An history of CRPGs (LONG)

[Caldis]

Many games listed here, and others not mentioned, seem to imply that fantasy = RPG, which we know is not the case. Is the arcade game Venture and RPG? It's a dungeon, but is it an RPG? I don't think so.

I dunno if we're interested so much in whether these games are really RPGs. what we're really exploring is Ron's question about whether Gamism "vanishing" (or being banished) from RPG texts has any connection to the rise of computer games.

we might have gotten a little off track, here, since the thread seems to be turning into a "remember this game?" passtime. still, each post seems to mention at least one change/development in the history of computer games.

The interesting thing I see about computer games and crpg's in particular is that they seem in many ways to be guided by GNS.  Of course they are limited by their medium where you cant get the extent of interaction that you can when sitting face to face with someone so it's hard to see anything truely narrativist but you can see the motivations at work.

An example of a truly gamist approach is Diablo with it's loose storyline only there as an excuse for you to send your character on his mission of killing and looting so that he can constantly get better at killing and buy better equipment for no other purpose than continuing on to bigger and nastier battles.

The Simulationist motivated design appears in game like Morrowind where  while there is a main plot going on the strength of the game is a vast world you can interact with where things beyond the story you are involved with seem to be going on.  Tons of plots disconnected to the storyline and no artifical limits on where you can go, i.e. your character can swim across streams, climb mountains or with the right magic fly anywhere.

As I said previously Narrativism as presented in GNS is not really represented in computer games but there are many that seemed motivated by similar goals, allowing you to control the story.  Maybe the GDS distinction from the RGFA model is a better tool when looking at games that emphasize story, although I'm sure it's proponents would advocate I'm using that theory improperly as well.  At any rate there are many of these type games that do emphasize the story aspect where the game play is just a puzzle to solve to reveal the story.  Look at Myst or Final Fantasy 7 for examples of this.

[Mike Holmes]

we might have gotten a little off track, here, since the thread seems to be turning into a "remember this game?" passtime.

Oops, I think I just contributed to that big time. I agree that it ought to be kept as historical as possible.

Mike

[M. J. Young]

At any rate there are many of these type games that do emphasize the story aspect where the game play is just a puzzle to solve to reveal the story.  Look at Myst or Final Fantasy 7 for examples of this.

I think this is a different form of Gamism--the puzzle/mystery variant. Although I don't play, I know that with FF7, at least, players are still trying to "beat the game" or "finish the game".

It's akin in many ways to some of the early text-based games. I started on a C64 version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in which you had to create the story by figuring out the correct choice or sequence of choices at each event. If you didn't work out the right thing to do, you lost. Even though it was story-based, it was still very gamist, in which the point was to solve all the puzzles and reach the end.

Discworld is a more recent example of this sort of thing, in which there's a story, and it's really a rather interesting and funny story, but play is about figuring out how to get the game to move in the right direction.

Narrativist play is difficult to do with people; using an AI to adjudicate makes it nearly impossible, although it's not my field so I'm not sure how close we are to anything like that.

--M. J. Young

[Caldis]

I think this is a different form of Gamism--the puzzle/mystery variant. Although I don't play, I know that with FF7, at least, players are still trying to "beat the game" or "finish the game".

I'm not so sure about that.  For many of these types of games it really was an exploration of the story rather than trying to overcome the puzzles that was the interesting element.  The puzzles were really a minor element.  Sierra started the big craze of selling hint books that gave all the answers to the puzzles so people could see the whole story even if they were unable to beat the puzzles.  For things like Myst at least I'd think the vast majority of people that played it (my wife for one) were really hooked on the story and otherworldy elements.  Maybe in GNS terms it would be a Simulationist exploration of color, but I'm not sure that would be entirely correct.

Narrativist play is difficult to do with people; using an AI to adjudicate makes it nearly impossible, although it's not my field so I'm not sure how close we are to anything like that.

I would think we're miles away but then again the changes in the past 10 years have been pretty amazing so who knows what the future holds.

[Mike Holmes]

Maybe in GNS terms it would be a Simulationist exploration of color, but I'm not sure that would be entirely correct.

I think that's right. My wife tries the puzzles in Myst once, and then finds a walkthrough somewhere to tell her how to get by each as soon as she's the least bit stumped. She doesn't want to win so much as to see the nifty stuff happen.

I'd say that it's a little bit of Drift from the otherwise plainly Gamist design.

Mike

[Jack Spencer Jr]

I think that's right. My wife tries the puzzles in Myst once, and then finds a walkthrough somewhere to tell her how to get by each as soon as she's the least bit stumped. She doesn't want to win so much as to see the nifty stuff happen.

I'd say that it's a little bit of Drift from the otherwise plainly Gamist design.

Replace Myst with Final Fantasy VIII and I could have said what Mike said. Verbatum

[contracycle]

Hell even I use walkthrus.  I think it is similar to the massive difference between playing against the computer and playing against real people.  There is a point at which the puzzles just become the Form, an annoyance rather than the point.  This is quite different from something like The Incredible Machine, which makes puzzles the only point.  Tomb Raider 1 suffered from this terribly, with large amounts of time spent wandering the cave-scape experimentally jumping at walls to discover if there was a tiny obscured ledge you had hitherto failed to notice.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

There is a point at which the puzzles just become the Form, an annoyance rather than the point.

This is an interesting statement and I think I speaks of the difference between Gamism & Simualtionism and Narrativism. At least for some. At some point the G & S elements become the form, an annoyance rather than the point. Begs the question, what is the point?

[Walt Freitag]

Begs the question, what is the point?

There are two answers to this. First, in a game like Tomb Raider, there is more than one type of challenge. Games Magazine gives separate ratings for "brain" and "fingers" in its video and computer game reviews. The brain stuff -- puzzles, figuring out what to do, resource allocation -- can be seen as distinct from the fingers stuff -- executing jumps and maneuvers, dodging and attacking in combat. If one has a preference for one or the other, the non-preferred aspect can be seen as "getting in the way" of the preferred one. Especially when the puzzles are tedious searches of the game space rather than problems solved by thought. In this situation, the walk-through or hint book can be a way of getting un-stuck and back into the fun stuff.

This doesn't explain the use of walk-through play in games such as Myst or the LucasArts adventure games, where there is little or no "fingers" challenge for the puzzles to get in the way of. Neither does it explain players who obtain the hint book or walkthrough simultaneously with the game, and use it continuously right from the start. What's going on in these cases, I believe, is simply that I believe that the game is being used as a medium for telling a basically non-interactive story. The process of play is a sidelight, a way of focusing attention on the story, an elaborate form of audience-response ritual. (Storyteller: "Then the bombs came down." Audience: "Booom!" -- not so different from -- Storyteller: "You find yourself in a long dark corridor with one lighted doorway at the far end." Audience: "I walk to the lighted doorway.")

I believe that this form of play is also not uncommon in tabeltop role playing. I think a lot of story-based module play really comes down to this, a more engaging way of being told the story than just reading the text. In fact, I've been working on a rather long essay about it, in which I advocate separating this type of play from Simulationism. This would require a partial redefinition of Simulationist play, since otherwise, it becomes Simulationism by default (imagining of character, setting, situation, and color is still going on, after all -- though the same could be said for a person reading a novel). I think of it as non-G non-N non-S play, not because there's some other metagame agenda taking over, but because the players' metagame agenda isn't a creative one. The hint book or walkthrough is drift toward this non-G non-S non-N mode.

For a truly excellent example of interactive presentation used for artistic effect to enhance a completely non-interactive story, I recommend that anyone who hasn't done so play through Adam Cadre's Photopia. It's novella length; if you've ever played any text adventures before, it probably will take less than an hour. (If you haven't, you might find some aspects of it more challenging or less evocative than intended, since it does kind of assume an interactive-fiction-savvy audience.) You can download the game from here, or play it in your browser here.

- Walt

[damion]

I think people have tried to make Narrativist games, I'd put PlaneScape into this catagory.

It was a very laid back game, there were multiple ways to do most things. You could change classes pretty much whenevery you wanted, also you'd ressurrect if you died and you could bring back your party members.(none of this even cost anything, at worst you'd have to wait).
The charachtarization was quite good given the medium(you could do alot of interaction with your party, although this wasn't particuarly necessary).  

Interstingly enough there have been a couple attempts to combine CRPG's with other genera's.

Like Deus Ex(FFS+CRPG). It had charachter develpment and additionaly one's interactions did have some effect on the game. FFS's have the limitation that it's just not technially feasable to provide the spectrum of choices necessary.

[Hunter Logan]

There is no such thing as a Narrativist crpg; and I seriously wonder if it's even possible for such a thing to exist. No crpg actually empowers the player to make story. Instead, crpgs provide challenges (puzzles, tactical combats, etc); things to gather (levels, experience, items, etc); and things to see (prescripted stories, movies, etc.). The combination of these things is intended to hook the player - And the good games do exactly that.

The existence of variable character development, multiple storylines, multiple endings, and a proliferation of in-game responses to player decisions is just another hook to keep players playing the game and to provide the sense that the game is worth its price. The existence of walk-through play is simply more proof that the definition of crpgs is muddy. Is Myst a crpg, or is it a story presented in the context of a game and overlaid with compelling visual imagery? Is Lara Croft a crpg, or is that just Mario Bros with boobs and a pair of .45's? The designers of Diablo say flat-out that Diablo is not an RPG - It's Diablo. In the marketplace, Diablo is treated as an RPG and Lara is treated as an adventure game. Really, what is the difference between them?

A lot of the games we call crpgs are actually linear stories overlaid with pregenerated characters, graphics, puzzles, gathering activities, and tactical challenges. I'd like to say something really incisive here, but it's not in my brain. Instead, I'm left scratching my head and wondering, what defines a real crpg as compared to all these other things.

In attempt to answer my own question, I have these elements:

-Player-defined characters created through some sort of chargen process.
-Multiple story paths or goals intended to give the players freedom of choice.
-Multiple outcomes based on player decisions.

These are tall orders; and yet, how many people play pen and paper rpgs that are really linear adventure games with personalized characters?

[efindel]

There is no such thing as a Narrativist crpg; and I seriously wonder if it's even possible for such a thing to exist. No crpg actually empowers the player to make story. Instead, crpgs provide challenges (puzzles, tactical combats, etc); things to gather (levels, experience, items, etc); and things to see (prescripted stories, movies, etc.). The combination of these things is intended to hook the player - And the good games do exactly that.

Do you mean rather that there's no such thing as a narrativist single player CRPG?  TinyMUDs and MUSHes are CRPGs, and they do allow players to make stories.  Indeed, they even have a term for such things -- TinyPlot.

http://www.mutatismutandis.org/gameplay/roleplay/tinyplots/app.html is one online game's guidelines for players to apply to run a TinyPlot in the game.

--Travis

[Hunter Logan]

My comments are strictly limited in scope to single player crpgs. The miniplots sound interesting, but they are implemented by people. That means the players can't make story as part of the software. As a fine point, how much of the interaction in a MUD/MUSH is controlled by the software and how much by people? What is the computer's role, and at what point can one say that the MUD/MUSH is not a crpg, but an actual rpg played through a computer interface? If I want a tinyplot in a MUD and I send that to a human moderator who will make it so, this seems the same as submitting the request to the GM in a PBEM game.

[efindel]

TinyPlots are just one example, though.  Here's some other sorts of examples:

- In some older MUDs, one goal of the game was to become a "wizard".  One did this by reaching a particular very high level, at which point the player could create new "areas" to add to the game -- creating new map rooms, stocking them with NPCs, creatures, objects, etc.  It soon became apparent, though, that good players are not always good adventure-creators (and vice-versa), so few (possibly no) modern MUDs work this way.  On more modern muds, players have to apply to become "wizards" (or "coders", or "builders", or whatever terminology the MUD in question uses).  The process varies from "the guy running the MUD has to like you" through setups which give the prospective builder limited access, require him/her to build a small "area", and then have others review the "area" to see if it's considered good enough.

- On some TinyMUDs I've played on, the initial setting is that everyone can "build" -- i.e., create rooms, creatures, objects, etc.  During this period, players only have access to a "shared" area created by the administrators, and their own created areas.  The game is left in that state for a few months, and then everyone is "demoted" back to being players, and allowed to explore what each other have created.

- Some MUSHes are set up so that anyone can build, any time.

- Furcadia (http://www.furcadia.com allows players to create "dreams", their own mini-games within the game.  Here again, players can create creatures, objects, maps, etc. within their "dream".  A "dream" can't really do anything permanent to the character (thus the name), but it's still a way to "make a story".

In a lot of ways, these are like "level generators" for other computer games... they give players who want to take the time access to the game's tools for creating things.  One could consider it to be the equivalent of "writing a module" for a paper RPG.  How sophisticated they get varies -- some have full programming languages, so that a knowledgeable-enough player can create almost anything within the game.

The degree of power varies greatly.  In general, it varies according to how difficult it is to become a player (some games allow anyone to connect, generate a character, and start playing, while others have an "application process", where one has to come up with character background and possibly stats, and then submit those and wait for approval) and the purpose of the game ("loot & level" games obviously would have problems with allowing anyone to create content -- players could make it very easy for themselves or their friends, or set traps for other characters.  Strongly RP-oriented games are more likely to allow everyone at least limited ability to create things.)

--Travis

[M. J. Young]

As a fine point, how much of the interaction in a MUD/MUSH is controlled by the software and how much by people? What is the computer's role, and at what point can one say that the MUD/MUSH is not a crpg, but an actual rpg played through a computer interface? If I want a tinyplot in a MUD and I send that to a human moderator who will make it so, this seems the same as submitting the request to the GM in a PBEM game.

My sons do a lot of MUD/MUSH/MUX stuff, so I've some close second-hand familiarity.

To me, they seem like elaborate chatrooms.

If you've been around long enough to remember stuff like the Red Dragon Inn (a traditional Quantum Link/AOL Chatroom), you'll have some idea of what I mean. People entered the "room", and in essence agreed to the shared imaginative space. Drinks were passed around, there was a bar, a decor, and social rules of how it worked. Sometimes fights broke out, and people used strange powers to resolve them.

The MUX does a number of things to this:

[*]It describes the scenes automatically, so that when you enter the room you can determine what that shared space is like.[*]It divides the shared space into rooms, such that persons in different rooms can only interact with each other through special means, and rooms can be different.[*]It adjudicates the use of powers possible within the room. In the old chatrooms, the outcome of a fight was by agreement; now it's by computer calculation.[*]It controls the abilities of characters to move between rooms, or to send each other to other rooms.[/list:u]Thus in many ways it acts like the referee.

However, in creating stories, the players are usually on their own. Even if the MUX coders become involved, they do so more as players (often very powerful player characters, such as gods). Such stories, relationships between characters (marriages are quite common, and often new player characters will be created as children of existing ones), and outcomes outside what is determined through the computer computations of success and failure are part of the agreement between the players. The system which serves as referee is totally unaware of such things, which are perhaps best described as freeform.

As I say, I've not played, but this is what I get from them and their friends.


--M. J. Young