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ALTERNATIVE TO BATTLES
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Darken
3952
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CloseMost of all, the story can be free of the bizarre, limiting notion of centering your entire narrative around the fact that your characters have to be fighting battles every single day, multiple times. RPG stories are written around this core conceit and it stifles creative potential.
100% agree with this. It's really a challenge to not have your main character as:
1. A soldier
2. Some...warrior hero
3. bounty hunter
4. some rebel dude
5. child of destiny
But when you have original occupations like: journalist, merchant, thief (and i mean someone who steals + runs away, not killing people and taking their stuff or taking people's stuff and killing them) it'd probably annoy the player that his peasant-like character is slaughtering guards that get in his way. I know LOL VIDYA GAEM REALISM but it's more about interactive logic going against the narrative.
100% agree with this. It's really a challenge to not have your main character as:
there is also nothing inherently wrong with this!
What if you have fourteen characters that are all soldiers/warrior heroes/rebel dudes/children of destiny!?!?! Does that make it original?
post=129981
100% agree with this. It's really a challenge to not have your main character as:
1. A soldier
2. Some...warrior hero
3. bounty hunter
4. some rebel dude
5. child of destiny
That is not such a general rule, and exceptions to it doesn't make the matter any better. Like you said, it makes it worse. For example, in A Blurred Line, the main character is just... well, some random working guy. Yet it manages to kick orc ass all the time. In Dhux's Scar, Elijah is a merchant... yet he fights a lot.
ABL is a good example of story that COULD have worked without battles. Tarlan is a guy accused of killing some important figure, and he's trying to escape from it. But since it's an RPG, he's obviously got to FIGHT his way out of it.
I don't want a puzzle game, or an adventure game. I'm looking for a way (haven't found it yet) to make an RPG working with no battles, and without turning it into a puzzle/adventure game.
I agree with narcodis in that what make RPGs what they are (in terms of gameplay) is the sense of progression, gaining experience, boosting your stats, learning skills, getting items, stuff like that. IN THEORY, you could do that without battles. Objectively, I haven't found a way to make it work yet, and I think a reasonable solution to this would, at the very least, make the game refreshing.
I also like what Ciel said for that matter.
I agree with Ciel. Battles shouldn't be centric if the story does not call for it. But the idea of equipping items and fighting monsters and the like seems so fun.
post=129995That's true too, but just because one game does that and it is fun that doesn't mean all games must have it, or they aren't fun.
I agree with Ciel. Battles shouldn't be centric if the story does not call for it. But the idea of equipping items and fighting monsters and the like seems so fun.
If you have some good ideas for a battless RPG (or some weird alternate "battle" system) do it.
EnderX
562
post=130000
If you have some good ideas for a battless RPG (or some weird alternate "battle" system) do it.
That can get pretty bizzare. Never played either of them, but I recall reading about a pair of RPGs with that kind of mechanic inherent to them. Both were sports-themed; in one, 'random battles' became 'random drag races' - the other had 'random hockey games'. Do those count as 'battles' for the purpose of this discussion?
post=129839
RPGs have always been based crudely on pen&paper games (D&D), where exploring dungeons and slaying dragons is more than just implied by the title.
Pen & Paper RPG is way ahead of computer RPGs regarding the point we're discussing. Even though we're back to D&D era, there's been a time in RPG, not too long ago, when dungeon-crawling and battles were out of fashion... mostly thanks to the Storyteller line (Vampire: The Masquerade). You could RPG for hours and hours without a single battle. I can even play D&D for quite some time with no battles (but I admit I couldn't remove battles completely from D&D; wouldn't make sense). But a P&P RPG sheet involves much more than combat. In case you're not familiar with it, take a look:
http://2.forumer.com/uploads/metanet/post-24-1132417509.png
Of course there are battle-orientede stats, but they're not nearly half the sheet. There's a lot to be done without battles, and it still involves challenges, character progression, game mechanics, and it's not like an adventure game.
AznChipmunk
4613
post=130001
The idea that an RPG is just "a story" is a nonsense. RPGs are a specific genre of games that contain a fairly consistent set of features. That is what a genre is, after all, a consistent set of features, and battles are one of those "consistent" features. If you move away from those features then you are moving into a different genre or you are mixing two genres together: take away battles and you no longer have an RPG.
I heavily disagree with this and I think this is close-minded because focusing on keeping these "consistent" features is something that can prevent innovation and new formulas.. The term "role-playing" game itself implies that the story and setting are most important. (Wikipedia thinks so too.) In a role-playing game, you PLAY A ROLE within the setting of a world. Determining actions within this world however, is based on numbers, which is really what sets RPGs apart--their basis on numbers.
To me, that is what defines RPGs as RPGs and sets them apart.
Many COMMON aspects of RPGs are exploration, sidequests, inventories, equipment/abilities/experience/leveling/etc., and combat.
dewan
0
It's interesting, I've already thought about how to reduce the importance of battling.
Battle for improving caracters who fight better.
Win soccer match to buy better player to win more.
Build to earn money to build more lucrative building.
Improve a skill ( like science, sneaking or speaking ) to use more of this skill.
eat to eat more...hmm...nothing to do with.
Is it not the same pattern ? or is it just the "killing" that bother you...
( I'm thinking without the storyline, just gameplay, something universally entertaining )
But it's true that the "allmightiness" of battle bother me a little. It'll be good to find an other way.
Battle for improving caracters who fight better.
Win soccer match to buy better player to win more.
Build to earn money to build more lucrative building.
Improve a skill ( like science, sneaking or speaking ) to use more of this skill.
eat to eat more...hmm...nothing to do with.
Is it not the same pattern ? or is it just the "killing" that bother you...
( I'm thinking without the storyline, just gameplay, something universally entertaining )
But it's true that the "allmightiness" of battle bother me a little. It'll be good to find an other way.
Fractal Advocate
1252
There are pen and paper RPGs where there's no special resolution system for combat(it's the same as everything else), or there's no combat at all.
Computer RPGs tend to be based around combat, though, so if you advertise it as an RPG, people are probably going to be confused/dissapointed.
That said, you should develop whatever you want without worrying about labels too much, and steal ideas from wherever you want. Figure out a label for it later.
Computer RPGs tend to be based around combat, though, so if you advertise it as an RPG, people are probably going to be confused/dissapointed.
That said, you should develop whatever you want without worrying about labels too much, and steal ideas from wherever you want. Figure out a label for it later.
Nightblade
2723
100% agree with this. It's really a challenge to not have your main character as:
Not... really. Unless the creators goal is the make the most generic game possible.
post=129981
But when you have original occupations like: journalist, merchant, thief (and i mean someone who steals + runs away, not killing people and taking their stuff or taking people's stuff and killing them) it'd probably annoy the player that his peasant-like character is slaughtering guards that get in his way. I know LOL VIDYA GAEM REALISM but it's more about interactive logic going against the narrative.
Not all games need to do this to be fun, though. In Dhux's Scar, two of your three core party members are not well-suited for combat at all and it made things really interesting.
post=130044100% agree with this. It's really a challenge to not have your main character as:Not... really. Unless the creators goal is the make the most generic game possible.
This is the part where I plug my own game in for no raisin!
Quoting this for eternity.
got kind of lost at reading all of this so I'm gonna post this to try and answer the original question:
what if just maybe you used a fallout-ish percentage thing for different skills that would gain exp when you used 'em, and have multiple characters with different abilities and give them missions.
i.e. Your mission is to break into a rich mans house and steal a mystic book, your characters are A) a mage who can blow up stuff. b) a trained assassin who can pick pockets and kill silently (with some kind of background math to determine pass fail rates) and C) a talking frog with a slingshot that shoots knockout rocks. There is also a party going on and lots of people there could possibly be talked into helping you.
You make a plan to have them perform complex time sensitive ops: Frog sneaks in through a window and creeps/hops to the bathroom where he awaits the rich man, who has been fed a poison that causes him to have to use the restroom (insert xlax reference here). Frog then knocks him out and drops fake blood on him. Mage walks through double doors towards the bathroom and screams (fakely) loudly when he finds the body. All the guests rush in while frog sneaks out through the window again. assassin heads up to the book and mage melts the doorhandles on the doorway to the hall and heads out. Assassin picks lock on door to book and case that book is in and leaves. You have infiltrated, stolen, and left succesfully. Is that a suitable alternative, It would involve growth and non story related missions to practice your skills for growth in.
what if just maybe you used a fallout-ish percentage thing for different skills that would gain exp when you used 'em, and have multiple characters with different abilities and give them missions.
i.e. Your mission is to break into a rich mans house and steal a mystic book, your characters are A) a mage who can blow up stuff. b) a trained assassin who can pick pockets and kill silently (with some kind of background math to determine pass fail rates) and C) a talking frog with a slingshot that shoots knockout rocks. There is also a party going on and lots of people there could possibly be talked into helping you.
You make a plan to have them perform complex time sensitive ops: Frog sneaks in through a window and creeps/hops to the bathroom where he awaits the rich man, who has been fed a poison that causes him to have to use the restroom (insert xlax reference here). Frog then knocks him out and drops fake blood on him. Mage walks through double doors towards the bathroom and screams (fakely) loudly when he finds the body. All the guests rush in while frog sneaks out through the window again. assassin heads up to the book and mage melts the doorhandles on the doorway to the hall and heads out. Assassin picks lock on door to book and case that book is in and leaves. You have infiltrated, stolen, and left succesfully. Is that a suitable alternative, It would involve growth and non story related missions to practice your skills for growth in.
But when you have original occupations like: journalist, merchant, thief (and i mean someone who steals + runs away, not killing people and taking their stuff or taking people's stuff and killing them) it'd probably annoy the player that his peasant-like character is slaughtering guards that get in his way. I know LOL VIDYA GAEM REALISM but it's more about interactive logic going against the narrative.
Protagonists for my RPG games are, respectively, a structural engineer, a bookish necromancer, a snobbish chronomancer and his friends, an inscrutable immortal badass who was previously an elderly German rocket scientist, a pair of occult investigators, a mage who duels, open ended, a scientist and his mercenaries (admittedly warrior archetypes), a fourteen year old girl, an eight thousand year old musician, and open-ended.
Okay, I mostly listed those for fun but I just think that non-typical character occupations are not incompatible with fighting (ordinary people + extraordinary situation) especially if you break out of the typical fantasy genre mold.
post=129972
Role playing game based on environment and character interaction. It can have stats related to these things. It can be a compelling experience. Most of all, the story can be free of the bizarre, limiting notion of centering your entire narrative around the fact that your characters have to be fighting battles every single day, multiple times. RPG stories are written around this core conceit and it stifles creative potential. Battles are trite, I too am extremely bored of them. Please, enough with the frackin battles.
Isn't this then a sim?
Doesn't an RPG that loses battles but retains stats become a sim and an RPG that loses battles and stats become an adventure game?
I know we oughtn't be too restricted by genre conventions but still, in almost everyone's mind...
RPG - Battles != RPG
