emotion in Western RPGs?

[Seldon2639]

Emotional moments in JRPGs are scripted.

Emotional moments in western RPGs tend to occur organically.

In a JRPG, every detail of every character is decided by the game developers. You, the player, have no say in the matter. You don't get to choose the characters' names, you don't get to choose their appearance, gender, backstory, personality, nothing. So yes, they might get into intense relationships with other characters, but it's only the game developers who make this happen. You the player have nothing to do with it.

In a western RPG, the character becomes what you make it. If you sit there passively and wait to be entertained, there isn't much to them. They require you to actually roleplay. You have to use some imagination.

This doesn't mean western RPGs can't suck (oh my can they ever) and it doesn't mean JRPGs can't be good. But if you want to play a role, don't play JRPGs. There's no RP in JRPG.

I don't agree with your characterization of what "roleplaying" really is. Playing a role, to me, doesn't mean taking essentially a faceless person, and imbuing him with my own personality, it's about taking an extant personality, and persona, and being that persona. When you play a role in the theatre, you're not "making" a character. It's a question of games as cinema, or games as acutely interactive. Having to be active in shaping a character isn't, by my interpretation, and we can argue this until the end of time, "roleplaying". Role creating, perhaps.

Western RPGs tend to focus, I would argue, on the power-tripping. It's about pretending that I, myself, or some manifestation of myself, is rocking on. J-RPGs tend to focus on the actual characters, people entirely outside of me. It's more watching them than anything else. Again, I have to draw a parallel to the theatre. The fun in acting isn't in being yourself in a new situation, with new powers, and new abilities. The lines are all there. It's about watching the story unfold.

The imagination thing is a good point, but there's a pretty fine line between using your imagination, and the game leaving you high and dry. The great Western RPGs (Mass Effect, KOTOR) are closer to JRPGs than anything else. Romance in Mass Effect is pre-scripted. You don't have to go down the path, but if you do (with whatever character), the scenes are pre-scripted.

 

[thedeathsmarch1408]

on some jrpgs it unsualy i get adicted if your like me and you will try to do every thing just to see the ending of the game, if your like me.

that probly explains some stuff...

 

[GeeseH]

Also, why do male RPG characters have an odd tendency to wear clothes that show of most of their upper bodies? (Tidus, Vaan, etc.)

Better upper body than lower (Ashley Riot anybody!?!)

back on topic - secret of mana vs secret of evermore / silent hill vs origins

maybe a love interest & the concept of loss should be incorporated into future gta games, how many kills would we rack up on a 'love rampage'

ok that just sounds dodgy but I hope you see what i mean.

 

[VRaptorX]

Don't know why I'm saying this but didn't the "Aerith scene" seem really thrown in? OK...Cloud stops himself so she lives....then she dies. Not to mention you can glitch yourself into a scene on disk 3 with her alive and talking to you before the final battle. I guess all those conspiracy theories about Nomura were true. the theory is for those who care: Aerith was the main love interest....and the only character not designed by Nomura. So he created Tifa and used influence to change the plot of the game, after it was basically finished. Yeah....the big scene is a guy acting like a baby out of jealousy for a fictional character. Funny eh?

 

[Imperator_2]

From what I've seen, Western RPG's are focused on being smart-ass than being emotional, though there are a few exceptions.

 

[TomNook]

There are some nice emotional moments in JRPGs i guess. But somewhere in the mid 90ies they all fell into a giant rut and stayed there and did absolutely nothing new at all.

But unlike the FF games, stuff like Mass Effect makes me silently mourn at times. Even Oblivion (No, seriously) made me feel more atached to the world around me then most JRPGs.

Also, FFX has the worst two protagonists in the history of media.

Yeah but Auron is teh leet.

 

[rougeknife]

Baldurs Gate kiddo. Specifically SOH and TOB. I've never felt emotions from a game so strong as I have with the betrayals in Baldurs Gate.

Wait... are you talking about western console RPG's? Good luck mate.

 

[VikingRhetoric]

I misread the title, I was thinking cowboys and indians.

Somebody really needs to get on the ball and make one of those though.


I will say that FFXII would have been loads better had they followed Balthier and axed vaan and penelo.

 

[Razzle Bathbone]

I don't agree with your characterization of what "roleplaying" really is. Playing a role, to me, doesn't mean taking essentially a faceless person, and imbuing him with my own personality, it's about taking an extant personality, and persona, and being that persona. When you play a role in the theatre, you're not "making" a character. It's a question of games as cinema, or games as acutely interactive. Having to be active in shaping a character isn't, by my interpretation, and we can argue this until the end of time, "roleplaying". Role creating, perhaps.

Stage actors don't call their work "roleplaying", they call it "acting". When they roleplay, they call it "improv" or "theatre sports". Take a theatre sports exercise, add some dice and charts and a goal, and you've got Dungeons and Dragons, the true progenitor of roleplaying games.

The great Western RPGs (Mass Effect, KOTOR) are closer to JRPGs than anything else. Romance in Mass Effect is pre-scripted. You don't have to go down the path, but if you do (with whatever character), the scenes are pre-scripted.

I agree that Mass Effect and KOTOR are more similar to JRPGs than real roleplaying. I disagree that they are the great Western RPGs (though I did enjoy KOTOR quite a bit). Try Planescape or Baldur's Gate.

I'm curious: why do you want to play games just to watch a story? Couldn't you get a better story with better dialogue and more interesting characters by watching a movie or reading a book? What's the point of a game where your choices don't matter?

 

[Seldon2639]

Stage actors don't call their work "roleplaying", they call it "acting". When they roleplay, they call it "improv" or "theatre sports". Take a theatre sports exercise, add some dice and charts and a goal, and you've got Dungeons and Dragons, the true progenitor of roleplaying games.

I agree, but "improv" and "theatre sports" aren't really roleplaying either. My point wasn't a direct comparison, but more of an analogy. It's the difference between having a character already extant, which his own personality, quirks, and history, and creating the role as I go along. What most Western RPGs I've played end up with is a sort of halfway between pure "roleplay" and strict scripting. The only way to have a pure roleplay is to divorce it entirely from a video game. At the end of the day, in any game with a decided plot (which includes most Western RPGs), you can't really influence the way the game works out. You can be good, evil, nice, a dick, but the core plot is going to go down decided paths. My best evidence is Oblivion, or Fable, or KOTOR, or Mass Effect. You can tell the jedi order to screw itself, mess around with loot-getting, kill the NPCs, but at some point the game has to continue down the pre-existing plot. I'm all for real roleplay, but the only way I feel to get that is to go back to D&D (though I'm more fond of Whitewolf as a base-system, or GURPS). Otherwise there will always be the necessity of certain elements of the game that you can't alter at all. I dunno, whenever I play most Western RPGs (even KOTOR, though Mass Effect is spared) I end up feeling like the main character is a void. He/she is merely a vehicle by which things occur, he doesn't feel like a person unto himself. That's ignoring the side-characters, because I will agree that Western RPGs are as good as JRPGs at creating side-characters

I agree that Mass Effect and KOTOR are more similar to JRPGs than real roleplaying. I disagree that they are the great Western RPGs (though I did enjoy KOTOR quite a bit). Try Planescape or Baldur's Gate.

If you're talking about the Baldur's Gate games for consoles, I played them when they first came out, and I was less than impressed. I've not heard of Planescape, and if there's a PC Baldur's Gate, I'll claim ignorance.

I'm curious: why do you want to play games just to watch a story? Couldn't you get a better story with better dialogue and more interesting characters by watching a movie or reading a book? What's the point of a game where your choices don't matter?

That's a really good point. I see it as a different form of media. I play JRPGs for two reasons (and bear in mind that I do play Western RPGs and have liked many of them): the first is the gameplay mechanics. I actually like turn-based RPGs, it reminds me of my D&D days. The second part is the characters. They tend to be (and this is, again, a tendency, not a hard-and-fast rule) more real, at least to me. The protagonist is the person we spend the most time with, and by making him a sort of anonymous avatar of the player, it removes the possibility of having a real character in that place. But, back to your question: there are certain stories which aren't told in books or movies, and certain stories which couldn't be. I don't think that FF VII could have been an effective movie. If it were a book, it would have to spend pages upon pages describing actions which you can see easily on the screen. If it were a movie, it would have to cut out a hell of a lot of the dialogue. I don't mind my actions not doing anything other than propelling the story forward, because I don't see myself as ever being part of the game. Ask the same question of people who like Halo, or Bioshock

 

[Seldon2639]

There are some nice emotional moments in JRPGs i guess. But somewhere in the mid 90ies they all fell into a giant rut and stayed there and did absolutely nothing new at all.

But unlike the FF games, stuff like Mass Effect makes me silently mourn at times. Even Oblivion (No, seriously) made me feel more atached to the world around me then most JRPGs.

Even without agreeing that FFVII was one of the greatest games ever, it's kind of difficult to get around that it was an epochal game. It introduced the idea of characters to which you become attached, and brought video-games from a sort of vulgar entertainment (you shoot things, or collect loot, even the RPGs didn't have the kind of emotional attachment that FFVII achieved). FFVII was important because it taught gamers how to cry. I'll admit that in comparison, it's not perfect by today's standards, but in the same way that we judge musicians not only for what they accomplished, but for how they influenced the entire industry, we should still give props to FFVII.

/Is now waiting to be told that other games did it better
//or that FFVI/III was better
///or for someone to say "well, I didn't cry"

 

[Rolling Thunder]

Anyone who claims they didn't cry is

a) a liar
b) Utterly incapable of divorcing themselves from reality
c) old
d) Utterly incapable of human feeling.

And thus should not be allowed to play videogames.

Disclaimer: this is a joke. Do not become insulted and angry and go around trying to canvass support for having me banned/excluded/burned at the stake, for you shall surely regret your actions in the short term.

 

[ssjheero]

The difference to me between JRPGs and western RPGs is that western RPGs give you more options on how to customize your character. I mean, in FF7, you get the materia system, but in the end, every single character build will end up the same if you know what he's doing. In Western RPGs, say Neverwinter Nights for example, you can finish the (albeit pretty crappy) story as a paladin, rogue, or whathaveyou with a different assortment of skills, feats, and such. In FF7, Cloud's invariably going to have Mega-All + 4xCut or some similar ridiculousness.

At the very least, I want my RPGs to at least show what armor your character is wearing. FF12 would be greatly improved if we can deck out Vaan in badass heavy armor instead of his stupid smock.

And I wouldn't take Morrowind and Oblivion was examples of story-driven RPGs, because their stories are generally pretty weak. Baldur's Gate II followed the fall of its main antagonist, and slowly revealed his motivations and the depths of his twisted nature. Planescape Torment had one of the most well-written stories ever (I'd say too MUCH of it was written, but that's a matter of opinion), and it's really heart-breaking realizing what your character did before the game started. Unless you're playing as an evil character. Then it'd be a "whoa, cool" moment.

If you're talking about the Baldur's Gate games for consoles, I played them when they first came out, and I was less than impressed. I've not heard of Planescape, and if there's a PC Baldur's Gate, I'll claim ignorance.

Just FYI. If anyone talks about BG, mostly no one ever considers Dark Alliance. The PC series of isometric RPGs are classics with great storylines and character customization options. It's incredibly slow to start out, and takes getting used to after much faster paced games, but it's worth it.

 

[GloatingSwine]

/Is now waiting to be told that other games did it better
//or that FFVI/III was better
///or for someone to say "well, I didn't cry"

Other games did it better. Particularly FFIV. Didn't really care about Aeris, preferred Tifa, but when Rosa got kidnapped there was hell to pay. That was character attachment.

 

[Razzle Bathbone]

It's the difference between having a character already extant, which his own personality, quirks, and history, and creating the role as I go along.

I see the distinction you're making, but to me it's the distinction between a movie or book (passive medium) and a game (active medium).

This isn't to say that I can't identify with a character if I can't control them. Even in books and movies, I often identify with characters quite strongly, sypathizing with their suffering and cheering their victories. Good writing and good performances help a lot. But passive media are far better suited to this sort of thing than games. Compare the story, characters and dialogue of, say, FFVII to Seven Samurai or Spirited Away or Rashomon or Ran.

What most Western RPGs I've played end up with is a sort of halfway between pure "roleplay" and strict scripting.

Absolutely! It's like a theatre sports exercise. "Okay, your character's just been turned into a vampire in modern-day Los Angeles. Go!" Then they throw some conflicts at you and you try to muddle through while developing your character, figuring out who they are and what makes them tick.

The only way to have a pure roleplay is to divorce it entirely from a video game.

Totally agree. In the best pen-and-paper RPGs, the gamemaster tailors the story to fit the players. If they liked a particular villain, he becomes a recurring character. If they were bored by a particular subplot, it gets dropped. If they want more action/romance/intrigue/happiness/angst, they get it. Computer-based roleplaying will always be crippled by the lack of a human gamemaster. The most successful examples of computer roleplaying are the ones that do the best job of masking this weakness.

At the end of the day, in any game with a decided plot (which includes most Western RPGs), you can't really influence the way the game works out. You can be good, evil, nice, a dick, but the core plot is going to go down decided paths.

Sadly, yes. But as long as it's "paths" (plural), a case can be made that you at least have some say in where the story ends up. Friends have told me that Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne offers a rich variety of endings and plenty of ways to develop your character on the way there. If I had a PS2, I would be playing it.

But consider this too: roleplaying isn't only about the endings, it's also about the characters. It's important to have a say in your character's destiny, but it's also important to have a say in their motivations.

Let's take Oblivion as an example. My character started out as a racist. When Khajit or Argonian beggars asked her for coins, she'd tell them to get away, the filthy animals. Over the course of the game she ended up working with them in guilds, and fighting members of her own race who had turned to evil. She gradually came to realize that they were as deserving of charity as anyone else, and she would always toss them a coin when they asked (she had plenty).

This was not scripted. This was a character trait that emerged as a result of my play, and I wasn't expecting it at all. In a JRPG, the game tells you everything that matters about your character. You don't get to invent stuff like that.

I dunno, whenever I play most Western RPGs (even KOTOR, though Mass Effect is spared) I end up feeling like the main character is a void. He/she is merely a vehicle by which things occur, he doesn't feel like a person unto himself. That's ignoring the side-characters, because I will agree that Western RPGs are as good as JRPGs at creating side-characters

This is because you're expected to project a personality of your own choosing onto the main character and fill in the blanks yourself. If they filled in all the details about your background, your motivations and desires, your hopes and fears, that wouldn't leave any room for roleplaying. It would be a static, passive story with no room for player involvement. In other words, a JRPG.

NPCs in western RPGs are more developed because the player doesn't play them. Their stories and choices are their own, and not for the player to control. This is why they seem more similar to the NPCs in a JRPG. But there's one crucial difference. In order for a western RPG NPC to feel believable, they must have a range of responses for different player behaviours. If you're rude to an NPC, or generous or violent, they have to respond in a way that fits their personality. Carth Onasi doesn't flirt with male PCs, or with females who aren't interested. In a JRPG, the NPCs are static because the designers always know exactly what will happen to them and exactly how the PC will behave toward them.

In a western RPG, they supply the setting, the conflicts and the NPCs. You have to provide the main character. That's the whole point. If you just sit back and wait for the game to create the character for you, you're bound to be disappointed because it's not that kind of game.

If you're talking about the Baldur's Gate games for consoles, I played them when they first came out, and I was less than impressed. I've not heard of Planescape, and if there's a PC Baldur's Gate, I'll claim ignorance.

There is no such thing as a Baldur's Gate game for consoles. Anyone who claims otherwise is a heretic and must be cleansed.

You could probably play both of those games on the machine you're using to write the responses on this forum, if you're interested.

I'm curious: why do you want to play games just to watch a story? Couldn't you get a better story with better dialogue and more interesting characters by watching a movie or reading a book? What's the point of a game where your choices don't matter?

That's a really good point.

I guess the equivalent question for me would be "why play CRPGs instead of real (pen-and-paper) RPGs? What's the point of roleplaying without any real freedom?" I'd probably have to fall back on the lame excuse of not having a group I can get together with for regular roleplaying sessions. Real RPGs are a lot of work to set up. I'm very excited about D&D 4th edition's virtual gaming table, because it would eliminate the number one obstacle: getting the players together in the same place at the same time.

But I suppose even if I could get my fix of real roleplaying, I would still enjoy some CRPGs. The challenge of figuring out how to build a formidable character capable of winning the game, combined with exploration of the game space and discovery of my character's identity is a lot of fun, in different ways from a traditional RPG.

So I guess the real question is "why are you down on JRPGs but not adventure games like Prince of Persia or The Longest Journey or Psychonauts? You don't have any say in your character's destiny or choices there, but you still enjoy them. Why?" In adventure games, the focus is usually on the action, which is something I can't get in other media. Maneuvering the Prince through those deathtraps and so on is fun in itself, and it would still be fun even if there were no story. CRPGs usually don't have the same degree of challenge to their mechanics, so they fall back on their stories to carry them. Passive media tell stories better than games. So for the game to be worth playing, it has to offer me something I can't get in passive media. Such as the ability to roleplay as the main character, even a little bit.

There's also the niggling point that JRPGs have the temerity to call themselves RPGs when they don't have any RP. Yes, you can identify with the characters, but you don't play their roles any more than you play the role of a character in a book you're reading (or in Psychonauts etc). If FFVII were called "an adventure game with stats", I probably wouldn't get all snippy about it. I still probably wouldn't enjoy it because I don't like the characters and the dialog, but I wouldn't fight this silly battle as a matter of principle.

I don't think that FF VII could have been an effective movie. If it were a book, it would have to spend pages upon pages describing actions which you can see easily on the screen.

At least that would mean cutting out all the unavoidable invisible random encounters. Grr.

Why do JRPGs always have those things anyway? How do they help the gameplay? I can dig the turn-based combat (loved the Wizardry games purely for that; they certainly didn't have anything else going for them), the character designs look kinda cool in many cases, but why oh why do they torture players with those damn-the-designer-to-eternal-stinking-hellfire random encounters? ARGH!

If it were a movie, it would have to cut out a hell of a lot of the dialogue.

And the story would be a lot tighter for it. They wouldn't have to bludgeon the viewer over the head with the same points over and over again to stretch the drama out over however many hours it takes to play the game.

Sorry for all the FFVII hate. I know it doesn't do any good, and I hope I'll get over it someday. In the meantime, try not to pay any attention to me.

I don't mind my actions not doing anything other than propelling the story forward, because I don't see myself as ever being part of the game. Ask the same question of people who like Halo, or Bioshock

Halo doesn't claim to be an RPG. Bioshock does, and I've avoided it for that reason. It's obviously an FPS with a few stats. Plus I've already played and loved System Shock 2, so I don't think I really need to play Bioshock. I've already gotten the best bits.

It seems to me that we agree about most of these things, and we probably enjoy most of the same kinds of games for mostly the same reasons. It looks like I'm mostly just touchy about the definition of roleplaying, probably since it's been such an important part of my life.

Thanks for the discussion.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

Now that I've actually seriously started playing it, I am baffled as to how Balthier is not the main character.


Edit: I mean why SE made him a secondary character.

 

[Seldon2639]

I see the distinction you're making, but to me it's the distinction between a movie or book (passive medium) and a game (active medium).

This isn't to say that I can't identify with a character if I can't control them. Even in books and movies, I often identify with characters quite strongly, sypathizing with their suffering and cheering their victories. Good writing and good performances help a lot. But passive media are far better suited to this sort of thing than games. Compare the story, characters and dialogue of, say, FFVII to Seven Samurai or Spirited Away or Rashomon or Ran

I don't agree that passive media is much more suited for that. At the end of the day, one of the reasons I played D & D was because I liked beating things down. I liked the challenge of having to make my character (and my group) more powerful so we could go lay the smackdown. For me, it's almost separate. The plot of the game is entirely unto itself, but I like the mechanics, and having to work to get to the plot. It gives a sense of accomplishment

Absolutely! It's like a theatre sports exercise. "Okay, your character's just been turned into a vampire in modern-day Los Angeles. Go!" Then they throw some conflicts at you and you try to muddle through while developing your character, figuring out who they are and what makes them tick.

If you're creating the character, I wouldn't define that as "figuring out who they are and what makes them tick", I would define that as creating who they are. It's different to me. The former is a discovery, the ability to further understand a character. The latter is more boring, to me.

Let's take Oblivion as an example. My character started out as a racist. When Khajit or Argonian beggars asked her for coins, she'd tell them to get away, the filthy animals. Over the course of the game she ended up working with them in guilds, and fighting members of her own race who had turned to evil. She gradually came to realize that they were as deserving of charity as anyone else, and she would always toss them a coin when they asked (she had plenty).

This was not scripted. This was a character trait that emerged as a result of my play, and I wasn't expecting it at all. In a JRPG, the game tells you everything that matters about your character. You don't get to invent stuff like that.

I think this is the most telling sticking point between us. I don't see that as character development. At any point in the game, you (the player) could choose the dramatically change your character. And even the character development that makes sense is almost universally filled in by your imagination. In KOTOR, I could change the core running of my character's decisions, without any justification. What I would find interesting is if (like a real life RPG) you picked an alignment (or, since I prefer Whitewolf, a nature and demeanor) and were penalized from straying from that. I think I mentioned this earlier, though, unless I'm playing with friends, I don't want to spend $60 to use my imagination

This is because you're expected to project a personality of your own choosing onto the main character and fill in the blanks yourself. If they filled in all the details about your background, your motivations and desires, your hopes and fears, that wouldn't leave any room for roleplaying. It would be a static, passive story with no room for player involvement. In other words, a JRPG.

NPCs in western RPGs are more developed because the player doesn't play them. Their stories and choices are their own, and not for the player to control. This is why they seem more similar to the NPCs in a JRPG. But there's one crucial difference. In order for a western RPG NPC to feel believable, they must have a range of responses for different player behaviours. If you're rude to an NPC, or generous or violent, they have to respond in a way that fits their personality. Carth Onasi doesn't flirt with male PCs, or with females who aren't interested. In a JRPG, the NPCs are static because the designers always know exactly what will happen to them and exactly how the PC will behave toward them.

In a western RPG, they supply the setting, the conflicts and the NPCs. You have to provide the main character. That's the whole point. If you just sit back and wait for the game to create the character for you, you're bound to be disappointed because it's not that kind of game.

This whole thing is kind of my issue. You're expected to supply the backstory, the persona, but there's nothing in the game itself which reflects that. If you picked alignment, and history, family, merits and flaws, all of that, I would like Western RPGs more. The issue is that you either have a stock background, or almost no background at all. Even in Mass Effect, when you pick an origin story, it has no real effect on the plot. If I have a wife and three kids, I want them to be kidnapped to draw me into a trap, darn it .

I guess the equivalent question for me would be "why play CRPGs instead of real (pen-and-paper) RPGs? What's the point of roleplaying without any real freedom?" I'd probably have to fall back on the lame excuse of not having a group I can get together with for regular roleplaying sessions. Real RPGs are a lot of work to set up. I'm very excited about D&D 4th edition's virtual gaming table, because it would eliminate the number one obstacle: getting the players together in the same place at the same time.

You could also go with a play-by-post. In some ways it makes GMing easier. It allows you to run concurrent, but separate, adventures for different characters. I've been looking forward to the Dresden Files RPG (based on the books, not the show, thank goodness), but I may just end up tweaking Mage.

But I suppose even if I could get my fix of real roleplaying, I would still enjoy some CRPGs. The challenge of figuring out how to build a formidable character capable of winning the game, combined with exploration of the game space and discovery of my character's identity is a lot of fun, in different ways from a traditional RPG.

So I guess the real question is "why are you down on JRPGs but not adventure games like Prince of Persia or The Longest Journey or Psychonauts? You don't have any say in your character's destiny or choices there, but you still enjoy them. Why?" In adventure games, the focus is usually on the action, which is something I can't get in other media. Maneuvering the Prince through those deathtraps and so on is fun in itself, and it would still be fun even if there were no story. CRPGs usually don't have the same degree of challenge to their mechanics, so they fall back on their stories to carry them. Passive media tell stories better than games. So for the game to be worth playing, it has to offer me something I can't get in passive media. Such as the ability to roleplay as the main character, even a little bit.

There's also the niggling point that JRPGs have the temerity to call themselves RPGs when they don't have any RP. Yes, you can identify with the characters, but you don't play their roles any more than you play the role of a character in a book you're reading (or in Psychonauts etc). If FFVII were called "an adventure game with stats", I probably wouldn't get all snippy about it. I still probably wouldn't enjoy it because I don't like the characters and the dialog, but I wouldn't fight this silly battle as a matter of principle.

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree about whether that counts as "roleplaying". In terms of a comparison to pen-and-paper games, obviously not. But I think it's a mite fuzzier when you're comparing JRPGs to Western RPGs.

I don't think that FF VII could have been an effective movie. If it were a book, it would have to spend pages upon pages describing actions which you can see easily on the screen.

At least that would mean cutting out all the unavoidable invisible random encounters. Grr.

Why do JRPGs always have those things anyway? How do they help the gameplay? I can dig the turn-based combat (loved the Wizardry games purely for that; they certainly didn't have anything else going for them), the character designs look kinda cool in many cases, but why oh why do they torture players with those damn-the-designer-to-eternal-stinking-hellfire random encounters? ARGH!

It's for the same reason you run around in Mass Effect on those idiotic side-quests. Build levels, gain items, all of that. It's not part of the plot, but you mentioned it yourself earlier: it's cool building up the characters.

If it were a movie, it would have to cut out a hell of a lot of the dialogue.

And the story would be a lot tighter for it. They wouldn't have to bludgeon the viewer over the head with the same points over and over again to stretch the drama out over however many hours it takes to play the game.

Sorry for all the FFVII hate. I know it doesn't do any good, and I hope I'll get over it someday. In the meantime, try not to pay any attention to me.

It's really fine. I get why lots of people see it as overhyped. Video-games feel like a good midway point between books and movies in terms of dialogue, length, all of that. It avoids both the long expositions in books about the world, about what people are doing, but also get to be longer and deeper than movies.

I don't mind my actions not doing anything other than propelling the story forward, because I don't see myself as ever being part of the game. Ask the same question of people who like Halo, or Bioshock

Halo doesn't claim to be an RPG. Bioshock does, and I've avoided it for that reason. It's obviously an FPS with a few stats. Plus I've already played and loved System Shock 2, so I don't think I really need to play Bioshock. I've already gotten the best bits.

It seems to me that we agree about most of these things, and we probably enjoy most of the same kinds of games for mostly the same reasons. It looks like I'm mostly just touchy about the definition of roleplaying, probably since it's been such an important part of my life.

Thanks for the discussion.

I really think we do enjoy a lot of the same games. I think that we're going to always disagree about what counts as "roleplaying", but that's a debate we can have until we die. This has been fun

 

[VRaptorX]

*smacks head*

There are manymore emotional scenes better than Aeriths death in the FF series. Only reason everyone remembers her is because she was the first for so many....since noone even knew what RPGs were in USA for the most part at the time. Aerith's was poorly done. Just take half the deaths of FF2 (NES...not FF4) and those are better. Tidus's was better (though we all hate him). Vivi's was better and we don't even see him die, it's just understood.

That and MGS.....best death scenes ever. Even though Emma's was kind of stupid (and I really would like to forget Otacon's sex life)....it was artistically brilliant. Same with the Boss, Sniper Wolf, Olga, etc. Everyone's death is so ellaborate in MGS games.

EDIT: Ok....Aerith's theme playing right when the materia hit the ground was a nice effect though. I'll give it that. Her actually water burial was more "complete" than her actual death scene though. That scene was better produced.

 

[Razzle Bathbone]

I don't agree that passive media is much more suited for that. At the end of the day, one of the reasons I played D & D was because I liked beating things down. I liked the challenge of having to make my character (and my group) more powerful so we could go lay the smackdown. For me, it's almost separate. The plot of the game is entirely unto itself, but I like the mechanics, and having to work to get to the plot. It gives a sense of accomplishment

Sorry for the confusion, I was referring to storytelling. Passive media really doesn't offer anything at all when it comes to beatdown, so it can't hold a candle to games (electronic or otherwise) in that department. You can graft a story onto the mechanics of a game and it might not suck, but games still don't tell stories as well as passive media.

Having to put in some work to reach the next plot point could offer something special, though. I can see that.

If you're creating the character, I wouldn't define that as "figuring out who they are and what makes them tick", I would define that as creating who they are. It's different to me. The former is a discovery, the ability to further understand a character. The latter is more boring, to me.

Interesting. I find roleplaying works best when I start by creating a character in broad strokes, then letting the details fill themselves in during play. So if I meet a redheaded NPC and get into a fight with them for not much reason, it might be that I recently broke up with a mean-spirited redheaded girlfriend, or had an abusive redheaded father.

RPG characters truly come alive when they start to behave in ways that surprise me. There's a magical moment that happens sometimes when I'm playing a character, and they do something I would never have expected them to do. I mean, obviously I'm the one playing the character so I'm the one making the choice for them to do this thing (whatever it is), but it feels like the character has taken on a life of its own. When my character comes alive like that, that's what roleplaying is all about for me. This has happened with exactly ten characters over the course of my life. Three of them were videogame characters. Naturally, those were western-style RPGs.

At any point in the game, you (the player) could choose the dramatically change your character. And even the character development that makes sense is almost universally filled in by your imagination. In KOTOR, I could change the core running of my character's decisions, without any justification. What I would find interesting is if (like a real life RPG) you picked an alignment (or, since I prefer Whitewolf, a nature and demeanor) and were penalized from straying from that.

I think playing someone with no coherent personality is punishment enough for that. I don't need the game to penalize me for not playing true to my character, since I'm already punishing myself by making the story less interesting.

I'm a big fan of White Wolf's World of Darkness too. Three of those ten characters I mentioned were denizens of the WoD.

I think I mentioned this earlier, though, unless I'm playing with friends, I don't want to spend $60 to use my imagination

Well, your imagination doesn't have to do EVERYTHING. Even in a text adventure, the game provides something for your imagination to work with. Add graphics, sound, conflicts and NPCs and you've got a game that might be worth paying some money for. You do have to supply the main character, but I'd argue that's a strength, not a weakness of the form.

You're expected to supply the backstory, the persona, but there's nothing in the game itself which reflects that. If you picked alignment, and history, family, merits and flaws, all of that, I would like Western RPGs more. The issue is that you either have a stock background, or almost no background at all. Even in Mass Effect, when you pick an origin story, it has no real effect on the plot. If I have a wife and three kids, I want them to be kidnapped to draw me into a trap, darn it .

Amen. It's hard to get around this problem without a human gamemaster, though a few of the best games manage it. In Planescape for example, your character is an ancient... creature of some kind, and he has amnesia. Over the course of the game, you discover more and more about the things you've done. The question is raised: do these things make you who you are, even if you can no longer remember them? Ultimately, it's not about what you've done, but how you respond. You can't choose your backstory in that game, but you can certainly choose how to respond when you learn about your past, and meet all these people who knew you before. It's an ingenious way of avoiding the limitations inherent in CRPGs.

But not every CRPG has such a clever gimmick behind it. Sadly, in most of them you have to find ways to shoehorn your character into one of the choices you have available to you. Sometimes this can actually help to develop the character. I didn't know my character in V:tMB was a doormat or a social outcast with an almost childlike, desperate need for approval and acceptance until it became clear from the things she did in the game. Then it all started to make sense and I built her personality from there. More often though it's just contrived railroading, and it detracts from the roleplaying experience, reminding you how much better the game would be if you had a real live human gamemaster.

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree about whether that counts as "roleplaying". In terms of a comparison to pen-and-paper games, obviously not. But I think it's a mite fuzzier when you're comparing JRPGs to Western RPGs.

You're probably right. My own definition of roleplaying is so inextricably linked to my experience with pen-and-paper games, I don't think I can view it any other way. To me, FFVII will always be an adventure game with stats, not an RPG.

Why do JRPGs always have those things anyway? How do they help the gameplay? I can dig the turn-based combat (loved the Wizardry games purely for that; they certainly didn't have anything else going for them), the character designs look kinda cool in many cases, but why oh why do they torture players with those damn-the-designer-to-eternal-stinking-hellfire random encounters? ARGH!

It's for the same reason you run around in Mass Effect on those idiotic side-quests. Build levels, gain items, all of that. It's not part of the plot, but you mentioned it yourself earlier: it's cool building up the characters.

You keep mentioning Mass Effect. I've never played it. Is it really such an examplar of the western style of CRPG? Sounds to me more like another FPS with stats and an inventory.

I really think we do enjoy a lot of the same games. I think that we're going to always disagree about what counts as "roleplaying", but that's a debate we can have until we die. This has been fun

I'm glad it's fun for you too. Cheers.

 

[shadow skill]

Emma's death was one of the best scenes ever in gaing I swear, I couldn't stop laughing. I mean how the fuck does Otacon ask her "What's wrong with EE?" At a time like that, he killed her with that question. Pure absolute genius!