RPG genre consumed by popular culture?
By
Arctic Sun,
Posted on: 2006-01-25 06:06 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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WARNING: SIDE TOPIC
Just thought I'd mention Robot Rally. If you like board games and see Robot Rally I suggest you buy it. I also note they've just bought out a repackaged version of the game.
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My recommended board games: Illuminati Deluxe and Quarto.
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I've been playing COH for a year now and reading the boards but haven't made too many posts. I'm wondering what people think of the MMO's if you look at them from the perspective of a popular culture phenomenon. I see a return in many ways to D&D type scenarios with COH/COV, in that people can communicate with one another. Unlike the console based RPG's like Final Fantasy, Zelda, etc on Nintendo, Playstation, and XBOx (the non-online versions). Is this a good thing or does it mean that the genre has been co-opted by mainstream tourists? What do you think?
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As some one that still role-plays regularly* I frequently see the Role-Play tag added to games but have yet to see anything that truely deserves the title.
The software developers have co-opted the title but now use it to mean something different.
* two, three times a year, thats regular. Right?
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I disagree. It's means the exact same thing as the rule books for those various "RPG" games everyone knows. D&D, GURPS, Shadowrun... they are all sets of rules that you can role play an adventure within, but you don't have too.
You as the player can decide for yourself whether you want to be a fighter fighting an orc saying" Taste my steel foul creature of darkness!" while seated around a table with your gaming buddies, or you can be in the same situation and say "I'm gonna fight that orc, what dice should I roll?"
Online RPG's work in the same way. Are you going to run up to a MOB and furiously mashing keys while making your avatar scream "Have at thee!" or are you going to be in group chat talking about the movie you saw last night?
There is not much of a diference. No, these games ARE RPG's, people just choose not to play them as such.
Don't blame the game... blame the players.
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Personally I see this game as closer to those Fighting Fantasy books than true role playing.
This game (as good as it is) does not give you true freedom of choice. Your options are limited. The game gives us a medium where we can act in character (which we do) but thats as far as it goes.
Plus in all the very many story arcs I have done I have not yet been required to actually work out a single clue. Each mission is a linear track.
Is is true that you can decide to fight the orc or chat with your friends but the difference is that there are no consequences to any of our choices. That orc is "frozen" waiting for us to pick up from where we left off.
This is a song about a super hero named Tony. Its called Tony's theme.
Jagged Reged: 23/01/04
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WARNING: SIDE TOPIC
Just thought I'd mention Robot Rally. If you like board games and see Robot Rally I suggest you buy it. I also note they've just bought out a repackaged version of the game.
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RoboRally is AWESOME! I have both versions. The new version is MUCH spiffier with new boards and a few new rules.
You don't hit smiling monsters - Sister Flame
Is this question for a college paper?
I started playing AD&D as my first RPG back in 1984 in college. We had such a blast getting together every Friday night ( until about 2:00AM ) every Saturday ( all day and into the night ) and Sunday until about 6:00PM We did a marathon one weekend staying up and playing straight through from Friday afternoon until Sunday evening with all of us falling asleep at various times along the way LOL That kind of feeling has yet to be truely captured by a computer MMORPG, but they are getting closer.
Now I said MMORPG because I do just as much role playing in any of these games as I did in AD&D. I did not get totally into character and try to talk with Thees and Thous. I had my character behave as I felt he should by his class and alignment just as I do here by stopping crimes I see being comitted by villains even way below my level. I am supposed to be a hero after all 
DDO is the first attempt to bring the "original" RPG from the pen & paper days to the computer and MMO's. I played in the 10 day free trial they had last week. I had a lot of fun. I hope they get the in game voice chat working properly before release as that ease of communication is one feature that will bring it closer to the old days of pen & paper. Yes players can use TeamSpeak now, but DDO is the first one to include voice chat as part of the game.
The quests are fun because it is not about killing the mobs, but about completing the quest however you do it. You have REAL traps to find, disarm, avoid and combat is real time and you actually move your character to dadge attacks not rely on a random number rolled by the computer to see if you did it. You get to use the terrain to help defeat mobs and if you THINK things through you save those traps to lead mobs into ( yes the traps hurt them too )
DDO does what I have been asking the Devs here to add since June 2004. It makes you think of other ways to get the job done besides combat. I feel it has come the closest by far of any of these games to that old feeling of sitting around the table with friends talking and having a great time.
Now I am not trying to tell everyone to go out and buy it because the differences in the combat system are not for everyone. It takes some getting used to since in combat it basically becomes an Action RPG. Many do not like that. They want it more like the traditional turn based combat. I do suggest if anyone has the cash to buy the game to test it out since your first month is free as with any other MMO.
Today most of us play more than 1 MMO anyway as it helps to keep us from getting bored with each of them that much faster.
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But what is an RPG but a set of rules that you role play within? In this case, and because of technology, you are just more limited in what you can do. It is still possible to role play in this setting. A PnP just allows for more flexibility due to it's free roaming nature.
Online RPGs could more closely be represented as "limited RPGs", but they still are, in effect, RPGs.
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It's a valid point, but I tend to be a little more demanding in applying the roleplaying moniker on a game. Please excuse me if this gets long-winded, but I've had this discussion before.
If by "roleplaying" you mean acting out a character in a game, we could technically apply the term to almost any game. I've seen kids "roleplay" the card game War (y'know, the one where the two players draw cards and the high one wins) by pretending the cards are opponents in a fight. Chess is another game I've seen that has been "enhanced" by roleplaying the interaction between the pieces.
My group used to play the board game Talisman (from Games Workshop) and imbue the pieces with personalities that actually affected what we did in the game. (My favorite story is the guy playing the Monk who decided to worship the dragon in the Cave. Whenever he landed on that spot, he'd start chanting, "Oh most powerful of reptiles! Please grant this lowly servant a boon!". More than half the time, he'd roll and get bags of gold! )
What I'm getting at is that roleplaying can be a separate element from the game mechanics. What makes a game a "true" RPG is that the system itself is built to encourage and support the roleplaying. This is why I tend to look at D&D in less than a favorable light; in my opinion, roleplaying occurs in spite of the rules, not because of them. If asked, I'd say D&D is a single-unit tactical wargame. 
Bottom line, I agree that CoH has the elements that can contribute to roleplaying in the sense that they can be used to help create and play a character. But, there is still not enough for me to grant it being a RPG, as opposed to a game in which you can roleplay.
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But what is an RPG but a set of rules that you role play within? In this case, and because of technology, you are just more limited in what you can do. It is still possible to role play in this setting. A PnP just allows for more flexibility due to it's free roaming nature.
Online RPGs could more closely be represented as "limited RPGs", but they still are, in effect, RPGs.
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Hey Moon. I agree with you that online RPGs can be called 'limited RPGs', but I don't want to make it seem like I'm obsessing the matter. I haven't actually played in an RPG in close to 10 years now. And before CoH, the only computer game I played with any frequency was the second Age of Empires. But, RPGs still interest me. Its fun to see what people are creating, even if I don't get to play.
Anyway, when I did game, I had a lot of fun doing it. But I'd learned that there were two distinct camps in the RPG community, which may still exist today. The first were "role-players". They were interested in creating stories and worlds in which to act out the lives of the characters they were playing. This is what the groups I played with evolved into, to some extent. Other factors influenced this as well, with many being musicians and/or writers (all amateur/semi-professional) and occasional drunkards... among other things. Our game sessions veered from being combat exercises to almost being shared hallucinations, at times. Now and again, I miss that.
The other camp were derisively known as "roll players". These were the players (often younger than us or just newer to gaming) whose focus was more on combat, levelling and gaining items and special abilities. I think we all began like that, actually, and it was fun too.
To my mind, computer RPGs veer more towards the second camp. There's nothing at all wrong with this, and I don't want to make it sound like I thought there was. So long as people are having a good time, and their kids are being fed and cared for, I'm happy.
I do feel, though, that the storyacting games were more fulfilling. When I think of roleplaying, its more this group that I think of. They focused on different dynamics than just combat. I liked it when people tried to use their powers in divergent ways. But, also, I'm a little loopy in that I do perceive every character, player-controlled or not, as being unique and having a backstory. Orcs may be savage compared to most humans, and may be viewed as evil, but that doesn't mean that the orc just wants to kill all day and night. I think that most creatures just want to feel secure and relax. Some things, for the purposes of games are created to be more like 'ultimate evils' or what-have-you, to simplify matters plotwise. I didn't really like that too much, so the games I ran tended to veer towards villains who were really just preceived as villains because their goals or customs were at odds with other peoples'. I'm going to stop now, because I just realised that this is going to sound preachy... and I feel old.
But yeah, maybe 'limited RPG' is more accurate, but I guess if we're talking about selling a game, its moot.
Level 50 at last:
VICTORY HEROES: Stonefall (Grav/Kin/Psy), Earthwave (Earth/Rad/Fire), Nae'bliss (Invul/Fire), Paradox Black Omega (Kat/Reg/Weap)
PROTECTOR VILLAINS: Ba'alat (SS/Will/Soul), Mechalomaniac (Bots/Dark/Soul)
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I think y'all should just relax. There's no artistic integrity to maintain by talking about real rpgs vs the denatured MMORPG variety.
And, heck, most fights in PnP RPGs go the same way - people execute their powers/attacks until the target is dead. Having your approach to conflict limited in CoH or WoW isn't that big of a deal.
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Hi Kali. I didn't think that this would come across the way that it did. I thought I was just soapboxing aesthetics.
And yeah, most fights do go the way that you described above, but not all of them, and those are the ones I tried to create many times. Setting and motive also plays a role in all of this, of course. I think this is approached in CoH by letting us decide whether we've killed or incapacitated our foes... although some powersets leave little apparent choice. My group was a little odd, and killing the orc someone saw approaching the outskirts of a village was as likely to reveal an ambush as it was to kill the messenger from the orc shaman who was negotiating a truce between their tribe and the villagers. (Of course, even here, my favorite ADnD fantasy setting to run games in was the old Ravenloft setting, so I was predisposed to not having clear mob motives when possible... and my players were smarter than me, so this was hard work. - and there weren't really any orcs... if the enemies were mostly humans, or accepted as such, then killing was perceived a little differently by the common man... who had the right to mete out 'justice' in a country, etc.)
I'm not sure that its artistic integrity I was considering as much as it was choice and consequence. Also, I think that sometimes, in lieu of killing foes (which could be construed as murder, and cast the heroes in a bad light), incapacitating them and allowing local authorities to decide a verdict, which was probably more relevant to them if conflicts were centered on their homes, could be an option.
Wow. I never post this much. I'm going to run away for a while now.
Level 50 at last:
VICTORY HEROES: Stonefall (Grav/Kin/Psy), Earthwave (Earth/Rad/Fire), Nae'bliss (Invul/Fire), Paradox Black Omega (Kat/Reg/Weap)
PROTECTOR VILLAINS: Ba'alat (SS/Will/Soul), Mechalomaniac (Bots/Dark/Soul)
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I think y'all should just relax. There's no artistic integrity to maintain by talking about real rpgs vs the denatured MMORPG variety.
And, heck, most fights in PnP RPGs go the same way - people execute their powers/attacks until the target is dead. Having your approach to conflict limited in CoH or WoW isn't that big of a deal.
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Hi Kali. I didn't think that this would come across the way that it did. I thought I was just soapboxing aesthetics.
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I replied to you and may have quoted you, but that wasn't aimed only at you. I used to write RPGs for a living, and I think that people are too tied up in definitions that aren't really all that important.
Elsegame: Champions Online: @BellaStrega ||| Battle.net: Ashleigh#1834 ||| Bioware Social Network: BellaStrega ||| EA Origin: Bella_Strega ||| Steam: BellaStrega ||| The first Guild Wars: Kali Magdalene ||| The Secret World: BelleStarr (Arcadia)
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So, it kind of begs the question as to who's going to be the next big thing. The initial reports from D&DO seem to be pretty conflicted -- good for PnPers, bad for MMO-experienced gamers. One wonders how Warhammer Online is coming along, and if White Wolf is getting their [censored] in gear.
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DDO is more for PnPers? Sign me up!
Seriously, my D&D-gaming friends are talking about getting this and forming a party for one night a week. I'm hesitant as I'm one to hate paying the subscription fee (Runescape was the first for me to pay for, but $5 a month is cheap enough... now CoH is making my wallet scream at me but I've tuned it out. ).
I've been playing PnP games since about '78. Now I own a game store. Happy happy joy joy! (bit of advice: don't expect to make much money at it.. own your Corvette BEFORE getting the game store.. )
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I've been playing PnP games since about '78. Now I own a game store. Happy happy joy joy! (bit of advice: don't expect to make much money at it.. own your Corvette BEFORE getting the game store.. )
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If I were mean and spiteful and trollish, I'd make some comment to the effect that if the game you were playing since '78 was D&D, then you hadn't been playing RPG's. But I'm really a nice guy so I won't.
No really, don't take offense. I have a rep in my gaming group for ranting against Gygax's creation, so sometimes it feels like I have to keep it up for tradition's sake. 
You own a game store? Hats off to you, sir! I wish you the best of luck in your enterprise. I make a point of subsidizing the local FLGS and letting them know they better not decide to go away. As a matter of fact, they're celebrating their 6th year in business this weekend. Yay!
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I've been playing PnP games since about '78. Now I own a game store. Happy happy joy joy! (bit of advice: don't expect to make much money at it.. own your Corvette BEFORE getting the game store.. )
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If I were mean and spiteful and trollish, I'd make some comment to the effect that if the game you were playing since '78 was D&D, then you hadn't been playing RPG's. But I'm really a nice guy so I won't.
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But you did make the post. You also made a very wrong assumption, I never mentioned what games I've played over the years. And, you make another wrong assumption, and as others have said, role-playing isn't tied to the game mechanics. I've had many good role-playing times with D&D.
And no, I have not just played D&D. I've played, and sometimes GM'd Traveller, Space Opera, Cyberpunk, Champions (now Hero), Runequest, the first d6 Star Wars game, GURPS, Rolemaster, Savage Worlds, WoD at a con (fans were making this out to be the next big thing.. eh), Dragonstorm (a card-based RPG), and there might be one or two I've forgotten. Then there's the temporary role-playing one does when one is the captain of a Klingon battlecruiser in a miniature-using spaceship combat game ("Today is a good day to die, so die!" bzzzt goes the dozen disruptors into that Federation cruiser ).
Role-playing is in the play of the game, not the game's mechanics.
Now, I just would like CoX to have more RPing opportunities than just standing around chatting or having specialized keybinds with particular phrases. Activities that the toons can do besides beat on mobs, but there's a lot of other posts asking the same thing; sadly, less than the number of posts wanting more costume options.
Yes the original first ever rules associated with D&D were actually rules for table top warfare with miniatures, but they evolved from there and if you look at all the other games such as ROLEMASTER that came along later claiming to do it better you must also ask yourself where are those games today??
I have not seen any ROLEMASTER products since the early 1990's. Are they even still around? I always equated the enmity some people seemed to have with TSR ( after Gary Gygax sold his interest ) and D&D/AD&D to the enmity people in the online world have toward Microsoft and Bill Gates ( on a smaller scale of course )
D&D was the first to do it and grabbed the entire market and games that followed had to fight to get noticed and because they had the top selling product TSR did not move very fast to change things when customers gave feedback on things that did not work well or work at all. That can turn fans off and other game designers did listen to those players and made a slightly different game. Some of those disgruntled fans made those new games. Just like disgruntled Windows users made Linux.
The ROLE playing part of any RPG or other game comes from the players and not the mechanics or even the rules. One thing people seemed to forget or not understand about AD&D was the rules were not set in stone and were only meant as a guideline to follow. None of the rules were about actual role playing just character creation and how the character could interact with the game world. Any rules for role playing came from the DM and players and how much the role playing part meant to them.
I think most players just enjoyed the getting together with friends and having fun. Acting like they were their character and going so far as to only call each other only by their character names while playing was a preference of a minority who felt that was the true definition of role playing.
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DDO is more for PnPers? Sign me up!
Seriously, my D&D-gaming friends are talking about getting this and forming a party for one night a week. I'm hesitant as I'm one to hate paying the subscription fee (Runescape was the first for me to pay for, but $5 a month is cheap enough... now CoH is making my wallet scream at me but I've tuned it out.
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Well, in all fairness - it is qualified as a rather severe generalization. However, since the NDA lifted, the mixed reviews have been noticeably falling into two camps:
Those for DDO seem to most be PnP players who were hopeful that the game would adhere as closely to the PnP game as could be reasonably expected.
In contrast, a rather vocal dissent against DDO mostly seems to be coming from traditional MMO gamers.
There are, of course, exceptions -- but it does seem that Turbine went out of their way to play mostly to the guaranteed fanbase of established DnD PnPers. The forced grouping, overwhelmingly instance-oriented, no PvP and the like.
So, instead of generating another EQ/WoW knockoff -- they played to their strengths, it seems. It's definitely an approach that makes sense; as more games roll of the development line that look, taste and sound like EQ/WoW; games like CoX or DDO stand a better chance of attracting players who'd like to experience a different kind of gameplay.
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MMOs seem to move us at least one step back towards "games as social activities." A good friend of mine & game designer believes that board games are coming back into the mainstream, and aren't just for kids (and families) anymore.
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As lame as this may sound to some people, my friends and I (20-26) still get together one the weekends and play things like Monopoly (special editions like X-men and Starwars 
), Balderdash, Scatagories, Taboo and so on. As well as multiplayer Video games. But when we can't get togetherat the same house we log into CoH and team up for some laughs.
�Alas, regardless of their doom, the little victims play!� - Thomas Gray
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Yes. One of the people at White Wolf is trying to keep Uwe Boll from going psychotic on the Hunter property. While I don't have much faith it'll work, at least they're trying.
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I weep.. Boll is going to end up putting the nail in the coffin for Hunter. Exalted is my favorite White Wolf game. Hunter was my second.
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I've heard it argued that the console Hunter games did enough to bastardize the franchise as it is.
Dawncaller - The Circle of Dawn
Too many blasted alts to list, but all on Virtue.
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Yes. One of the people at White Wolf is trying to keep Uwe Boll from going psychotic on the Hunter property. While I don't have much faith it'll work, at least they're trying.
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I weep.. Boll is going to end up putting the nail in the coffin for Hunter. Exalted is my favorite White Wolf game. Hunter was my second.
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I've heard it argued that the console Hunter games did enough to bastardize the franchise as it is.
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And Boll's movie is based on the console games, not the RPG.
Elsegame: Champions Online: @BellaStrega ||| Battle.net: Ashleigh#1834 ||| Bioware Social Network: BellaStrega ||| EA Origin: Bella_Strega ||| Steam: BellaStrega ||| The first Guild Wars: Kali Magdalene ||| The Secret World: BelleStarr (Arcadia)
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O_O
Who..
*thud*
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I'm right there with you.
Elsegame: Champions Online: @BellaStrega ||| Battle.net: Ashleigh#1834 ||| Bioware Social Network: BellaStrega ||| EA Origin: Bella_Strega ||| Steam: BellaStrega ||| The first Guild Wars: Kali Magdalene ||| The Secret World: BelleStarr (Arcadia)
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I've been playing COH for a year now and reading the boards but haven't made too many posts. I'm wondering what people think of the MMO's if you look at them from the perspective of a popular culture phenomenon. I see a return in many ways to D&D type scenarios with COH/COV, in that people can communicate with one another. Unlike the console based RPG's like Final Fantasy, Zelda, etc on Nintendo, Playstation, and XBOx (the non-online versions). Is this a good thing or does it mean that the genre has been co-opted by mainstream tourists? What do you think?
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As some one that still role-plays regularly* I frequently see the Role-Play tag added to games but have yet to see anything that truely deserves the title.
The software developers have co-opted the title but now use it to mean something different.
* two, three times a year, thats regular. Right?
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That's the difference between the mainstream term and the industry term; the industry term simply means a game that allows you to take control of a character and level him up as you see fit. The definition has been such since the days of UO.