Why aren't there more actual role-playing games?

[Duskflamer]

I've seen a few small-scale examples of things like this. Nothing in a massive MMO environment, but maybe something like Town of Salem would pique your interest.

http://www.blankmediagames.com/TownOfSalem/

 

[Ratty]

As others have noted, "Role playing games" didn't have role playing at their core originally and most RPGs have continued that tradition.[footnote]In tabletop gaming the distinction is sometimes made between "role playing" and "roll playing", whether players want to get into a role or just have a hack'n slash "Let's kill Orcs and get loot!" kind of experience. But, while some systems encourage and allow role playing more than others it's ultimately up toe the gaming group whether you play a role or just roll the dice.[/footnote] The genre literally grew out of the war gaming hobby, as the very first iteration of Dungeons and Dragons consisted of a handful of pamphlets as a supplement to the war game "Chainmail". Sort of a smaller scale take on the war game.

There are a few exceptions to this rule though. In the 1990s White Wolf had huge ongoing meta-stories and an emphasis on storytelling in their games set in the "World of Darkness". "Vampire the Masquerade" in particular had an emphasis on politics and manipulation over fighting, though of course players could still fight plenty if they chose to.

The problem was that this sort of grand story could only be supported (at least back then) through a glut of supplements. Literally hundreds published within a few years, updating the backstory and ongoing meta-narrative of the respective game lines. When White Wolf relaunched their World of Darkness in 2004 they dropped the meta-story aspect almost entirely, though they've recently started to bring it back (and publish new material for "The Old World of Darkness"[footnote]Each of the game lines in the Old/Classic World of Darkness had ended with an apocalypse scenerio that each game line had been building to from the start. So the post-relauch "(new) world of darkness" games all have different settings/backstories/names from their predecessors.[/footnote]) by popular demand in their second editions of the "New World of Darkness" games.

Ironically there was a "World of Darkness" MMO in development for a long time by the people who made EVE Online that probably would have been close to what you want. But it was recently canceled.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Honestly, have you ever played an MMO? Do you realize how many players would purposely find ways to grief the other players attempting to role-play, toss their proverbial monkey wrenches in the works at the drop of a hat?
Also the concept wouldn't be feasible from a financial standpoint. Saying x-feature is "easy" to program is tantamount to ignorance. First one has to code a specific engine, then all the underpinnings of the world's mechanics. Its not a simple process just to make simple games. A game as complex as a procedural generated RPG would take massive amounts of resources to run, both server side and client side, not to mention the resources one would have to contract to make said game work.
If a developer were to undertake a task like that, it would most likely remain in development hell. What you seem to want is akin to the concept of what one could do with a holodeck from Star Trek, but without the holodeck. I am aware the holodeck is used to run pre-programmed stories but it could in theory also be used to generate its own world and inhabitants to simulate a living world.
I'm not saying it can't be done, but with today's tech and resources, it isn't feasible nor does it seem possible at this point in time.
The closest I can come to "true role-playing" (which I feel is a subjective term anyway) is in games like Skyrim where one can ignore the story and create a persona within the world's rules and roleplay that persona. Especially with mods it can be done somewhat. The other thing is computers don't have an imagination, they only run programs. Imagination is key to roleplaying.

 

[Duskflamer]

Honestly, have you ever played an MMO? Do you realize how many players would purposely find ways to grief the other players attempting to role-play, toss their proverbial monkey wrenches in the works at the drop of a hat?

I remember hearing an anecdote back when I played WoW that 10% of the population on the designated Roleplaying servers were actual roleplayers, 75% were ordinary players, and the remaining 15% were people who actively hated roleplayers.

 

[DEAD34345]

Those games do exist, they're just pretty niche, and don't have much mainstream appeal.

One game I really enjoy which is almost exactly what you're describing (except in a Sci Fi setting) is Space Station 13. There's a few different game modes which are slightly different, but the basic premise is that all the players are employees working on a space station. They all have different jobs (and thus objectives, basically), and they all work together (or not) to keep the station running properly. However one or two of the employees are secretly traitors, given random objectives (kill the Captain, steal blueprints, etc) at the start of the round that they must complete by any means necessary, and then they must escape the station.

Even in the non role playing servers the game is all about deception and trickery, a traitor that is found out will generally be swiftly dealt with by security players after all, so you end up with all kinds of amazing emergent narratives happening basically every round.

It makes for a really fun and unique game, but at a guess I'd say the reason it isn't more popular is that it's easy for a malicious player to ruin a round by not playing properly. If the chief engineer is a griefer he could rig the engine to explode the moment the game starts, for example, or if the only traitor disconnects early on the game is basically over already. If the game ever did become seriously popular the number of those people would probably increase, and it wouldn't work out very well. This kind of game requires something of a commitment by players to play in a certain way, and not everyone wants that.

I would recommend it if you want to see how a game similar to what you envisioned really works though, and it's free so there's nothing to lose. I especially recommend the Baystation 12 server, which is roleplaying-enforced.

http://www.byond.com/games/exadv1/spacestation13

 

[Duskflamer]

I especially recommend the Baystation 12 server, which is roleplaying-enforced.

I see a number of servers claiming to run "Baystation code" or a modification thereof, but I don't see one called Baystation 12, is it just not up right now?

 

[DEAD34345]

I especially recommend the Baystation 12 server, which is roleplaying-enforced.

I see a number of servers claiming to run "Baystation code" or a modification thereof, but I don't see one called Baystation 12, is it just not up right now?

Ah, sorry, they're not always listed on the public servers. I assumed they were because I saw the word Baystation, but you're right, it seems people are just running their code. Their actual website is here: http://baystation12.net/forums/

If you've installed the BYOND game engine thing that Space Station 13 runs on[footnote]If you haven't, it's here: http://www.byond.com/download/[/footnote], you'll be able to click the "Server Address" link and it should start up the game automatically. Be sure to ask for help in the Out Of Character channel when you need it by the way, the UI is really weird and takes some getting used to, but the people on that server are pretty good about helping people out in my experience.

 

[Eve Charm]

Well another one is town of salem but it's more directly your murder mystery party game type deal.

Other then that, role playing skyrim or something like being a just miner or something in Eve online. It's hard for games to get everyone in separate roles for anything other then short round games.

 

[AntiChri5]

Roleplaying is the responsibility of the player. The game can provide opportunities and fodder, but it can never make someone roleplay.

 

[andago]

Yeah, very few video game RPGs are actually RPGs. Stuff like Dark Souls, Final Fantasy, Diablo, etc. are not and have never been RPGs. Then, a game like Mass Effect comes along and it's called a shooter with RPG elements when the focus of the game is on the role-playing (the quality of said role-playing can be argued but you clearly spend less time shooting than anything else). An RPG's gameplay can be ANYTHING because role-playing has no inherent gameplay mechanics to it. A shooter can be an RPG, you can have an RPG platformer, etc. There's lots of things that an RPG doesn't need that people think it does like levels and loot. Once you hit max level (or say even start at max level) in DnD, does it cease being an RPG because you can't level anymore? Of course, it doesn't.

I think a multiplayer RPG would be awesome but I just don't see it working in an online environment with randoms. Or if the people that do indeed want that type of game are the only ones that buy it, then the game wouldn't nearly sell enough to be profitable. Most players in shooters don't even understand how to properly play a simple objective game mode. The Shadow Hunters card game and the Battlestar Galactica board game is great examples of good games with a rather basic premise like you're talking about.

I think to me it depends on what your definition of playing a role is.

For me, it's the ability to either customize character or play style to fit a role I have decided I want to play. Following this, games that have a levelling system that let me selectively choose abilities to specialise in a role would be an RPG. In Dark Souls, I can choose spells and armour to model myself as a paladin, or dark sorcerer, or knight, or rogue, and by playing the game just using these spells and abilities I am playing a role. It doesn't matter that the actual character has no real personality traits to choose or act out or change the world around, because within the confines of the game I am able to still play a distinct role.

So to me Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Souls series, Diablo, Skyrim etc. are most definitely RPGs, and the levelling system is a mechanic through which you can build your role.

Anyway, I feel it depends on how strict your personal definition of "playing a role" is and is less definite than you seem to believe.

 

[DaWaffledude]

Because story really doesn't work in a multiplayer environment.

Kinda impossible to get into the swing of a ripping good yarn when one of your friends is bunny-hopping around the room spamming the voice emotes and another is complaining over the mic about how his girlfriend doesn't give head the way she used to.

Your idea could work fine from a gameplay perspective though.

There's actually a game out there called Town of Salem which is kind of what you described, although with a much different gameplay model to what you're imagining. There's a town with about 20 inhabitants, each has a different ability and a win condition. Most people do not know what role and objective anyone else has, so distrust is the name of the game. During the day you talk to other town members in a chat box and vote on who to lynch. During the night your can use whatever your skill is. Each morning the dead are counted and the survivors try and to figure out who's responsible. There's no narrative role play element though.

Well, I've been up all night playing Town of Salem. I hope you're happy.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I think to me it depends on what your definition of playing a role is.

For me, it's the ability to either customize character or play style to fit a role I have decided I want to play. Following this, games that have a levelling system that let me selectively choose abilities to specialise in a role would be an RPG. In Dark Souls, I can choose spells and armour to model myself as a paladin, or dark sorcerer, or knight, or rogue, and by playing the game just using these spells and abilities I am playing a role. It doesn't matter that the actual character has no real personality traits to choose or act out or change the world around, because within the confines of the game I am able to still play a distinct role.

So to me Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Souls series, Diablo, Skyrim etc. are most definitely RPGs, and the levelling system is a mechanic through which you can build your role.

Anyway, I feel it depends on how strict your personal definition of "playing a role" is and is less definite than you seem to believe.

Playing a role is making decisions that affect character personality and story. The thing I'll always remember from Mass Effect is all the decisions I made like killing a beloved character in ME3 because they would not follow my order. I feel my Shepard was unique due to the probably thousands of dialog choices. That's the core foundation for role-playing in my opinion. There doesn't even need to be combat. Of course, if there is combat (and there almost always is), then you're definitely going to want choose your character's type of combat. Thus, combat choice is just an extension of the core role-playing as you wouldn't want a game to give you all these character and story choices while only letting you be a rogue.

So many games allow you to choose your combat style where the term RPG is never said in the same sentence as the game. Game's like FarCry3 and Watch Dogs have skill trees and allow you lots of different ways to go about combat (even more than Dark Souls IMO since both games have a stealth option). I wouldn't call Watch Dogs an RPG because Aiden Pearce is completely predefined character. Everything that happens with regard to Aiden personality-wise and story-wise is set in stone, you can't change anything about his character or story much like say any Final Fantasy character, which is why FF games are not RPGs. FF games are close to adventure games than RPGs as really a FF game is really nothing but an adventure game with a turn-based combat system thrown in. Would The Longest Journey magically become an RPG if it had a turn-based combat system thrown in? To me, Dark Souls is really just DnD if you took out the role-playing.

Leveling makes sense in an RPG, but it really isn't needed. You can start at max level (choosing everything at the very start) and it wouldn't take away from the role-playing. Leveling even makes sense as a game mechanic to teach you the game because choosing all your skills/abilities/powers/spells/etc. at the start vs picking a few at the start and earning something new along way naturally teaches you the game's mechanics and systems.

For me, the telltale sign to determine whether a game is an RPG or not is how much can you actually do outside of combat. If all your choices exist within combat, then it's not an RPG.

 

[andago]

...

Playing a role is making decisions that affect character personality and story. The thing I'll always remember from Mass Effect is all the decisions I made like killing a beloved character in ME3 because they would not follow my order. I feel my Shepard was unique due to the probably thousands of dialog choices. That's the core foundation for role-playing in my opinion. There doesn't even need to be combat. Of course, if there is combat (and there almost always is), then you're definitely going to want choose your character's type of combat. Thus, combat choice is just an extension of the core role-playing as you wouldn't want a game to give you all these character and story choices while only letting you be a rogue.

So many games allow you to choose your combat style where the term RPG is never said in the same sentence as the game. Game's like FarCry3 and Watch Dogs have skill trees and allow you lots of different ways to go about combat (even more than Dark Souls IMO since both games have a stealth option). I wouldn't call Watch Dogs an RPG because Aiden Pearce is completely predefined character. Everything that happens with regard to Aiden personality-wise and story-wise is set in stone, you can't change anything about his character or story much like say any Final Fantasy character, which is why FF games are not RPGs. FF games are close to adventure games than RPGs as really a FF game is really nothing but an adventure game with a turn-based combat system thrown in. Would The Longest Journey magically become an RPG if it had a turn-based combat system thrown in? To me, Dark Souls is really just DnD if you took out the role-playing.

Leveling makes sense in an RPG, but it really isn't needed. You can start at max level (choosing everything at the very start) and it wouldn't take away from the role-playing. Leveling even makes sense as a game mechanic to teach you the game because choosing all your skills/abilities/powers/spells/etc. at the start vs picking a few at the start and earning something new along way naturally teaches you the game's mechanics and systems.

For me, the telltale sign to determine whether a game is an RPG or not is how much can you actually do outside of combat. If all your choices exist within combat, then it's not an RPG.

Well exactly. Like I said, you define playing a role as having something that is expressed through choices to your characters personality. What I'm saying, is that your character can also express itself outside of verbal and interactive choices in the world. In Dark Souls, I dress my character in a certain armour and use and develop (read level) only characteristics that I've defined in that role. I am role playing.

To a certain extent in Far Cry 3 you can play a role, but the game superimposes a personality that is defines the character more than the combat choices does. Jason Brody is Jason Brody, Aiden Pearce is Aiden Pearce, and their outward personalities and characters don't change whether you kill lots of people stealthily or mano à mano. My different characters in Dark Souls or Skyrim, however, take on different personalities to me through the way I develop (again level) and play them within the bounds or structure of the games overarching narrative.

Games like Dark Souls, to me, are all about creating characters and roles through your choices in levelling, statistics and armour, games like Far Cry, to me, are all about tailoring already existing characters / roles to a playstyle you enjoy.

That's how I see the difference anyway, I don't see why the abilities of your character, especially when they are all that really defines the character, are any less of a way of expressing personality and a "role" than dialogue choices, when imposed on something you have created.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Well exactly. Like I said, you define playing a role as having something that is expressed through choices to your characters personality. What I'm saying, is that your character can also express itself outside of verbal and interactive choices in the world. In Dark Souls, I dress my character in a certain armour and use and develop (read level) only characteristics that I've defined in that role. I am role playing.

To a certain extent in Far Cry 3 you can play a role, but the game superimposes a personality that is defines the character more than the combat choices does. Jason Brody is Jason Brody, Aiden Pearce is Aiden Pearce, and their outward personalities and characters don't change whether you kill lots of people stealthily or mano à mano. My different characters in Dark Souls or Skyrim, however, take on different personalities to me through the way I develop (again level) and play them within the bounds or structure of the games overarching narrative.

Games like Dark Souls, to me, are all about creating characters and roles through your choices in levelling, statistics and armour, games like Far Cry, to me, are all about tailoring already existing characters / roles to a playstyle you enjoy.

That's how I see the difference anyway, I don't see why the abilities of your character, especially when they are all that really defines the character, are any less of a way of expressing personality and a "role" than dialogue choices, when imposed on something you have created.

With that definition, lots more games are RPGs then. I'd say Watch Dogs has more combat choice than Dark Souls, you can literally stand still and complete a mission in Watch Dogs (I even did a mission Michael Westen, Burn Notice, style in Watch Dogs blowing up a bunch of cars). In Dark Souls, you always have to fight. You can't even really be a proper rogue in Dark Souls due to the basic enemy AI, Jason Brody from Far Cry 3 can be more roguish than a Dark Souls character. I'm not saying you're not role-playing, but that you can do that kind of role-playing in lots of other games as well. And the fact that the Jason Brody's and Aiden Pearce's of the world have some personality (they're both rather bland) doesn't mean you can't role-play as them. Being a silent protagonist is more open book but not being able to interact with other characters is also very limiting. To me, the focus of the game (i.e. what you do most in the game) is the game's main genre. If the game is mainly shooting, it's a shooter. Mirror's Edge isn't a shooter even though you can shoot because the focus of the game is obviously platforming. The focus of Dark Souls is obviously on combat so it's a hack and slash (or dungeon crawler) with RPG elements to me.

 

[andago]

Well exactly. Like I said, you define playing a role as having something that is expressed through choices to your characters personality. What I'm saying, is that your character can also express itself outside of verbal and interactive choices in the world. In Dark Souls, I dress my character in a certain armour and use and develop (read level) only characteristics that I've defined in that role. I am role playing.

To a certain extent in Far Cry 3 you can play a role, but the game superimposes a personality that is defines the character more than the combat choices does. Jason Brody is Jason Brody, Aiden Pearce is Aiden Pearce, and their outward personalities and characters don't change whether you kill lots of people stealthily or mano à mano. My different characters in Dark Souls or Skyrim, however, take on different personalities to me through the way I develop (again level) and play them within the bounds or structure of the games overarching narrative.

Games like Dark Souls, to me, are all about creating characters and roles through your choices in levelling, statistics and armour, games like Far Cry, to me, are all about tailoring already existing characters / roles to a playstyle you enjoy.

That's how I see the difference anyway, I don't see why the abilities of your character, especially when they are all that really defines the character, are any less of a way of expressing personality and a "role" than dialogue choices, when imposed on something you have created.

With that definition, lots more games are RPGs then. I'd say Watch Dogs has more combat choice than Dark Souls, you can literally stand still and complete a mission in Watch Dogs (I even did a mission Michael Westen, Burn Notice, style in Watch Dogs blowing up a bunch of cars). In Dark Souls, you always have to fight. You can't even really be a proper rogue in Dark Souls due to the basic enemy AI, Jason Brody from Far Cry 3 can be more roguish than a Dark Souls character. I'm not saying you're not role-playing, but that you can do that kind of role-playing in lots of other games as well. To me, the focus of the game (i.e. what you do most in the game) is the game's main genre. If the game is mainly shooting, it's a shooter. Mirror's Edge isn't a shooter even though you can shoot because the focus of the game is obviously platforming. The focus of Dark Souls is obviously on combat so it's a hack and slash (or dungeon crawler) with RPG elements to me.

You misunderstand me. I'm saying that through the choices of skills and armour, I'm creating a character that then takes on its own role and personality to me while I'm playing it.

Take this for example: http://darksouls.wiki.fextralife.com/PvE+Builds+%28player+vs.+engine%29

All these builds have different names, the Dragonslayer, the Abysswalker, the Street Fighter, the Darkmoon Guerilla, the Knight-Errant, the Once Faithful Warden.

I know they are just names given to builds, but they are also personalities defined by the builds, in lieu of any other defining characteristics. The character is defined solely by your build, it has no voice or other overriding personality, so it is free to be whatever you imagine it (within the confines of the world). It is a nameless warrior, a Dovakhiin, the adventurer, so it can have any background or style that you choose of it. In other words, you can play it as your own role, and you play that out through your choices of development, skill sets and armour.

In Watch Dogs or in Far Cry 3 you can have a stealthy Aiden Pearce, you can have a Rambo-style Jason Brody, but at the end of the day these are still characters that you are playing, with their own lives, their own backstories, their own "roles" that you are playing and tailoring, instead of inventing one completely for yourself.

Like I said, it is a personal thing. Sure you can play Dark Souls as a action adventure hack and slash game, but that doesn't mean it isn't an RPG, just that you aren't putting as much thought into the role that you are playing (which the game allows for). I just don't think these things are as proscriptive to your views as you imagine.

Again, for me, an RPG is any game that allows you to fully create, develop and play your own role within the limits of the game mechanics and world. Games that only allow you to tweak various characteristics or play styles of a pre-existing, fully fleshed out character are generally not, to me.

EDIT: I think we have mostly coinciding points of view, it's just where we draw the line that differs. You need a character that has clear agency in the world he lives in, whereas I just need to have complete agency over the character I create, if that makes sense ...

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

You misunderstand me. I'm saying that through the choices of skills and armour, I'm creating a character that then takes on its own role and personality to me while I'm playing it.

Take this for example: http://darksouls.wiki.fextralife.com/PvE+Builds+%28player+vs.+engine%29

All these builds have different names, the Dragonslayer, the Abysswalker, the Street Fighter, the Darkmoon Guerilla, the Knight-Errant, the Once Faithful Warden.

I know they are just names given to builds, but they are also personalities defined by the builds, in lieu of any other defining characteristics. The character is defined solely by your build, it has no voice or other overriding personality, so it is free to be whatever you imagine it (within the confines of the world). It is a nameless warrior, a Dovakhiin, the adventurer, so it can have any background or style that you choose of it. In other words, you can play it as your own role, and you play that out through your choices of development, skill sets and armour.

In Watch Dogs or in Far Cry 3 you can have a stealthy Aiden Pearce, you can have a Rambo-style Jason Brody, but at the end of the day these are still characters that you are playing, with their own lives, their own backstories, their own "roles" that you are playing and tailoring, instead of inventing one completely for yourself.

Like I said, it is a personal thing. Sure you can play Dark Souls as a action adventure hack and slash game, but that doesn't mean it isn't an RPG, just that you aren't putting as much thought into the role that you are playing (which the game allows for). I just don't think these things are as proscriptive to your views as you imagine.

Again, for me, an RPG is any game that allows you to fully create, develop and play your own role within the limits of the game mechanics and world. Games that only allow you to tweak various characteristics or play styles of a pre-existing, fully fleshed out character are generally not, to me.

EDIT: I think we have mostly coinciding points of view, it's just where we draw the line that differs. You need a character that has clear agency in the world he lives in, whereas I just need to have complete agency over the character I create, if that makes sense ...

I'm sure even you'll agree that Dark Souls isn't considered an RPG because the optional RPing, it's labeled an RPG because of the leveling and different character builds. Saint's Row isn't considered an RPG either, you create your character in that game. The primary focus of Dark Souls isn't the RPing, it's the combat; you must play Dark Souls as an adventure hack and slash, there's no way around that. To me, that's why it's not an RPG regardless of how much RPing you get out of it, you're still fighting more than anything else. Whereas Mass Effect's primary focus is the RPing as you spend most of the game RPing.

I'm guessing you definitely don't consider most JRPGs RPGs then.

 

[Fsyco]

Why aren't there ever any multiplayer games that give you a fascinating character to play, with complex motivations and gameplay that rewards you for investing in your role? Am I alone in pining for something like that?

A dream game of mine would have all the players control characters waking up on a mysterious island, where you need to work together to survive. But each character has their own backstory, skillset and agendas: one man is trying to find his lost daughter; a soldier is trying to recover all the dog tags of his massacred platoon; one woman is a morally bankrupt scientist who needs to keep the little girl she's been experimenting on hidden; a pilot needs to repair his plane and rescue as many people as possible; a spy is trying to murder everyone to keep the island secret, but needs the plane fixed first so he can escape with some documents, etc. These character-agenda combinations could be rolled randomly so each game is distinct and the narrative emerges differently.

The gameplay would necessitate that you forge alliances to survive. I'm envisioning something like the open-world survival gameplay of DayZ crossed with the "you always need an ally nearby or you're screwed" mechanics of Left 4 Dead, but with less running-and-gunning and more running-and-hiding. The backstory/agenda system then encourages you to play in a way that enriches everyone's experience, rather than everyone just deciding to shoot on sight.

Just imagine all the fantastic multiplayer games you could make by leveraging/inspiring people's imaginations, rather than just having them mindlessly shoot at each other.

So creating the branching stories and multiple paths that many people may not ever see in your game has become hugely uneconomic.

That may be true of a linear, single-player game. But I'm talking about a multiplayer open-world game designed to be played over and over again, where the branching story is created organically through player interaction.

A bit like one of those murder mystery party games where everyone plays a suspect and have to deduce who the murderer is, but using computers to make it a lot more fluid and reactive.

Your posts, to me, read like "Why haven't we cured cancer yet? Curing cancer would be so cool." In addition to the reasons others have mentioned above about game limitations and player interaction, there's the fact that it's expensive and time consuming to make all that, and it's a whole crapton more work than you probably think it is. It's also a case of 'Sounds really good when you say, not so good when people try to do it."

Remember how, a while back, alot of open-world multiplayer sandbox survival games were released in Early Access? DayZ, Rust, 7 Days to Die, that kind of thing. Notice how many of them are still in Early Access. Sandboxes take a long, long time to make, and there's a whole lot of features and systems you have to add to have a game like that. Open-world multiplayer games take serious time and effort to make, since you have to iron out a lot of bugs. And that's without the dialogue and interaction system that you want.

There's no easy way to add in a system that rewards roleplaying with most pre-existing software. You'd need some kind of system like in Facade, a game where you talked to a bickering married couple. However, as that game illustrated, a dynamic dialogue system with any kinks or deficiencies draws you out of the experience, since you don't have the freedom that the game is promising, and you might unintentionally do something you didn't want to (like how the word 'melon' could get you booted out of the house in Facade). If it's just by doing actions, then you run into the pragmatism problem. I remember hearing that in Call of Juarez: The Cartel, the 3 co-op players all had secret, hidden agendas that they had to further without the others noticing while playing the game. But because you want your co-op partner to level up from a gameplay perspective, they'd just go "Look over there for a bit while I steal these drugs". Players will almost always forsake proper roleplaying if it helps them succeed at the mechanics of the game.

The other issue is, of course, that emergent stories mimic real life. And real life is written very poorly. In a pre-written story, the hero goes on a thrilling adventure, has brushes with death, almost gives up on their dreams, but then perservere and accomplish whatever it was they wanted, and then have some cake to celebrate. In real life, the hero could get stabbed to death by a random yahoo or drop dead of a brain aneurysm at any point on this journey. Real life is kind of anti-climactic, and any game with emergent types of stories would suffer from the fact that about 90% of them would be really bland and dull and not very interesting.

Consider this:

You spawn as The Spy. Your objective is to kill everyone as subtly as you can to avoid detection (not hard to code). Another player is The Father, searching for his daughter (also not hard to code). You stumble across a minefield and barely escape. Later you meet The Father, but by then he has a shotgun and you've got nothing but a sharp stick. You realise you'll never defeat him, so you pretend to have seen his daughter hiding in a bush nearby, which is in the middle of the minefield. When he goes to look, he triggers a mine and blows his leg off, and you loot his shotgun. But unbeknownst to you, he manages to survive by wrapping a tourniquet around his leg, swearing vengeance.

You later meet The Pilot, whom you realise you need to coerce into helping you escape. You hold him at gunpoint and march him back to his plane, but The Father has anticipated this and got there first on horseback. A gun battle ensues, but is interrupted when The Scientist arrives in a jeep along with The Daughter, hoping The Pilot will help them escape. You threaten to gun down The Daughter unless everyone surrenders to you, but while you're distracted The Pilot runs away. So you kill The Daughter and retreat, leaving both The Father and The Scientist with nothing left but to band together in mutual hatred and hunt you down.

That entire tale and a hundred other variations could be facilitated with some pretty simple procedural algorithms.

The 'hundred other variations' include "The Father shoots the Spy on sight because he got spooked", "The mines killed you", "The shotgun wasn't properly cleaned and blows up", "the powder in the shells got wet and doesn't work", "The Daughter was killed by the Scientist, and you never meet him", or, most boringly, "everyone generally gets along". You also mention that the objectives are 'not hard to code', but they do, in fact, seem like they would be difficult to program properly, especially since I'm not really sure what the game is rewarding you with. Do you get points and just 'win' like in Werewolf, do you get more XP, does the dev send a hooker round to your place, or what?

Not saying your idea is inherently bad, mind, just that it's a lot more complex and difficult to pull off well than you realize, and that's why it doesn't exist. Stick with Werewolf or Town of Salem.

 

[Racecarlock]

Why would a man surviving on a desert island need a lost daughter motivation? And seriously, are we done with missing child plots yet? That's not the only way to illicit an emotional response. At least the scientist sounds interesting.

 

[andago]

You misunderstand me. I'm saying that through the choices of skills and armour, I'm creating a character that then takes on its own role and personality to me while I'm playing it.

Take this for example: http://darksouls.wiki.fextralife.com/PvE+Builds+%28player+vs.+engine%29

All these builds have different names, the Dragonslayer, the Abysswalker, the Street Fighter, the Darkmoon Guerilla, the Knight-Errant, the Once Faithful Warden.

I know they are just names given to builds, but they are also personalities defined by the builds, in lieu of any other defining characteristics. The character is defined solely by your build, it has no voice or other overriding personality, so it is free to be whatever you imagine it (within the confines of the world). It is a nameless warrior, a Dovakhiin, the adventurer, so it can have any background or style that you choose of it. In other words, you can play it as your own role, and you play that out through your choices of development, skill sets and armour.

In Watch Dogs or in Far Cry 3 you can have a stealthy Aiden Pearce, you can have a Rambo-style Jason Brody, but at the end of the day these are still characters that you are playing, with their own lives, their own backstories, their own "roles" that you are playing and tailoring, instead of inventing one completely for yourself.

Like I said, it is a personal thing. Sure you can play Dark Souls as a action adventure hack and slash game, but that doesn't mean it isn't an RPG, just that you aren't putting as much thought into the role that you are playing (which the game allows for). I just don't think these things are as proscriptive to your views as you imagine.

Again, for me, an RPG is any game that allows you to fully create, develop and play your own role within the limits of the game mechanics and world. Games that only allow you to tweak various characteristics or play styles of a pre-existing, fully fleshed out character are generally not, to me.

EDIT: I think we have mostly coinciding points of view, it's just where we draw the line that differs. You need a character that has clear agency in the world he lives in, whereas I just need to have complete agency over the character I create, if that makes sense ...

I'm sure even you'll agree that Dark Souls isn't considered an RPG because the optional RPing, it's labeled an RPG because of the leveling and different character builds. Saint's Row isn't considered an RPG either, you create your character in that game. The primary focus of Dark Souls isn't the RPing, it's the combat; you must play Dark Souls as an adventure hack and slash, there's no way around that. To me, that's why it's not an RPG regardless of how much RPing you get out of it, you're still fighting more than anything else. Whereas Mass Effect's primary focus is the RPing as you spend most of the game RPing.

I'm guessing you definitely don't consider most JRPGs RPGs then.

Well I'd kind of argue that the levelling and character builds is the role playing, as you are building and developing your (unique, personal) character. A core experience of an RPG is the desire to build a character and to project yourself into that character, so that you develop a more personal narrative as your character develops, and I think you're missing something if you just play Dark Souls for the combat.

Dark Souls 2 was widely critisized, despite refinements to its combat system from the first game, for its level design. People lost the sense of discovery and exploration that the first game did seemingly better, that made the experience more of an adventure rather than just a progression down a linear path, working methodically towards the final battle at the end. In this way, it took away some of the development the player shared with their character that comes through discovery. It focused more on the combat, and less on the experience and atmosphere. If, like you say, people just played these as simple dungeon crawlers as opposed to an experience that provides a more personal experience of exploration and development, then I doubt there would have been as many people bringing up complaints.

Heaven knows how you'd describe JRPGs, although a vast majority seem to use amnesia as a starting base to allow the player to project themself into their role, and they do share the common theme that as part of the reason you play the game is to grow as your character does, but JRPGs are pretty much a seperate genre to what we'd call a Western RPG. I think Extra Credits did a whole series of videos on this schism that was quite interesting.