When the ever-amusing Jeff Vogel posted his piece about why he hates fantasy RPGs a couple weeks ago, I thought (because of the come-on at the end for what he'll talk about next time) that it was the first half of a two-parter, so I'd wait until the second half came out before commenting. It's been a while, though, and on re-reading it I now think that his next column is simply going to be another one in the ongoing series instead of specifically a second half for this column, so I'm going to go ahead and comment now. The thing is, Jeff's gripe is that fantasy RPGs are all about the levelling up. You start out sucky, most of the game is spent doing otherwise-pointless tasks in order to improve yourself, and it's tedious and boring and too much like real life. That got me thinking, well, what kind of game could we make that would be just the opposite? It would have to be a game where you start out really cool, with lots of power to do things, and then you progressively lose that and it becomes harder and harder and a big part of the object is simply to retain enough of your powers until the end of the game to be able to finish. After going through a few permutations of stuff like "role-play a hero who suffers from a debilitating, advancing illness," I realised that the problem has already been solved. One of the most popular computer games today exhibits just the properties I'm imagining. You probably already have a copy. It's notorious as an addictive time-waster.
I refer, of course, to Solitaire. Think about it: the game play is pretty much exactly what it needs to be to be the opposite of the kind of level grind Chairman Vogel is complaining about. At the start of the game, you have lots of power and lots of options. There are pretty much always multiple choices for the next card to move. You've got plenty of space in the free cells off to the side; you've got plenty of potential hidden in the deck; and so on, depending on the particular variant you're playing.
But as you keep playing Solitaire, your powers are gradually eaten away. One after another, the piles become unplayable, the deck runs out, and the free cells get clogged. If you can win the game, it's because you succeeded in preserving your power long enough to get to the end, making choices that would expand (or not limit too much) your future choices. Instead of levelling up enough, you win by not levelling down too much.
I wonder if that design has anything to do with why Solitaire enjoys the status it has.
Comments
Matthew Skala from 67.158.72.8 at Mon, 26 Feb 2007 01:06:32 +0000:
I hadn't thought of Tetris, but it does seem to be a good match too. I wonder how many others are out there.
owenf from 74.120.31.7 at Mon, 26 Feb 2007 08:09:19 +0000:
If I won a million $ I would hire you to run my video game company.
That game with the elevations and the tanks, where you set the andgle and a muniution. You have to conserve ammo to win. Come to think of it, FPS games with ammo management issues could fall under this umbrela
test from 216.86.102.114 at Mon, 23 Apr 2007 04:48:57 +0000:
test
BlueNight from 71.213.139.190 at Sat, 12 May 2007 22:26:13 +0000:
Absolutely fascinating. I thought you were going for Tetris too. Lemmings also works, as do most "puzzle" games that increase in difficulty.
Of course, the same concepts apply to superhero comics. After all, once you've saved the universe from Monstrosity A, it's a little petty to go up against Generic Bank Robber. Unless the Forces of Evil level up too, the whole thing gets a bit silly.
RPGs rarely handle the concept of age or physical limit. Limitation is the source of conflict (as storytellers know), and entropy is the wellspring of limitation.
I dislike giving my name even for legitimate purposes such as this from 172.129.246.73 at Fri, 14 Dec 2007 06:18:52 +0000:
I don't know if this is news to you, or if you check messages on old articles, but somebody has recently released a short freeware game that takes on this concept rather elegantly. It's called <a href="http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/index.html">Passage</a>. Good way to spend a few minutes.
Cernael san from 82.209.147.48 at Mon, 19 May 2008 09:27:26 +0000:
Another one that qualifies, in the realm of pen n' paper RPG's, is Call of Chtulhu. Or so I've heard. You start with a Sanity value, which decreases the more you learn of the Elder Ones - when it hits zero, you're a blubbering fool, and get to create a new character. Not quite sure how to build an MMORPG on that basis, though...
Matt from 216.59.230.90 at Mon, 19 May 2008 10:34:26 +0000:
You want an MMORPG based on Call of Cthulhu-style sanity point attrition? Heck, that'd be the Internet itself.
Luke Somers from 68.44.61.14 at Sun, 31 Aug 2008 23:46:38 +0000:
One game premise I tossed around with my friends one time was that your job is to return N spirits safely to their homes. While you have them, you have their powers. As you achieve more of your objective, your power diminishes until the basic peons from the beginning are major threats, and beating the 'boss' at the end would be a major feat with just the one remaining power, even though it's just the same type you faced earlier.
The problem there is that a novice player could be overwhelmed by having all N abilities (plus any combination abilities!) at their fingertips from the beginning. This is not necessarily a severe problem.
~~~~
An actual MMORPG (MSORPG?) that doesn't strictly qualify, but does make the levelling up process much less tedious is Kingdom of Loathing.
First of all, there's a limitation on how much you can play in a day.
But aside from that point, there are two modes of advancement - short term, in which your character gains stats. Unless you're very bad at it, it won't take long, maybe 2000 turns total (each one being a few seconds long). Then there's the long term, during which you finish the game, permanently keep a skill, and start over.
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Kate M. from 24.200.99.132 at Mon, 26 Feb 2007 00:36:48 +0000:
I expected you to come to a slightly different outcome: Tetris, in which you start with a lot of space and leisure to fit things in, but bit by bit chaos accumulates until you lose.
It's occurred to me that it might be two quite distinct types: those who want to win, versus those who are more pleased with seeing how well they can stave off failure.