This may not be an appropriate post to the Forge, since it seems to be mainly focused on pencil and paper RPG design. However, people here obviously have well considered opinions and long experience with RPG's, and I need any input I can get.

A little background to see where I'm coming from: I'm an avid player of RPG computer games, but have never played a pencil and paper game (intriguing as they are). I have limited experience with the D&D system, but only through games such as Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights. As such, I don't really have much breadth in my knowledge of RPG's.

I am currently involved in designing a computer game RPG, and am in the initial planning stages. My dilemma is that I am unsure what type of character development system I should use, and I have been unable to find any good resources. As such, any links or suggestions you can make will be much appreciated.

As for specifics: I am debating whether to use a classic experience/leveling system to drive the game (gain X experience for an act, eventually get to the next level, and purchase better abilities/feats/skills/whatever as a result of leveling), or if I should attempt to build a system based on learning algorithms (get better at a skill by practicing it). I'm leaning toward the latter system, but because it is such a total break with the vast majority of computer RPG systems I have been unable to find any discussion or information that could help me figure out where I'm headed.

Are there any systems that you know of (or discussions about theory/implementation of such a system) like what I've described?

Do you have any thoughts on such a system?

Obviously the kind of system that I'm thinking of is really only practical when a computer can handle all the calculations necessary to control character development, but I really would appreciate any help I can get.

Apologies in advance for this fairly broad, ill defined topic. I'm definitely floundering around trying to figure out if this would work, probably without even knowing the language necessarily to converse about it intelligently. Let me know if you have questions or need clarification for what I'm trying to figure out.

I don't know about computer RPG's but the old RuneQuest system (later used in their BRP System, I think) had a process where sucessful use of a skill called for a check to see if that skill improved at the end of the gaming session. I would guess that you could set up an algorithm where if you have a successful use of a check, a tally is made, and after some number of tallies (determined by you), either the skill goes up automatically or there is a check that determines (based on the current level of the skill) whether or not improvement has occured.

In fact, with a computer system, you could even have a "you are eligible to level up [skill x]. Do you wish to try to level up, or keep practicing?" and if they keep practicing, their chance once they do try to level up improves.

I don't know if any of this helps...

If you go with a practice system, remember to keep something up to the players. They used something like that in Dungeon Siege, and I personally found that since there was little control of the character, the player actually didn't have much to do. Most of the fights involved sitting there and watching the characters fight automatically, and clicking a potion once in a while to keep them from dying. And character advancement happened automatically, so that's a dead end too.

So, if you go with a practice system, just make sure you have something for the players to do when they're in combat.

So, if you go with a practice system, just make sure you have something for the players to do when they're in combat.

Hey George,

Welcome to the Forge!

I wish you the best of luck in your endeavor!

I don't have anything to offer about what would be better or why. However, I do remember a computer game that was first person and used the same basic use and improve method of advancement that you are wondering about. That game was Elder Scrolls II: Dagger Fall, was developed by Bethesda and published by Virgin Interactive.

I am only familiar with Dagger Fall, but apparently the first game in the series was Elder Scrolls: Arena and the follow up to Dagger Fall was Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. Apparently an upcoming addition to the series is called Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivian.

I don’t have anything else to offer, but I hope that by giving you these game names you might find some leads or information that reflects in some way what you are looking to do.

Hi George, welcome to the forge,

I see your sort of floundering about between a leveling or a practising system, unsure which to choose. I find when I'm not sure what to choose, it's time to sit down and write out what the hell each does, rather than intuitively guessing which is a bit more 'right' than the other.

One great idea I got from the here is to write a quick transcript. Write out how you imagine some play would happen. Never mind how you'd get it to work, just write out your dream of how it would go.

But basically I've come to believe that skill improvements are three things: A reward for playing, an incentive to play more, and a way to insinuate the players choices into all elements of the game.

I'll talk about the last one. For example, say you program makes a spot check for the player. Now, it's just a dice roll...the players skill doesn't come into that at all. It's nothing to do with him. Until he's able to influence the bonus to that roll, by his choices (distributing points or choosing what to practice). In this way hundreds of rolls can be influenced by the players choice, without him making a choice directly before or after that roll. I think it's why computer games which have spreadable points call themselves RPG's...they've associated that name with that feeling of player choice having an influence this way.

George the Flea wrote: This shouldn't be a problem; the game engine that we're planning to build this game on is actually a first person shooter engine, so combat will be almost exclusively player driven. Although I haven't really played it much, I believe Morrowind is the most similiar to what our gameplay will likely end up being.

At the beginning of the game the player sets an initial group of attributes for their character (things like strength, dexterity, intelligence). I haven't decided yet if setting these stats will be through a point system, a roll system, or even perhaps if the engine will assign specific values based on dialog responses from the character ("I'm very strong, and moderately intelligent" -- engine assigns a random stat to strength in a certain high range, a random stat to intelligence in a medium range).

Anyway, over the course of the actual game the basic attributes change very little, and can only be changed by practicing other skills or doing activities specifically aimed at improving base stats (say, weightlifting).

There are then disciplines or groups of skills (say, melee combat). Your initial ability in skills in those disciplines is set by calculations based on base attributes, and how well you can learn the skills in those disciplines is also based on the attributes. So if my character is very strong, then I'll have a sight advantage with any type of melee weapon over someone with less strength, even if I haven't trained at a specific melee skill (like swordplay).

Obviously players control what their characters learn by controlling what they do, but I'm considering also allowing the player to choose a focus/talent/etc., perhaps in a certain discipline. Then the skills in the discipline that recieve the focus are learned a little quicker, and the focus could of course be changed if say the character maxed out the skills in the currently focused discipline.

Thoughts? Could this work, and if it did would it be preferable to the classic leveling system (or some variation thereof)? This system would take a lot of control out the player's hands, but by making it unneccessary to perform calculations to try and maximize player effectiveness I'm hoping to make the whole experience more immersive.

If you want to create a skill-based system, there's no way around taking a look at Morrowind. It's an incredibly popular (and excellent) game, and you need to know your competition and what's already been done to make something better/different.

In short, in Morrowind, you train skills by using them (or by paying for training). You initially pick 5 major and minor skills each. Gain ten ranks in any combination of these by using them, and you can level up, which lets you increase three of your attributes. Your attributes can rise more or less depending on which skills you used. So if you bashed things a lot and used other strength-based skills, your strength can be raised higher (up to 5 points) than if you didn't use any strength-based skills (just 1 point).

This system is great in that it really makes you appreciate the time you put into whatever skill you're using, it allows for leveling without combat (if you're all into magic, alchemy, lockpicking, etc.), and it just makes sense.

xect wrote:
I don't like rolling in computer games. Not when the outcome of one roll has such wide consequences for the rest of the game. In Baldurs Gate, I quickly learned to keep pressing the roll button until I had a high set of stats. It's simply not fun that your defeat stems from a bad output from a randomly generated number, rather than something you can actually effect.

Thank you all for your responses!

I will definitely have to look more closely into the Elder Scrolls games. I'd given them a cursory exploration a while back and realized Morrowind was similar to what I wanted to do (because it was first person perspective), but I hadn't really looked into the skill system. I'll definitey give that a go.

Straight rolling for stats is definitely out. I can remember all too well sitting in front of the computer hitting the reroll button for Baldur's Gate, trying to get at least decent numbers. Pain, pain, pain.

I'll definitely keep in mind writing a system for scaling opponent difficulty based on player skill. That's a really good idea.

Brainstorming out an ideal playing session is a good idea, too. That would definitely give me a goal to work back from.

Thanks again for all the comments!

Most of what I'd have said about the advancement process has been said; but I've a thought on the character generation process.

Rather than "generate" a character, why not just pick one? I've seen a few CRPGs in which the players pick from one of several characters at the beginning of play, and use those values. I'm thinking to expand that idea. Create a list of perhaps fifty to a hundred different characters, each with different initial attributes and skills. Then rank them according to how much of a handicap this particular character would be compared to the others. List them in order from the character which would be the easiest to play (for reasons of strength and of the intuitive nature of the strategies involved--e.g., it might be that a character with maximum strength and a character with maximum dexterity would both have the same chance of winning, but that you'd have to think more about a great number of options if you're using the dexterity).

That way players can pick a character that will be an easy starting point or one that will be more difficult. You avoid the Baldur's Gate problem of players rerolling dozens of times to get the strong character (as they can just pick the strong character), but at the same time you don't eliminate the option of starting with the weak character for those who really want the challenge. And by ranking them you give some guidance concerning which is the stronger or weaker character.

--M. J. Young

M. J. Young wrote: Rather than "generate" a character, why not just pick one?

George the Flea wrote: If I let the character engage in a dialogue selection like that of Morrowind, I run the risk of letting them create an uber-character, unless I factor in some artificially limiting algorithms

The fact that a traditional RPG is essentially a numerical simulation has spawned a number of very annoying trends in player behavior. Most of these types of behavior can be subsumed under the term "numbercrunching." Also called "min/maxing," numbercrunching largely involves the study of the game's numerical systems and figuring out how to use it to the player's best advantage.

It is my firm belief that the axiom "most players are self-centered bastards who will ruin other players' experience at the drop of a hat" is greatly exacerbated by this numerical obsession. Why do players steal kills from other players? Because doing so will help their numbers increase. Why do players exploit bugs to kill monsters (or players) with relative ease? Because doing so will increase their numbers. Why do players use cheats and plugins that give them unfair advantages in the game world? You get the picture

Once in a while, he may receive a system message telling him that he has learned something new about pottery, but these messages should be unreliable and ambiguous. He may even be able to compete for titles in various contests of skill, but this is only an indicator of prowess, not a measurable figure that you can watch increase as you fight your eight millionth orc. Sure, there are players who will still go camp the goblins for "skill," but he can't really be sure it's doing him all that much good, and if the designer has been building his system holistically, it's not.

Thanks for the response Noon!

I'm not sure how you would classify my game. I think it would probably fall best under gamism (as I understand it from your post and a quick read of some of the stuff in the GNS forum), since the main point of the game is to accomplish quests in order to avert disaster. (I know this sounds like a bazillion other games, but the disaster is of an unusual kind and the game takes place on a college campus.) Anyway, the game will also hopefully have narrativistic aspects as well, since quests will have multiple ways to beat them, and depending on what quests you do (and how you do them) the ending will be different. Simulationism will be evident to some extent (planning on leaving little Easter eggs around), but since the base map is fairly small, it will be largely irrelevant.

I didn't write that outside link, by the way. Sorry if I presented it as such.

However, I am using quite a lot of the theory there to guide design. Granted, the guy is extremely outspoken and generally goes for trashing anything that's been done rather than discussing any pros for the things that currently exist ("It's not a broad minded document" is a bit of an understatement), but on the whole a lot of his basic ideas make a lot of sense to me. (Good to note that he's ranting about MMORPG's, too, so a good portion of his discussion is moot in my case.)

A lot of his issues with numbers stems from the fact that most if not all MMORPG's on the market have no level cap, and so end up catering to a bunch of uber characters and leaving the low level characters behind. He argues that by focusing on the literal numbers that make up a character, a good number of players loose focus of the things that matter (role playing, exploring, having fun) and just power level until they can destroy entire cities on their own. I think that he actually would want your climbing a hill idea to work, because that is an example of numbers not corrupting the system. On the other hand, he might argue that if players can see a direct advantage for climbing a hill that you'll have hundreds of people just climbing the hill over and over again to increase their stats. Not exactly role playing.

To explain why I agree with the third quote, I think I really have to describe the one MMORPG that I ever really got into:

Clan Lord is a Mac-only MMORPG with some very different rules and gameplay (and pretty old school graphics, but if you get into the game you don't even notice them). In order to advance in Clan Lord you have to find an NPC trainer. Trainers will tell you things like "I will help you improve your body" or other general things such as this. Once you've agreed to train with them all of the experience that you gain from fighting goes into gaining ranks in the trainer's associated skill. However, you don't have any way to see how many ranks you have. When you gain one you usually get a message saying you feel a little stronger (if training for your body), and when you talk to the trainer again they'll tell you something like "You are one of my better students" or something else that gives you a general sense of where you are in advancement, but doesn't really pinpoint it.

Now it's true that some people count the ranks that they get. But because the system doesn't allow you to just look at the numbers that make up your character, it is in many ways more immersive and fun. You fight low level creatures not to power level, but because you want to get out of town and be able to explore more of the game world. Not seeing stats can be a little weird, but it definitely shapes game play in different ways than are seen in many RPG's.

(I feel it incumbent on me to note that despite my rather glowing description of Clan Lord's advancement system, the game has its share of problems, which after a few months overwhelmed its positive aspects for me. And I'm not designing a Clan Lord-esque system, I just thought it was a good example of no-stats gameplay that worked, or at least mostly worked.)

Anyway, I am hoping to shape gameplay by awarding people for what they do. So if someone wants to solve problems with a sword all the time, then they'll get very good at sword skill, whereas someone else might try to persuade people to their point of view a lot and become really good at persuasion. I'm planning to have indicators that skills are increasing (likely visual, such as fading from one color which means not-so-good to another which means pretty good, to a third which means butt-whupping-good). Sort of a practice makes better system.

Another reason I would like numbers hidden, or at least represented visually or textually, is because I've experienced numbers drawing me out of the game myself. I can't count the times that I've been playing Baldur's Gate or a similar RPG, and then level up and completely get broken out of the game play because I suddenly have to start looking up what will happen if I add a point here versus there.

Okay, I've argued Mu's case long enough. Let me know if you have any questions or critiques of the system (or theory the system is based on). Thanks again for your response!

George the Flea wrote: Thanks for the response Noon!

I'm not sure how you would classify my game. I think it would probably fall best under gamism (as I understand it from your post and a quick read of some of the stuff in the GNS forum), since the main point of the game is to accomplish quests in order to avert disaster. (I know this sounds like a bazillion other games, but the disaster is of an unusual kind and the game takes place on a college campus.) Anyway, the game will also hopefully have narrativistic aspects as well, since quests will have multiple ways to beat them, and depending on what quests you do (and how you do them) the ending will be different. Simulationism will be evident to some extent (planning on leaving little Easter eggs around), but since the base map is fairly small, it will be largely irrelevant.

I didn't write that outside link, by the way. Sorry if I presented it as such.

However, I am using quite a lot of the theory there to guide design. Granted, the guy is extremely outspoken and generally goes for trashing anything that's been done rather than discussing any pros for the things that currently exist ("It's not a broad minded document" is a bit of an understatement), but on the whole a lot of his basic ideas make a lot of sense to me. (Good to note that he's ranting about MMORPG's, too, so a good portion of his discussion is moot in my case.)

A lot of his issues with numbers stems from the fact that most if not all MMORPG's on the market have no level cap, and so end up catering to a bunch of uber characters and leaving the low level characters behind. He argues that by focusing on the literal numbers that make up a character, a good number of players loose focus of the things that matter (role playing, exploring, having fun) and just power level until they can destroy entire cities on their own. I think that he actually would want your climbing a hill idea to work, because that is an example of numbers not corrupting the system. On the other hand, he might argue that if players can see a direct advantage for climbing a hill that you'll have hundreds of people just climbing the hill over and over again to increase their stats. Not exactly role playing.

*snip* Now it's true that some people count the ranks that they get. But because the system doesn't allow you to just look at the numbers that make up your character, it is in many ways more immersive and fun. You fight low level creatures not to power level, but because you want to get out of town and be able to explore more of the game world. Not seeing stats can be a little weird, but it definitely shapes game play in different ways than are seen in many RPG's.

(I feel it incumbent on me to note that despite my rather glowing description of Clan Lord's advancement system, the game has its share of problems, which after a few months overwhelmed its positive aspects for me. And I'm not designing a Clan Lord-esque system, I just thought it was a good example of no-stats gameplay that worked, or at least mostly worked.)

Anyway, I am hoping to shape gameplay by awarding people for what they do. So if someone wants to solve problems with a sword all the time, then they'll get very good at sword skill, whereas someone else might try to persuade people to their point of view a lot and become really good at persuasion. I'm planning to have indicators that skills are increasing (likely visual, such as fading from one color which means not-so-good to another which means pretty good, to a third which means butt-whupping-good). Sort of a practice makes better system.

Another reason I would like numbers hidden, or at least represented visually or textually, is because I've experienced numbers drawing me out of the game myself. I can't count the times that I've been playing Baldur's Gate or a similar RPG, and then level up and completely get broken out of the game play because I suddenly have to start looking up what will happen if I add a point here versus there.*snip*

Hmm, I don't think I'm particularly clear on the concepts of gamism and so forth. I'll do some reading before I try to use them any more, since otherwise I'll just be making stuff up. :)

For example, the PC is given a choice between killing his betrayer cousin and letting a town starve. Which does he choose? This isn't like a quest where you need to make the town happy to win, it's basically about what your PC does when given a terrible choice.

I think your practice system is knife edged between sim and gamism. I think you want the experience of working with a sword...all those difficult times of practicing away, of hard battles with monsters since you just weren't that adept and now today you are an adept swordsman, with a rich past full of practice, before you got to this stage. Something to think about as you swing your sword with amazing accuracy.

While someone else might leave a book on their mouse button for an hour, so they can get that dragon and make some boots out of it.

It's really old-school, but have you heard of Angband? Call it the ASCII precursor to the Elder Scrolls series. You may also know it as Moria, or Hack, or any of a group of similar games.

The reason I mention it is that there have been many different takes within it on ways it would be fun to have a guy running around, clobbering things, and growing towards the big end baddy. Some of them use skill-us-learn methods. I remember CthuluAngband (or something similar) as one of the prime ones.

There's a lot of experience, programs, and open source out there for you to look at, and possibly people to correspond with?

Try www.thangorodrim.net to get started.

Thank you Tobias! That is definitely worth looking into, and at least on first glance Cthulu Angband looks like it might be running a system pretty similar to what I've got in mind.

George the Flea wrote: Hmm, I don't think I'm particularly clear on the concepts of gamism and so forth. I'll do some reading before I try to use them any more, since otherwise I'll just be making stuff up. :)

Callan wrote: For example, the PC is given a choice between killing his betrayer cousin and letting a town starve. Which does he choose? This isn't like a quest where you need to make the town happy to win, it's basically about what your PC does when given a terrible choice.

This is actually what I'm hoping to have in the game. Some NPCs will offer quests that would naturally exclude doing other NPC's quests, and how you do a specific quest (do you kill your brother or trick him into being jailed?)

Okay, maybe not so quick, but definitely dirty.

Callan wrote: While someone else might leave a book on their mouse button for an hour, so they can get that dragon and make some boots out of it.

I doubt anyone would leave a book on their mouse. This game will be fairly small in size (disregarding interior areas, underground areas, and so forth it will take roughly seven minutes real time to walk across the primary map), and will be only single player. If it were going to be a mutliplayer game I would worry about people abusing the system, but as it is there would be no point (if the game is designed and balanced well, that is).

On the other hand, the duality is pretty clear, although I'm not particulary clear why mixing styles is bad (perhaps because I'm not particularly well aquainted with gamism theory). What are your ideas? I'd really like to hear them, particularly now when I'm still doing preplanning and haven't written any code.

It is interesting that so many of you have been refferancing the Elder Scrolls games... The only one I played for any duration was Elder Scrolls II, and it has since been my leading example of poor CRPG design. The idea of a giant gameworld with thousands of defined locations was a good one, but since 90% of the buildings were empty and seemed to have no purpose in any quest, it just resulted in an unnecessary ammount of travelling time. Why ever some game designer felt I would enjoy making endless shorthand like passes across my mousepad in order to "swing" my weapon I shall never know.... But the real failure of this system was that the practice based levelling system left the player constrained to "set a book on their mouse button" because you had to spend several straight hours Juggling or Jumping or Tumbling if you wanted to get more HP and your charachter template included those skills...

Noon:

In that many seemed to think that you had to have repurcussions from such a choice, for it to be narrativist. I think that's nice to have, but it really supports a sim style game. So you don't have to dith narrativism, just ditch repurcussions from it (if you actually did implement a nar choice properly, it'll still be cool content, even without repurcussion).

The only one I played for any duration was Elder Scrolls II, and it has since been my leading example of poor CRPG design. The idea of a giant gameworld with thousands of defined locations was a good one, but since 90% of the buildings were empty and seemed to have no purpose in any quest, it just resulted in an unnecessary ammount of travelling time.

the real failure of this system was that the practice based levelling system left the player constrained to "set a book on their mouse button" because you had to spend several straight hours Juggling or Jumping or Tumbling if you wanted to get more HP and your charachter template included those skills...

I'm not sure how not allowing uber characters is indicative of not mixing styles. My definition of an uber character would be one that is so overpowered (as far as its stats go) that it is capable of easily dealing with any threat in the game world, thus making it unneccessary for the player to make any sort of choice about how to approach problems.

If it were going to be a mutliplayer game I would worry about people abusing the system, but as it is there would be no point (if the game is designed and balanced well, that is).

You want people to make descisions, but to make them they need to know the numbers...which you hid from them. Which means they can't make descisions unless they fight against the game structure (like people counting ranks in clan lords).

The color shift is basically a way of hiding the statistical information. It doesn't hide it completely, but it still hiding them. That isn't a problem for sim I think, but for gamism...

I think (lots of hypothesis ahead) a big problem you might have is that you go through the game thinking your designing quests and such which support gamism, when your not (IMO).

Most computer game players are going to come to your game intending to play gamist, and grind against the style (I think) you designed it in. Eg, they will want to know their tactical options, but only see hazy color shaded factors. In other words, they are going to come in a frame of mind that doesn't appreciate the way you designed the game. Sort of like expecting MASH when going to see black hawk down, or some other missplaced expectation.

I think you need to shape play to the style your designing. Which is difficult to do unless you identify your priorities and that of (what I hypothesise) the market prepped for gamism. I'd really recommend reading the simulationist and gamist essays in the articles section. I recently read the sim one and regretted having left it till last to read, since I realised how much I love sim...and how the priorities of that are very different to gamism. For me, it was good to stop confusing sim for gamism.

I think we've reached the point where the terms "gamist" and "simulationist" have become far more hindrance than help. First off: the words are theory to help streamline development. However, as is noted throughout the articles on the GNS model, all three types of gameplay are highly fluid and are rarely present without attendance from the others. If I seemed to say that I only wanted to represent one style before, it was because I was confused with the terms. I would prefer to access the bits out of all three orientations that I enjoy.

Secondly: I cannot fathom why you insist that by not allowing people to see the exact numbers that I am crippling gamist play. From the article "Gamism: Step On Up" dealing with the second part of the gamism definition:

The in-game characters, armed with their skills, priorities, and so on, have to face a Challenge...Challenge is about the strategizing, guts, and performance of the characters in this imaginary game-world

I don't think I (in particular) can help you further. The way I refine an RPG idea is to use tools that I can measure it by and make further descisions based on those measurements. Currently I use GNS to measure stuff and talk about it in those terms.

Right now I think we could spend a whole thread together on the topic of gamism, for example, and how to measure that. Feel free to start one in the GNS forum if you want and I'll head there (quote from here, to make it easier). From what I use (and possibly, in the specific way I use it) I don't have enough of a shared foundation with you to help you.

Well, I would give individual parts of it a shot, but I'm certain that the primary thing to check with a mixed play style is that individual parts mesh with each other. Looking at a piece at a time wont help there. It'd be like looking at the spiritual attributes in The Riddle of Steel, or it's combat system, seperately. It's the way they mix that is the key to the games goal. Sorry. :(

Hey, no probem. Thanks a lot for your help! I've definitely gotten a goodly amount out of this ongoing discussion. I suspect the game will be quite a bit better than it otherwise might have been thanks to discussion on the Forge.

Thanks again!

George the Flea wrote:
Secondly: I cannot fathom why you insist that by not allowing people to see the exact numbers that I am crippling gamist play. From the article "Gamism: Step On Up" dealing with the second part of the gamism definition:

Considering that the player will be using skills to accomplish goals,

It's a gamble; the player knows how well they've dealt with problems in the past, but will their sword skill be enough to beat the dragon? Save the game, and give it a try.

Thirdly: I suspect that the vast majority of the people who play this game will have absolutely no idea the terms "gamist" or "simulationism" exist.
...
Thus, examining their reason for playing and trying to cater to it is important, but since the majority of the audience won't be defining themselves as gamists vs. simulationists the discussion becomes to a certain extent moot.

I really don't want to embark on what is likely to be a two to three years (or more) project without doing a goodly amount of planning for what exactly I'm going to build.

Contracycle:

If you don't have the exact numbers for stats, that immediately means you're going to make stupid decisions? I fail to see how creating a visual approximation of skill makes gaming completely based on gambling. Of course, if you have that rare mental disease that destroys all short term memory, perhaps knowing exact numbers would help in making decisions. Otherwise,the player will have been experiencing exactly what they can do whenever they use a skill, so I presume they will have a fairly good idea of what the character can do. The skill level serves to show how far you have advanced in a given skill, and thus allows you to plan (a word I hesitate to use, since I don't intend people to think for hours on end before embarking on a quest or challenge) accordingly.

I'll repeat myself: this isn't a strategy game.

What skills?

Not everyone likes to gamble. And gambling ids definitely not about strategy or intelligent engagements awith the problem.

Not in any sense. It does not matter in the slightest what they self-identify as, any mopre than your self-identification matters to your blood group.

You might consider that thats exactly why people have suggested you move away fomr the useless term "fun".

I've been watching this unfold with some distress. It seems to me that a lot of misleading impressions about creative agenda theory have been bandied about, and George has come to the point where he's rejecting the entire notion because it's been poorly presented to him.

For example, there is nothing about gambling that makes it not gamist, and the use of strategy does not necessarily mean that play is gamist. Gamist merely means that your primary motivation is proving how good you are at this. Whether you prove that by carefully considered strategies or by intuitive assessment of the risks doesn't change the fact that you're in it for the glory of success.

George, if you'll permit me to address the creative agendum question for a moment, maybe I can clear up a few things.

Everyone wants to play a game that is "fun". The problem is that not everyone agrees as to what sorts of things are "fun".

In real role playing games, there seem to be three fundamental concepts of what is fun. Some people play to win, or to show off how well they can do. Some people like to explore, to do for the sake of doing, to find out what happens or what things might be like if they were different. Some people like to get very involved in moral and personal issues, and so create stories that speak to our values as players. We call those three kinds of fun gamism, simulationism, and narrativism, respectively. (This is overly simplified for space.)

The problem that arises is that people tend to focus on one kind of fun, but they don't always agree as to which that should be. Thus in a multi-player game you get conflicts of interest, as different players are attempting to derive different kinds of play from the same game--and there's only so much time in which to do it.

Computer and console role playing games are nearly always gamist. One way or another, they're about being good at the game--and that's a gamist agendum. It is difficult for a computer game to be essentially about what things are like and how they work--not impossible, but I'm not aware of any successful computer role playing game in which playing well is not at all an issue. At present there are great debates concerning whether it is even possible to imagine a computer role playing game which is about narrativist interests--in which players get to decide what sort of moral and personal issues they would like to explore through their characters, and outcomes revolve around the consequences of those choices--without a quantum leap forward in artificial intelligence. Some even doubt whether such a leap is possible, at least until machines can have human-like experiences from which to draw.

The importance of understanding these distinctions in real role playing games is the problem of design. You can, if you wish, design a game that caters to all three kinds of fun. If you do, then players will take your game and strip it to make it work for them, or it won't work. That is, simulationists (for example) will toss out everything that rewards the desire to play well or to explore issues, and merely explore the world and the characters themselves, while gamists will toss out the issues materials and focus on the strategies that make for success in the game. A group that all plays the same way will enjoy your game once they've gutted all the stuff that doesn't appeal to them. On the other hand, a group consisting of people with different ideas of what is fun will within the context of your game fight about which rules should be followed, because you've attempted to support all of them, and you can't really produce all three kinds of fun at once, at least not consistently.

A successful CRPG can benefit from this in a slightly different way. What you need to work out is exactly what it is that you think your targeted players find to be fun, and how you can provide that to a greater degree. The First Person Shooter is an excellent example. Some players particularly like beating a lot of bad guys in combat, and the FPS essentially eliminates anything that is not closely related to providing that experience. Of course, there are other appeals within gamist play (solving puzzles, for example). The CRPG's disadvantages include that it is less customizable by the end user, and that the range of types of fun that can be provided is more narrow. To take advantage of these limitations, you need to focus on exactly what it is you want to provide as a game experience, and work to exploit that.

I hope this helps.

--M. J. Young

Please don't misquote me. I said that your model frustrated INTELLIGENT decisions, not that it imposed stupid ones. It will be very hard to calculate risk. It will be very hard to estimate whether risk outweighs reward. It will reduce confidence, encourage caution, and play will be more tentative than if players had a clear understanding of their limits.

I fail to see how creating a visual approximation of skill makes gaming completely based on gambling.

The skill level serves to show how far you have advanced in a given skill, and thus allows you to plan (a word I hesitate to use, since I don't intend people to think for hours on end before embarking on a quest or challenge) accordingly.

Are you serious? If you want to know what specific skills will be in the game, then you're out of luck; I'm still planning out how the gameplay system will work (the whole purpose of this topic).

My point was that although the GNS theory is useful to a certain extent to shape gameplay in order to cater to the audience, when the audience has no idea that GNS even exists and plays games because they find them fun making all gameplay elements strictly in line with gamist or simulationist play is pointless.

I doubt anyone who plays the final game will start it up, notice that numbers are absent, and say, "I will not play this game because I am a gamist and this does not cater to hard-core gamists because it hides its numbers!"

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your post M.J. Young. I really appreciate your description of the elements, simplified for space and all. With your comments in mind, I will try to outline exactly what I am thinking about this system for a CRPG.

I am of course aiming to create something for a crowd that is essentially gamist. However, with that in mind I want to create a game that will meld the different styles of gameplay into something enjoyable to the middle-of-the-road RPG player who enjoys achieving objectives, participating in an interesting story line, and getting to experience an alternate world.

Basically the crowd I'm aiming for is me and all of the people I know who play CRPGs (admittedly, a small sample). From what I've observed, this is the majority of CRPG players. Competing and achieving an objective and accolades is much more easy to reach in multiplayer games, from first person shooters to great games like Myth. I think that most people who would be the hard core gamists in the tabletop RPG world are probably doing something else on computers.

Likewise with simulationism, at least the more concentrated varieties. CRPG's often do have a really great world to explore, but they are too driven by story or objective oriented play to really please a simulationist who doesn't really like the other two types of gameplay.

And as you said, it's just about impossible to achieve decent narrativism in a computer game, especially for a person like me who has not dealt much with AI.

So I don't think that the crowd playing CRPG's is a distinct one, and because of the highly structured way that CRPG's are usually created I don't know if people have the liberty of just sloughing off what they don't like. Logically, if someone only really finds gamism fun and will have nothing to do with simulationism, they will probably not find CRPG's as fun and won't play them.

Of course there's exceptions to this rule (particularly when games which allow more player manipulation and interaction such as Neverwinter Nights are the subject), but I think that most people playing single player CRPG's are mix and matchers when it comes to what they find fun. (And I certainly am, which admittedly biases my viewpoint.)

What I am going for then is first off immersion -- this includes attention to detail, as realistic gameplay system as I can code, and a world that gets the player's attention and encourages them to interact with it rather than play God. True narrativism is beyond my reach, but I want a system of quests which allow the player to shape the final outcome of the game and with storylines that engage the player (again, that are immersive). I want how a player decides to play to affect his character, and for the choices that the player makes matter to how the character best interacts with problems and the world in general. On the other hand, the character should be mutable to a point to allow the players to do more than just a single style.

So here's where I got into the whole debate. I say I want to hide the numbers (an immersion issue). Other people say that ditches the gamists. Perhaps the main misunderstanding is that I don't really believe that the people playing CRPG's are wholey gamists or simulationists or anything else. I think they like the mixed experience that CRPG's can offer, but I also think that past games have had serious design issues with catering to this mixed interest.

So that's why I'm asking: do you think this system that I have imagined will work?

To be honest, my goal is to create a game that people don't feel the need to toss out elements in. People who enjoy simulationism will hopefully enjoy the fact that shaping their character is based on concepts of how people actually learn instead of an arbitrary experience system (a note for argumentative people: I'm not saying the system won't be arbitrary, just that I'm hoping to get it less arbitrary in a good way). People who lean a little more toward gamism will hopefully enjoy the fact that you can approach quests from different angles and by making different choices about how to do that approach can succeed at varying amounts at the game.

Does that make sense? Questions, comments, and critiques are welcomed. I really want to design a system that works, and constructive input is good.

A side note: I don't really consider gamism, simulationism, and narrativism to be useful as discrete categories. I think they are much more useful to describe as ideals or extremes of a continuum of probable reasons why people decide to play role playing games. For instance, some people tend to favor gamist elements, but may also have fun if simulationist elements are present (or perhaps need simulationism present to really enjoy the gamist bits). For someone to say "I'm a gamist" is limiting and probably false. It's like mental illnesses: some people are obsessive-compulsive and it defines who they are, but far more people have obsessive-compulsive tendencies or behaviors but aren't actually diagnosable. (Apologies for the psych analogy; just came off a psych class.) Not a perfect analogy, but the same basic problem of assuming things are categories instead of continuums.

Thanks again for your post, M.J. Young. A good explanation of the GNS ideas and reasons for them was very much needed.

M. J. Young wrote: For example, there is nothing about gambling that makes it not gamist, and the use of strategy does not necessarily mean that play is gamist. Gamist merely means that your primary motivation is proving how good you are at this. Whether you prove that by carefully considered strategies or by intuitive assessment of the risks doesn't change the fact that you're in it for the glory of success.

A side note: I don't really consider gamism, simulationism, and narrativism to be useful as discrete categories.

Contracycle:

I misquoted you? You said "[hiding stat numbers is bad] Because it denies intelligent decisions." If a decision isn't intelligent, then what is it? Admittedly, it's not necessarily stupid, but it's probably bad. I reserve the right to draw conclusions from what you say and put them in mildly offensive language, since I would hope that you would realize that when your sole statement is a single line long without any support for the reasoning behind it that people are going to misunderstand you.

And just to clear things up I don't want people to be able to calculate down to the minutest detail the risks involved. They know what their character has done in the past; they know approximately how good at a skill the character is. They will hopefully have a strategy in mind to solve the upcoming problem, and if things go bad then they'll have to think on their feet.

I cannot do calculations based on visual representations.

LOL. Then they deserve to get killed, don't they?

No, what human skills. It's not odds-guessing becuase we are not allowed to see the odds. It's not risk-vs-reward becuase we can't properly assess the risk. It's not expertise with the system, becuase it is concealed. And its probably not guts because these limits tend to produce caution.

I don't play poker - its too random. It is unsatisfying as a game; I do not feel my actions have much impact on the course of events.

What the person subjecively feels is irrelevant. Do you think the only people who ever appreciate a decent story are those who hold masters degrees in literary criticism? Its nonsense - just becuase litcrit exists does not mean that only they appreciate a good story.

But some people will say "this game is stupid, it doesn't let you do anything" and power down.

Hey Noon,

I see what you mean about gambling. I probably used that concept wrong. I figure the player knows approximately what the character can do from past experience. Really what the stat indicator is for is to show how far advanced a character has gone in a particularly skill. If the character is maxed out in swordsplay and tries to kill the dragon with his sword but dies horribly, then that's probably not the best strategy to use.

Which leads back to the issue of immersion, which is really a sim issue at heart. So maybe I am struggling to find a way to simulation-ize a category of games that has been predominately gamist. I've waffled so often between the terms because I've been trying to understand them that I'm not even sure.

I think many people will adapt to and enjoy that rather than traditional video game gamism.

But as I said, a mix can easily have parts that clash, and I wasn't skilled enough to both explain this and go into that as well.

PS: I completely disagree on CRPG narrativism needing AI or such as if you simply must have consequences from nar for it to be nar. I don't agree and I even think it's just a desire for sim after nar.

Try thinking of the primary colors, red, green and blue. Not many colors you will see are exactly one of them, they are a mix. None the less, they are all made of these primary colors. A plethora of colors doesn't make this less true, nor does a plethora of game styles make GNS any less as a category mechanism.

George the Flea wrote:
I misquoted you? You said "[hiding stat numbers is bad] Because it denies intelligent decisions." If a decision isn't intelligent, then what is it? Admittedly, it's not necessarily stupid, but it's probably bad. I reserve the right to draw conclusions from what you say and put them in mildly offensive language, since I would hope that you would realize that when your sole statement is a single line long without any support for the reasoning behind it that people are going to misunderstand you.

And just to clear things up I don't want people to be able to calculate down to the minutest detail the risks involved. They know what their character has done in the past; they know approximately how good at a skill the character is. They will hopefully have a strategy in mind to solve the upcoming problem, and if things go bad then they'll have to think on their feet.

If you are approaching a green light and it suddenly turns yellow, do you pull over to the side of the road, calculate out how fast your car can move versus how long the light has until it changes, or do you judge the distance from past experience with how cars and yellow lights behave and slow down or speed up accordingly?

You also appear to have ignored my suggestion that your read the other posts in this topic. I previously stated that one of the things I didn't like about Baldur's Gate was that whenever I leveled up I had to sit there and try to maximize numerical values. From what you've said, I imagine you would like this.

And to answer your comment quoted above: I'm sorry for you. If you can't strategize based on how you think the world works instead of on knowing exactly how the world works, then I'm plain baffled how you get through everyday life without going nuts.

Do you consult a magically appearing sheet that lists your exact skill with a sling-shot versus the probability of evading or blocking him long enough to tire him by using the sword? No. You quickly figure out your approximate skill level, make a quick decision, and go with it. And maybe that decision is to run like hell because you were a champion long distance runner in high school. In any case, you don't stand there thinking and get diced into very small pieces in short order.

Have you gotten the chance to play Half-Life 2?

But wait, that doesn't have much to do with any of the skills you mentioned. Funny how things work sometimes, isn't it?

And as for "its probably not guts because these limits tend to produce caution," what example goes with that? What game has shown that when exact stats are hidden players are more cautious? I'm curious to know your reason for such a massively blanket statement.

You just said that what people subjectively feel is irrelevant. Unless I'm badly mistaken, GNS is a theory about why people enjoy games created in order to better create games people will like. Seems like subjective feeling has a lot to do with that. In fact, GNS is trying to help people express their subjective feelings: "My goal in this [article] is to provide vocabulary and perspective that enable people to articulate what they want and like out of the activity [of role playing]." (From here.)

I was saying that people who don't know the theory of GNS will be less critical of mixed gameplay elements.

It's almost like a literary critic despising a national bestseller because the artist has trampeled over the rules of literature. But it's still a national bestseller; obviously someone likes it, perhaps because they don't have a lit degree.

Those people will obviously be unable to appreciate possible divergences from classic gameplay, then. So presumably they like binary narrativism, immersion destroying number systems, and quests that have exactly one way to them, and that way is combat. I guess you can't please them all.

George the Flea wrote: Hey Noon,

I see what you mean about gambling. I probably used that concept wrong. I figure the player knows approximately what the character can do from past experience.

Which leads back to the issue of immersion, which is really a sim issue at heart. So maybe I am struggling to find a way to simulation-ize a category of games that has been predominately gamist. I've waffled so often between the terms because I've been trying to understand them that I'm not even sure.

But as I said, a mix can easily have parts that clash, and I wasn't skilled enough to both explain this and go into that as well.

I see. My bad. I sincerely hope that my parts won't clash too bad. Are there any that stand out to you right now as desperately needing revision? If you think you've already answered this in a previous post please let me know. This discussion has gone on long enough (and I've discussed it outside of the forum enough) that I'm losing track of what's been said.

PS: I completely disagree on CRPG narrativism needing AI or such as if you simply must have consequences from nar for it to be nar. I don't agree and I even think it's just a desire for sim after nar.

I see your point. You just are defining narrativism differently than M.J. Young. Fine by me. This game is not really focused on narrativism by either definition, or I'd try to work out a better definition for myself. Most huge dilemma decisions have to have some sort of outcome in order for the system to maintain credibility. But I understand that you're saying that simply making the decision is narrativism. It's just bad for game flow to have fairly open ended responses to tought decisions go unnaccounted for, and it's real hard to adequately account for all the things that might happen.

I mean, if all games only supported one different GNS bit each (one game totally gamist, another totally sim, etc.) -- and this is a direction that assuming they are discrete categories pushes for -- then many, many gamers will be left out in the cold because they prefer varying aspects of the three at different times.

Gareth: I think you're wrong about the gambling angle. Taking the risk and winning against the odds is very much a gamist appeal. It is not the only gamist appeal, any more than tactical challenge is the only gamist appeal (puzzle solving presents at least one more). Somewhere there's a discussion on the subject of randomness as a dial in the game--some people want it high, some want it low. If it's low, you rely much more on tactics and relative strengths. (Amber Diceless comes to mind here.) If it's high, you do what you can to mitigate the risks (in fact, Risk is a good example of this). However, this is off topic for this thread, so if you want to pursue it, please start another, probably in GNS theory.

George: there are people who like different kinds of fun (I actually am the textbook case on that); but I think the idea of creative agenda being end points on a scale has been tried and found wanting. Such play tends to be more about what we call "drift", that is, players moving from one of the three to another--right now what I'm doing is exploring this world, and I really don't want to be interrupted by something else; now I'm fighting this monster, and you just watch me beat it, because I'm good at this. There's nothing wrong with drift, if 1) the players want it and 2) it moves with them rather than trying to force them to move with it. In group gaming, drift is difficult. Either the entire group must drift together (something Scattershot was attempting to facilitate) or the game must be designed to permit players complete independence from each other when they pursue their individual agendum shifts (which is what happens in Multiverser).

The fact that players like different aspects of play doesn't necessarily mean that they're drifting. It may well mean that they like different approaches to gamism. If they wanted straight combat challenge, they'd probably go for FPS play rather than RPG play. Why do they play an RPG? For some, the rest of the world provides color, something to entertain them between the challenges. For others, it creates context, a logical explanation for what they're doing. If you look at board games, it is usually the case that the board provides context that helps the game make sense. The context itself has no real meaning in terms of play; it just helps make the game more enjoyable.

I'm going to pursue this idea for a moment with a couple games.

In Monopoly, you walk around Atlantic City buying up properties, building hotels, charging rent to people who land on your properties, trying to drive everyone else bankrupt so that you're the only person who has money at the end of the game. I submit that neither the properties nor the hotels nor the money are mechanically essential to the game. You could have spaces, improvements, and points that all performed the same functions, investing points into acquiring and improving spaces and gaining points from the other players when they land on them. The properties, deeds, buildings, and money are all color which provides context within which we relate to the mechanics.

Similarly with Risk, we are trying to conquer the world. There's no reason why it has to be the world, or why those blocks must represent armies. You could be attempting to capture a board, similar to Othello/Reversi, with tokens indicating dice strength. The map and the armies give this color which help us relate to play.

Even First Person Shooters provide some flimsy excuse for what the player is doing and why. That's to give context and make the game interesting. You could eliminate all the graphics of enemy targets, replace them with moving bullseye targets, get rid of the feeling conveyed by hands on the gun, and turn it into a simple target shoot, without changing anything mechanically in the game. The feeling of being the guy with the gun gives it color and meaning, such that the player relates to what's happening better.

So with CRPGs like Final Fantasy, a lot of the exploration is what gives context to the challenges. Of course, part of what's happening is that there are several challenges interlaced--there are the minor challenges of facing adversaries and managing your resources as you go, and there's the underlying challenge of finding your way through the expected storyline to reach the end, at least. The one is a resource management challenge, the other a sort of puzzle challenge (figuring out what to do and where to go next). So some of that is not color, but part of the challenge at one or another level. Still, a lot of it is to give context to the question of why are these characters doing these silly things. It's because there's a sort of story that's being told, and that story brings them through these challenges, connecting them all together into a coherent chain that seems like one game instead of a bunch of little ones.

But this thread shouldn't be about persuading you of the theory here. It is useful if you grasp it, but not something about which to be overly worried.

If I understand your attributes idea aright, you're looking at using color bars instead of numbers to track character stats. I think that's clearly a workable strategy, and note in that connection that many Head-to-Head Fighter games use variations of this, probably because from the player perspective I don't have time to check a number but I can glance at a color bar to see roughly where I stand.

I'm interested in the idea, and had a thought about it. If you can reduce your essential stats to three, you might try running it with a single color bar. Let me suggest perhaps that you have a health score, a power score, and a speed score. If your health score is high, you can take more damage and keep going longer. If your power score is high, you can hit harder and do harder work. If your speed score is high, you hit more often and move faster. Associate each of these with a primary light in the RGB color spectrum used by vid screens--say red for power, blue for speed, green for health. Now what happens is that the three scores combine to give you a single colored dot. The higher the scores, the brighter the dot, until at maximum the dot is white. When all have reached zero, the dot is black. Thus you have a general idea of what your scores are by the brightness of the dot, but also by its color--dots that are low in health will turn more purple, while those low in speed will shift yellow. You can get an idea of the color changes with a good paint program, such as Paint Shop Pro, that lets you input the values (0 to 255) for red, blue, and green independently to render a color selection.

Such a system would give you a very quick general idea of your current value, but it would not give you specific numbers and it would not necessarily alert you to the "nearly zero" value in any stat.

Anyway, it's an idea. (And now I see your picture of a color wheel; that shows pretty well the spectrum as it might appear in play, except that there's no place for the all values approaching zero aspect.)

I should mention that when I shift more into gamist mode, I am very interested in numbers. I maintain that this is important to me precisely because I do not have the same feeling for how things really are that my character inherently would. For example, let's suppose that my character has access to a sword and a spear as weapons. Let's further suggest that his skill is different with one weapon as compared with the other, but that the weapons are very different in speed, damage done, and other factors. If I were really using those weapons, when I was standing around practicing with them I would have a genuine subjective feeling for how good I was with them. In a role playing game, I'm removed from that. I replace that by crunching numbers--calculating my average damage per round, for example, so that I can see numerically which is the better weapon. I don't do this when combat starts; I do it well before that, so I've got the information already available when I need it.

That, though, is my preference. I don't play video games much at all (I was a beast at Burger Time, and really loved Bomb Squad, but my Intellivision died and I never really got into the later games, although my son recently reminded me that I was pretty good at Sonic Spinball, which is probably the last video game on which I wasted any serious time, unless maybe Tetris was later). Some people want that, others can indeed get a feel for their characters' abilities just from play without any numbers. I think the color bar concept probably does a good job of splitting the difference.

I hope this is helpful again.

--M. J. Young

Yikes! Lots of threads to answer; I'll break them up per person to make it easier on myself and you. And now that I've noticed the time, I'll have to leave replies to Noon and M.J. Young until tomorrow.

Contracycle:

Thank you for your more substantial replies! Your post helped me out quite a bit.

I'm not going to bother to argue more about the misquoted thing. On the one hand, I misunderstood you, on the other I willfully misunderstood you, and on the third I was rather angry. Not worth continuing to rehash. This point you made makes sense: "Decisions can be frustrating becuase there is nothing to work with" (although I still disagree that there is nothing to work with).

As a qualifier to that I will also say that I find such systems sub-optimal in adventure games, whereas a game like Pharoah consists almost entirely of min-maxing, and I love it to bits.

Heres an interesting ecample of what I mean from Counter-Strike. When I started playing, it was hard to get feedback on what I was achieveing because I would be mercilessly gunned down very quickly. Then I found a server that provided stats, showing when I scored a hit and on whom. And what I discovered from this was that I was hitting targets without knowing it, especially at range - I learned that my actual accuracy was better than my perceived accuracy. And that improved my confidence, which improved my willingness to risk the time to take careful aim, which improved my hit rate.

One who knows the enemy and knows himself will not be in danger in a hundred battles. [etc.]

regardless of whether any given player or person has heard of GNS, if GNS is a true description of the objective world then they will be playing in one of the GNS modes anyway. Whether or not they know this is irrelevant. What the development of a theiry that discusses this phenomenon adds to the situation is ther ability to discuss it clearly.

I think the problems will be there, its just the you and the user will have no vocabulary with which to discuss your problems.

While your primary interest may be in immersion, I would argue that at a certain point concealing stats from players may even undercut that immersion.

I am trying to warn you off pigeonholing play that makes purposeful use of numbers as the same as play that is anti-immersionist. But at this point this seems something of an article of faith for you. I think your design will suffer for such a knee-jerk rejection of all numbers instead of using the numbers to reinforce the imaginative space.

George the Flea wrote:
Thank you for your more substantial replies! Your post helped me out quite a bit.

Out of curiosity, what if when the player was just out and about adventuring they didn't have any access to the explicit numbers that made up their character beyond the color stats or whatever (I realize I'm harping on this, but I really do like the concept), but they were able to get access to more specific indicators of stats/skill level at specific locations in-game?

If you were playing this hypothetical RPG, would a system like this work for you do you think? Or would it still be preferable to just say, "Alright, it's not realistic, but here's exactly what makes up your character"?

Meh. I could argue whether this actually applies to knowing specific game engine level workings, but it would be pretty pointless and I've got enough other stuff to reply to.[/qupte]

Admittedly I'm heavily in strategy gaming, and this environment can be a bit obsessive about these things. But I think the general case is valid - I have seen too much investigation of the underlying algorithm in a multitude of games. Some people in the Pharoah community were able to determine, by reverse engineering the algorithm, that there is an invisible day/night cycle in the game. The total war community badgered the developers until they got the basis of the resolution calculations out of them.

Any specific hypotheticals you can think of? I'm interested in the idea, but can't think of any myself.

Sure. One thing that might happen to you is that you find yourtself carrying a tag like "groom", say, as in a groom of horses. But all you know about this is that you have a rating in horse grooming; you don't actually know anything about horse grooming. You can interact with the system such that it reflects your characters knowledge, but you cannot reflect your characters knowledge in conversations with other characters.

that might seem less relevant becuase it is about knowledge, but IMO exactly the same applies to certain sets of mechanical data. Frex, if you are playing the role of a soldier you should probably be able to discuss the operational characteristics of weapons. If this data is concealed behind an impentrable representation, once again you are validated by the system as having this knowledge but may have trouble immersing into the role, because you cannot actually think about those things yourself.

Actually it occurs to me that another opportunity in CRPG thats hard to do in tabletop would be to open up only those areas of data that correspond to a players expertise. If a player has skill X they are allowed to see the algortihm by which skill x is measured, perhaps.

Every CRPG that I can think of uses numbers; either that means that it's a really good idea or that no one has taken the trouble to try and tap into other equally valid possibilities. And seeing as the computer gaming industry is very tradition-bound I tend to think the latter.

Yes I agree completely. In fact I think the CRPG environment is terribly hide-bound, producing various reiterations of D&D, as others have remarked. There are many more systems in table-top; if you can get to a gaming store that has display copies, just browsing through the range might be quite useful to you.

What I need is an example alternative. It's all very well and good to tell me to use numbers to reinforce the imaginative space (very nice turn of phrase, by the way), but I can't think of any way to do this.

Well, I hope the discussion above about how someone with a skill in the game might want to learn about how that is actually going to work in practice has helped. The kind of problem I was worrying about was when someone is sufficiently interested to try to investigate this deeply, and then hits a brick wall preventing them from doing so. By contrast, if the system can be examined, the player than develops an expertise that reflects and accords with the characters supposed expertise - game and reality are more in sync, and thus IMO immersion and identification are more likely.

Another interesting case to examine is where mechanics are intended to communicate something about the setting. FVLMINATA has one of my favourites, with the initiative system being influenced by the social rank of the character. This reflects the confidence, habit of command, of the senatorial classes, and the lack of confidence and sense of deference among the hoi polloi. But this can only work where the players are able to see that number in play; if this were calculated invisibly they would never be aware of this mechanical influence.

I forgot to come back to the "gameplay of locations" I referred to. Some games I have seen include the problem that you have to go to one place to do a thing and to another place to do something else. This can work but can sometimes be detrimental to the mood the game is trying to evoke. I always get this feeling with the notional RPG pub, full of colourful characters, warriors and wizards, some half-trolls and what have you, but no peasants.

I can understand why computer games have a tendency to go toward location-keyed special effects and so on, and its noit as if I think the idea is totally unusable, but its another convention that might bear some examination.

I wanted to make a quick comment, late though it is in the thread. Mark Eddy noted that the BRP system used in CoC and elsewhere has a "use it and get more" model of experience. There was an old game called Darklands, which used this model very well. I think that this is unsurprising, given that Sandy Peterson, designer of CoC amongst other things, worked on Darklands. IIRC. After which he went on to work on the roleplaying aspects of doom and Quake.

Ever wonder why it's Shub-Niggurath at the end of Quake? Sandy.

He's also know for his work on games like Age of Empires.

Anyway, what I'm getting at is that some of what's being discussed here is actually pretty old news. FPS abandoned development at some point. I'm not saying that this was a great idea, but I do think that it follows the marketplace.

Most importantly, if you really want to design CRPGs, I think that it's important to have a really good idea of whats out there. I'm not a huge CRPG player, but I know Darklands. The point being that there are probably other games that have tried these models and failed already. Which, again, doesn't mean that it can't be done, but that one would do well to find the other games that have tried it, so that one can find out what does and doesn't work and so that true innovation can occur.

Else you're doomed to repeat somebody else's mistakes.

BTW, another game that used "creeping development," FWIW, was Ultima Underground (and it's sequel). And that was, essentially, a FPS. One of the first.

Mike

Noon:

I think (and I know this sounds like labeling) you believe your mostly sim style play prefernce to be gamism.

I think most people will look at the skill and expect that enjoyment comes from increasing it...and it dropping will screw their enjoyment.

Have you sat down and written out what immerses you?...Try listing stuff that immerses you and forget about all the usual stuff you expect an RPG must have. Often, the usual stuff don't need to be there or don't need any focus.

The way they interact can cause whole mini stories to happen right before your life...wow, this world doesn't revolve around me in order for a story to happen!

See, I really, really don't like the unpractised skills going down over time. See, skills scream gamist at me...and I shouldn't just loose something I worked hard for.

A gamist answer might be to record how high the skill got, and make it relatively easy to retrain back to that level. That way the smart gamist thinks "Oh, it's not my current level that matters...it's my maximum levels I should be proud of".

Anything between tough descisions is just filler and not really of interest (as far as I know nar). Yeah, that actually means that if you kill your brother and he's not around to stop a border invasion...that's actually a boring bit. That's shocking from a sim perspective

There's no exclusion in GNS definition or primary color definition. Only further understanding of the basic elements.

M.J. Young:

I see where you're coming from with the idea that GNS are better distinct than end points, but this thread has gotten too long for me to be able to respond to it well. Any threads or articles discussing this that you can think of? I'd be interested in seeing the different sides. If not, I'll just do a search or something later when I have a little more time to give to investigating my issues with GNS.

If you can reduce your essential stats to three, you might try running it with a single color bar. Let me suggest perhaps that you have a health score, a power score, and a speed score. If your health score is high, you can take more damage and keep going longer. If your power score is high, you can hit harder and do harder work. If your speed score is high, you hit more often and move faster. Associate each of these with a primary light in the RGB color spectrum used by vid screens--say red for power, blue for speed, green for health. Now what happens is that the three scores combine to give you a single colored dot. The higher the scores, the brighter the dot, until at maximum the dot is white. When all have reached zero, the dot is black.

If I were really using those weapons, when I was standing around practicing with them I would have a genuine subjective feeling for how good I was with them. In a role playing game, I'm removed from that. I replace that by crunching numbers--calculating my <a href="http://www.mjyoung.net/dungeon/adr.html">average damage per round, for example, so that I can see numerically which is the better weapon. I don't do this when combat starts; I do it well before that, so I've got the information already available when I need it.

George the Flea wrote: M.J. Young:

I see where you're coming from with the idea that GNS are better distinct than end points, but this thread has gotten too long for me to be able to respond to it well. Any threads or articles discussing this that you can think of? I'd be interested in seeing the different sides. If not, I'll just do a search or something later when I have a little more time to give to investigating my issues with GNS.

Contracycle:

One device that RPG's have used in the past would be much more accessible on a computer than it has been in tabletop. Some games allow you to take a skill with which you can assess someone elses rating. This usually appears in games where the player does know their own rating but the ratings of others are hidden. Then the player with this power can make a taks roll to assess a potential opponent and see how they match up. This is a bit of a problem in tabletop because it usually requires an actual roll be made, which can be time consuming. A computerised implementation could easily do that in that in the background.

Frex, if you are playing the role of a soldier you should probably be able to discuss the operational characteristics of weapons. If this data is concealed behind an impentrable representation, once again you are validated by the system as having this knowledge but may have trouble immersing into the role, because you cannot actually think about those things yourself.

Actually it occurs to me that another opportunity in CRPG thats hard to do in tabletop would be to open up only those areas of data that correspond to a players expertise.

The kind of problem I was worrying about was when someone is sufficiently interested to try to investigate this deeply, and then hits a brick wall preventing them from doing so. By contrast, if the system can be examined, the player than develops an expertise that reflects and accords with the characters supposed expertise - game and reality are more in sync, and thus IMO immersion and identification are more likely.

I can understand why computer games have a tendency to go toward location-keyed special effects and so on, and its noit as if I think the idea is totally unusable, but its another convention that might bear some examination.