Can there be RPGs with no goal?

Leviticus Cirrrealus Titanium · 2006-07-30T08:35:10

Most RPGs have a single goal: save the world or save the princess. Everything is pre-scripted so matter what you do it gonna happen when you get to that point. Every body has spent 6 hours killing trolls in the forest to level up but when you get to the castle gates that's when the wizard's troop starting marching toward you. But how about something different (well I'm hoping it's never been done before) how about you're just a person. And you pick what you want to do. Farm, fight, be a lover, a thief, royal cook. Whatever. You're a person in a world that's ever evolving. Things are happening everyday. Battles go on as you milk the cows. Or your village is under martial law while going to do your apprenticeship at a blacksmith's. Even while training for special forces, your mother dies and your home gets sold to the merchant. Now of course there will be pre-scripted events. Wars will happen at certain times. NPCs will have certain goals and do certain things when particular conditions occur, etc. But for the player, it seems dynamic. You're just a person who gets to pick what he/she wants to do. You don't have to save the world. You don't have to care about the world. You could be the guy the hero walks up to and asks "Where's the elder's hut?" Hell, you can go to the other kingdom, be the bad guy, rise up through the ranks, and raid your former kingdom. Do you think this is too much for a game to handle? Can this (upcoming) generation of games handle that sort of "dynamicism"? Please discuss. [Edited by - Alpha_ProgDes on June 29, 2006 11:30:44 PM]

Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by Alpha_ProgDes June 29, 2006 10:42 PM

99 comments, last by Omegavolt 17 years, 9 months ago

Way Walker

745

June 30, 2006 10:22 AM

Quote:Original post by makeshiftwings
Making an entertaining farm simulation would require an entirely different UI and interface than an RPG

I think this fact is often not stated loudly enough when ideas like this are brought up.

Quote:
"Hello there. Did you hear King Joe of Greenville was assassinated by the Knights of Akatosh? Now Bill is the new King. All hail King Bill." Rarely would I (or anyone I know who played the game) think "WOW!! THAT'S SO INTERESTING!!!!" Instead, they'd just ignore it since it's ultimately meaningless and has no effect on what they're doing.

"It is no matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace."

Quote:
In Oblivion, there is a new AI that allows NPCs to steal from eachother and kill eachother in interesting ways. But the only people who get to understand the story behind it are the devs with debug trace logs. They can say "Oh neat. Joe was a drug addict, and he ran out of money and tried to kill Bill but then the guards came and killed Joe, but then Joe's friend Steve got mad and attacked the guards and Bill ran away." But the player just walks into town and sees Joe and Steve's corpses on the ground, and posts an angry message on the Oblivion forum about how he was supposed to turn in a quest item to one of these guys and they're just lying there dead with no explanation.

The problem is that it's a game and there'll always be some level of detachment. In real life, not being able to complete the quest would make the loss of life that much more tragic. In the game, there's only frustration because you didn't get your twinkie for completing the quest.

For my own part, if there's no goal, it doesn't really interest me. That's why I just can't get into SimCity and its ilk anymore. If I wanted a world that goes on even if I sit on my ass, I'm living in it right now. "Yeah, but in the real world orcs don't go about their daily business while you sit on your ass." True, but I'm too busy sitting on my ass to notice the difference.

I'm all for less epic RPG's; they don't all have to be about killing some angelic threat to the world. However, I do want to be given some task. And, getting back to the UI bit, one advantage games have (even though you're looking to remove it) is they can streamline tasks like farming. The UI (and gameplay as a whole) can be designed such that only things relevant to farming are given to me.

Hakiko

211

June 30, 2006 10:38 AM

Quote:Original post by Trapper Zoid
Of course, the real challenge for that kind of system is to make enough content for it to work, and to design it in such a fashion that making significant story choices is both possible, fluid and doesn't make the writers choke a fit trying to create all the possible options. I suspect pre-scripting everything in the usual fashion is only possible up to a point, and (spruiking my favourite topic!) interactive storytelling generative methods is the way to go.

I also thought of Chris Crawford's thought provoking book Interactive Storytelling when I first read this thread. I think that is the road you would have to head down to accomplish this goal.

As a long time pen and paper role playing gamer I no longer equate RPG with role playing game. RPG is just a class of video games (one that I enjoy) to me. Ironically the Sims is much closer to a roleplaying game than almost any RPG.

Many MUDs (as pointed out by Richard Bartle numerous times) were able to allow the players to impact the world. However they had the advantage of a smaller playerbase (that was usually more mature than the average), user created content, and very little asset expense (no artwork).

DJ14IVI3

100

June 30, 2006 10:42 AM

I am currently making my first game, a prehistoric RPG called Stoned! Basicaly, you play the role of a a caveman and your goal is to stay alive on randomly generated prehistoric steppes. You hunt, make tools, seek shelter from elements, eat, get pneumonia and generaly carry out day-to-day tasks that are necesary for your survival. I chose paleolithic/mesolithic because it makes it much easier for me to simulate human societies and because I find this period to be the most fascinating in the (pre)history of mankind. The game will have no magic, level-ups or mad combat skillz. No matter how long you play, you'll never be able to attack a mammoth with a club and expect to survive. Anyway, here's a screenshot (note that I'm very bad at making graphics):
http://img479.imageshack.us/img479/4470/stonedscr17xr.jpg

hymerman

221

June 30, 2006 10:43 AM

Quote:Original post by Anonymous Poster
Three piles of crap don't become art by mashing them together.

Thank you, you're the first person to make me laugh on gamedev :) Perhaps it wouldn't be so funny if I wasn't imagining it...

Now, as to the idea:

Yes, it's very interesting, and yes, it would be very swish, but how many people would actually want to play it like that? Who do you know that would play the game for its accurately simulated farming or smithing? Even if they wanted to, how would you program, or even design it? AI, game object structure, even the interface; There are so many complications it's mind boggling. It seems like an awful lot of extra effort for something that is pretty much there just so you can say "look at the cool things you can do in my game!". I appreciate your vision, but you should think carefully about whether you really want to spend the time required to turn it into anything more than a concept.

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Simian Man

1,024

June 30, 2006 10:53 AM

Why can't you just farm in an RPG setting? The farm overseer could give you tasks that you must complete in the same way that you would complete quests for the King. It does not have to be like SimFarm or anything.

Over all, I think this is a great idea, but just the thought of creating enough content for it makes me tired.

Kest

547

June 30, 2006 11:04 AM

Quote:Original post by MSW
*yawns* How about a RPG that is NOT set in the same old cliched D&D inspired worlds? Now that would be something!

Hmmm...In fact there are a couple RPG-like goal less games out there that arn't bound to the lame D&D setting. GTA is one of them.

I don't agree that GTA is even RPG-like, but I do agree that we need to stop making fantasy games. Please stop making fantasy games. Make a modern RPG, or a futuristic RPG. Let's start a thread up to generate world-environment-setting ideas so that everyone knows there is more than just trees and trolls to work with. How about a slightly pre-modern era, like the 1800s? Or even the early 1900s?

Quote:Original post by Anonymous Poster
If I remember correctly, Kest was working on a post-apocalyptic RPG, which really piqued my interest. You might like that, unless there's not enough gangsta thugs in it for you.

How did you know it was post apocalyptic? It's actually post-post-apocalyptic, but still, good guess. My game's setting takes place after civilization fell, but also after they rebuilt it. There's a second dark age where a lot of history is lost.

Quote:Original post by DJ14IVI3
I am currently making my first game, a prehistoric RPG called Stoned! Basicaly, you play the role of a a caveman

Now that is what I am talking about. That sounds like hella fun.

Anonymous

June 30, 2006 11:17 AM

Quote:Original post by Kest
How did you know it was post apocalyptic? It's actually post-post-apocalyptic, but still, good guess. My game's setting takes place after civilization fell, but also after they rebuilt it. There's a second dark age where a lot of history is lost.

You did have a fair number of screenshots on the forums a while back. I remembered it, mostly, because it's remeniscent of my storyline, but my game is barely capable of displaying models, so I guess you've got prior art on me already. [grin]

What's sad is that I've already heard people complain about post-apocalyptic settings being too common. I get the feeling that if any setting is used more than once, somebody will complain about it.

Personally, Tolkien's world works because he built it piece by piece before he wrote his books. It's a little too black-and-white good vs. evil for me, but there are few fantasy worlds more richly imagined. The reason it doesn't work in games is because we reduce his historically rich races and histories into stat variations and 4 different avatars.

Really, I'm not tired of the setting, so much as games that boil it down into a cardboard backdrop in front of mindless hack'n'slashing. Everquest was a bad RPG for the same reason that GTA was: not the setting, but the limited interaction with it.

Alpha_ProgDes

6,963

Author

June 30, 2006 11:24 AM

Ok. I'm still thinking and most of you are right. The scripting, AI, and graphical content would give me nose bleeds for years to come. So I'll try to flesh out the concept a little more (again, I'm not planning to implement just make a concept into a concrete concept that's actually feasible [smile]).

Oh and thank you for your comments.

I'm trying to figure out a way that say the world is moving and of course you get updates on what goes on but the meat of what goes on is in the area you're in. Hmmm... lemme see. Well (I'll have to do more thinking) in the beginning of the story (going with the original premise) you're a classless villager. At the same time, the kingdom you're is in one of these scenarios: "The war can end and people can bring about reconstruction. The negotiations could break down and the war starts again. The war could end in a stalemate and the two kingdoms could be in a Cold War." Let's say that the reconstruction is happening. Well that affects the town. Business is booming. So you find yourself something to do. Farming, selling, being a nusance. Whatever. But every thing that happens the game will mainly focus is the town because that's where you are. So let's say a couple of game days pass by and you decided that you want to join the thieves' guild in the forest. You leave. The village no longer has focus and the game is not micromanaging what happens there. It pretty much just goes into the background. It's accounted for but not so much. So now you have joined the thieves' guild and become a lieutanent. Well a year has passed in game time. In that year you have ordered two raids on the village you used to stay at. This triggers two things: the kingdom starts to notice and the village start to talk. So now when you go into town people people talk about the robbers and thieves. And when you back through the forest to your guild you run into a lot more soldiers (but not necessarily fight them).

Better or worse... or pretty much the same complication wise?

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headfonez

100

June 30, 2006 11:51 AM

Quote:Original post by Alpha_ProgDes
Ok. I'm still thinking and most of you are right. The scripting, AI, and graphical content would give me nose bleeds for years to come. So I'll try to flesh out the concept a little more (again, I'm not planning to implement just make a concept into a concrete concept that's actually feasible [smile]).

Oh and thank you for your comments.

I'm trying to figure out a way that say the world is moving and of course you get updates on what goes on but the meat of what goes on is in the area you're in. Hmmm... lemme see. Well (I'll have to do more thinking) in the beginning of the story (going with the original premise) you're a classless villager. At the same time, the kingdom you're is in one of these scenarios: "The war can end and people can bring about reconstruction. The negotiations could break down and the war starts again. The war could end in a stalemate and the two kingdoms could be in a Cold War." Let's say that the reconstruction is happening. Well that affects the town. Business is booming. So you find yourself something to do. Farming, selling, being a nusance. Whatever. But every thing that happens the game will mainly focus is the town because that's where you are. So let's say a couple of game days pass by and you decided that you want to join the thieves' guild in the forest. You leave. The village no longer has focus and the game is not micromanaging what happens there. It pretty much just goes into the background. It's accounted for but not so much. So now you have joined the thieves' guild and become a lieutanent. Well a year has passed in game time. In that year you have ordered two raids on the village you used to stay at. This triggers two things: the kingdom starts to notice and the village start to talk. So now when you go into town people people talk about the robbers and thieves. And when you back through the forest to your guild you run into a lot more soldiers (but not necessarily fight them).

Better or worse... or pretty much the same complication wise?

Lets make a version of this game in (what programming kits do you have acces to? I am an Actionscript programmer)

Alpha_ProgDes

6,963

Author

June 30, 2006 11:55 AM

Quote:Original post by headfonez
Lets make a version of this game in (what programming kits do you have acces to? I am an Actionscript programmer)

I have no idea whether you are being serious or in great need of <sarcasm /> tag.

Beginner in Game Development? Read here. And read here.

Can there be RPGs with no goal?

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