Non-Combat Character Development In RPGs?

Thanks to Tleaves.com for their article discussing RPGs that tinker with the basic hack n' slash formula to "try to provide incentives for non-combat development." The author comments on combat-heavy RPGs: "Sometimes my best friend sees me playing Angband and asks me what I'm doing. 'Knitting,' I say, and this is pretty accurate - it's repetitive, mindless, and somehow comforting." But he suggests that, while levelling up via combat is great fun, "...there is room (and indeed desire among players) for higher aspirations as well", referencing Ultima IV ("most of the interesting parts of the game were actually unlocked by ethical development") and The Witch's Wake module for Neverwinter Nights ("Experience is meted out specifically for reaching various narrative goals. Combat yields no experience whatsoever.")

Comments

More than stats...

[sICE]

As always when there's a thread about RPG, i recommend to everybody to give a try at Tibia (more infos here). Which is a free multi player online role playing game for windows and linux. Sadly the linux client isnt up to date and really suck by now, maybe sending an email asking for update is worthwhile (?) if you like it (by giving a try at the win32 version)...

Though you still have to train killing small monsters to get skills, there's some points i'd like to develop about this game, and more generally about other rpg. This is probably obvious to everybody playing such games, but in fact they're actually rewarding and giving you some kind of 'XP', while perhaps not shown in your stats. I wanted to write about it, because peoples dont often think about it. While you could go killing other peoples, looting, or training alone, quests are a good way to get the 'XP' i'm thinking about. Of course, they give you some reason to be playing the game, you must solve them, find a special object, kill a hord of mutants, or save some princess (which is always captured by the same phoenix that keep resurecting), and more.

- It may be a riddle, the quest is a challenge to your mind, you have to solve a puzzle, understand what the devolopers were thinking about, perhaps refer to some litteracy you may find on the web. For example i remember of a quest that let you (hardly) find a secret scroll with strange characters on it and which was signed by "Geoffrey Chaucer". It's rewarding because you had to search and find more infos about him to understand the message. The whole point is while doing that you learn new things.

- Killing monsters while solving the quest of course get you some XP in your stats anyway. But some other 'XP' you get here are when the quest is too hard for you. You learn to find friends (socialize), make associations or work for some peoples (trade), or even manipulate other players (politics).

Socializing and politics are a good way to learn how to meet peoples (especially if you're a geek scotched on your computer the whole day). You learn how to present yourself, how you create [a list of] contacts which can be usefull -at one time or another- between themselves, giving you the benefit to know what's going on in other fields of [real or virtual] society because you are contacted first when someone needs something. And this gives you a "first turn", you can act before others. And, IRL, to find a job ;-).

Trading is also a good way to get better skills in and out of the game. You learn where and how to buy or sell, and know how to make benifits from small/large towns markets. I got really suspicious about the prices that real life merchants where giving me, and i'm now really hard when trading, looking for other merchants, and what does it costs me to buy/sell stuff. I nearly saved 25,000 euros when i arranged my new house, and it makes a real difference -- trust me.

Though those two are of course about getting 'XP' in real life, you still get the following one for in game playing, the goal of the quest often brings you something. First is getting an item which may be useful to you (modifying some of your stats), or that you can sell at a good