The Evolution of Computer RPGs
So I've been scratching my head trying to figure out why some portals and marketers label certain computer games and videogames as "roleplaying games" (RPGs) or having "roleplaying elements" when they don't bear any resemblance to what I would consider a real RPG. That led to trying to define what an RPG is... and that led to musing over the history of computer roleplaying games. How did we get such a category in the first place?

Of course, you can't talk about that without going into the history of the pen-and-paper RPGs. Now, much of this stuff was before my time (I was five years old when Dungeons & Dragons was first published). But here's the story as I see it, and how I feel it guided game design.

The Wargames
Before there were RPGs, there were wargames.

I'm not gonna go into the history of wargames. Depending on whether you classify games such as Chess or Go as 'early wargames,' wargames could be a very ancient form of training and entertainment. But in a nutshell, wargames are simulations of battles, often played with miniatures on a map (or a full tabletop diarama which serves as a map --- see, we had escalation of graphics quality even back in the 1970s!)

One of the measures of the quality of a wargame was the fidelity of its results if a battle was played exactly as historically depicted. Wargamers effectively "roleplayed" these games, putting themselves in the shoes of actual generals commanding famous battles in history, pitting themselves not only against their opponents, but against the very leaders who commanded the real battles. Think you can do better than Rommel?

Sure, the ol' Desert Fox would probably whup your butt if it was real tanks in real northern Africa, but we're talking a type of fantasy here.

Of course, not all wargame scenarios had to be historically accurate. Players and designers enjoyed (and still enjoy) coming up with "what if" scenarios. What if this battle had occured two days later, when the losing side had received its promised reinforcements? What if the weather had not impeded the cavalry? Or what if a battle had actually occured between two forces that had never engaged each other in real life? Or how about a plausible battle in ancient history that we have no record (or few details) about?

And ... what if the germanic barbarian forces also had DRAGONS?

Or more interestingly, how would Rommel do if his tanks encountered your DRAGONS, huh? Yeah. Look who could whup who's butt NOW!

While it's likely that other wargaming groups introduced fantastic elements like the above using their own homebrewed rules, the first published wargame rules with a "fantasy supplement" was entitled Chainmail, published by Guidon Games, written by Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren. He kept things pretty simple. The effects of the fireball spell for wizards was identical to those of a catapult, and the lightning bolt spell was lifted directly from the cannon effects. A Hero unit was simply treated as four normal soldiers. It didn't matter. Context was everything, and "Fantasy Wargaming" was born.

An Army Of One
With the precedent set for a "unit" in the wargaming to actually equal a single hero, it wasn't a huge step for the fans to move from controlling armies to controlling a single, powerful character. Dave Arneson inserted the Chainmail rules into his Blackmoor campaign, tweaking them here, replacing them there. Players found themselves running their individual miniatures through castles and dungeons fighting mythological beasts.

Those rules were then re-adopted by Gary Gygax, modified some more, and became Dungeons & Dragons: the first "roleplaying game" in 1974. However, it wasn't known by that term at the time. This strange hybrid hobby was called all sorts of things, like "Fantasy Gaming" and "Adventure Gaming." As new rules appeared to simulate other genres, it was clear that the word "Fantasy" was too limiting. Somewhere around 1980, the term "roleplaying" stuck.

Enter The Computer
The problem with roleplaying games is that they were a pretty group-oriented activity. Organizing a time when six or so players could get together for the several hours required to play a game is quite a challenge. Particularly when it's likely six nerdy folks who were probably scattered all across the state, and some of 'em had to rely on the bus or their parents for a ride!

Ah, but all was not lost! Since this time period also heralded the accessibility of computers (even *gasp* computers in the HOME), some enterprising (but lonely) geeks decided to try and simulate the experience of a Dungeons & Dragons game on the computer. A simulation of a simulation, kind of.

You had a lot of guys writing programs called "DND". Richard Garriott's "DND" high school project became a commercial release, "Akalabeth: World of Doom." Akalabeth later became Sosaria (which in turn become Britania) in the legendary RPG series "Ultima." You had Daniel Lawrence's "DND," which evolved into the commercial game "Telengard" published by Avalon Hill. Another game called "DND" was developed for the PLATO computer instruction system by Gary Whisenhunt and Ray Wood. I'm sure there were dozens more.

And there were many more - some commercial projects, some done for gamer's individual amusement. Besides the ones mentioned above, some other landmark commercial RPGs from the early days included "Wizardry," and "The Temple of Apshai."

This is how the computer RPG was born.

Console RPGs - the other CRPG
The success of Wizardry and the early Ultima games (particularly Ultima III) went overseas to Japan to inspire the first of the major Japanese console RPGs, "Dragon Quest" (Dragon Warrior in the U.S.) for the Nintendo Entertainment System. This game inspired an entire genre, and became an entire evolutionary offshoot from Ultima and Wizardry.

The Eastern RPGs tend to differ from their western counterparts by being more focused on story exposition and character, often enforcing very linear gameplay and little character choice compared to western RPGs. Labeling these kinds of games as "Eastern" or "Western" is only useful insofar as describing the general inspirational origin of these games - they continue to mix, borrow ideas from each other, and western developers are happily plugging away with games derived from eastern "console" RPGS. (Aveyond is one example).

Meanwhile, the western games still tend to more closely resemble the "pen and paper" RPG experience - to the point that they still often borrow heavily from their pen-and-paper licenses such as Dungeons & Dragons and Vampire: The Masquerade. They often emphasize player customization of his or her avatar(s), and exploration of a more free-form, open-ended environment.

Personally I pity the angsty teenaged eastern RPG hero when he comes across my flower-picking-assassin from a western RPG. That'll teach him the meaning of the word, "Strife!" But seriously - I enjoy both kinds of RPGs. Many people just favor one or the other. Or a third...

The Action-RPG
The classic NES game "The Legend of Zelda" is often heralded as the beginning of the action-RPG genre, but in reality many other games tried to merge the flavor of the fantasy roleplaying game with the action of an arcade game. The earliest I remember was "Gateway To Apshai," which I played on the Commodore 64. A "prequel" to the older Temple of Apshai series, the game was played with a joystick and involved quick movement and action coupled with gathering better equipment and improving your characteristics.

Action-RPGs differ from "true" RPGs by emphasizing the player's timing and action-game skill as much as (or more than) the player's avatar's in-game characteristics. Besides the Zelda series, other popular action-RPGs include the Diablo and Elder Scrolls series. And I'll add the Ultima Underworld series (series meaning, uh, both), because I liked 'em.

Where Do We Go From Here?
It may be because of the wargame ancestry, but roleplaying games have typically had a heavy combat focus. Of course, a big part of it is just that combat is fun (taken in moderation). If RPGs evolved from the boardgame Monopoly, would we have a totally different situation today? (There's my "what if" scenario - forget dragons! I want greedy landlords!)

It's no big surprise, but traditional medieval fantasy games tend to do much better on the average than games with different settings. I think it's been demonstrated that a good RPG in a different setting CAN sell (Fallout being a prime example), but it appears much harder. Is this part of the Dungeons & Dragons "Fantasy Wargaming" legacy? Are people interested in RPGs naturally predisposed towards medieval fantasy, or is there something else at work here? Maybe something really simple --- like swords being more fun (and visceral) than guns?

One interesting twist that I wasn't expecting from my perspective in the early 1980's was the trend towards simplifying the game systems when they made the jump to computer and game console. Pen-and-paper game systems are often fairly complex systems, again perhaps hearkening back to their wargame ancestry. And the fact that players get mad when you tell them they can't do something because of some screwy rules limitation.

I assumed that with computers able to handle the number-crunching load exceeding that of humans, the game mechanics would become deeper and more complex. I guess, to a point, they have, but in ways outside of the core rules system. You now get some element of actual simulation being performed before you ever come down to calculating the attack roll. You can calculate the actual distance of your sword tip to determine whether or not a hit occured on a charge, rather than throwing in artificial modifiers. But it seems that, on the whole, the game systems have actually become extremely simple, doing away with a lot of the numbers we cherished. Or at least burying them beneath the surface where a player can't see.

Labels: Mainstream Games, retro, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 3:09 PM (Permalink)