[freeroleplay] Character advancement as a game
- From: "Per I. Mathisen" <per@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: freeroleplay@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2003 12:59:07 +0000 (GMT)
I've been looking at how much the character advancement system of an RPG
game really is or should be tied to the specific game world. Suddenly it
struck me that character advancement (buying skills, levelling up,
choosing feats, etc) is really a game of its own, running in parallell to
the narrative game, and is played by most by rules of that are quite
different than the rules they apply to the latter.
This is most evident when you consider the often levelled charge of what I
would call 'power-gaming' - choosing advancement options for the character
not for narrative reasons, but to get the most 'powerful' character
possible within the rules. Most gamers I know are/were guilty of this to a
great extent, but these players are also great roleplayers.
I had not considered this could be seen as a cardinal sin before I read
the indie-rpgs forums, where the consensus seemed to be an almost hateful
distaste it and systems that wanted to balance advancement options for
such gamers in mind. The strict separation of 'gamist' versus 'narrative'
RPGs underlined this. However, I do not think that such an attitude is
healthy for a game, at least not one meant for casual gamers ;)
Instead, look at the roleplaying and character advancement as two
different and interacting games. The 'point' of the roleplaying game is
the narrative itself, while the 'point' of the character advancement game
is get a character best suited to what you want to do in the narrative. If
you play a warrior in the narrative, then it is not a sin to spend some
brain neurons to figure out the best build of your character to make him
the best warrior he can be. To the contrary, this is what most players
will do anyway (consciously or not).
Game creators need to recognize this duality when they make the character
advancement options. I suspect you will find, otherwise, that players will
consistently choose some options and avoid others for reasons completely
other than narrative reasons. This will hurt the game, as the real variety
of options will be much less than the offered variety, and more
importantly, options that might interact in vitals ways with the narrative
might consistently be avoided. (Eg. If players never choose the 'stealth'
skills because they 'have to' get the 'dodge' skills, it goes without a
saying that some portions of the narrative will be avoided as well.)
Lastly, 'power-gaming' is probably a much bigger phenomenon (or problem,
depending on your view) in computer RPGs than in pen-and-paper RPGs.
- Per
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