Where’s the “Role” in Role-Playing?

November 14th, 2007 6 Comments

Video Role-Playing Games or RPG’s derived the concept from traditional pen-and-paper role-playing games. Dungeons and Dragons was the one who started the revolution. In the 80’s and the 90’s, a lot of “weight” was put into the “role” – i.e. immersing yourself in the milieu, building your character, engrossing discussions with NPCs, cool quests, and an even better storyline. 

That was then. 

Forward into the “now”. 

Today, sadly, it’s all about number crunching. Pen-and-paper games also had this dilemma. Players were “min-maxing”, meaning, they would want the best stats and the best possible combos for skills and abilities. This is so they could “own” or win out from any situation. This took away from the “essence” of the game. A lot of Dungeon Masters (DMs), including myself, went through this kind of “phase” – players would try to be “rules lawyers” and would attempt to get away with all sorts of loopholes. Compare that today with bug exploiters and abusers and you know what I mean.

When I was doing the rounds in GStar and watching videos and live game demos, it dawned on me that “roles” and being immersed inside a fantasy milieu were the last on a players’ preferential list. It’s now all about character powers, builds, pets, graphics, level caps, uber items and the like. This is really disappointing. But it’s the sad reality. Developers and even publishers have to please the growing demand of multitudes of gamers and they have to address that with elements that cater to their discerning tastes.

I just would like to see if there’s a way we could go back to the good old days where players and friends would gather around beer and share timeless stories about their heroic and funny exploits during their “adventures”. Try to gather a group of MMORPG players today and you probably won’t hear any sort of discussion. Instead, you’ll hear about how a certain build, skill tree or uber item is fantastic, right? 

Wouldn’t you wish people in the industry can address the real essence of a game and perhaps put more emphasis on the “role” into gameplay? 

Or is this wishful thinking? What do you think?

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  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/06713189625274904941 fatman

    It’s only wishful thing. When D&D and all those pen-and-paper games were the norm, what was the percent of the players compared to the general population of, for example, your school? What did the rest of the population think of you?

    In the same way, most MMORPG players today are just extensions of that paradigm. They’re non-”role-players” put into the “role-playing” context. Since they do not understand or even accept the concept of role-playing, they just do the thing that comes into their minds naturally, and that is to compete. Most of these so called MMORPG-ers don’t even know how to use their imagination, except for uh- you know.

    At best, our closest allies would be the bookworms but most, if not all, MMORPGs have large amounts of grind, and that is anathema to bookworms.

  • Noel

    In a way, how MMORPGs were developed is also at fault. For example, character builds can be categorized as frontliners and supporters, with the latter obviously will have difficulty in going out and doing the grind/quest/hunt by themselves. Now if you design a game that allows for individual questing/hunting, and add to that recipe a bunch of monsters that even frontliners need pots to survive against (but they can reasonably go up against), can you blame players if they don’t create “ideal” builds, like say magic types being pure int types? Can you even blame them for being predisposed to creating frontliner type characters? How can you even tell of your “exploits” if you will end up dead even before it starts hehe

    Add to that the recipe of “luck” in getting items. Most uber items in many games are rare hunts, not necessarily something crafted, not something that you had control over in creating.

    Finally, the lopsided set up of PvP. I mean, you go out and hunt in a PK-zone as an int type, and expect to win against an str type who wants to KS or boot you out? That’s unreasonable. This area of gaming needs to be refined further imo.

  • Blackwolf

    If you play in a certain balanced MMORPG environment, you will be able to play certain builds that are labelled as “fun” or “alternative” or even outrightly bizarre. I’ve been lucky enough to play in one such environment and I get to use builds that people don’t consider.

    The builds I use are not tourney winners but I enjoy using them a lot and I manage to stick to a certain theme (and yes, GM T, you know what my fetish is). In spite of my theme, I am able to hold my own and complete some of the most demanding quests and missions in the game.

    That is how role-playing works now. You work creatively within the confines of the game environment to express your identity. Other people do it with cosmetics – they achieve a certain look, or acquire certain armor, honorifics and titles, headgear or even dye themselves purple.
    Certainly, you see a lot of it in Second Life now. Some even try to “speak” a certain way – like our friend Tanya who is not what she seems to be. Developing a persona within a persona, well, isn’t that playing a role?

    The mask may not be made of the same cloth, but it’s purpose hasn’t changed.

  • michi

    not all mmorpg are that bad try the classic ultima online .. look for the rpg setting shard and you’ll see that “you need” to role play if not your character will be deleted try some flash games too like http://canz.net

  • Blood

    Putting too much emphasis on grinding takes out entirely the “role-palying” in mmorpgs. It’s now mmogringding-games lol. Getting .1 xp while killing 20 or so monsters is…. lol. Anyway, you get the point.

  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/06713189625274904941 fatman

    Blackwolf has a point. We can still “role-play” even in the present state of MMORPGs. Role-playing doesn’t exactly have to be like it was when it was done during the pen-and-paper days but it needs some effort from the player, specially to resist the urge to “power-level” just because everybody is level 99. Unfortunately, some (not most) players won’t understand or accept you but it’s their loss. Every help from developers and publishers of the MMORPGs will be welcome, just the same.

    As for Second Life, I’m still not sure about what it is. For now I consider it as Friendster in a 3D environment, but I’m willing to change my mind about that opinion.


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