Codexian CRPG Book Released

[Gizmojunk]

When different parties assign different meaning to even base concepts—like Up & Down... each cannot explain to the other what they themselves see as clear and self evident.

In my past experience(s!) with this exact same argument, over the years... One side sees a hiking sim as a game about being the character—personally; and is seen as roleplaying...(as they see fit... Think Westworld, or the Star Trek Holodeck, where the visitors are experiencing the world, as if in a theme park ride). This kind of player defines roleplaying as the game presenting the character's environment, and doing what they would with the character's equipment and/or special abilities—being the wizard, being the Parkour thief; playing at being Robin Hood, rather than choosing the path of Robin of Loxley Hall.

This kind of player would probably love Skyrim, and see any survivalist game (like Farcry or Stalker) as the ultimate RPG, because of its strengths at simulating the environment; and for the very reasons that I and others would disqualify it as being an RPG.

From my perspective, roleplaying is not, "What I would do with the strength of the Hulk", it is, "What would David Banner do with the strength of the Hulk".

 

[Risewild]

That is why Richard Garriott says that RPG is different from roleplaying game.

They are two different things. You can have role-playing in many game genres (including RPG genres), but that doesn't make all those games become RPGs.


Another game I just thought that is not a RPG but has so called "RPG elements": This War of Mine.

EDIT:
I just thought of applying the same example I used for Borderlands, in a past post, but this time for STALKER:
If you grab STALKER and remove the "RPG Elements". You still have a barebones FPS that is still mechanically playable. Same problem as Borderlands, it will be unbalanced as hell, it will be boring as hell, but it still plays like a FPS.
Now remove from STALKER all the "FPS elements" and you have no game.

Do that to a real Shooter RPG like FNV and if you remove the "RPG elements", you will cripple some of the dialogue that is based on character skills and stats but you will still have a bare bones FPS. Your weapons will deal base damage because there is no skills to increase that, your weapon's sway will always be the most possible, although crouching, using iron-sights and taking something like steady minimize that a lot (in case of using steady it removes sway completely for a time), and those are not "RPG elements", so you will still have them in the game anyway.

Remove the "FPS elements" from FNV and you will still have a RPG. Combat will be more boring and unballanced because you can't just use VATS continuously forever (you have to wait for AP to regenerate based on your AGL value) although you can still pick perks that speed that regen, and even fill some of the AP when you kill enemies. But in general you still have a pretty playable RPG.

This happens with the other hybrid game series I mentioned before. Warlords Battlecry and Spellforce.

Basically in those two series, the RPG in them are the "Heroes". They behave exactly like characters in many RPGs do, they have the stats and skills, they level up, they have inventory, they have abilities, etc. And they are implemented in the game exactly like they would be in a different RPG.

If you remove the heroes and replace them with any basic unit that does not have those "RPG elements" (basically you're removing all the "RPG elements" used in the game), the game still plays like a any RTS.

If you remove all the "RTS elements" from the games (base building, resource points gathering, unit spawning, army control, etc) the game still plays like any other Action RPG. You can control the hero and fight the enemies that are on the map, get items, do quests (that do not involve destroy enemy bases, because there are no bases anymore) level up, equip stuff, etc.

Those games are all real hybrids, and still work with and without each "genre elements".

See the difference when I say the elements matter only on how they are implemented and wrapped by the full game (full package).

 

[Deleted member 93956]

That's hiperbolic and reductive.

And if you remove the RPG elements (which you said don't exist?) from Wasteland you just have an incredibly simple XCOM spinoff (XCOM having its own RPG elements). And Fallout is a bare bones turn based strategy game. And Terraria would just be a platformer. What does that even mean? The RPG elements are rarely if ever the main star of the show because they're supposed to feed in to most of the gameplay aspects.

The games would become unengaging garbage that nobody would like to play except maybe those vegetables that are so good at RPG combat of before.

 

[Gizmojunk]

...except maybe those vegetables that are so good at RPG combat of before.

WTH does that mean?
*Uncalled-for insults weaken any argument regardless of its merit, by casting a pall on the speaker; and it's worse when the attempt is to insult someone for being more capable at it. It reminds me of how some nobles in the Middle Ages were said to have thought less of people who were financially desperate enough to become literate.

Also... Why should any RPG not have RPG combat—as opposed to the twitch based combat commonly used now (PC tempered or otherwise; neither of which belongs in an RPG).

 

[Deleted member 93956]

WTH does that mean?
*Uncalled-for insults weaken any argument regardless of its merit, by casting a pall on the speaker; and it's worse when the attempt is to insult someone for being more capable at it.

Have you read any of my previous posts on this thread? And would you kindly say what "RPG" combat is? Is it sitting in a circle showing each other numbers and who has bigger numbers wins? Because that'll mean that many RPGs don't have RPG combat and that many non RPGs have RPG combat, hum.

 

[Gizmojunk]

Have you read any of my previous posts on this thread? And would you kindly say what "RPG" combat is? Is it sitting in a circle showing each other numbers and who has bigger numbers wins? Because that'll mean that many RPGs don't have RPG combat and that many non RPGs have RPG combat, hum.

RPG combat should be impartial. The control (behavior) in an RPG should have similarity to one of those plush-toy claw arcade games; where the player decides the target (which toy to retrieve), but can only initiate the action—not control it; in this case, the quirks of the claw are what affects the outcome; affects whether they get the toy or not. This is analogous to the character doing their personal best in the situation; succeeding, or failing, on their own merit and circumstance.
(The point being that the player cannot reach in change anything themselves.)

In gameplay, it means the PC's (and only the PC's) mastery (or lack thereof) for the task determines their level of control. Weighted random is the best and least partial method to facilitate this. The roll (whatever its result) indicates the situational difficulty of that moment, and the PC's skill level indicates their confidence and ability to control the situation. (The difference between a locksmith, and someone who has never tried to pick a lock... To the locksmith it's rote. That doesn't meant that they won't drop the pick, or jam the lock...it means that it is very unlikely.)

In practice this works out that the novice fails a lot, and the expert succeeds more often than not... and most importantly that the expert is not infallible, and (with exceptions) the novice can succeed by blind luck.

 

[Risewild]

That's hiperbolic and reductive.

And if you remove the RPG elements (which you said don't exist?) from Wasteland you just have an incredibly simple XCOM spinoff (XCOM having its own RPG elements). And Fallout is a bare bones turn based strategy game. And Terraria would just be a platformer. What does that even mean? The RPG elements are rarely if ever the main star of the show because they're supposed to feed in to most of the gameplay aspects.

The games would become unengaging garbage that nobody would like to play except maybe those vegetables that are so good at RPG combat of before.

What the hell are you talking about? hyperbolic and reductive? What you guys are doing is the reductive. Saying a FPS with inventory management, needs and equipment is a RPG. How reductive is that?

I put into perspective how a game genre doesn't change because of little elements that can be removed from a game. And show how actual games that are Shooters and RPGs (and RTS and RPGs) are actually both Shooters and RPGs because removing the so called "genre elements" from one genre still leave the game with the other genre.

XCOM spinoff? What? If you remove the "RPG elements" from Wasteland you have nothing... Look at all the skills Wasteland has:
https://wasteland.gamepedia.com/Wasteland_skills
And all the Attributes too:

The skills and attributes are used in the game for the characters to do everything. You stop having combat if you remove all the combat skills because no one will be able to use weapons to hit anyone in the game, not to mention that the HP is dependent on character Attributes, so without HP, your character would be dead. So you can't have combat anymore (which is a big part of Wasteland). Also you can't find traps anymore, you can't interact with characters and the environment besides basic dialogue (since you won't have any of those skills I posted before, which allow the characters to interact with all of those things), you won't be able to swim, climb, disarm bombs, forge documents, decipher encrypted messages and the examples go on and on and on. You won't be able to play the game at all.

And here you come with Fallout is a turn based strategy... You really don't know genres do you? Turn Based Strategy are games like Civilization and Heroes of Might and Magic. Fallout is really not even close to any of those games. And also Fallout is not turn based except in combat, you know that a game is more than one feature of it, I have been saying that for a long time. There are no turns when you're not in combat, it is real time.
And if you remove the "RPG elements" from Fallout, you will still have no game, because combat can't exist in Fallout without the character skills and attributes (the exact opposite of games like STALKER and Borderlands) just like in Wasteland, you won't have many world interactions because they rely on character skills that wouldn't exist anymore, a large part of the entire game dialogue wouldn't exist because it's dependent on the character skills and attributes and so on. Even equipping weapons in Fallout are dependent on player Attributes. So you couldn't equip weapons anymore...

How can you say it is the same as if we remove the "RPG elements" from lets say STALKER?

Terraria is not a RPG... I don't know what you try to achieve with mentioning that game. A fan-made giant mod project exists to make Terraria a RPG. Why would they do that if Terraria was already a RPG?
What would Terraria look and play like without "RPG elements"? Pretty much the same. I mentioned what and how games without those elements would play and how it would affect them not having those.

All you say is "without those Terraria would be a platformer" how would it be a platformer? Tell me how it would become just a platformer, I will wait.

 

[Cobra Commander]

How the hell does this looks like something I did only to make money?

In particular, I do not see the slightest problem in trying to profit from the book, even if it is for charity. Alias, especially if it's for charity.

Congratulations on the launch, I'll check it out soon.

hey Felipe, any plans to release a PT-BR version?

 

[TorontoReign]

Check out the Codex thread for more info in case he doesn't want to come back and check this thread.

 

[felipepepe]

hey Felipe, any plans to release a PT-BR version?

It's too big for me to translate it by myself, but there's a small group of volunteers that began translating some articles into blog posts... it all depends on how they progress.