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The Essentials of RPG Design
simoniker writes "As the latest in his Game Design Essentials series for Gamasutra, writer John Harris examines 10 games from the Western computer RPG (CRPG) tradition and 10 from the Japanese console RPG (JRPG) tradition, to figure out what exactly makes them tick. From the entry on Nethack: 'Gaining experience is supposed to carry the risk of harm and failure. Without that risk, gaining power becomes a foregone conclusion. It has reached the point where the mere act of spending time playing [most RPGs] appears to give players the right to have their characters become more powerful. The obstacles that provide experience become simply an arbitrary wall to scale before more power is granted; this, in a nutshell, is the type of play that has brought us grind, where the journey is simple and boring and the destination is something to be raced to. Nethack and many other roguelikes do feature experience gain, but it doesn't feel like grind. It doesn't because much of the time the player is gaining experience, he is in danger of sudden, catastrophic failure. When you're frequently a heartbeat away from death, it's difficult to become bored.' Harris' Game Design series has previously spanned subjects from mysterious games to open world games, unusual control schemes and difficult games."
NetHack still has more game awesomeness than any other game I've ever played. Not only are you potentially one cockatrice away from death, but the levels are randomly built and stocked (never the same game twice) and there are a lot of them. The game has many levels that are fixed (castle, town, etc.) but even there what you will encounter is a total crap shoot; the game even takes into consideration the phases of the moon and adjusts your "luck" accordingly (sacrifices don't give you anything, etc.). It has something of a story arc; you are definitely not the same character by the time you've "ascended" and the puzzles and challenges fit accordingly to where you are in the story. Throw in an amazingly deep set of game rules, more items than you know what to do with (though you'll want to cache them on some levels 'cause you're gonna need them coming back up), more characters and monsters than in the D&D MM, and the ability to play it on every computer/operating system in existence.
In short, if you don't mind that it doesn't have multiplayer or graphics that require OpenGL or DirectX, it's the perfect RPG. But as a college freshman who discovered it on a VT100 in the library, I can easily say it's the game I've played the most over the years, bar none. And I've never played the same game twice. And, to my eternal frustration, I've never ascended (got as far as the plain of water, though!).
Don't forget The Forge, a great place to find off the beaten path games.
Oh, and, of course, Troll Lord games for those of us in the "get off my lawn" demographic.
If your cheap, you can wait a year until Free RPG Day
Of course, me? I prefer boardgames. (and card games).
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
1) A young naive protagonist who is resourceful and scrappy but not particularly strong.
2) gets caught up in a fight against an evil (organization, company, religion, empire, conspiracy)
3) requiring him to leave his small village
4) and gradually explore parts of the world on a linear path
5) until he eventually gets free roaming of the entire world
6) and eventually goes to visit outer space or time shift
7) on the way to fight the proto enemy, who turns out not be the real enemy
8) and eventually reaches the real, final enemy
What you just described there is referred to by mythologists as the Hero's Journey and can be found in everything from Gilgamesh to Star Wars.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I think the difference being mentioned between nethack and 'grinding' is probably that (and nethack excluded) most games are simply too damn easy nowadays.
I know by being a gamer since 88' or so I must have a lot more developed skills and such --- but -- really... I put games on the hardest levels and almost never die or 'restart' or whatever the form of LOSS is that happens in games.
Games are just too damn easy. Mario for NES was hard and took work. Anyone remember Abadox? Or Battletoads? Most games were much harder.
But at present, games have all these things to tell you exactly where to go, a million places to save (if not at any damn point), and a hundred other incentives to basically always keep you going. And then, without the challenge, people are just not as excited by games and in this case, the work of the game in many RPGs has simply been reduced to a 'grind'.
On the new Prince of Persia, you can't make the mistake of falling off a cliff... some magic chick comes and pulls you up EVERY SINGLE TIME. YOU CAN"T LOSE! To me, that's boring.
I'm guessing somewhere in the business/marketing/sales department, richer gaming companies have figured out that permitting noobs to continually succeed generates more sales... Who knows... That has basically been my assumption as I've seen game sales climb while the net difficulty dropping significantly...
I guess my point is that easiness/laziness seems to sell more games, and even if it gets boring, it probably outsells equivalent games that carry challenge and accomplishment. Hell, much of the reason of the MMORPG is to fulfill the lack of accomplishment in our mediocre reality by becoming doctors and architects with only a week's worth of effort... We grind through university, quickly forgetting why we took ethics and US History --- and all the important material we were required to learn. .................
Anyway.. Games are too damn easy now. I just read some article where nintendo is setting up to actually put the game on auto-pilot and have it play FOR you. .... :/ (no comment). It would be nice to be challenged/pushed. Many of us are begging for it, but multiplayer competition is pretty much the only place where we can find it. Game Dev's themselves are pandering to the weak for quick cash -- no wonder the real work is being generated in competition communities.