The
Coherent Worlds of Role-Play Games
The
Role-playing game most commonly known
as an RPG is a creative game that touches upon a mixture of sources.
For example a variety of elements ranging from
a number of sources taken from films to board games and as far
stretched as the
real world. The concept of the RPG is to enable the player
to become someone
else and take the role of another person (even creature). If you
want to be that knight in shining armour you can be, if that old
frail but powerful witch or wizard takes your fancy then you can be
that too etc. RPG's
provide players with an opportunity to experience
and fulfil their dreams within the comfort of their own home (and
even outside).
My
own experience with such games is essentially my entire life so far.
Ever since being a small child all I can remember is playing RPG's or
all calibres or watching someone else (mainly my mother) playing
them.
The
stories were what dragged me in as a child, I played RPG's everyday
of all kinds and I couldnt imagine my life without them.
I’ve
played and experienced
everything from Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of time on the N64, MediEvil
on the Playstation 1, right the way through to The Yu-Gi-Oh card game
and now in my 20's the recent release of The Witcher 3. My love for
RPG elements stretches far beyond video games. I am also a keen lover
of tabletop gaming and competitive figure painting. You may ask “what
does painting have to do with RPG's?” well a lot of things
actually, say you were painting a Viking warrior you would have to
research everything they do, how they lived, what colours they had
access to, the types of activities they would do etc, it is not just
painting it is creating a character based upon a set of rules much
like RPG's. All of the above curb my hunger for the RPG element but I
still sit craving more.
Throughout
this essay
I will be covering the 3 topics as follows:
(1) the history of the RPG (2) briefly covering the generic systems
you can find within an RPG with examples (3) concluding with my
analyst of a chosen game and further linking it to other media.
The
History of RPG's
Firstly,
to get to grips with role-playing games it is quite useful to know
what was. To go through a complete history would be impossible during
this essay but a certain level of understanding its cultural
development is possible.
To
start off we have to go back, back to 19th
century Prussia and a “little” game called Kriegspiel (“War
Game”). This game introduced the use of placing markers on a
tabletop and using dice to create random encounters within the game.
They
were introduced
during World War 1 by H.G. Wells. Darlington (1998) goes
on to explain that
“It
was Wells, however, who first opened up the games for the amateur. In
1915, he published a set of amateur wargaming rules in a book
entitled Little Wars, now seen as the "wargamers’ bible".
Wells was also the first to suggest that miniature figures be
collected to represent respective forces, to add flavour, and a sense
of involvement, to the game. Though the book was popular, wargames
did not really take off until, in 1953, Charles Roberts released the
first commercially available "board" war game. Though it
was a slow starter, Roberts eventually went on to form the
Avalon-Hill Game Company, now one of the world’s biggest game
companies.”
So
lets skip ahead a few year to the early 1970's, this particular game
has to be the forefront of modern RPG's to date. Commonly known as
D&D, Dungeons & Dragons was developed in the suburban
American Midwest, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. The game was developed over
several years, evolving from a historical based board game moving
onto individual fantasy personas that a player would create and
adopt.
Moving
into the 1980's and we have two hugely popular games, these games
were Ultima and Wizardry. Ultima is a series of open world RPG's
created by Richard Garriott from Origin Systems, inc. Within this
game your character must find and destroy the Gem of Immortality,
used by the evil wizard Mondain to take the lands of Sosaria for
himself. Wizardry was a significant influence on early console RPG's,
influencing titles like Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy. It was
originally made for the Apple II but later ported to other platforms
the last game of which was Wizardry 8 intended for Microsoft Windows.
The aim of the game was to manoeuvre your player created (up to) 6
man (or women) group around a dungeon maze consisting of 10 levels
each progressing in difficulty.
Next
we move to the mid 1990's unfortunately RPG's took a steep decline,
technology simply advanced to fast, developers couldnt keep up with
the increased graphics and storage space that new CD-ROM technology
obtaining, this meant there were long delays between releases and
expectations that weren't being met, this also meant that some small
franchises were closing due to the shear price of making a game.
But
along came a saviour, a not so little game named Diablo, released by
Blizzard Entertainment on December 31st,
1996. Now this release was a surprise, the RPG market was stale,
consumers moved away from RPG's infavour of more action-orientated
video games such as first person shooters and real-time strategy
games, but with the release of Diablo seemed to rejuvenated the genre
things started to pick up speed again and the world saw releases such
as Diablo II, Fallout and Baldur's gate.
Next
we hit the 2000's, this was a peak time in technology there was a lot
of competition within the industry to create bigger and better things
with gaming the industry got to see games such as Neverwinter Nights,
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, The Witcher
series, Dragon age franchise and the Elder Scrolls franchise just to
name a very small few.
It
is plain to see that a lot of years have gone into the create of the
RPG, from good to bad, now this is as brief as history as it can be
but you can look further back in time right back to the middle ages
and see that people have been role-playing even since then, taking on
a persona of royalty, myths, legends and heroes it’s a formula that
can’t lose and I hope to see even more advancements in the coming
years.
The
Mechanical Systems of RPG's
Story
and Setting:
For
any RPG the story and setting is crucial, it’s the backbone of the
entire game and most RPG's are heavily story driven machines but for
only (normally) half of the game (maybe even 30%), this is because
with an RPG they want you to explore, they add content that makes you
go off the beaten track, to become side tracked for an hour or two to
prolong the game. This is a very clever way of creating a much larger
game, it allows players to do their own thing and not has to conform
and adhere to things within the game like most linear stories. The
setting is also very crucial, the setting alone can create a vague
set of rules that the developers have to stick too, for example you
it wouldn’t be the norm to place fantasy dragons in the middle of a
Sci-Fi world, or have alien technology during a medieval time period,
Again this is true when sticking to the essence of things, but such
games as Star Ocean blend genres together, this creates an intriguing
mix of genres that can compliment each other quite well if done
correctly.
Exploration
and Quests:
Exploring
the world is a big part of RPG's, it gives the player a sense of
control and immersion, when they go off to talk to Non-player
characters (NPC's), looting items, completing puzzles or hunting down
creatures they can feel a sense of grounding and connection with
their character. Some games go as far as to let the player creature
entire houses for their character, letting them place individual
props and assets almost creating a “home design” mini game.
Questing, questing can either totally sidetrack or flesh out a story,
it can be totally irrelevant to the main quests or it can take you
down an alternate route to get to an end goal letting you acquire
different loot, befriend different NPC's, or simply give the players
another option to enrich their playing experience.
Items
and Inventory:
During
gameplay most RPG's allow players to find loot this involves things
like, clothing, weapons and armour. Players can then take that loot
and either use it or sell it for currency and better equipment.
Trading generally takes place in “safe-zones” away from enemies
with friendly NPC's, and most of the time uses a specialised trading
screen. Now, these items that are acquired either from looting or
trading make their way into the players inventory, inventories
normally have a weight limit attached, this means the player has to
make decisions on what they can and can’t take.
Experience
and Levels:
As
a players characters moves through the game world they will develop
and gain new skills, this is generally associated with the collection
of XP (experience) and levelling up skill trees. A skill tree is a
set system that has a strong dedicated centre with branching
attributes, those attributes within the skill tree are a collection
of player perks that can add in player talents, such things as,
faster movement speed, stronger attacks, more health and use of magic
for longer periods of time, and with each new level up the player can
either add to or choose a different skill to add to their ever
growing tree.
Actions
and Abilities:
Most
actions within an RPG are performed some what indirectly, a player
clicks an item or something similar and the character will make their
own way to said item. Some games give you more control over your
character such as using the left thumbstick or W A S D keys to move
your characters around, some even let you use your mouse. Alot of
RPG's allow players to have moral choices which dictate whether a
character is good or evil, some games even off a neutral mid ground
that can be a safe option if a player does not want to go to far to
one side, This is also great for anyone who does not like making
difficult choices or their character is being role-played as a by
stander.
What
inspired the Fable series?
So
I would like to start by explaining what the Fable series is, who
created it, and what inspired it. The Fable series spans over 3 main
games 2 spin offs and (at the time of writing) 1 unreleased game that
is still being made, for this part of the essay I will purely focus
on the 3 main games.
Designed
by Peter Molyneux within Big Blue Box Studios (now known as Lionhead
Studios), it was a game built upon choice, much like what we have
discussed during the “Mechanical Systems” portion of this essay
the game featured optional quests, character development and a
looting/inventory system, other things it included were a moral
system (being good or bad) and also a renown system that altered how
the NPC's reacted when they came into contact with the players
character.
This game revolutionised the
modern RPG, it brought systems and mechanics to the table that no
other RPG had created. With its intense emotional story and thrilling
combat it wooed players into taking an immersed roller coaster ride
of action and adventure all while keeping a grounded sense of day to
day life, doing things such as buying a house, getting a haircut,
getting tattoos, going clothes shopping, buying food and growing old.
Fable
was influenced by man media's, to name a few here is a small list and
a brief description of each influence:
Terry
Pratchet, Disc World (book series)
In
many interviews Peter Molyneux himself stated that the works of terr
Pratchet influenced many things within the game, one of which being
over all style but also humour.
Piers
Anthony, Xanth (book series)
Along
with the works of Terry Pratchet, Piers Anthony's Xanth series was
also used as influence for narrative and humour, this game has a lot
of comedic dialogue and its clear to see when played that they put a
lot of work into nailing British humour.
King
Arthur Legend (History, Story)
Alot
of the Fable series was influenced by the legend of King Arthur, a
boy from nothing, taken and trained and found to be the destined
king. The overall destination of Fable (Albion) is also taken from
the historic name for Britain but is also the name of the land in
King Arthur, anyone who has played the games can be a lot of links
between worlds as its very prominent throughout the game.
As
you can see, fable has taken a lot of twists and turns to be turned
into the game it is now, the research that went into creating this
morbid, humorous and emotional world was vast, along with the above
it also featured a lot of adult themes, growing a family, having
partners (male or female) and micro-managing estates
Conclusion
The RPG, when you tear it down
its not as intimidating as it may seem, its a finally crafted piece
of art, it takes groups of varying sizes and skill levels to create
such a Frankenstein monster, its intricate systems and branching
mechanics work in conjunction with one other to create something
beautiful, just like an artist who uses different brush sizes and
different techniques that pull a piece of work together to create,
simply, an idea. But that doesn't mean everything has to be
complicated, there are plenty of RPG's that are very simple indeed,
games like the Castlevania series were not particularly heavy, a
player didn't have to spend hours creating a character and
transforming them into a stronger version of themselves. the player
was given a set name, a set race, a set background and told to wreck
havoc within their game world. This kind of game-play helps with new
and returning players, to some an open world full blown RPG is quite
an undertaking to commit themselves too, either due to time or
attention span.
I
would like to talk about what RPG's mean to me, to put simply they
are my entire gaming experience, I tried First-person shooters,
Puzzle games and Massive Multi-player Online games (MMO's) but they
do not hit the spot like RPG's. It was my mother who first introduced
me to any form of video game, she owned the old handle held donkey
kong which I would spend 3 years playing over and over, after this
moment I was hooked. Come the release of the PlayStation 1 I had
already played severely other RPG's on varying consoles, but the
PlayStation was what widened my passion for gaming and games in
general. With the PlayStation 1 came a game called MediEvil, In this
game you play as Sir Daniel Fortesque, Daniel led an army to kill a
powerful evil wizard named Zorak (which they managed to achieve)
however, Daniel was struck and killed by the first arrow loosed in
battle. 100 years later Zorak returned from the dead to raise the
dead army from the battle previous, unknowingly resurrecting Daniel
in the process, with this new opportunity Daniel decided to take his
revenge upon Zorak.
I
was very lucky as a child to be able to have access to consoles and
video games, not a lot of families would spend the money on such
things.
In
conclusion I feel RPG's are a very personal type of game, they are
for a player to create his or her own world and character. this is
probably why they are so popular. Developers know these created
worlds will become more then just a game, they become a get away an
escape from reality to some.
Bibliography
Darlington,
S., (1998) A History of Role-Playing [e-book] Places to go, People to
be, Available from: http://ptgptb.org/0001/history1.html
[Accessed 03 Febuary 2016]
