Re: What was the first RPG?

[djohnson@tartarus.ucsd.edu (Darin Johnson)]

fletcher@u.washington.edu (Brent Michael Krupp) writes:
> Actually, an RPG pretty much *does* have to have stats, so as to better
> create your character. A game without stats is often an adventure 
> game, not an RPG.

Are you talking *computer* RPG's, or RPG's?  I'm sure someone's
running a Fudge campaign with no stats somewhere.

> Stats that can't be viewed or manipulated ARE NOT character stats in
> any meaningful way. The point of stats being important to RPGs is that
> they *distinguish* the various characters one can play.

What about stats that only the GM can view or control?  Does that
make the game less RPG?  (there are undoubtedly some PBEM's run
this way)

> Without a combat system, or at least some sort of conflict resolution
> rules, it isn't an RPG. Lots of people would agree with me here. This 
> is a topic that gets argued about all the time in rec.games.frp.misc,
> however.

Well, if it gets argued, it must not be so cut-and-dried then?

> >And probably a majority agree that randomness is not needed. 
> 
> A majority? I doubt it. Many people consider diceless "role-playing"
> to be simple make-believe storytelling, and barely an RPG at all.

Many?  I've met few (ok, one more now).  There are plenty of games
where the GM fudges all the roles, thus being halfway between random
and not random.  Are all those choose-your-own adventure books,
advertised as RPG, not RPG if you don't use any randomness?

> Without
> a random element in a computer game, you are left with an adventure game.
> That is one of the biggest distinctions between RPGs and adventure games:
> in an adventure game, you can pretty much do the exact same thing every
> time you play, and always win. RPGs are much less predictable and 
> usually have a more free-form nature.

What do you call an adventure game that has randomness then?  What
makes RPG's less predictable is that the players and GM are
unpredictable, not some roll of the dice.  Adventures are predictable,
because you can't say "ok, we skip the little white house and head
to Bermuda".  In this sense, there no less predictable than your
typical SSI RPG computer game.

> People would be over-simplifying. Al'Qadim is a rather hybrid game --
> almost an action game with RPG elements, rather than a true RPG. 
> It fails to be a true RPG in part because you have no control over what
> character you play and the rather simplistic inventory and magic system
> is quite arcade-game-like.

Inventory and magic systems are now part of the definition?

I beg to differ on Al'Qadim.  It is very much an RPG.  RPG doesn't
require you to choose your character, only that you play the role.
There was certainly much more role playing than there was in Bard's
Tale.

> >What about
> >Doom, Dark Forces, or Marathon?  Some people think they're role
> >playing. On the other hand, there are quite a few people that think
> >nothing from SSI is even close to being an RPG. 
> 
> Some people are extremely stupid. This adds nothing to your argument.

Huh, so anyone with those views is stupid?  My point was that there
*are* people with those views, and that you can't just dismiss them
because you have your own definition of RPG that conflicts with theirs.

> I haven't played Zork Zero, so I can't really comment. I'd guess that it
> is simply a fancy adventure game.

Why?  You have stats.  You can view them.  You can't change them, but
many computer RPG's don't let you change the stats either.  You can
do combat to defeat the opponents, or figure out easier ways to get
past them.  Sure, you don't have a dungeon crawl...

> What persona? You manipulated a completely anonymous and featureless
> entity about a fantasy environment, doing little but picking up and
> dropping various objects. No character at all to that. Sure, you could
> imagine that you were an intrepid explorer, but I could imagine that
> I was a cow, and the game played the same.

Gosh, Wizardry felt like I was playing a cow too.  Rogue was defintely
a game where you played an amphibian.  We're just quibbling over
quality of role playing here.

> >Sure, combat was limited, but if someone came out with
> >the My Dinner With Andre RPG, would it fail the test because of that?
> 
> Yes, unless you developed a "dinner table argument resolution system". 
> Without conflict, you don't really have an RPG, just an interactive (or
> not) storytelling experience.

No, you have role playing.  Maybe not a role playing *game*, but
you have role playing.  Of course, you need a conflict resolution
method, but if this consists of requiring the players to use diplomacy
instead of dice, does this make it less of an RPG?

> >What about more complex and better adventure games, such as Curses? 
> >Is that less of an RPG than Rogue?
> 
> Never heard of Curses. If it is an adventure game, it probably is not
> an RPG as well.

It's an adventure, and it's very involved.  You don't pick your
character, but damn it, it's a lot more fleshed out and gets to
do more than your "@" in rogue.

> Wizardry is in fact one of the first computer RPGs ever, though I 
> think Apshai predates, and Telengard may as well (if it is the very
> D&Dish one I am thinking of).

And rogue predates all of those as well (and was influenced by D&D).
-- 
Darin Johnson
djohnson@ucsd.edu
    "You used to be big."
    "I am big.  It's the pictures that got small."