The Gamer's Quarter

[GSL]

The other night, Shaper and I were talking over Google’s nifty chat program, and somehow the conversation turned to just how awesome and completely different Namco's underappreciated Tales series is. We were both in agreement that they were RPGs of a most bizarre yet engaging nature, when I made the mistake of suggesting that someone should start a 'Society for Non-Traditional RPGs'. Shaper, always looking for an opening or a show of weakness, commanded me to create a topic on it, and so here we list and recognize games that strive to break out of the mold (and mould) of role-playing conformity.

Shaper elaborates on the qualities inherent in Non-Traditional RPGs:

[player 2]

Breaking down what is and isn't an RPG by using "gameplay" terms is kind of silly. The real heart of an RPG is making decisions in the role of another character. It's pretty much how little you're supposed to be yourself. Games like Tales rely on your ability to "keep your cool" when you are supposed to do a QCF. It's a test of your own skill as opposed to a "check" (hey, P&P RPG term in the house) against your character's skill.

So!

Old school Madden is a very RPG kind of non-RPG. New school Madden is trying to be less and less so. This can be applied to EA Sports in general, actually.
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"It is a peaceful way of understanding life, to play"
_Marcel Duchamp

[GSL]

The point was not to look for games that mimic RPGs or have 'RPG elements'--see Shaper's mention of Symphony of the Night for the reasoning therein--but to consider games of the RPG genre that really do away with the degree of seperation from the action imposed on the player by the stat and menu systems in most games.
The real heart of an RPG is indeed making decisions in the role of another character, but the same could be said for all videogame genres. You take the role of Mario, Pac-Man, Simon Belmont, the Master Chief, etc. Playing a role is not the sole defining factor for a RPG title, and in this case Shaper clearly defined 'RPGs' as games having sprung from a tabletop gaming background. But even still, the only role you play in Madden is that of the omnipotent manager remotely controlling a group of statistics with names attached, rather than concrete characters or even a party composed thereof. Madden is much more of a general simulation than it will ever be an RPG, and in fact it is almost the complete opposite of what we wanted in this thread: despite being able to control individual team members on the field, the player is actually further removed from the game when you consider that they are really controlling a team as a whole, trading and swapping team members--and their attached statistics--in order to build the best team possible.

Besides, Madden was never intended to be a RPG, so that disqualifies it right there.

[dessgeega]

i hear in the gba tales game you can dress up as mister driller or gil from druaga.

also, the first seiken densetsu, on the gameboy, was the best in the series.
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[nICO]

That's the one with the oasis puzzle, right? Loved the game, but that was beyond a pain in the ass.
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Brauner: Damn you, humans... You selfishly start wars and despoil the earth. Perhaps justice wasn't on my side but I will never admit that it was on yours.

[Lestrade]

I have a hard time figuring out what exactly is an RPG and what isn't, because as it's been said before, one could argue that all videogames are RPGs. Japanese RPGs and Western RPGs (such as Oblivion) are just literal translations of table-top games and are thus more readily recognizable as such, which is why of course they get labeled this way.

Allow me to ramble, in hopes that I come across a point or two:

I was playing a new quest of Final Fantasy VII last night, and I was enjoying myself immensely (random battles notwithstanding). I was wondering why this was, considering I do harbour a certain loathing for the majority of RPGs; I think it's the setting (of disc one at least). Regardless, among other things, I think it also has something to do with the fact that in the game I as the player have to navigate everything; not just battles, but transitions between scenes, conversations, etc.

I realized I was having a really good time because when somebody speaks, I have to hit Circle to coerce them to continue. If there's a choice in dialogue, I make that choice. In many instances, I choose who goes with me and I always control who does what within a battle. In FFVII, I am actively involved in the game on all levels. I may not alter the plot much, except for a few small moments, but it can't play without me and no one can finish their sentence if I don't hit that Circle button.

I don't know how to describe what I'm thinking, so pardon me for a moment: these older RPGs (like FFVII) feel like interactive books combined with radio plays combined with puppet shows. You've got non-speaking characters who act as visual marionettes to clue you in to their emotions; you've got musical scores and minimal sound effects to keep you in the right mood; and you've got conversation that can't continue unless you actively choose to let it.

("The story's so cute," my wife exclaimed during one of the early scenes between Aeris and Punto (née Cloud). She was basing this entirely on the music she heard. It was the mood she was feeling, nothing more.)

All these things combined can sort of absorb you as a player because, like table-top games, they are all abstractions. You have to use your imagination for a lot of things — voices, (until FFX ruined it!), facial expressions, etc. — and because of this extra effort required, you can potentially get more out of the game. Just like darkness and obscurity make Silent Hill scarier and more real to the player's imagination, the limitations of older JRPGs allow you to put more of yourself into each character and setting, and thus get more out of them.

But the point is that the same happens in table-top RPGs, of course; nothing exists except in the words and thoughts of yourself and the friends playing with you, which is why it can be very exciting and memorable.

(It's like mass hysteria!)

Another point of RPGs is, of course, statistical progression. They probably don't even need numbers anymore (a point I've mentioned before), but the thrill of an RPG is knowing that you will not be exactly the same character at the end of the game as when you started. You will have progressed through yet more abstraction — more HP, more spells, more powerful attacks — and you can really feel this.

But I would argue that in a lot of these older JRPGS, which, as I've said, allow more interactivity through the coaxing of one's imagination, also allow emotional progression. Because you're constantly a part of every bit of this abstracted world, you start to pour your own feelings into the game, voluntarily or subconsciously. Whether we're talking about getting teary-eyed over Aeris or, in my case, growing to really like Yuffie because her character was so hopelessly incorrigible, I would argue that this sort of increased interaction — which can't be bullet-pointed on the back of a jewel case — is what also defines an RPG.

Again, it is no different when table-topping, except that here the effort required to overcome the myriad abstractions is more extreme.

I dunno. Am I making any sense?

[Lockeownzj00]

I agree with some of what you're saying, but I take issue with this--

[TheRumblefish]

I'm perplexed on weather or not Suikoden would fall under this. In truth, it doesn't matter what characters you use in your party, as eseentially they are all the same. The stats can differ, but do the stats even matter? The Suikoden games aren't known for being extra-ordinarily hard or anything. So out of these 108 characters you're eseentially just choosing the ones you like and prefer. There are no rights and wrongs to follow, no improper way to play the game.

You could do the whole "catch em all" thing, but it's not required. Nothing really is in the first two games, except a few events to progress the story. So in a way, would Suikoden be considered a "non traditional RPG" since there are no ultimate characters or ultimate weapons?

There is a certain level of emotional progression as Lestrade said in Sukioden as well. It also depends which game you are playing, but none the less. Take for instance Suikoden 2 has a few moments which are quite sad and further involve the player. All of the deaths felt essential in a way. When Luca Blight dies, you do feel something for the monster he was, the game has a very good way of drawing the player in to a world that feels like it is a living entity in it's own. Almost as if you are on the outside looking in, until key events draw you in as the role of the main character.

I don't know, I just always felt that Suikoden might fall into this category.
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[Shapermc]

[TheRumblefish]

[Shapermc]

That still just sounds like good standard fare RPG systems.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[TheRumblefish]

[SuperWes]

[Lestrade]

[Lockeownzj00]

That was my point though--I recognise your personal preference, but this ostensible "trait" of RPGs is merely a byproduct of hardware limitations, not a basic tenet of the genre. This is why modern RPGs are hard to "recognise," and aren't as easily "accepted" by RPG-enthusiasts; they have evolved beyond their traditional linearity, and this threatens people who grew up on that.

It's another reason why traditional designs for levelling up and RPGs in general are really skeumorphs--even though we've evolved beyond having to make everything at its core a dice-based system, we are still trying to use what we "know." But since it is hackneyed, the generic games feel like they have pastel game mechanics.

I'll also say that I agree that SotN has RPG "elements." But let's not get into the genre debate. I believe genres are extremely important not only as points of reference, but as tools to obseve the entertainment which surrounds us, and how they bleed into each other. Really, a fascinating process. But when you deify a genre, you have crossed the line--this goes to say with anything, really. You are no longer looking at a game for its merits as a game in this genre, you are looking at it as a direct affirmation or denial of "your" genre.

The sticky part is when you start saying a game "IS" this or that. The absolutist nature of our language (when we are often simply trying to make casual statements) causes unnecessary strife once again!

[dessgeega]

i think everyone in this thread should play ultima runes of virtue II. it's really more of an action-adventure than an "rpg" (whatever that term has been bastardized by videogames to come to mean nowadays), but it's charming and intentive and minimalist and satisfying. i think it'd do y'all a world of good.
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[Shapermc]

[TheRumblefish]

[simplicio]

[dessgeega]

[GSL]

[simplicio]

Secret of Mana is a storybook, and the perfection of the series. That the later games went the wrong way with its key ideas is no fault of its own.

Seriously. Go back to the Moon Palace, or those Thanatos Temples, or the Mana Holy Land, or Matango, or just about anywhere. There's really no connection to the banality and bathos of the FFs there; it's all about new worlds and magic. The others (3 [and Evermore] through Children) falter through a combination of forcing too much of a disconnect between the different lands and from taking a more "serious" post-Chrono Trigger/FFVI tone. Think about how Sword of Mana is so much closer in spirit to 3 & 4 (and not just the remade bits and damncactus, but the integrated original story and world as a whole as well) than 2.

[SuperWes]

[Shapermc]

[SuperWes]

So if I'm understanding correctly, the "progression" of increasing your stats/leveling up is something that isn't in tabletop RPGs, and thus isn't a part of this definition?

Also, I'm not sure if I'm understanding the above quotes correctly when taken out of their original context, but are you including Secret of Mana in the RPG definition or not?

-Wes
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[ApM]

Wes, if you continue to pretend that "rediculous" is a word, I'm going to institute a word filter. Nothing personal; I just loathe that particular misspelling. It's "ridiculous." You know, like "ridicule"? Even if it was supposed to be pronounced "ree-diculous", that spelling reads like "red-iculous", which sounds so stupid it makes my eyes bleed.

Anyway! A genre is shorthand for an arbitrary set of conventions. Nothing more, nothing less. Those conventions can be anything from gameplay decisions to graphical styles to plot themes (I hate you Dad!). Those conventions shift over time, as more stuff comes out that tries subtly different things, and other stuff copies from that. And some of those conventions are going to be more important to some people than others. Treating genre as anything more than this -- for example, as some sort of authoritative categorization system -- leads to a lot of pointless, futile arguments over semantics that by definition no one will ever agree on.

I was about to agree with Shaper for arguing against the ludicrous idea of saying something has "RPG elements", because what the hell does that mean? The RPG genre has a bazillion conventions. You could argue that a FPS with an I-hate-you-dad let's-kill-God plot had "RPG elements". But then you went and said that Mario & Luigi had "platforming elements". I could argue that, mechanically, Mario & Luigi has more in common with The Adventures of Lolo than with Super Mario Bros. So do we say it has "puzzle elements"? Well, it's hardly Tetris, though, is it? It's more adventure gamey puzzles and OH GOD THE WHOLE THING JUST IMPLODES.

Can I say Shenmue? Because, people used to say Shenmue was kind of an RPG. I guess because it kept up the "wander around a lot taking vast amounts of time and energy to perform inane tasks" convention? I mean, getting a job moving crates is basically power-levelling, right? Also because I finally got to disc 4 in Shenmue II last night and also because I generally hate RPGs and don't really know any others.

[Shapermc]

[OtakupunkX]

Deus Ex - No or go?

It's got stat management that changes the way you play the game and dosen't involve pre-scripted events (most of the time).

[nICO]

[Lestrade]

Okay, Locke, I see your point. You're technically correct that it's the accidental side-effects of this era of games I find endearing. That makes sense.

My boss is illustrating a book on skeumorphs — I wonder if I can convince him to illustrate the battle menu of an RPG?

Wes, your comment about Shinji Mikami and RPGs nets you Post of the month!

Shaper, in regards to Dragon Quest 8, I think you're confusing the graphics engine with the gameplay. Dragon Quest 8 really is the exact same game as Dragon Quest 1. The scale and grandeur (and, yeah, incredible beauty) of DQ8's world doesn't evolve anything. I would argue that it in facts makes more readily apparent the age and limitations of the original gameplay concept.

Though in DQ8 a tree is a tree, the overworld is still just a representation of a "real" game world because you don't interact with it. There are still random battles, enemies you can't see. Until Dragon Quest gives you a world with people and enemies readily visible, with things to do immediately inside of it, its overworld is still just a theatre backdrop being moved on a conveyor to simulate a journey.

[Shapermc]

[SuperWes]

I thought of another game that is in no way, shape or form an RPG! Diablo and/or Diablo II!

-Wes
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[dhex]

oblivion is far more streamlined, but out of the 85 hours or so i put into it i spent maybe 20 of that on the main quest. the rest is just doing my thang, man.
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[Shapermc]

[dhex]

yeah, to some degree. there's a lot less factions to fuck with, but there's plenty of daedra quests and weird side quests and the like.

and just plain old fashioned exploring, of course.

have you guys addressed the east/west split yet? is there one? (i think there is, obviously, but i may be confusing my tastes with genuine differences.)
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[Shapermc]

[dhex]

jrpgs are for teh kiddiez.

wrpgs are for teh kiddiez with fake id'z.

seriously, there seems to be a lot more interest in freedom and freeform character development in the west than in jrpgs, which tend to be far more story-driven. even with a straddler sort of game like planescape: torment, which is almost entirely character driven (the character is the story, and vice versa) but doesn't offer too much freeform movement about and around (no real exploration, geographically) there's still a tremendous amount of freedom in how you make the story unfold.

jrpgs are far more interested in stories, it would seem. whereas something like the elder scrolls series is fixated on creating a landscape where people make their own stories.
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[Ketch]

[SuperWes]

[Shapermc]

[SuperWes]

[Scratchmonkey]

While Shaper is technically correct that these elements are not really genre-specific, I'm a little leery of dropping the comparisons between genres because when it's been said that Simon's Quest has "RPG elements", it distinguishes it from both the first Castlevania and Mega Man 2, a distinction that is lost when we change that to "progression elements" (at least in terms of MM2).

Also, I think some of this is due to what Gillen calls "the death of genres", in the same sense that GTA: San Andreas is closer to the concept of a "Role-Playing Game" than the games that are in the "RPG" genre.

[GSL]

[Lestrade]

What GSL says is true. When NWN was released some of my older friends (40's) who are long-time table-toppers were building modules and quests to emulate past pen-and-paper games.If it works in AD&D, it works in NWN.

Still, nothing beats a coffee table and a hex map. :-) As far as classic RPG experiences go (dungeon crawls, party-based adventuring, etc.), I still prefer a handful of dice and some friends.

[SuperWes]

[GSL]

If you're going to insist that SOTN is an RPG because it assigns numerical statistics to character attributes, you might as well just call every nearly single videogame a RPG and throw in the towel, because underneath every action platformer, every FPS, every sidescrolling shooter, are numerical statistics governing everything from how fast a character moves to the damage they deal to--yes--their hit points. The original Castlevania, I'm sure nearly anyone would agree, is not at all an RPG, yet the player has a definite life bar, deals different amounts of damage depending on the weapon used, and takes different amounts of damage that varies depending on the attacking enemy. The crucial differences here are that A) the programmers never made allowances for battle occurrances like 'missing' or 'critical hits', and B) the player is, for the most part, not exposed to the underlying numbers that run the game.

You can holler bullshit all you want, but that still doesn't change the hard fact that NWN and Diablo are completely and utterly different. Also, what a game 'feels' like or doesn't is totally subjective depending on the player and thus has no validity concerning what genre a title is or isn't; if we're going to use that reasoning, then Gradius is the greatest Interstellar RPG ever made because the powerup system feels so much like levelling up in an RPG, and this topic is no longer relevant.
I'm going to assume, though, that you've either never played Neverwinter Nights, or have had very little experience with the game, because it's really hard to honestly compare it with Diablo. Diablo is essentially the modern day extension of games like NetHack or--as I mentioned--a less arcade-y version of Gauntlet. There are a lot of random occurrances--dice rolling--but as a casual player, you'll never know how or why they work, because you're not supposed to. NWN, on the other hand, was designed to be understood. With a minimum of effort, you know that a fighter gets a +5 base attack bonus at the 5th level, a character with a strength score of 20 can carry up to 153 points of equipment before being encumbered in any way, and a lich has a 'd12' for a 'hit die'. Of course Neverwinter Nights is played in the real time, because it's done with a computer that can generate the needed 'dice rolls' and fill the role of the 'dungeon master' with a speed that, to us, seems instantaneous. I really can't believe, though, that the real-time nature of NWN honestly represents some sort of hang up that makes it less qualified as a RPG and more of a hack-n-slash like Diablo. Diablo is very much like Symphony of the Night in that it is an action game, from a long line of action games, that took the bold step of including progression elements in obviously the only way the developers knew how: through a chart of attributes popularized by JRPGs.

[dark steve]

An "RPG" element is just something that terraces out player experience to your character. In an Elder Scrolls game, the player never gets any better with a sword, but the character does. The inverse example is the player getting better at fighting enemies in Zelda. Of course, all games do this to some extent (in that simple button presses equate to what would often be performing various complex actions), but an RPG takes it out of your hands completely.

Every genre breaks down when you try to discover it's essence, because there's no such thing. Our definitions are based on interrelational groupings, not something universal you can dig out and point to.

[ApM]

[SuperWes]

I do not feel that Symphony of the Night is an RPG. I feel the same way you do when I see the game labeled as an "Action RPG" in various places. But I do think that to deny that the game has RPG elements is to completely disregard Igarashi's obvious inspiration. To think that he didn't look to the RPG genre when adding things that look like this is insane:





But ApM brings up a good point. Where does that get us? Is this really just a battle over semantics? Well yeah, essentially it is, but something about how the original post of this thread decides to classify games has bothered me from the very beginning. There are just too many loopholes in this way of thinking.

And the major loophole that I've come up with is Neverwinter Nights; a game which I most certainly have played, and have even worked on a few scenarios for. I even remember when it was announced. I didn't really look at pictures of it at all, but I read a bunch about how their goal was to recreate the experience of tabletop roleplaying within a game. I was pumped for this because as much interest as I have in Tabletop role playing, I never had anyone to play with. Looking at the books it always seemed like there were too many indistinct rules that no game before it had really been able to replicate the nuances of.

Imagine my surprise when I got to E3 and saw my first taste of Neverwinter Nights in action. The key word is action. The game looked just like Diablo in new trimmings. All of the decision-making that I assumed was present in D&D was gone - replaced by hacking and slashing and a little menu at the bottom that was there to remind you that all of those actions were actually representations of dice rolls.

Despite being turned off by its E3 presence, I went ahead and bought the game when it came out. It turned out that I was mostly right about the Diablo comparison with one minor difference, you didn't actually have to click your mouse for each attack. Other than this, the games structure is virtually identically. You get a mission, go out and kill a bunch of enemies while you make your way to a boss, then you defeat it, come home, and get your reward (usually experience). Your role in the game is primarily equipment, health bar, and magic point management, which is really no different from what makes Diablo more like an RPG than a Gauntlet clone, which is really no different from what makes Symphony of the Night more like an RPG than Castlevania IV.

I realized that its abstractions from D&D were too great when I heard that my girlfriend's mom had started plaing Neverwinter Nights as well. Unlike myself, who got fed up when I realized it was just more of the same, she played all the way through it and is looking forward to the sequel. I think the reason she - a casual computer gamer - can get into it is that it strips away all of the decision-making that defines the true pen and paper RPG experience and all that you're left with is the core RPG elements that are borrowed by nearly every other game that contains RPG elements. If you know what you're looking for you can pretend it's just like pen and paper role playing, but really it's just another PC game.

But to stay on topic, my favorite RPG that does things different is probably Vagrant Story. No more parties, no more epic quests, just a personal story, lots of stat management, and a whole lotta timed button presses. Beautiful!

-Wes
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[Scratchmonkey]

Diablo is closer to Nethack than it is to Gauntlet.