"Role-Playing" Games that are an Example of the Illusion of Free Choice

[lvl 2 Blue Slime]

But is the definition of an RPG really CYOA-style story choices? So games like Fallout where the first RPGs? I would put forward that what defines an RPG is progression, getting XP and levelling up.

Those are RPG elements yes.

 

[OSK]

Those are RPG elements yes.

You must be new here.

Take Grand Theft Auto. Not an RPG, right? Well sprinkle in some stats and what do you have? Codex favorite Cyberpunk 2077!

Take The Secret of Monkey Island. Not an RPG, right? Well sprinkle in some stats and what do you have? Codex favorite Disco Elysium!

 

[ind33d]

Those are RPG elements yes.

You must be new here.

Take Grand Theft Auto. Not an RPG, right? Well sprinkle in some stats and what do you have? Codex favorite Cyberpunk 2077!

Take The Secret of Monkey Island. Not an RPG, right? Well sprinkle in some stats and what do you have? Codex favorite Disco Elysium!

San Andreas and GTAIV are better RPGs than most RPGs

 

[mondblut]

A computer RPG is a computer-driven simulation of a D&D session. If a game is insufficiently similar to playing a tabletop RPG (which means D&D and its derivatives, before some wisecrack asks "But what's a tabletop RPG?"), an RPG it is not.

 

[Damned Registrations]

C&C is overrated. Player agency in how they prosecute the game/plot is far more important. Trying to make C&C influence plot is a fools errand. C&C should be like the Fallout 1 miltary base where you can draw away mutants with the radio, or poisoning the stag lord's wine in Kingmaker. The player achieves the same plot goal, but how they get there has player agency. This is proper C&C that is achievable as it doesn't demand different plots paths our outcomes.

Nah, stuff like your examples are nice, but ultimately just tiny versions of the good stuff. Things like mutually exclusive party members, entire dungeons, merchants, classes and so forth are what make for really meaningful gameplay. Ensuring that every player sees every bit of content in every playthrough (or near enough as to make no difference) is a crutch and results in games with little replay value and little to discuss with fellow players. If I can't tell what stuff you've done earlier in the game by looking at your current situation, there was no real C&C.

It's less about plot and more about gameplay. The difference between siding with the necromancer or the paladin shouldn't be +/- 10 morality points and some dialogue, it should be whether or not your party is rolling around with a horde of skeleton archers or a holy avenger +5 a few hours later, which in turn should make a big difference in how difficult it is to fight a vampire or a gryphon, or which of those you even end up in conflict with.

 

[lvl 2 Blue Slime]

Those are RPG elements yes.

You must be new here.

Take Grand Theft Auto. Not an RPG, right? Well sprinkle in some stats and what do you have? Codex favorite Cyberpunk 2077!

Take The Secret of Monkey Island. Not an RPG, right? Well sprinkle in some stats and what do you have? Codex favorite Disco Elysium!

I didn't say they were RPGs, I said they had RPG elements, like many games nowadays do.

 

[Losus4]

Daggerfall. It seems to be lauded on here as some kind of gold standard for RPG when nothing you do matters. You can go to generic town 1 or generic town 2 and choice between 100 dungeons, non of which are distinct in any way. If Daggerfall only had 1 town, 1 house, 1 dungeon and 1 NPC, the experience would be no different.

 

[mondblut]

C&C is overrated.

Nah, stuff like your examples are nice, but ultimately just tiny versions of the good stuff. Things like mutually exclusive party members, entire dungeons, merchants, classes and so forth are what make for really meaningful gameplay. Ensuring that every player sees every bit of content in every playthrough (or near enough as to make no difference) is a crutch and results in games with little replay value and little to discuss with fellow players. If I can't tell what stuff you've done earlier in the game by looking at your current situation, there was no real C&C.

There is no such thing as "replay value". Most games aren't truly worth of being played even once.

 

[gurugeorge]

A lot of CRPGs are kind of schizophrenic. On the one hand they present themselves as virtual sandboxes of a sort where you make your own story, but on the other hand they have a set story with an envisioned beginning, middle and end - and often that story funnels down to you killing or failing to kill a final boss.

It's rarer to get games where there are multiple possible endings, but in that kind of case you can say the choice isn't illusory, or is at least less illusory - it's even less illusory if earlier choices start to incline you to one of the different endings, but you can still change track (albeit with increasing amounts of effort as you get further along).

As per my thesis that (C)RPG sub-genres, lineages, etc., are defined by their various failures to achieve perfect simulation (or their various halts on the way to that, due to limitations or constraints of various kinds), set stories only exist because the game's simulation of a virtual world isn't perfect enough to enable you to make your own story (roleplaying a character in that virtual/notional/counterfactual world). For example, with a more perfect simulation, the various other NPCs would have their own motivations and interactions, would interact in their own way out of the player's sight, the chips would fall in a certain way and that would result in you being impinged upon with circumstances you'd have to deal with, and that would be your story.

But having a story imposed is a kind of kludge that substitutes for that failure; it takes away some of your character's agency (and also the NPCs' notional agency, for that matter) and becomes meta, more like reading a book or watching a movie or being told a story by someone.

There's a fundamental contradiction in that a story, properly speaking, is something that's already happened, cannot be changed, and is being recounted, whereas what you're doing in an RPG is living through an ongoing lived present and shaping a future.

 

[Dorateen]

For example, with a more perfect simulation, the various other NPCs would have their own motivations and interactions, would interact in their own way out of the player's sight, the chips would fall in a certain way and that would result in you being impinged upon with circumstances you'd have to deal with, and that would be your story.

Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant sought to achieve this.

 

[Butter]

For example, with a more perfect simulation, the various other NPCs would have their own motivations and interactions, would interact in their own way out of the player's sight, the chips would fall in a certain way and that would result in you being impinged upon with circumstances you'd have to deal with, and that would be your story.

Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant sought to achieve this.

And embarrassingly few RPGs have tried to replicate it or improve upon it in the 30+ years since. More typically they follow the BioWare format where the player controls the only adventuring party because he's the chosen one.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

I have been working on a homebrew campaign, and I have toyed with the idea that the order the player pursues the main quests changes them. To a degree, those which you do first will scale down in difficulty and visa versa. Some paths and options may be available or no longer available depending on which quests were done before.

This way the player has a measure of choice, those choices will influence difficulty and later options, challenge can be scaled in a plausible manner, but permutations and outcomes are kept managable. This way I can keep to 3 major quests/acts that share subquests.

The intent is manageable but meaningful C&C, not replayability. That matter more 25-30 years ago when there were tremendously fewer games. Now its more important to do something well once.

 

[REhorror]

Dunno if Planescape: Torment counts, but there's technically one ending, the other ending you just die/get erased from existence.

 

[mondblut]

Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant sought to achieve this.

Truth be told, it's just a gimmick. You delve into a dungeon, wade through monsters who lived there unmolested, open locked doors no one has touched for centuries, find a chest covered in a thick layer of dust and… someone miraculously taken it before you. Some telekinesis, huh? And all it ultimately achieves is forcing a bit of busiwork upon you to track the culprit and beat the map out of him.

 

[Dorateen]

Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant sought to achieve this.

Truth be told, it's just a gimmick. You delve into a dungeon, wade through monsters who lived there unmolested, open locked doors no one has touched for centuries, find a chest covered in a thick layer of dust and… someone miraculously taken it before you. Some telekinesis, huh? And all it ultimately achieves is forcing a bit of busiwork upon you to track the culprit and beat the map out of him.

That's true regarding the maps. Still, in general, I like the idea of NPCs wandering the gameworld and bumping into them in different locations. Hearing news such as "Brother T'Shober fought Mick the Pick at Tramontane Forest", or learning that one NPC was slain by another.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

One can make an RPG with no leveling up, and no getting XP.

Yes but not without stat progression.

True, that would make it Tactics game.

C&C is mainly in the character progression as encounter resolution (99% of the time that means combat) is the main gameplay mechanic in RPGs. You don't need narrative to drive the gameplay at all ergo good C&C in RPGs is good character generation and progression.

 

[Glop_dweller]

One can make an RPG with no leveling up, and no getting XP.

Yes but not without stat progression.

True, that would make it Tactics game.

C&C is mainly in the character progression as encounter resolution (99% of the time that means combat) is the main gameplay mechanic in RPGs. You don't need narrative to drive the gameplay at all ergo good C&C in RPGs is good character generation and progression.

All that an RPG would need is to have plausible NPC reaction to the character's direct and indirect actions in the world, and of course having the PC be limited to their stats & abilities. Their limits need not improve over time (though improvement usually preferable); even so the PC's limitation defines the boundaries of their available paths through the game.

 

[roguefrog]

BioWare is a big culprit here for sure. Hell, David Gaider spoke as much in old interviews. Dragon Age 2 is peak illusion of choice. No choice. Doesn't matter what your dumbass Hawk character does. Anders will always be a idiotic terrorist and the ending is the same regardless.

Most Bethesda games but especially Fallout 3. You will always be a Brotherhood of Steel lackey no matter what. It's only at the very end of the final DLC after you've done everything do they finally allow you to break ties and blow up the pentagon.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

If the activity in RPGs is 99% killing monsters and bandits, what kind of C&C one could expect?

 

[luj1]

But is the definition of an RPG really CYOA-style story choices?

ofc not

only retards believe this

 

[REhorror]

My definition of a RPG - stats play a huge point in the game.

You can ignore it somewhat, but proper stat reading/building will make your journey easier.

That is "role playing" for me, building your characters via stats/spreadsheet.

 

[Skinwalker]

Dunno if Planescape: Torment counts, but there's technically one ending, the other ending you just die/get erased from existence.

Sounds like there's at least two endings, then.

 

[NecroLord]

My definition of a RPG - stats play a huge point in the game.

You can ignore it somewhat, but proper stat reading/building will make your journey easier.

That is "role playing" for me, building your characters via stats/spreadsheet.

Yep.
Stats, skills and seeing those numbers go up - damage dealt, health, etc..

 

[Silverfish]

RPGs that, despite being about decisions they all lead to the same path giving an artificial sense of choice.

 

[Laz Sundays]

There's two ways to roleplay. To roleplay a made character and to roleplay a created one.

The world as a setting, however, needs to be believable in both cases. Roleplaying is about immersion, essentially. Acting. It's about the quality of the setting, and the more time passes the more I'm convinced that making a quality setting is the most important thing for an rpg. Everything else is secondary and it can be modded or added.