The subject of CRPG’s was brought up in this thread in Site Discussion and it brought to my mind a few ideas and questions which I thought might be more appropriate here, cause they will delve into theory.

Computers and RPG

Much of this is anecdotal, since I am at work and have to work and write this. J The CRPG genre has very long history, if you go back to the days of Wizardry and the like. Most (many?) have been heavily influenced by the dominant tabletop game, style and theme, that being Dungeons & Dragons, Fantasy, and kill the bad guy. Games like Wasteland broke the mode somewhat and many games of other CG genres, like Space Sims and FPS, added elements of role-playing. Mostly these were either allowing you to choose some skills as your guy got better or allowing you to name your character and follow a story arc ala Wing Commander (I&II). Still, with a single player game at the time, the best you could hope for was a tactical game with tabletop RPG seasoning.

Along came multiplayer… Well with LAN and Internet Multiplayer, you now had the opportunity to kill your friends or kill stuff with them. So games edged closer to that table top idea. With the propagation of MUD and MUCH and all those other acronyms, text RPGs became very popular (and indeed still are). Finally in 1998-99, Everquest hit the scene. Now, EQ was NOT the first MMORPG, but it was the first that captured the imagination of the computer game crowd en masse. EQ and the latest generation have come the closest to GM-less RPG play.

CRPG & SIS (Shared Imagined Space)

There was some discussion about whether a single player CRPG is indeed a Role Playing Game (RPG). To be able to consider them in the same light as a TTRPG (TT = Tabletop) or MMORPG (dontcha love acronyms) I think we would have to expand the idea of the SIS. That is to say that in Solo-play, the SIS is shared between author(s) and Player. The Author(s) do 95% of the work, then box it up and hand it over to the Player. It is no different then playing a Solo adventure module, except the computer does a great deal of the work for you.

I would say that technology now exists to create a CRPG, single player game that allows great choices and character development then previous incarnations.

What design elements and ideas do you think would be necessary to create a CRPG that is MORE like the table top games that we are all familiar with?

For the record I do not see why the Forge CAN’T be open to the discussion of CRPGs.


Sean

For an excellent example of what you're talking about, you need go no further than Knights of the Old Republic.

KotOR has much broader choices than your usual CRPG when it comes to choices; while you still end up tracking down the bad guy and figuring out who you really are, there's a great deal of latitude in HOW you go about those things.

I think we'll see that latitude grow even wider as time goes on.

Shared Imagined Space. . .

If there is no-one to share it with, then it's daydreaming.

Yes but does SIS have to be here and now OR, can SIS be expanded to include the pre-packaged Solo mode of CRPG? After all, playing PBEM, or Forum or Wiki games are still considered RPG even though people are not sitting in the same room? The creator(s) or author(s) are doing most of the creation true, but then the Player adds their bit and makes choices. So I think it is more then day dreaming.


Sean

It's a matter of definition. No bolt of lightning will fry you if you define SIS to include solitary imagining or such. The key is to consider whether such a definition is useful. For me, it's not. A key characteristic of the Shared Imagined Space is that it's shared. In a CRPG you have a one-way relationship with the author: he gives you a matrix of decisions which you juggle. This is essentially the same thing you do with a book, by the way: you as the audience process the work which somebody else has created.

Granted, the most base kind of D&D can reach into this area of play through use of a repressive GM and readymade scenarios. Even in these cases, however, the creative connection exists in potentia. It's a choice of all the players to not break the rules or simply find an alternative solution to that offered by the scenario. These are the kinds of choices that make the imagined space shared, and which are not allowed by computer games.

The primary difference is that with Solo play (CRPG or Solo tabletop module), the author does not, in fact, have input. The game designer's role is *identical* to Tolkien's role in my playing MERP by myself. I take that information into "my" imagined space, but cannot contribute anything back. The game designer will never know or participate in what I do with the game, any more than Tolkien will.

I cannot contribute back, nor can they contribute again. There is no negotiation. I can't say "What? That doesn't make sense" and get a response. They can't say "No no, you've completely gotten what the elves are doing backwards."

James

I will admit that up until now, CRPG's have done a poor to average job of eliciting Player Input and choice into the SIS. There is often the illusion of choice and control, but the very same thing can be said about some table top games and game sessions. Your not an outside observer, you are becoming the Point of View for the created world and I think that is why it is different then reading a book. In fact, Choose your own adventure books come close to being RPG's.(IMO)

As long as both sides understand the Social Contract involved ie we make world and you Explore it, then I think the parameters of SIS are being met and thus it is a legitimate RPG. Admittedly it would be harder try and explain it as a Social activity, only in the broadest context that other people are presambly also going throught the game and that computer gaming is something many people do.

All of this originated out of a new person's question about why we did not discuss CRPG's more. The Forge is about broadening horizons and re-thinking old attitudes. Yet still we can be reluctant to open up the dynamic to anyone who may stand even just a little bit outisde of our dearly held beliefs.


Sean

Instead of asking "is playing a CRPG roleplaying?" ask "how does roleplaying change when the events of the game happen according to really-truly non-human, non-social arbitration, not consensus?"

The big model can be adapted to describe CRPGs, I'm pretty sure. But please let's not talk about the "SIS" of a computer game. It's doing violence to the idea. Computer games don't have SISs, they have Ss, without the "shared" or the "imaginary." Using SIS for what computer games have is going to wicked screw up people's grasp on the term.

Going forward, it seems to me that it'd be especially important to work out how to create meaningful player authorship when the game isn't collaborative. For random instance, how do you let the player identify which conflicts are interesting and which aren't?

-Vincent

lumpley wrote:
Going forward, it seems to me that it'd be especially important to work out how to create meaningful player authorship when the game isn't collaborative. For random instance, how do you let the player identify which conflicts are interesting and which aren't?

-Vincent

I addressed some of this in the aforementioned parent thread, which is worth comparing, I think.

My conclusion is that in a CRPG the computer (and not the game designer) has to be recognized as one of the players. It is limited to what it's been "told" via the programming, and to its own abilities. The latter is true of all of us--we are limited by our abilities. In this case, though, the processor's limitations in its abilities are jarringly different from our own--it is very good at several things which are problematic for us (rapid number crunching, precise positioning of imagined elements) while being very poor at things most of us find relatively easy (characterization, moral judgment, personal interaction).

I also think Vincent is putting too fine a distinction on the shared imaginary space. In most computer games, such a shared imaginary space is in fact far more fully shared, because the computer player is able to show us precisely the image of the scene as it has constructed it, and the direct effects of its own decisions and actions within it. We input our intended actions, and it generally responds by adjusting its image of the situation to incorporate what it understands to be our intention. (It might seem more like a role playing game if it asked, "Do you mean this?" or if it allowed you to scroll back and correct a misunderstood instruction, but that would also slow it down, and a considerable part of the appeal of this medium is the speed with which the shared imaginary space is updated and communicated.)

Thus when I'm playing with people, I'm imagining what I think they're imagining, based on what they tell me and what I tell them. When I'm playing with a computer, I'm imagining what the computer tells me it is imagining, as its communication comes to me in greater detail. I may have less ability to define that shared imaginary space--I can't say, "I think there should be a whiskey bottle on the bar, so I pick it up and hit the guy with it" unless in fact the computer has already shown that to be present.

That's probably one of the biggest limitations in CRPGs that make RPG players like me think they're "not real". In a "real" role playing game, we'd have something like this (thoughts in italics):

A fight breaks out as you're standing next to a bar.

I don't have a weapon; I'm in trouble now. What could I use? Is there a whiskey bottle or something like it on the bar?

Hmmm...my notes don't describe the bar, but hey, it's a bar--there's probably something like that on it somewhere, right? Yes, there are several bottles within reach.

I grab one that looks like it has a fair amount of weight to it and a good solid neck, and use it as a club to fight my way through to the door.

A bottle is very like a club; if it doesn't break, he should be able to do significant blunt trauma with it, and if it does break it gives him something more like a knife, with which he can do slashing damage. You move toward the door, and most people try to avoid you as you advance.



Now, the problem with the CRPG appears in the thought processes of the referee. When I ask for a bottle, it (anthropomorphically, perhaps, but effectively nontheless) thinks, My notes don't mention a bottle, so there is no bottle. Obviously, there are ways to program the system so that it will recognize that there would be bottles on the bar, but it's one more detail that would have to be included in an already incredibly burdened program. Then when I say I'm going to use it as a weapon to fight my way through the crowd, it thinks, According to my database, this bottle contains whiskey, an intoxicating beverage which does not harm anyone but causes disorientation if consumed; there are no rules for forcing someone else to consume whiskey, therefore it cannot be done, and this is not useful as a weapon. Again, you can program it to overcome this deficiency--but ultimately you can't program it to overcome every deficiency, and thus you wind up with a player who is limited.

The problem doesn't quite end there, though, it occurs to me. After all, if I'm playing D&D and the referee says, "what's a crenelated battlement" or "what's a portcullis", we tell him what it is and after that he knows. That is, we as players have the ability to cure the deficiencies in each other, to a significant degree. We don't usually have that ability in a CRPG--if the computer doesn't know something, we're stuck with that and have to work around it.

Thus I'd say that a CRPG is like playing a role playing game with a mentally handicapped referee. His limitations are the problem.

--M. J. Young

lumpley wrote: Instead of asking "is playing a CRPG roleplaying?" ask "how does roleplaying change when the events of the game happen according to really-truly non-human, non-social arbitration, not consensus?"

The big model can be adapted to describe CRPGs, I'm pretty sure. But please let's not talk about the "SIS" of a computer game. It's doing violence to the idea. Computer games don't have SISs, they have Ss, without the "shared" or the "imaginary." Using SIS for what computer games have is going to wicked screw up people's grasp on the term.

Going forward, it seems to me that it'd be especially important to work out how to create meaningful player authorship when the game isn't collaborative. For random instance, how do you let the player identify which conflicts are interesting and which aren't?

-Vincent

I think this discussion will become more muddled once Fable comes out. I can see that game as being called a "true" roleplaying game because it will have all the elements of Exploration. In fact, I think that it will probably be a good argument for what Dr. Xero proposed over in this other thread . I, for one, am looking forward to playing this particular game. It's seems like Sim to me... :)

Cheers
Jonathan

Now, the problem with the CRPG appears in the thought processes of the referee. When I ask for a bottle, it (anthropomorphically, perhaps, but effectively nontheless) thinks, My notes don't mention a bottle, so there is no bottle. Obviously, there are ways to program the system so that it will recognize that there would be bottles on the bar, but it's one more detail that would have to be included in an already incredibly burdened program. Then when I say I'm going to use it as a weapon to fight my way through the crowd, it thinks, According to my database, this bottle contains whiskey, an intoxicating beverage which does not harm anyone but causes disorientation if consumed; there are no rules for forcing someone else to consume whiskey, therefore it cannot be done, and this is not useful as a weapon. Again, you can program it to overcome this deficiency--but ultimately you can't program it to overcome every deficiency, and thus you wind up with a player who is limited.

The problem doesn't quite end there, though, it occurs to me. After all, if I'm playing D&D and the referee says, "what's a crenelated battlement" or "what's a portcullis", we tell him what it is and after that he knows. That is, we as players have the ability to cure the deficiencies in each other, to a significant degree. We don't usually have that ability in a CRPG--if the computer doesn't know something, we're stuck with that and have to work around it.

Thus I'd say that a CRPG is like playing a role playing game with a mentally handicapped referee. His limitations are the problem.

Hmm. I think that considering the computer in an RPG to be 'thinking' or an active participant is rather stretching the definition a bit.

The computer cannot, no more than can a game of solitaire, interact with you. It can *react*, but it can never initiate, or feedback into the loop. It's a clock. You wind it up, it goes tick tick tick, then it stops. It will never be anything that it isn't already when it comes off the shelf.

Going by the Lumpley priniciple (as I understand it), there is no System involved. There is you, and there is a single Authority to which you refer - you refer to it a lot - but it can never negotiate, offer, or reject. All it can do is be refered to.

The computer does not think (anthropomorphically or otherwise) "my notes don't mention a bottle" it states "Invalid command: Object bottle not recognized." Nowadays it will do so much more smoothly, but it's still ultimately not a offer/counteroffer format - it's an error message.

I think there's a lot of good meat on the similarities between RPG's and CRPG's, and see no particular reason that CRPG's couldn't be discussed on the Forge - a lot of the design challenges from a publishing point of view are, I suspect, startlingly similar - but I think it is misleading to conflate the two. Roleplaying is fundamentally a social interaction between people and computer gaming is fundamentally not.

James

What if the CRPG's database did know what a bottle was, just not that a bar was likely to have a bunch of them. So you want to pick up a bottle and head for the door? Tell it the bar is loaded with bottles!

OK, I know that's not how the games we're mostly thinking about work, but why not? What if, as the player, you can create such world-building linkages? That's not hard to imagine, code, or play. There could be any number of mechanics devised to facilitate such inclusion -- all of them better and more meaningful if the game is in some way multi-player (even if indirectly and asychronously -- the DB/world is shared while instances of play are solitaire). I like the idea of having a number of assurance or reification points that can be spent to add "reality weight" to a player-introduced fact and having them regenerate over time.

In the recent rash of System discussions, one thing that came out of the discussion was the proposal that the individual imagined space was really just being synchronized by System. I think that's a superior vision, if not startlingly different. Given that, and given some system for altering what the computer (as an agent of the author -- a real person) knows about the in-game reality, I think you do have an imagined space that is being constantly sychronized by whatever the System includes. And this is exponentially more true if it's a multiplayer game -- in the traditional sense or even as described above.

Computers today do not think in any meaningful way. But already they create. Artificial life algorithms can produce new and interesting bits of order from chaos. And I have yet to read anything convincing to suggest that our brains are more than very, very complex computers. Even if your brain is a clock, as James put it, it appears to be good enough for our purposes, so why assume that other computers won't get there?

Chris

Christopher Weeks wrote: What if the CRPG's database did know what a bottle was, just not that a bar was likely to have a bunch of them. So you want to pick up a bottle and head for the door? Tell it the bar is loaded with bottles!

OK, I know that's not how the games we're mostly thinking about work, but why not? What if, as the player, you can create such world-building linkages? That's not hard to imagine, code, or play. There could be any number of mechanics devised to facilitate such inclusion -- all of them better and more meaningful if the game is in some way multi-player (even if indirectly and asychronously -- the DB/world is shared while instances of play are solitaire). I like the idea of having a number of assurance or reification points that can be spent to add "reality weight" to a player-introduced fact and having them regenerate over time.

In the recent rash of System discussions, one thing that came out of the discussion was the proposal that the individual imagined space was really just being synchronized by System. I think that's a superior vision, if not startlingly different. Given that, and given some system for altering what the computer (as an agent of the author -- a real person) knows about the in-game reality, I think you do have an imagined space that is being constantly sychronized by whatever the System includes. And this is exponentially more true if it's a multiplayer game -- in the traditional sense or even as described above.

Computers today do not think in any meaningful way. But already they create. Artificial life algorithms can produce new and interesting bits of order from chaos. And I have yet to read anything convincing to suggest that our brains are more than very, very complex computers. Even if your brain is a clock, as James put it, it appears to be good enough for our purposes, so why assume that other computers won't get there?

I'll keep this brief in deference to your worry about derailing.

Blankshield wrote:
The computer, quite simply, can't initiate or negotiate, it can only react and record. And until someone develops an AI, it'll stay that way.
...
The computer never adds anything, never initiates change, it simply records the state of the imagined space, under your suggestion.
...
To say that computers as they currently exist, and as they are used in CRPG's, are an active participant is at best highly misleading, IMO.

James wrote: The computer-as-agent for the author doesn't work unless the author in some way has continued input into the process, otherwise it's a one-shot package fundamentally equivalent to a novel or a rulebook in terms of it's contriubution to the imagined space.

Truly, the player is the only active participant. As so eloquently argued by Blankshield, the computer is only a method of recording and maintaining the imagined space. However, there is still a GM and there is still a player. Two possibilities exist:

The GM is the game designer who came up with a story and options for a player to run through. It's not that the bottle does or doesn't exist at the bar, it's the fact that you can only approach the bar to talk to the bartender that is the limit. You are railroaded into doing one or two or maybe three actions in each situation. The designer uses the program as his system. At best this is Illusionism, like "Choose Your own Adventure" books.

OR

The player is both GM and player. What he decides to do is what he puts into the IS and he still uses the game as system. This is harder to define as roleplaying, which is why I pointed out that Fable will confuse matters more. It looks more like roleplaying, but now the game designer has left you many more choices and very little storyline to follow. It becomes more like Sim, but less like Exploring a Shared Imagined Space.

IMO, the issue comes down to how many options are left open to you to explore. The human GM is capable of dealing with a nearly infinite amount of player decisions. (Unless he is railroading or using Illusionism; see this other post .) So, once a computer is able to allow you to pick up the bottle, smash it, kill people with it and flee town, you begin to blur the already fuzzy line between RPG and CRPG. In Fable, the fact that you killed a townsperson will gain you ill repute and consquences in that town. Computers are steadily gaining the ability to offer "choices;" soon there will be enough that unless you male a highly unusual decision, you won't be able to tell the difference between human and computer run games. (at least in substance) IME, making a highly unusual decision usually violates the SIS anyway.

Ok, rambled enough!

Cheers
Jonathan

Blankshield wrote: The thing is that the computer doesn't "know" anything....The computer never adds anything, never initiates change, it simply records the state of the imagined space, under your suggestion.

Chris, M.J.

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree. As I mentioned earlier, I think this is coming down to a paradigm difference - we flat out see computers differently.

For my money:
Until computers can come up with the algorithms independent of specific human input,
Until computers can create concepts that they do not have an algorithm or program pre-existing for, and
Until computers can retain and manipulate a memory indepent of human control or input,

they will not be capable of active participation in an RPG. They will not be capable of thought or imagination.

A computer (or more specifically, what Chris is describing - an expert system) IMO flat out cannot be anything but a tool at present. It can be a well-designed tool that closely mimics what another player at the table is capable of, but it is not that player. It does not have imagination, by definition it cannot have an imagined space.

James

Noon wrote:
Recently Ralph gave a good description on how SIS is really only ever IS. Short of mind melding techniques (his apt wording) it's never genuinely shared.

Really, without each other it couldn't have happened. What was made was a combination of our creative contributions.
....
But in the end it was collaborative. I couldn't have done it without their contributing it and it couldn't have happened if I didn't accept their contribution.

*I had to end up double posting one day, didn't I?*

Blankshield wrote: Hmm. I think that considering the computer in an RPG to be 'thinking' or an active participant is rather stretching the definition a bit.

The computer cannot, no more than can a game of solitaire, interact with you. It can *react*, but it can never initiate, or feedback into the loop. It's a clock. You wind it up, it goes tick tick tick, then it stops. It will never be anything that it isn't already when it comes off the shelf.

Going by the Lumpley priniciple (as I understand it), there is no System involved. There is you, and there is a single Authority to which you refer - you refer to it a lot - but it can never negotiate, offer, or reject. All it can do is be refered to.

The computer does not think (anthropomorphically or otherwise) "my notes don't mention a bottle" it states "Invalid command: Object bottle not recognized." Nowadays it will do so much more smoothly, but it's still ultimately not a offer/counteroffer format - it's an error message.

I think there's a lot of good meat on the similarities between RPG's and CRPG's, and see no particular reason that CRPG's couldn't be discussed on the Forge - a lot of the design challenges from a publishing point of view are, I suspect, startlingly similar - but I think it is misleading to conflate the two. Roleplaying is fundamentally a social interaction between people and computer gaming is fundamentally not.

James

contracycle wrote: The SIS may not truly exist, but it can certainly collapse. It is only that set of facts that is shared, a necessary subset of all facts, but the failure of the consensus is always catastrophic.

I take the point but is this meaningful? I mean, equally it couldn't have happened without the silicon arsenide factories and the shipping consortia and whatnot. To say that this was a collaborative effort is true but only insofar as virtually everything we do is a collaborative effort - not one of the pieces of clothing I am wearing today were made by me, for example,

It is correct to recognise this as a colloaborative effort, but only nominally so. In real terms, it's still a one way medium. They built for you a toy with a lot of bells and whistles - and seleceted them for effect - but you and the author are not meaningfully collaborating.

Noon wrote:
No, it can't collapse as it doesn't exist. You can only become, to put it crudely, unhappy with a consensus your imagining to be there.

Really, the only thing you have is that the work you want to get done, is getting done. This doesn't mean consensus exists or that anything is shared between you.

Oh, c'mon! My GM couldn't be there without his parents getting together one night, or the truck driver this moring breaking in time when he stepped out on the road. If you want to bury the idea of there being a mutual contribution, I can just as easily do that for table top gaming.

I think you'd better encompass what 'meaningful' means, because it's easy enough to mistake want/tradition for need.

Noon wrote:
Instead, imagine I'm playing at the table top and in the course of my adventure I find a map of a goblin cave. The GM actually hands me a map on some paper that he made up.

I look at it and declare from what I see "This should show all the sentry positions on it'.

I first say this to the map. Nothing changes. I then even say this to the GM. He folds his arms and says nothing.

You see, this is his submission in it's entirety. That's it, accept it or don't. Now, does this seem like it isn't roleplay? I think weve all asked for more information during roleplay and not being given in. Negotiation is still entered into even if one sides input is just 'no'.

Okay, now say some gentleman writes some software and hands it to me. I either accept or I don't. In fact I often can decline to accept certain things in the game, doing so via various methods.

Some of this discussion is missing what is *possible* in computer games currently. Which is not to say that it is always *done*.

There are two general ways to program a computer game: scripted and emergent. [These are the poles at the end of a spectrum. No game is completely purely one or the other, but most lean heavily towards one or the other. Most, frankly, move in the direction of scripted.]

In a scripted game [case example: Half-Life] the game authors set up every event nearly every step of the way. Very little happens that they did not specifically intend and forsee. Encounters occur because the player moves past triggers that cause them.

There are two benefits to this method: It's much easier to test, and the designers can ensure that the player is constantly running into Cool Stuff. Thus Half-Life is an excellent example: the game runs on rails, with a single path in any given location, and a steady barrage of scripted encounters. Players love Half Life because the railroad's path and the encounters upon it are highly inventive.


Emergent design attempts to replace scripting with simulation [Case examples: Thief series; Deus Ex series, and (by repute - I haven't played them) the Grand Theft Auto series]. It's much harder to test, and it does not ensure that Cool Stuff is always happening.

However, it does make the computer a full (if still often stupid) participant in the game, because encounters and events happen that the designers did not forsee, and possibly could not have forseen.

Example from Thief: The guards have patrol routes. The player enters the area, and eventually makes a noise. Since the player's path options in Thief are usually fairly open (especially compared to Half-Life) , the player's position at the time of making a revealing move is extremely random from the point of view of the designers. Therefore, the guards are programmed not with set path responses to player-produced stimuli, but with behaviours - search patterns, alert classes, random chances of going for backup, etc. The computer arbitrates the gameplay in a manner whose overall patterns were set, but whose specifics are up to the player and the computer.

Second, and this comes closer to the point about the bottle-in-a-bar, it is possible to program into the computer a set of uses for the various objects in the game. I've never seen bottles as weapons as one of them (not least because the player always has better options). However, the Thief & Deus Ex series games enhance their emergent nature by using tables of attributes for all the interactable objects in the game. Wooden boxes and wooden chairs are in the category of Wooden; Wooden objects float on water, burn in fire, and are damaged by weapons fire. If the player puts a wooden box in a fire, it burns. Throw it into water, and it floats. It doesn't matter *what* fire or *what* body of water. It's simple for humans, unusual in computer games, but it is possible.


Moving away from scripted/emergent, and into creating narrativist play in computer games....

The other thing that's possible, although little done, is to try to get beyond the common and simplistic kill-them-all-and-kick-the-Foozle's-butt game structure, and into posing moral dilemmas or questions for the players. The Fallout series is famed for this, but IMO the Deux Ex series does it better.

Light spoilers follow.....

If you're at least half-awake when playing Deus Ex, you'll find that the game is constantly posing you with questions about the nature and use of power. Some of these are subtle and many will miss them; some are highly overt and missing them would be difficult.

The game ending brings this to its logical conclusion. One of Deus Ex I's slogans was "Your mission is to save the world. How you do it is up to you." The endgame doesn't ask you this in terms of "kill the Big Bad with a hand cannon or a rocket launcher?" It poses the question in terms of "you decide what "saving the world" actually *means* - and pursue that goal." Put the player in a dilemma, have characters argue for and against each option, and let the player decide the ethics of the situation.

The Deus Ex games have put me in more moral dilemmas than any of the pen and paper games I've been in - which you may view as a flaw in my P-n-P experience - but when I've paused the game and walked away from it for 15 minutes to try to figure out what I want to do, because of the ethical dilemma it has posed -- if that isn't effective role-playing, what the heck is?


There's certainly more that can be done. For all their virtues, Falout & Deus Ex still force the player along a fairly linear plotline, built kinda like a sausage: you get a great deal of freedom much of the time, but the plot will still go through set, predetermined gates that advance the main story. On the other hand, there's people working to get around this. Fable may succeed, though I confess I'm as often disappointed by Molyneux's genius as thrilled by it; and Warren Spector (Deus Ex) is still at work as well.


The final note - and I've lost the reference to this - is that I've read of a program built with the most basic postulates of geometry, an understanding of the rules of proofs, and programmed to find more theorems. In the late 1990s (IIRC) this program was turned loose for a couple months. By the end of that time, it had - without further human intervention - come up with a great many proofs, including a proof for a theorem that had been postulated by humans but never before proven.

Now, we can puff up our egos and claim it was programmed to do this. True enough; it was. On the other hand, nothing done by the initial programmers - other than the program's intent to find and solve theorems - led it to the particular new theorem it solved. How different is this from attending classes in maths and geometry for a kid who is predisposed to find maths fascinating? If the computer's new theorem is not an act of machine creativity, then why is it creative when a mathematician finds a new theorem?

Blankshield wrote: In the case of the map, if I am a 250 pound biker with a crowbar, I can say "put sentry positions down or I'm clubbing you to death.". I can say that to the computer as well, but it *can't* change it's answer.

If a CRPG isn't a roleplaying game, then neither is Tunnels and Trolls when played using the solo game books. I think it's obvious that T&T played with solo game books is roleplaying, so therefore CRPGs are roleplaying games.

There's definitely a shared immaginary space in CRPGs. If I and a friend of mine play Baldur's Gate or whatever, we can discuss the imaginary space of that game with very little scope for disagreement or confusion, it's an imaginary space we're both familiar with.

As for the contribution a computer makes, even old AD&D had a random dungeon generator, and many games have had random reaction tables. Many of the GM's tasks in running an RPG can be automated and published scenarios can leave little or no scope for GM interpretation during play. I've played games run streight from the game book with the GM actively avoiding any form of personal interpretation. This style of play is common in tournaments. Is this still roleplaying? Hell yes, so what's the problem with CRPGs?

Sure there are many things you can do in a tabletop RPG you may never be able to do in a CRPG, and vice versa, but fundamentaly they are similar activities.

I think there are differences between games in which the 'author' prepares the in-game situation thoroughly in advance and there is little lattitude for divergence from the pre-imagined game experience, and games that have a very open ended in-game situation which the players have a wide lattitude to influence. CRPGs are pretty rubbish at this last sort of game at the moment, as are some real-life GMs ;)


Simon Hibbs

(I say things about the SIS question here.)

-Vincent

ADGBoss: Your point about breaking the SIS up in time is very good, and comes the closest to changing my point of view on this topic out of any argument so far.

Blankshield: The point about the vital necessity of a back-and-forth saved me from swinging over to ADGBoss's camp. :-) I think that the feedback is a key element, and I agree that RPG is an inherently social activity.

Simon_Hibbs: In regard to your point about Tunnels and Trolls having solo play, thus proving that CRPGs must also be considered "real" RPGs -- in a word, no. Instead, I think it just means that solo T&T isn't "real" roleplaying either. (Please note, though, I've never played T&T, so I'm assuming I understand the concept of the "solo play" you mention. If it's something other than one person running through a published adventure, let me know.)

As I stated in the parent thread, I'm a big fan of CRPGs, but I believe they are fundamentaly different than TTRPGs.

Blankshield wrote:

Noon wrote:
*snip*
I've snipped off the rest because I don't think it's a disagreement; I'm saying the computer isn't a person, you're saying the computer isn't a person. The only difference in thought is already captured above: you think I'm roleplaying with the game designers, I think I'm audience for their work.

Andrew Morris wrote: Blankshield: The point about the vital necessity of a back-and-forth saved me from swinging over to ADGBoss's camp. :-) I think that the feedback is a key element, and I agree that RPG is an inherently social activity.

Simon_Hibbs: In regard to your point about Tunnels and Trolls having solo play, thus proving that CRPGs must also be considered "real" RPGs -- in a word, no. Instead, I think it just means that solo T&T isn't "real" roleplaying either. (Please note, though, I've never played T&T, so I'm assuming I understand the concept of the "solo play" you mention. If it's something other than one person running through a published adventure, let me know.)

Ok, I hope I'm not missunderstanding you, but...

Blankshield wrote: In the case of the map, if I am a 250 pound biker with a crowbar, I can say "put sentry positions down or I'm clubbing you to death.". I can say that to the computer as well, but it *can't* change it's answer. I suppose, in theory that I could say that to the author, but that would involve a certain amount of stalking.

you think I'm roleplaying with the game designers, I think I'm audience for their work.

Hrm. I think that we're beginning to get even farther down into not-very-useful disagreements because of fundamental differences in what we're using as our definition of 'role-playing'. I'll endeavour to clear up my position, but I suspect we must simply agree to disagree.

simon_hibbs wrote:
Ok, I hope I'm not missunderstanding you, but...

Blankshield wrote:
In the case of the map, if I am a 250 pound biker with a crowbar, I can say "put sentry positions down or I'm clubbing you to death.". I can say that to the computer as well, but it *can't* change it's answer. I suppose, in theory that I could say that to the author, but that would involve a certain amount of stalking.

Sue, but you could do the same in a refereed wargame, or a chess game 'move that pawn back or you lose fingers!". It has nothing to do with whether you're playing a roleplaying game or not.

simon_hibbs wrote:
But what is the work you are audience for, if not roleplaying? You interact with the game world through the medium of the character, which is the role that you play in the imaginary space. No?

noon wrote: It's easiest to see if you look at play by post games. They are considered roleplay, right?

To start, the GM submits a post.

Then, the players, with nothing else from him, respond to his contribution with their own contribution.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves and go on about what happens when the GM reads it. Was or wasn't that roleplay? I think it is and it doesn't require some other persons follow up to be so. It's a lot more fun if there is follow up, but that's a bonus, not a requirement.

James,

I get your point, but the kind of interactivity you like is found in many kinds of games, including many that don't even have characters in them. Therefore I don't see how roleplaying itself can be defined by that interactivity.

Of course it's possible to distinguish between CRPGs and tabletop RPGs. Of course solo game books are different from tabletop RPGs, but the ways they are different have nothing intrinsicaly to do with characters, or playing roles.

Surely playing the role of a character has something to do with roleplaying?


Simon Hibbs

simon_hibbs wrote:
Surely playing the role of a character has something to do with roleplaying?

James wrote: No, not in the way I am using role-playing. What I would say is that someone has submitted fiction to you, and you have written fan fiction based on their work. Until you return it to them and they accept it, it is not, IMO, roleplaying. Once that back-and-forth is there, I would call it role-playing, but not before. Not until there is a two-way flow of information.

Again, as I mention above, I consider the social aspect of "rpgs" to be axiomatic, so really all we can say at this point is that we're obviously using different defintions of role-playing.

James

simon_hibbs wrote: Surely playing the role of a character has something to do with roleplaying?

Noon wrote:

James wrote: No, not in the way I am using role-playing. What I would say is that someone has submitted fiction to you, and you have written fan fiction based on their work. Until you return it to them and they accept it, it is not, IMO, roleplaying. Once that back-and-forth is there, I would call it role-playing, but not before. Not until there is a two-way flow of information.

Again, as I mention above, I consider the social aspect of "rpgs" to be axiomatic, so really all we can say at this point is that we're obviously using different defintions of role-playing.

Not really, I think were just not spotting the key points of the same thing.

Let's look at this line: "Until you return it to them and they accept it"

What do you mean by accept? Does that include passive acceptance from the other person? Someone just nodding, instead of saying 'that's great, and how about I add this to it as well?'. Or does acceptance always have to include some return contribution, to be acceptance?

noon wrote: Also, let's look at my example. We see myself offering my contribution to the GM's contribution. He takes me up on this and in return, starts the first post. In return I give him my post. Weve already accepted something from each other.

To start, the GM submits a post.

Then, the players, with nothing else from him, respond to his contribution with their own contribution.

Blankshield wrote: I am not claiming that in a CRPG you do not take on the role of a character*, I am claiming that in and of itself taking on a role is not sufficient to be a role-playing game. Otherwise actors around the world would be role-playing. Storytellers in the oral tradition would be role-playing. Both of these activities are not what most people consider role-playing games.

Does that help

f solo roleplaying games aren't roleplaying games, what are they? They aren't solo wargames, which do exist. They aren't solo board games.

contracycle wrote:

f solo roleplaying games aren't roleplaying games, what are they? They aren't solo wargames, which do exist. They aren't solo board games.

Why not? On another thread I've just posted a link to the Avalon Hill boardgame Outdoor Survival; it would be very easy to choose to identify with the character in a solo game. Is it therefore an RPG? Not to my mind, its still a boardgame. I thought Mike Homes point on infinite inputs was excellent in this regard (other thread tho).

simon_hibbs wrote:
If solo roleplaying games aren't roleplaying games, what are they? They aren't solo wargames, which do exist. They aren't solo board games. You still haven't addressed this question. In what sense is a solo T&T player not playing a game, or not playing a role, and if they're not doing those things what are they doing? They're not doing it in an extra, special context that you happen to prefer, but we already have terms that make that distinction - tabletop and solo. We might even replace the term tabletop with the term social to make it even more clear.

Eero Tuovinen wrote: In my own opinion, by the way, CRPGs are not roleplaying games, mainly because I contend that they are best played by not immersing in the role.

Battles, resource planning, leveling up, puzzles - these are not the essence of roleplaying, whether you go by the imaginary space or the immersive interpretation of the word.

But what about when they are played by immersing in the role?

contracycle wrote:

But what about when they are played by immersing in the role?

Is that even possible? All of my experiences with CRPG's have been so strongly drawn in pawn stance that I find strong identification hard, let alone immersion. I also find it terribly difficult to identify with a character who cannot speak, and has nobody to speak to.

Fair point, I have certainly been sufficiently immersed in a movie-like way to startle when surprised; this has happened in both FPS's and some third persons, Resident Evil, uh, leaps to both mind and throat.

As it happens the one thing that really, really, really bugs me in FPS's is that you usually can't see your own body. It makes me uncomfortable not being able to see my feet. But that said it takes quite a lot of immersion to be bothered by it.

But, I wonder... in a movie RPG I think the audience may be said to be immersed in the situation, perhaps. They may or may not be idenitifying with a character, this I would think is especially true of works with a big cast and radical scene changes, perhaps like 24. The audience I think would be better said to favour or support a character rather be immersed in a character.

Its IMO harder in the story-built FPS single player games, because sooner or later Plot Device charges through the door with a gun and shoves a script in your mouth. Far Cry, with all the vegatation and wildlife and incidental components of its virtual space is really good for a vigorous transposition of your self perception into that space, but you still HAVE to be that character and you still get your own dialogue shown to you.

Then there are the OTHER CRPG games, the huge Elite-like open universes in which you just truck around doing your thing, buying and selling and blowing up pirates, usually. In these you can choose your own name and "be" who you want, but either there's nobody to talk to or all the exchanges are menu choices. None of it matters. The online version of FPS games is simialr, you can bring anything youn like to the party but nobody cares much, certainly the game can't.

In face to face RPG, there's much more opportunity to engage with the specific character, who you are, what you do and what you did, I think. To undertake an exploration of the world from a different perspective.

simon_hibbs wrote:

Eero Tuovinen wrote: In my own opinion, by the way, CRPGs are not roleplaying games, mainly because I contend that they are best played by not immersing in the role.

But what about when they are played by immersing in the role?

It seem to me the only different between what you think of as roleplaying, and these games is what the characters actualy do in the imaginary space. Not how the players controll the characters, not the rules of the game itself, and not the nature of the imaginary space, only what the characters actualy do in it. Surely that's just a matter of play style preference, not the nature of the game?

simon_hibbs wrote:

Blankshield wrote: I am not claiming that in a CRPG you do not take on the role of a character*, I am claiming that in and of itself taking on a role is not sufficient to be a role-playing game. Otherwise actors around the world would be role-playing. Storytellers in the oral tradition would be role-playing. Both of these activities are not what most people consider role-playing games.

Does that help

Actors are playing roles, but they're not playing a roleplaying game. Storytellers don't play a role, so that's out on both counts. You're realy not making this very hard.

If solo roleplaying games aren't roleplaying games, what are they? They aren't solo wargames, which do exist. They aren't solo board games. You still haven't addressed this question. In what sense is a solo T&T player not playing a game, or not playing a role, and if they're not doing those things what are they doing? They're not doing it in an extra, special context that you happen to prefer, but we already have terms that make that distinction - tabletop and solo. We might even replace the term tabletop with the term social to make it even more clear.


Simon Hibbs

I'd really like to have some things established or atleast clearly shot down (then I can leave the thread as it isn't one for me).

You don't define roleplay by the medium. Roleplay games encourage roleplay. If they are the medium you use to define roleplay, it's circular logic.

To put it simply, I can roleplay in chess along with the other player. It doesn't matter a jot if the game doesn't encourage roleplay, we can still roleplay during this activity.

You can ask 'is game X a roleplay game, does it encourage roleplay?'

And you can ask 'am I roleplaying right now, as I do this activity?'

But one wont answer the other.

It doesn't matter if a CRPG is appaling at supporting immersion, the medium itself doesn't mean you can't roleplay.

And now just my post, rather than trying to establish anything:
Again, It doesn't mean you can't roleplay with another person through this CRPG. The question is, when there isn't another person present, not even through a tenous link (like IRC or play by post), am I roleplaying, as I do this activity?

And I think the answer revolves around what presence is, what amount is needed, what amount is there even though at first glance it appears a complete absence.

James wrote: Passive acceptance is Ok - that's fairly common in "traditional" tabletop gaming - the GM reads the description, the players nod. It's still acceptance. The key thing in your question that tabletop gaming and play by post have that CRPGs do not is "the other person". There is no other person in a solo module or a CRPG.

noon wrote:
Also, let's look at my example. We see myself offering my contribution to the GM's contribution. He takes me up on this and in return, starts the first post. In return I give him my post. Weve already accepted something from each other.

Ok, I'm confused. In your example, there is no "takes me up on this, and in return[...]" That would indeed be role-playing. In your example there are only two steps:

Noon wrote: Perhaps I'll use a sex analogy. Imagine having sex with a woman who is really quite active/responsive in return. That might be considered trad table top play.

Now imagine having sex with a woman who isn't responsive. She said a definite "YES" at the start, but now lays out straight, not really doing anything but be present. I think the term is "cold fish".

But your having sex in both, clearly, right?

James wrote: I also see what is a very definate split in how we view things. You are considering solo gaming to be the 'cold fish' of your analogy, yes? The game designer contributes strongly once, and is passive thereafter?

I would consider solo gaming to be the masturbation of my analogy: it's a lot like sex, and you may well (or may not) be imagining another person, but when it comes right down to it, you're the only one in the room.

Unless I see something compelling from other points of view that hasn't already been said several times over, I think I'm about done with this dead horse.

Blankshield wrote: Bluntly, we aren't using the same basis to define role-playing games. Apples and oranges.

I don't know what solo role-playing games are. Not labeled properly, by my lights. I'd be inclined to call it solitaire, but then, I'd be inclined to apply that label to solo boardgames and solo wargames as well.

I'm not sure that we can move forward at this point. I keep stating that I think RPG's require (among other things) a social context. You keep saying "but X is an RPG, and it doesn't have a social context" All I can say to that is I don't think X is an RPG.

simon_hibbs wrote: Is solo Advanced Squad leader still a wargame? is solo Monopoly (supposing I produced rules for such) still a board game? Yes, of course. in their normal mode of play, are these games social games? Yes, they ar4e. You see, the category of social game isn't restricted to roleplaying games, they have a social dimension in just the same way.

simon_hibbs wrote: So marrying the term roleplayign game and the term social together in a special way clarifies nothing, and causes considerable problems.

Noon: Yup, I think we're good. We were talking past each other for a bit there, but I think we've got it now. Just for clarity, you're not the dead horse; the whole topic is the dead horse. Nothing new is being said, and we've been mostly repeating ourselves for a page or so now.

simon_hibbs wrote:

I'm not sure that we can move forward at this point. I keep stating that I think RPG's require (among other things) a social context. You keep saying "but X is an RPG, and it doesn't have a social context" All I can say to that is I don't think X is an RPG.

But we do agree that X is an RPG. T&T is clearly an RPG, as is D&D and many other games. It's ony when these games are played in a certain mode, a mode that is perfectly consistent with the basics of the rules of the games, that we disagree.

Andrew Morris wrote: I don't think I agree with this argument, Simon. If I toss a football around without anyone else, am I playing football, or even playing a sport? If I go and practice my baseball swing, am I playing baseball, or a sport?

I think not, but if anyone disagrees, let me know. Likewise, if you create rules for solo play with a Monopoly board, you're still not playing Monopoly unless you have someone to play with. I would say you're not even playing a board game, at that point, you're just engaging in an activity that uses the equipment of Monopoly.

Like the board, on which your'e playing a game. What I in my naivety would call a board game.

I don't know anything about Advanced Squad Leader, so I can't comment on that.

It's a wargame, possibly the most popular 'serious' wargame ever, for which there are a number of solo kits so you can play it on your own. The people buying those kits and playing ASL think they're still playing a wargame, and in fact still playing ASL. I agree with them.

simon_hibbs wrote: So marrying the term roleplayign game and the term social together in a special way clarifies nothing, and causes considerable problems.

I don't think it does, any more than calling football or baseball "competitive sports" as opposed to simply "sports" causes any problems. Saying what something is leads to clarity, not confusion.

I think you missunderstand, I'm arguing against reserving the term 'roleplaying game' exclusively to mean tabletop or 'social' roleplaying games. I agree that the extra terminology adds clarity.


Simon Hibbs

Hello,

I think it's time to call this one off for a while. I've read several posts that are all about "You don't understand," and that always means to me, "Dammit, I'm not being heard," and it never goes anywhere good.

So, rather than actually close this thread, I'll say this: review your own posts and decide whether they actually do say what you wanted them to say. Never mind whether the other guy(s) understood them.

If your outlook is indeed preserved here, then that's your cue to stop posting. Disengage from making anyone specific understand or agree, and just concentrate on whether your outlook is documented.

This is a moderator post, in case that's not clear.

Best,
Ron

simon_hibbs wrote: I think you missunderstand, I'm arguing against reserving the term 'roleplaying game' exclusively to mean tabletop or 'social' roleplaying games. I agree that the extra terminology adds clarity.

James a.k.a. Blankshield wrote: M.J....

Until computers can come up with the algorithms independent of specific human input,
Until computers can create concepts that they do not have an algorithm or program pre-existing for, and
Until computers can retain and manipulate a memory indepent of human control or input,

they will not be capable of active participation in an RPG. They will not be capable of thought or imagination.