & Magic, Wizardry, Baldur's Gate, and 16-bit console games here from the mainstream biz.

It sounds a little like on some levels Kat is equating "old-school" with "hard" (and I have heard that Demon's Souls is frickin' punishing), and I don't think that's necessarily the case. Some of my favorite RPGs of yesteryear never struck me as being particularly difficult. Intimidating to newbies to the genre, I may grant you. But difficulty was more of a characteristic of particular series / brands, not the genre in general.

And dropping references to older games and adopting a slightly less action-oriented gameplay doesn't really constitute "old-school feel" to me. But I do welcome these features. It's long been my contention that the trends in modern RPGs that some people call evolution was simply homogenization. Me? I'm for greater diversity. Let's borrow some of those old-school features where they fit (there are a LOT which, as I mentioned earlier this week, which may not be appropriate for all games but could still make for wonderfully entertainment in the right game), take advantage of new-school design elements and sensibilities where they fit, throw in a healthy spoonful of innovation, and see just how ginormously huge this genre can really be!

But the premise of the article also opens up another can of worms. What really constitutes "old-school?" This is a wonderfully subjective question, conjuring up images of our biggest early influences in the genre. But the truth is, "old school" games - while typically more deeply rooted in early Dungeons & Dragons tabletop gaming than their modern descendants - were still a wildly diverse bunch. Especially now that gaming now spans generations of gamers - I still have a tough time thinking of Baldur's Gate or Fallout as "old-school" RPGs, though as they are well over a decade old now, I think it's time I let go and admit that they have joined that fraternity. But compare someone who's biggest influences were games like the Ultima series with someone who grew up playing 8- and 16-bit Japanese console imports, or someone who got their start playing the old D&D "Gold Box" and Eye of the Beholder games, and you will see vastly different opinions on what constitutes "old-school."

(And as an aside, I was playing the action-RPG Gateway to Apshai over a decade before Diablo "invented" that style of game, making that way less modern and "evolved" than some designers and marketers like to claim. That's old-school, baby! Just a few steps removed from Venture!)

So what does "old-school" mean to you? What would be the features you'd look for in a modern game that would speak to your retro-lovin' heart, if any?

Labels: retro, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 7:54 AM (Permalink) 10 comments links to this post

 
Torchlight: That's Some Tough Armor!
So my Vanquisher was in full leather ninja-style armor... and somehow this Daisy Duke outfit (with a metal top, I guess) was a major upgrade in armor rating?

Reminds me of the armored bikinis in Persona 3...

Maybe that little metal piece is REALLY, REALLY well-armored. It really drives up the average or something.

Ah, well. She's actually upgraded past this again, with an epic leather tunic that is kinda like this but with more cloth. And is another 50% higher armor protection. Go figger.

In spite of the general silliness of the armor visuals, Torchlight is proving to be a pretty kick-butt game. I'm probably predisposed to like it because of the pistols, though. Something about wielding a pistol in one hand and a battle-axe in the other is just plain cool.

Labels: Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 4:30 AM (Permalink) 4 comments links to this post

 
Seven Things That Annoy Me About Modern CRPGs... Sometimes
So yesterday I tackled some old-school computer / console role-playing game features (I won't call them conventions... some were merely experiments that were seldom repeated) that bug me, but suggested games and situations where these otherwise annoying elements could actually be fun and interesting.

Sascha challenged me to do the same for modern "features" or trends in top-shelf RPGs that annoy me as well. This is a little bit more of a challenge, because modern RPGs typically have had the worst of the rough edges polished off. For me, the problem is more that they have some of the coolest, most innovative features polished off as well, so we end up with a product which, for me, is very nice and mildly enjoyable throughout, but really fails to inspire me.

A perfect case-in-point for me was Final Fantasy XII. The game was brilliantly executed in almost every category. With the exception of the confusing and extremely long intro / tutorial, I found very little to dislike about the game. But... I didn't find anything to like, either. I gave up about nine hours in out of sheer boredom. Like many modern RPGs, the game played it too safe, and thus became unremarkable.

In spite of this, I've come up with some modern trends / features / problems in certain styles of modern RPGs that definitely make me want to smack some designers around with a controller. Oh, I mean keyboard. Because I'm playing this game with a keyboard and mouse, when it was obviously written with a console game controller in mind... (but that's another rant...)

1. Leading me by the nose.
I hate getting lost and confused in games. And it's easy to do in these big 3D games. But is making me feel like I'm playing connect-the-dots on my ever-present automap really the answer? RPGs (even the eastern 'jRPGs') used to be more about exploration and... yeah, searching. But now we get more linear plotlines (but with well-defined scripted branches that can be completed in any order!) and step-by-step instructions.

Solutions / Exceptions: Yeah, sometimes I find myself getting frustrated looking for somebody in THE WRONG TOWN because I had a massive brain-fart. There are times like these that I really would like some explicit instructions to make up for my cerebral malfunction. But let me work it out a little on my own before solving the puzzle for me, please!

2. Stupid Choices
Ooh, hey, a dialog option or moral quandary! I have three choices: The goody two-shoes decision that is asking to be taken advantage of, the despicable jerkwad response, or the I-can't-be-bothered-to-give-a-crap option. All three suck. For bonus annoyance points, have the game judge me based on my initial response, not how I eventually resolve the problem.

Solutions / Exceptions: The idea here is a good one. But heavily scripted decision points or dialog options are only part of the answer. First of all Let's get away from the whole "good / neutral / evil" idea and look at some really new, experimental, and avant garde ideas like... I dunno... like stuff Lord British was doing TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO? And instead of relying almost exclusively on scripted, carefully contrived decisions, let the player "choose by doing" in a more dynamic, interactive world. Let them choose their own balance of self-interest, charity, and honor by their actions.

3. The Magical Mind-Controlling Monologue: Getting Suckered Into Boss Fights
Okay, I know I'm walking into a big boss fight. I used stealth to peek through the door, dang it. So I prepare my party. I buff up. I position my party carefully in formation. And then... I get a big ol' cut scene that I can't skip through fast enough, and by the time it's done my buffs have almost worn off. Oh, and to top it off, my entire party has now walked into the CENTER of the big bad boss's lair, allowing themselves to be flanked and surrounded. Apparently the villain's monologue had mind-controlling powers that made my whole party turn stupid.

Solutions / Exceptions: Okay, high drama and storytelling aren't well-served when the protagonists do the SMART thing and nuke the villain's lair from orbit (it's the only way to be sure...). But games should try to avoid nullifying all of the player's preparations for the sake of drama. Or at the very least, provide a rational explanation for why the player character allowed herself to be pulled from an excellent sniper position to the center of the evil overlord's throne room, surrounded by guards.

4. Butt-view and Retardo-Cam
So I guess at one point, designers decided that first-person shooters on the consoles sucked because players couldn't figure out where "their guy" was, so they invented the "third-person shooter." Probably inspired by Laura Croft. So you get this great view from behind your character's head by default, so that you can see the beautiful animation of your character's backside. Cool, except when you can see your own butt, but not an attacking enemy!

The awful camera controls make this problem even worse. The "smart" camera tries very hard to keep as much of your own character's anatomy in the picture as it slowly thinks about wheeling around to look at something that you might consider interesting, like the narrow bridge you want to walk across or that guy who has shot you three while you tried to convince the camera to look at him.

And somehow, this seemed like a good idea for RPGs, as well.

Solutions / Exceptions: Okay. I don't hate this viewpoint. And on a game controller, with an entire thumbstick devoted entirely to panning the camera around, it almost works. Kinda. Sometimes. Good thing nobody plays games on the PC anymore, or they'd really be screwed! Anyway - while developers tend to optimize the game for this viewpoint, most games provide options to allow you different camera views that are designed to actually play the game instead of admiring the artists' work on your avatar. So this is ultimately a very minor gripe.

5. Buy the Rest of This Game With DLC!
This one's just starting to rear it's ugly head. I have nothing against capitalism or premium DLC in principle. And I've enjoyed expansions for RPGs for decades, now. The advent of digitally distributed add-on content is certainly an awesome thing for gamers and game-makers. But there have been some suspicious hints of a trend towards cutting back on the core experience and then selling it back to players via premium DLC.

Solutions / Exceptions: Avoid the appearance of evil, publishers! Trust built up over years and many titles can be destroyed with a poor decision, here. Yeah, it's a double-edged sword... making the game feel "complete" without the DLC makes it harder to sell the DLC - but fighting the perception that you are only selling the players two-thirds of a game in hopes of making an extra buck or two on DLC could be far worse.

6. Level Scaling
No matter how much you progress, the bad guys seem to level up right with you. It pretty much invalidates the whole leveling up / character progression mechanic.

Solutions / Exceptions: This is a good idea with often poor implementation. This deserves three or four articles of its own.

7. Kill Ten Rats and Come Back For Your Reward!
Somehow, the awful, creatively bankrupt MMORPG "quest" that were nothing more than structured grinding made their way into single-player RPGs this last decade. And so we get these quests that encourage us to go out and battle randomly spawning monsters in hopes of collecting X trophies for some kind of quest-based reward.

Solutions / Exceptions: Okay, while I'm not personally opposed to a little bit of optional grinding, a game should never encourage the player to engage in a fundamentally repetitive, meaningless, un-fun activity. Now, if you happen to be out killing them anyway and the game offers a reward for the activity anyway - like paying you individually for collected kobold ears that you are acquiring ANYWAY - that's a little different story. It's a fine line.


I have probably missed some big ones here. What are some modern trends in RPGs that annoy you? How can they be fixed?

Labels: Game Design, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 5:23 AM (Permalink) 11 comments links to this post

 
Seven Things About Old School CRPGs That Really Annoy Me - Except When They Don't
So here we go with another article wherein the Rampant Coyote bellyaches about stuff other players consider sacred!

I've spent a bit of time this year engaging in some glorious retro-gaming of older computer (and console) RPGs. We'll call it, uh, research. For Frayed Knights. Yeah, research, that's the ticket. Some of these games I've played before, but others are new to me (except for hearing and reading about them for years, now).

I don't know how hard it would be for someone who never grew up with and experienced these kinds of older-vintage games to appreciate them. As for me - I remember when these games were of sufficiently modern technology (very few RPGs actually pushed the ol' tech envelope) that they didn't seem in any way lacking. But even for me, going back takes a bit of getting used to. The first hour or two is always a little bit painful. And then, after growing comfortable with the rules and interface (almost always a challenge, especially with RPGs), my imagination starts filling in where the graphics and sound might be missing - as it always did. I then find myself transported to a fictional world, and actually having fun and enjoying myself.

I love these games. Still. There's a lot to like. And I've talked about what made 'em awesome in other articles.

But there are a few things about these old-school games that I never really appreciated back in the day, and absence has not made my heart grow fonder. I don't miss 'em. Usually. Except when I do.

1. Mandatory Food (or other daily maintenance costs)
Ah, food - the great money sink. While it might be somewhat challenging at lower level when money is scarce, it's merely an annoyance at higher levels. And it grows to be a big annoyance over time. Let's just assume that --- like having to excrete wastes as well --- eating is just something that happens "behind the scenes," okay? Unless it's something special - like having a feast with the king or eating an enchanted apple - I don't want to worry about it. I don't want to pay a tax on staying alive.

I shouldn't have to say this, but I will anyway - non-mandatory food (where, for example, an apple gives you a slight health boost) is fine.

Exceptions: If it's a "survival fantasy" kind of game - like Ultima Underworld or Arx Fatalis, where food is not something taken for granted by anyone - then the above doesn't apply. I actually enjoy the verisimilitude. It's no longer an annoyance, but a key part of the narrative. (Hah! I caught a fish!)

Strangely, the cost of staying at an inn (which is functionally equivalent) usually doesn't bug me - especially if there is a "free" alternative somewhere in the game that I can return to if I'm feeling particularly skinflint-y.

2. Time Limits to Failure
One can easily gripe (and I have, too, at times) about how unbelievable it is that the entire world - including the evil overlord's plans - are put on hold to match the player's schedule. But efforts to address this issue are, generally, way more annoying than the problem. The stress of worrying about the passage of time in my explorations, and second-guess when I might have taken too long, isn't much fun. And having characters age and grow weaker in their career? No, thanks - it always felt like an arbitrary rule to make another arbitrary rule more frustrating. Fortunately, games featuring this particular problem have always been rare.

Exceptions: Although I didn't actually enjoy it, Fallout handled the time limit for the main quest quite well, by putting it very much front-and-center throughout the game. So at least you never had to second-guess the problem. That made it considerably less annoying, and it seemed - well, okay. And different. So it gets a pass.

One place where I really liked the time limit problem was in Depths of Peril - but the entire quest system was pretty organic and you knew (at least after the first play-through) that the gameworld events and quests were going to evolve. It behaved predictably, and thus became enjoyable.

3. Mazes
I have already ranted about these. And no, I was never talking about old fake 3D tile-based games, which were inherently maze-like (though most games at least tried to minimize the maze-like feel where technology allowed - except in maze-like areas...).

Exceptions: While mazes are generally 20% cool to 80% suck, I believe that ratio is manageable - as I stated in the linked article. And I've played some games where the mazes weren't too bad. They just don't come to mind right now. Instead I feel this ancient hatred towards Final Fantasy X's temple / maze puzzles, particularly in the late game, though I barely remember them now...

4. Paying a Big Chunk of Cash To Level Up
This one annoyed me in pen-and-paper AD&D, and we always ignored that rule. It's just another one of those money-sink, paying-tax-on-staying alive things. I guess it's because I always felt like I was paying extra to obtain something I'd already earned. I didn't like seeing that rule carried over to my CRPGs (where I couldn't ignore it), either.

Exceptions: Paying money to gain new individual skills never really bugged me. And paying money to increase skills above and beyond the gains entitled to me by leveling up was never an issue. It's just the leveling-up maintenance fees that annoy me.

5. Running Into Level Caps Well Before Running Out of Game
I totally understand level caps. I don't have a problem with them - they are a necessary evil. In some of the older games, though, it was really easy to have a maxed-out character with more-or-less the best equipment available pretty early in the game. While there were undoubtedly good reasons for this, it makes the player feel penalized for taking the time out to explore and sub-quest and battle through every nook and cranny. Though it's not a competitive game, I still don't want the Harrison Bergeroned to the level of a guy who beelined it with a walkthrough in the final encounter.

Exceptions: This assumes "reasonable" play. If somebody chooses to spend most of the game grinding in random encounter areas to max out their level practically before concluding the tutorial, that's their own call.

6. Tiny Character Name Limits
Limiting a character name to four, six, or eight characters was pretty uncalled for even in the 8-bit days (particularly on the PC). Why did a character name have to be the same as a saved-game name, anyway? Sheesh.

Exceptions: There are no exceptions, says Ninglaetori the Mysterious.

7. Encumbrance
Okay, this never really bugged me a lot, but it was a minor irritation at times that I don't really miss. I mean, yeah, I know how much a suit of plate mail weighs (having worn some in real life), and I fully recognize that a normal human really isn't going anywhere with six suits of plate mail stuffed down his pack. Assuming it was even physically possible to stuff seven suits of plate mail into a pack, which boggles my imagination.

But in dice-and-paper games, the rules were really just there to prevent abuses or outright silliness (Gary Gygax himself admitted that he only used the encumbrance rules as a threat, not something they actually kept track of). It was also used as a challenge - such as trying to figure out how you are actually going to cart that dragon's horde out of its lair before dying of old age or having it all stolen before you were done. And where would you store it all?

But in the pen-and-paper games, you had a ton of options that didn't exist in CRPGs - such as obtaining a cart and / or mule, hirelings, burying or hiding some of the treasure, or even being able to drop said treasure without it instantly vanishing. Plus, the pen-and-paper games (particularly D&D) generally provided plentiful magical items aimed squarely at circumventing those restrictions (like Bags of Holding and Portable Holes) that didn't make their way into CRPGs. So you got some concrete limitations on something that felt like it was only an abstraction.

Plus, micro-managing weight-loads between party members was never that much fun.

So while it has never been a big deal, I'll generally chalk encumbrance in the negative (or at least neutral) column of features.

Exceptions: Again, survival-fantasy RPGs get a pass, here. Foraging, discarding, and generally making do is kind of the whole point. Similar games where you play a solo character, the "micromanagement" aspect can be part of the fun. If the game really does allow some reasonable level of non-abstract encumbrance mitigation and inventory management offered in a dice-and-paper RPG, then yeah - it can be interesting. But in general - hey, let's just assume I hire some porters, okay?

Summary

I think in all these cases, the exceptions are what is noteworthy. None of these elements are necessarily bad, or need to be annoying or grouse-worthy. Except the tiny name thing. Mmm-probably. But in many cases, these elements were dropped in for some reason ("to make it more realistic!", or "because that's how D&D does it" are the most likely reasons) other than really improving the game.

But it's not hard to envision a game where these same game elements are both important and fun. It's been done. They may still have a place in modern games. So game designers should be careful that they don't throw babies out with bathwater.

But when retro-gaming, I just have to learn to put up with 'em.

(UPDATE: Added "Summary" heading, elaborated a little bit on the Time-limit and encumbrance exceptions. I can't believe I missed my favorite indie RPG as a big ol' exception to the time-limit rant....)

Labels: retro, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:44 AM (Permalink) 17 comments links to this post

 
I Guess I Can Finally Uninstall Diablo II Now...
Okay. I took advantage of Steam's Torchlight sale this weekend. Between that, and Depths of Peril, I think I can finally uninstall Diablo II. The only thing those games are lacking is multiplayer, and I haven't played Diablo II with other players in years.

Well, come to think of it, I haven't actually played Diablo II since I discovered Depths of Peril anyway...

Bottom line - I'm very impressed with Torchlight. Unlike Depths of Peril, it doesn't stray too far from tried-and-true Fate + Diablo 2 mechanics. At least not from what I've seen. But what it does, it does very well.

And no, I don't think it qualifies as indie, in spite of embracing some very cool (and hopefully profitable) features of indie-dom. Including using an off-the-shelf open-source 3D engine (Ogre3D). They are a larger team that financed the game through traditional means (publisher funding). But I think this is yet another example of how the entire video game industry is changing, and there is no longer a single "one true path" to getting your game financed, out the door, and in the hands of gamers. I think it's a change for the good.

Labels: Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 6:05 AM (Permalink) 7 comments links to this post

 
Torchlight 50% Off Until Monday
The downloadable and highly entertaining RPG Torchlight - by some of the creators of the Diablo series - is available for 50% off on Steam until Monday.

Go git it! If you are so inclined...

Labels: Indie Evangelism, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 1:26 PM (Permalink) 0 comments links to this post

 
Visions & Voices
Lovecraftian RPG using the RPG Maker system:

Visions & Voices

Hat tip to (and mini-review at) Play This Thing!

Labels: Free Games, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 12:46 PM (Permalink) 0 comments links to this post

 
More Old-School RPG Flavah!
Ah, an ode to old-school RPGing.

And yeah, it does kinda remind me of what I'm NOT doing in Frayed Knights. So my work is only a pale imitation of old-school gaming that I'm paying homage to (and sometimes parodying). But I don't know what kinda hell I'd catch if I tried to get rid of the in-game map...

But it does make me feel nostalgic for the old days. Man - the graph-paper I used going through the dungeons of the early-to-mid Ultimas, The Bard's Tale, Wizardry, Telengard (before I gave up on the futility of that task...), and the D&D "Gold Box" games...

And yeah, plenty of death and nasty surprises at every turn. But the level of personal investment you had to put into the game just to have a hope of succeeding may have also helped our enjoyment of it.

Hide the Map If You Dungeon Crawl

Hat tip to RPGWatch for the link!

Labels: retro, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 3:30 AM (Permalink) 6 comments links to this post

 
Are Class-Based CRPGs are Better Than Skill-Based?
In a class-based RPG, your character's abilities as they progress through the game follow a defined progression path. This contrasts with skill-based RPGs, where player has more direct control over the progression (or lack thereof) of their character's abilities. Then you have some hybrid systems, which try to merge the flexibility of the skill-based system with the structure of class-based.

Class-based examples would include Baldur's Gate, NetHack, Knights of the Chalice, and most jRPG-style games (Aveyond, Deadly Sin, Final Fantasy VI, etc). Hybrid games abound in modern RPGs, including the D20-based RPGs Knights of the Old Republic and Neverwinter Nights (heavily class-based but incorporating the flexibility of skill-based options), the Elder Scrolls games (leaning very skill-based, incorporating the structure and ease-of-use of class & level system), Eschalon: Book 1, and many others.

Purely skill-based RPGs are a bit more of a rarity. The Elder Scrolls games really border on this realm. Ultima Online. Some pretty ancient cRPGs, Twilight: 2000 and the two MegaTraveller games from Paragon Software, were based on skill-based pen-and-paper systems. And then we had two games based on the Vampire: the Masquerade dice-and-paper system, Redemption and Bloodlines. (You could argue that one's clan in Bloodlines was analogous to a class, and it certainly altered the game experience - especially for Malkavians and Nosferatu. But clan choice imposed relatively few restrictions on character progression - really just the cost of vampiric disciplines). And then there's Cute Knight Kingdom - which does a lot of things very differently.

When I "graduated" from Dungeons & Dragons to other dice-and-paper RPGs back in my teens, I became a big fan of skill-based systems. It was The One True Way of RPGs. I dismissed class-based, level-based games as merely quaint but entertaining relics of a bygone era to me. It took a few years before I came back around in my thinking and learned to re-appreciate the strengths of class-based games. I like both styles pretty equally nowadays.

But with computer RPGs, I lean towards class-based systems. This isn't a matter of preference, but practicality. I would love to play some more, well-done skill-based CRPGs, and my hat is off to those developers bold enough to build them. But it's tough to do well. Very tough.

Here's why:

The problem is one of the design. In a class-based game, a designer can make some reasonable assumptions. If every character has some minimal fighting ability, and can be classified as a tinkerer, a talker, a sneaker, a fighter, or a hybrid of any two of those, and their ability in any of those specializations can be safely assumed to be within a particular range, then there's a well-defined space of challenges and choices that a designer needs to build to.

But in a skill-based game with some thirty skills, with a character who can be maxed out in one skill while having next to no ability in anything else, there really aren't many constraints to design around. This makes the task daunting, if not impossible for practical purposes. Instead, the burden is shifted to the player to not only create a balanced character, but also to play "guess the mind of the game designer in advance" to determine which abilities are going to be useful in the game.

Yeah. I've played those games where I loaded up on some cool-sounding skills that sounded really useful but almost never came into play. I guess I shoulda stuck with "longsword proficiency" or something...

In pen-and-paper games, this isn't such a big problem. The game master can design on-the-fly for known characters. And it's theoretically possible that programmers and designers might come up with some AI "Designer's Helper" that will customize a game on-the-fly around a player's choices and playstyle. In fact, that's such a cool idea that I might try to tackle it myself someday.

If I ever get these current projects finished... :)

Until then, the closest we get is automatically scaling difficulty for combat, which to me is translated, "However powerful you are, it won't make a lick of difference." Can't say I'm a big fan of that mechanic, either. Or you have Cute Knight Kingdom's approach, which has several storylines based on combinations of skills, but otherwise leaves the world pretty open-ended and sandbox-y. It's not so great for epic, traditional RPG quests, but it solves the problem.

So in general, for traditional RPGs, the problems involved in skill-based systems are the reason I think class-based or hybrid systems are preferable as both a designer and a player. (Given a choice, well, give me the hybrid!)

But I'd love to see more stabs at resolving these problems to make skill-based systems more practical in cRPGs.

Labels: Game Design, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 6:11 AM (Permalink) 19 comments links to this post

 
Din's Curse Monsters
Soldak has three new monsters on its website from the upcoming indie action RPG Din's Curse. The site warns, "For those of you that have played our previous games, Depths of Peril and Kivi's Underworld, you will recognize some of the monsters. However, don't let your guard down because you think you know them well. Many of them have had big changes."

The scavenger was a previous entry, but today we get the Changeling, Fire Thrower, and Death Knight

Din's Curse Monsters

On a side note, Steven has been tweeting periodically over the last two weeks about the effect of the scavenger on gameplay. Apparently running away from it through a previous battlefield full of corpses makes a bad situation much, much worse.

Labels: Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 5:28 AM (Permalink) 0 comments links to this post

 
I Don't Care If You're Saving the World, You Still Have To Pay Me
Jeff Vogel explains why your own allies in RPGs still demand payment to train you in his games:

The Bottom Feeder: Why the People On Your Side Are Always Ripping You Off

This always kind of amused me in other games, too. Only a tiny bastion of humanity remains standing, but the weapon merchant still has to get his profit in. Sounds awful, but if you look at human history in times of disaster and war, the greatest historical inaccuracy is that he's not gouging you by insane levels. Those are the times that a loaf of bread may cost a diamond ring. Yeah, there are some great stories of people risking their lives to save each other. But those who risk their lives for profit usually charge a premium.

Anyway, it's an amusing article.

Labels: Indie Evangelism, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 7:38 AM (Permalink) 4 comments links to this post

 
Playing Pathfinder
We had our first game of Pathfinder on Friday - the "spiritual successor" to Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition. Well, it was the first for most of us - a couple of people in our group have already been playing it for a little while.

I'm playing a gnomish illusionist (wizard w/ illusion school speciality), rather than my usual rogue preference. So it'd be new to me either way. I mean, an illusionist is like the rogue of wizards, isn't it?

At first blush - after playing 3.x for several years (both pen & paper and in Neverwinter Nights) - I felt that the game feels like a continuation of 3.5. The differences were small but definitely "gotchas" if you weren't paying attention. A few changes that stood out in a 1st level game:

#1 - Everybody seemed to have a lot more non-combat skills to do stuff with. I think this was principally due to the consolidation of skills (for example, "Spot", "Search," and "Listen" are all "Perception" now). And the elimination of certain "skill point taxes" like Concentration (Concentration checks are level-based, now, effectively giving it to you for free).

#2 - As a specialist wizard (especially given a gnome's special abilities), I never seemed to run out of spells. Besides once-per-day gnomish abilities for Prestidigitation, Dancing Lights, and Ghost Sound, I also had three cantrips, one first-level spell due to my level, one additional first-level spell due to my intelligence score, and an additional Illusion-only 1st level spell slot due to my specialization. Then - because of my specialization - I had six uses per day of a Blinding Ray. Oh, and there's an option (which I chose) to have a bound object rather than a familiar, which results in one more daily spell of any (available) level that doesn't even need to be prepared in advance. This is a far cry from the old 1st edition days when a first-level magic-user had Magic Missile and Light.

#3 - A cleric's Channel Energy + Selective Channeling... WOW! At lower levels, at least, this really makes a huge difference in the game. I'd say this is game-imbalancing, but frankly D&D has always been a meatgrinder at low levels, and this may bring the low-level game more in-line with the mid-level games in terms of survivability and party stamina. More significantly, clerics are allowed to cast something other than Cure Light Wounds at the very low levels. I think this also places a greater burden on clerics, as charisma is a very, very important secondary stat (as it was already becoming for clerics in 3.x)

#4 - Making characters was no less complex than it was in 3.5. Except skill selection. Skill selection was definitely easier as there was no need to divvy up 4x points at level one anymore. But otherwise, it's still a pretty detailed (and, unfortunately, error-prone) process.

Overall, it was a very positive experience. The system retains 3.5's level of complexity and detail, though it makes some effort to streamline things a bit more so things like grappling and tumbling and disarms aren't all completely custom rules. For the most part, we felt at home with the system, but the differences kept us on our toes.

My question is: Will we see official Pathfinder CRPGs? Shamus may argue that we might not really want to. But I think I have a higher opinion of the other D20-based games (and earlier D&D versions) that made their way to the computer.

Labels: Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 7:37 AM (Permalink) 0 comments links to this post

 
Stonekeep & KOTR For Sale...
Okay, don't let this stop ya from buying some great indie games this weekend, but...

GOG.COM has a few old Interplay titles for sale this weekend, including Stonekeep.

As I recall, this game was at one point nicknamed "Fargo's Folly" internally, and for a while it sounded like it was destined to become permanent vaporware. Like Duke Nukem Forever. Or Prey. Oh, wait, they eventually made Prey. Not that it had much in common with the original project, which was concurrent with the development of the original Unreal.

But after some major overhauls and a massive budget (for the time), it ended up seeing the light of day - and by most accounts turned into a pretty good game, with some significant adventure-game-style puzzle elements. I can't say for sure, because I never played it... though I just picked it up myself. You know, with all my spare time...

Also - this just in - Steam has the original Knights of the Old Republic for sale for 75% off. That's like... uh, $2.50. For those who might not know (there are some casual gamers who do hit this blog, after all...) Knights of the Old Republic = Star Wars Done Bioware Style. This sale will only last for about 20 more hours - though other games will be available tomorrow. So grab it today while you can.

Labels: retro, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 9:01 AM (Permalink) 2 comments links to this post

 
The Gamers - Dorkness Rising
We got the DVD "The Gamers - Dorkness Rising" from Netflix yesterday, and watched it last night.

I will be buying the DVD shortly. It was... excellent.

Okay, a qualified excellent. It could have been cut by about 15 minutes (especially the ninja / pirate pizza delivery sequence), and it's very obviously a low-budget production by film-school grad types. Still, it is better (and longer, with less foul language) than it's also-awesome predecessor, The Gamers.

The Gamers: Dorkness Rising is a parody of pen-and-paper roleplaying gaming. But it's a loving parody - in a similar vein to the most-excellent-comic Knights of the Dinner Table. It alternates perspective between the in-game characters and story, and the story of the players themselves in the real-world. It is particularly fun to see the effects of rules, retcons, and silly things players try to pull off in a game play out in the game world. But where that was pretty much all there was to the first movie, this one goes a bit further. Buried within the good-natured ribbing of things like male players playing female characters, asian-style monks in European fantasy settings, the bard class, and critical failure rolls, there is an underlying story of the players themselves and why we love these games.

And if you are a pen-and-paper Role-Playing Gamer, you simply Must See This Film. That's all there is to it. Even computer / MMO RPG players who have never rolled a 20-sided die in their life may still find a lot to enjoy here. If you have seen the previous movie, you may enjoy a few of the "inside" jokes thrown around referring to it, but otherwise this movie stands on its own.

And here's a trailer so you know what I'm talking about:



Enjoy!

Labels: Geek Life, Movies, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 9:32 AM (Permalink) 3 comments links to this post

 
Reconnoitering Cute Knight Kingdom
I bought Cute Knight Kingdom the other night. Good thing I'm all secure in my masculinity and stuff like that. Because - like the original Cute Knight - I gotta admit it's good.

I don't know if I'll ever get to the point where I can run through an entire game in 90 minutes or so like I did in the original. Maybe it's just my inexperience, but games in Cute Knight Kingdom seem to be a bit ... meatier. Still not super-long, mind you - maybe 2x the time to cover three years? Again, I played through Cute Knight / Cute Knight Deluxe many, many times and felt I had much of it "down." I'm still learning the ropes of CKK.

Yeah, there are butterfly silhouettes in the inventory screen. Hey, Hanako, maybe you can add a "beard" option or something for us guys, with an alternate inventory screen with sword imagery or something? Still, while the game is targeted more for players of the feminine persuasion (er, excuse me, Georgina maintains that it's really targeted for an audience of HERSELF, and leaves that open to interpretation beyond as to who might enjoy it beyond that), there's a lot to like here for any player.

Okay - for those new to the whole Cute Knight thing... this is a game that borrows ideas from life-sim type games (especially Princess Maker) and old-school RPGs. You play a girl who has three years to seek out her destiny. Now, nevermind the fact that nobody has their destiny fully figured out at 21 (or 51) - this is fantasy we're talking about here. So your goals are to:

1. Survive and become self-sufficient (at least in Kingdom you can always go back home to your adopted parent's home to crash for free)
2. Don't give up on your dreams and hope (represented by the "dream" statistic, which increases with success, but decreases with failure and fatigue --- I think)
3. Work and educate yourself to improve your ability to succeed in endeavors
4. Seek out life experiences (story arcs) that may guide you towards a particular destiny

The game ends with failure (if you let your Dream score fall to zero), at the culmination of a storyline goal, or at the end of three years. The ending is based on events or on your character's combination of skills and stats at the end of three years. There's no glass ceiling in Cute Knight Kingdom - while I've not verified it, it looks like you can even become queen over all the land. That's a pretty sweet advancement opportunity.

The Cute Knight series (can you call two games plus an enhanced version a "series?") also includes the "Sin" statistic. This is a big deal for those of us who like to choose a life of monster-bashing and dungeon-exploring. Killing living creatures - especially sentient ones - or engaging in unscrupulous activities in the game increases your Sin rating. There are ways of bringing it down as well. So far, I haven't seen how Sin limits your options in Cute Knight Kingdom yet - but in the first game, it was a pretty significant factor if it got too high (and the "best" ending - along with certain other story opportunities and career options - was only available if you took a walk on the dark side).

Cute Knight Kingdom really expands on Cute Knight's gameplay. It offers significantly more breadth of opportunities, with several towns and locations to explore, multiple dungeons, more job options, and what appears to be a metric buttload of crafting and cooking options. And I've stumbled into a few more general "side-quests" as well. There seems to be a bit more depth as well, particularly as success in training and jobs is now a more interactive experience, as you can choose to sacrifice health or spell points to exert yourself or apply extra concentration to tasks. This can be tricky, as in at least one location (a frontier town), the only beds available were less-than-ideal at the local military barracks, which actually cost you stamina points (and corresponding maximum health) in addition to the 10 gp per night to stay there. While very capitalist of the military to offer them, that sure doesn't convince me that choosing military service is an option I want to pursue with my happy-go-lucky farmhand-turned-dungeon-explorer, Katrina.

I still have a lot of exploring to do. The game's got a lot to it, and though a lot of the activities are repetitive, there seems to be a lot to do and find in this game. And it's definitely not for everybody. It is very "life-sim" heavy, so if you are more of a kick-the-door-in type of RPG fan, it might not be as appealing. It's also very open-ended and relies upon a bunch of smaller story threads rather than a single epic story arc. And - well - it's cute. Just in case the name didn't give that away.

Since playing the first Cute Knight, I have discovered the Persona titles, which also perform a mash-up of Life Sim and RPG. Cute Knight Kingdom is heavier on the life sim, lighter on the RPG, and much more open-ended than the Persona games. I'm not sure which mix I prefer more. But I am finding this RPG "sub-genre" to be really, really addictive and fun. I want more, please.

I have added Cute Knight Kingdom to the Rampant Games store*, and I invite you to give the demo a try. Many of us in the U.S. are enjoying an extended weekend as of tomorrow, so it's a perfect opportunity. The demo only lets you go for six months into your career - pretty much up to the point where things are finally starting to get hopping and you can "get ahead" in life and choosing jobs and training based on where you want to take the Knight, instead of what you need to do to afford anything. It's a good taste of the game overall, though unfortunately it's also (IMO) the most difficult and least exciting phase of the game. But it's still fun, and gives you a good taste of what's in store.

You can check it out here:

Download Cute Knight Kingdom at Rampant Games!

As always, have fun! And let me know what you think.

(*And I was exhausted and half-asleep when I did it, so please contact me if there's anything awry).

Labels: Cute Knight, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 6:14 AM (Permalink) 0 comments links to this post

 
RPG Design: Experimenting With Initiative
This weekend I concluded long-running D&D campaign. We've been playing it for about three-and-a-half years. 3.5 edition of D&D, naturally. We normally alternate games so we only end up playing a little over twice a month, and then only for about three hours per session. It's tough having longer games when the majority of our group have children to take care of. So while not quite as impressive as it sounds, it was still a Big Game.

And we have a very big gaming group - ten players if everybody showed up, and that was only because we had to turn down a couple of friends who wanted to join the game later (which feels really, really sucky to do, I should add). Handling initiative for a large number of players is horrible. Third edition tried to streamline matters by removing the die roll every round. Taking the time to roll dice wasn't the killer - it was everything else associated with tracking who goes when.

With such a big group, players would end up chatting and spacing what was going on while waiting for their turn, and then find out that by the time their turn came around, the combat situation had changed and they'd have to re-figure everything out. Which made their turns take even longer. Which encouraged other players to chat and mentally check out while taking their turns. After all - with ten players, if each player takes only three minutes per turn, that's a half-hour waiting to get to do something. And that is not including the wait for the DM to resolve his side of things.

Jockeying for who would go next, with changing initiatives, also took place. You generally wanted the casters with the big area affect spells to go first, along with those casting "buffs," followed by the melee characters rushing in to mix it up. Even without the dice-rolling, initiative order would change in mid-combat, complicating things and sometimes confusing people. Including me!

Then there were all the times we'd lose track of who's turn it was. And as a DM - not being the most organized person in the world - I'd get distracted and forget to keep things moving along swiftly. It was a mess. Combats took forever.

I made an effort to streamline the initiative system, which was met with very reserved tolerance at first. I don't roll for each monster's initiative separately --- to save my own sanity, I have monsters with the same (or very similar) initiative modifier all go as a group. At most, the monsters end up broken up into three initiative groups.

What I gradually came to realize is that what order you went within your party was largely cooperative and unimportant. What was important was whether or not you got to go before your enemies.

So I decided to put players into initiative "groups" as well. Against one unified group of monsters, the party would be divided into "group one" and "group two." Then, within the players' initiative groups, I let them decide among themselves who is going first. At first, we worried that this would slow things down, as deciding order could turn into a lengthy debate.

In practice, this was not the case at all. I estimate that this sped up combat by about 20% or so. While not a complete revolution, it's a substantial improvement. The increased speed seemed consistent across all character levels. I wouldn't have believed that the transition of turns was actually taking that long - but in our group, it was.

Secondly - and perhaps most importantly - it helped keep the entire group engaged in what was happening in the game. Since it's possible to go at any time during your group's initiative, players stay more involved and attentive to what's going on in the combat. Actions get taken as players are ready to go. They discuss their battle plans as they go with each other a lot more. They get to work tactically much better together. Without increasing the difficulty at all, it increased the number of interesting decisions players could make.

Effectively, this system made combats much more fun. And that is always a big win. I don't know if it would work as well for significantly smaller groups. But for a large group, it was a game saver.

So would this work in computer RPGs? Well, the group-based, single-player RPG is something of a vanishing breed, though the indies and some companies like Atlus have really been bringing it back lately. Traditionally, these games still tend to go by the old "roll dice to determine your order" system. Would something like this be advantageous?

Probably not in the same way. After all, we're talking about only one player, and the computer can automate the turn transition extremely well (better than us poor humans). But - borrowing once again from wargames - would having initiative be more at a "group" level rather than individual level make combat more interesting?

Maybe the party pools together its initiative bonus (plus random dice rolls) to allow the player to select who in what order - when you absolutely, positively need to get protection from vampires up as fast as possible. In the D&D Miniatures game, the player winning initiative could move two characters - any two - first, with each player alternating movement. Deciding who moves when was not a complicated decision, but it was an interesting one. The order in which units are able to move is often just as important as what they do. It often dictates what they can do.

In the real world, in time-critical situations, the coordination and timing of individual actions is often critical to success. But due to the limitations of the user interface, you don't see much of that in single-player action-RPGs (or RTS games). While the reaction speed of the player, not the character, is usually the issue in these games, could something be done here as well?

Stuff to think about.

Have fun.

Labels: Game Design, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 5:10 AM (Permalink) 9 comments links to this post