The ability to play a role is one of the manifold reasons people choose to spent time with games over other forms of entertainment. The ability to assume a new identity, to make choices as a different character, to manage the development of that character, is a vital part of what makes narrative games pleasurable and meaningful. So why do we seem to spend a more than trivial percentage of our time in these role playing games studying statistics and calculating the benefits of of a “+1 to Damage” over a “+2 to Attack”, exactly when did playing a role require that the role include statistician?
Math isn’t dramatic, usually, playing a role should be. Games that feature character development options tend to focus on the underlying mechanics, with choices defined by numerical increases to base abilities. How easy is it to really see the affect of a “+2” increase to melee damage? Not very, so these games also make the underlying mathematics visible, with numbers floating from character’s heads as you chip away at their health. This can be entertaining, but is it dramatic?
The problem is down to the verbs these games use. In the majority of role playing games the actual number of verbs that are valid is low. They break down to “move”, “attack” and maybe “talk”. When we make character development choices we are modifying these verbs. We select a “Point Blank Shot” feat and this serves as an adverb, modifying the “attack” verb slightly but still retaining the same core functionality, we are simply changing how and when we can attack; changing the underlying equations.
A more dramatic approach to role playing would be to tie character development choices to new verbs. However to do this would we would need to take a less abstract approach to our definition of verbs, combining adverb-verb pairs to allow “melee-attack”, “ranged-attack” and “indirect-attack” to be separate verbs from simply “attack”; for “move-fast”, “move-silently” and “move-instantly” to take the place of the catchall “move” verb. If we look at verbs on this lower level we can then hook character development choices directly into new verbs.
If I decided to upgrade my character with a “Stealth” ability it would allow me to make use of the “move-silently” verb; the “Hacking” ability would open up the use of a “talk-computer” verb. Each object, or character, within the world would be designed to respond to each specific verb and so every character development choice would have a clear and direct impact on the world. This would lead to a more pronounced form of character development as every choice made would open up new interaction possibilities in the world instead of just modifying the interactions already available.
Drama is after all about actions and consequences not mathematics.
I’m not the first person to think along these lines, and in fact there has been at least one game that has tried to follow this approach to character development, I’ve already covered the potential problems that arise when discussing that title.
6 replies on “Verb Development.”
My PnP system (which will someday be the underlying structure of my DRPGs) has the option to include specific actions as a subset of skills. These actions are really just the measurement of how well you access item’s specific available verbs.
More descriptively–let’s say a rapier has three verbs, cut, thrust, and parry. A player may chose a medium blades skill that grants them improved access to all three verbs, but over time may even further specialize on a specific verb, becoming an expert in parrying and thrusting.
This allows for even greater specialization and control over character development.
What defines the differences between a Novice and an Expert in such a system?
One big problem is that the statistical stuff is still there, e.a. people will compare the average loot gained from something that can be stolen from a safe v.s. something that can be stolen from a coded door (stealth v.s. hacking), or scenarios where everything above a level 7 lock is worth collectively less than everything that can be gained by above level 7 hackable objects, so after 7 levels in stealth, it makes no sense to not put everything else in hacking.
In short, this kind of system might just abstract the problem, making it less apparent to the player but more difficult to balance out.
One of my friends once called me and asked me quite bluntly, “Why do we game?” We figured he and I did because of roleplaying.
However, I’m not sure if this can be said of everyone. At least, not on the same level. There are a certain subset of people to whom min/maxing (especially in D&D, which you seem to be referencing) is the game in itself. It’s a manner of playing a role (hells yeah, my characters is bad ass!) that sees a certain level of consequence, but usually with the player purposefully manipulating the math, much as Kark noted.
These same people, it should be noted, also tend to follow things by rote pretty well, where as the friend who called me and I often found ourselves challenging the DM to think in a new manner by asking to do something that was not covered by rulebooks, and therefore required some actual system management. No matter how many verbs with which one may be provided, there will also always be those that seek more or use them in a manner not expected.
@Denis: I guess my issue is with the CRPG interpretation of AD&D and similar systems. I’ve played a few PnP games and I’ve often found I personally don’t really keep track of my particular skill levels or attributes and leave that to the DM to handle when I try and perform any non-trivial action that require my skills.
When I play a CRPG it can often lose the focus on action and adopt one on the underlying math instead. This seems very strange as the computer is able to handle such calculations much faster than a human could; shouldn’t statistics take on a reduced role? Surely one of the purposes of introducing the computer to the AD&D system was to remove the need to manually track all those individual statistics and return the focus to the drama and the role-playing?
The underlying mathematics of D&D are there to provide rules for how to resolve combat encounters and determine the success of actions. Players need to understand why they succeeded or failed but I think there are betters ways of doing that than making the mathematics explicit.
Maybe the fact that in a CRPG you tend to level up at a much faster rate causes players to spend more time min\maxing?
I think you touched very accurately on one of the underlying problems CRPGs are still burdened with. Character development in most cases is reduced to math and economics represented through tables and float charts that, although being lately reduced in complexity, still detract from not only the drama, but also the accurate perception of growth. Players often understand the advancement of their characters not as a natural rise of the abilities to solve situations and overcome obstacles, but rather with each more satisfying look at the bars and numerics on the character screen. This is of course a part of the experience, but seems to me a bit like watching ‘The Dark Knight’ with sort of score display that counts the individual micro-victories of Joker and Batman to show who is better off at the moment instead of having to understand it from the context.
Also many important aspects of character status are often rather difficult to monitor (let alone implement correctly) and are thus omitted almost entirely. Things like the growth of practical and ideologic influence in particular world area, the effects of power on hero’s subtle character traits, responsibility, shifts in tendencies and grounds atc. These would be best represented directly through experience of game world and options to interact with it in always new or subtly different and improved ways.
Ironically, the best example I can come up with at the moment is Half-Life 2 :) TES Morrowind attempted an ambitious approach to the rise of power, but still only in a scope of “just modifying the interactions already available to us”.