Thursday, December 21, 2006
How to Turn Façade Into An RPG
Scorpia took me to task on my little CRPG definition from last week, but the discussions we've had here and on her site and here, I'm feeling a bit more confident about my breakdown. Though Gegi also offered a really good suggestion (an addition) that you need some level of choice over your character's attributes or development of their attributes over time for it to count.
The point of my breakdown is that while things like combat systems, storyline, inventory systems, and so forth are all very important, they are NOT the defining attributes of RPGs. For story --- well, it's too fuzzy of a line to draw. Almost every game has a story, even if its just a simple one-line setup. There's definitely a qualitative difference between the story of, say, Empires and Dungeons, and Final Fantasy VII.
So as a fun design experiment, I thought about what it would take to turn a non-RPG into an RPG. Specifically, let's take one without combat of any kind and see how it might be done. As an amusing example, let's take the experimental indie game, or "interactive story", Façade. I consider it to be an adventure game, personally. A very unusual one. But that kind of gameplay. ("Action-adventure?" Since timing is important...)
So, in playing Façade, you start out by choosing a name, and then knocking on the door of some old college friends, Grace and Trip. You use typed text to hold a conversation with them, and you can also manipulate certain objects in the apartment. The game can branch many ways, but in general you discover that Grace and Trip are having marital problems. As an interested third-party, you influence them in several directions, or simply leave the status quo the way it is. And you can get thrown out of the apartment for being too rude (been there, done that!)So lets see how to turn this into an RPG. I'm not saying this would make a good GAME, necessarily (I don't actually think Façade is that great of a game to begin with, but it's an interesting experiment).
Step 1: Identifying with the Avatar
We'll start with criterion #4 (and add Gegi's suggestion), and give you more customization of and identification with your avatar. You are already pretty much acting in the first-person perspective, which adds some identification, but the game really has you playing yourself. The person through who's eyes you see doesn't really have an identity. So let's fix that.
Lets say you have a choice of backgrounds and two attributes / characteristics. For backgrounds, maybe you can choose whether you were, at one point, closer friends with Grace, Trip, or neither. Perhaps you could also choose to be an ex-boyfriend or girlfriend of either one, depending on the gender you chose. Maybe we'll add a profession as well. So you could be John, the artist and old friend of Grace's, or Jane, a doctor and Trip's former girlfriend. Or lots of combinations in-between. You are now playing SOMEONE ELSE, not just yourself.
On top of that, let's give you a choice of traits. Let's stay away from numbers, necessarily. Let's say you get to pick one trait that descibes your character - or at least how you are perceived by others. Funny, Sincere, Serious, Impulsive, Smart, Rich, Persuasive, and Argumentative.
Step 2: Your Avatar's Attributes
Now, we've got some interesting customizations for your character in the last step. Now we need to address criteria 1 and 2: You avatar's attributes need to influence the game, and there needs to be some randomness.
I'm not familiar with the AI or the nuts and bolts of the rules of Façade. But let's make things easy and say that rather than your responses always influencing the AI of Grace and Trip by a specific amount, instead it's fuzzy. So if a particular comment would normally irritate Grace by 5 points, it instead becomes a range. +/- 50%, so it can be anywhere from 3 to 7 points.
Now we've laid the foundation for your character's attributes to have an affect on the game. First off, your choice of backgrounds may influence the reactions of Trip and Grace. If you were a closer friend of Trip's, then maybe your actions will have a stronger influence on Trip, and your actions may be met with some suspicion by Grace. And so forth.
Your professional skill might give your actions a bit more credability when the conversation moves around to those topics. For example, if you are a professional artist, then any time the conversation moves around to art, you might get a bonus to your credability and the "weight" of your comments. So instead of 3-7 points, maybe you get 4-8 points for how much your words influence the AI of either character in ANY direction.Your chosen trait also plays a roll. If you chose "Persuasive," you get a bonus to the chance to steer a conversation in a particular direction. If you choose "Funny," you have a bonus to any attempt to "lighten" the mood. Serious has the opposite effect. Impulsive reduces how much Grace or Trip get offended by your actions, since they are used to you being that way. If you are rich, there are some very definite bonuses that can occur in certain parts of the conversation. And so forth.
Step 3: Avatar Growth
Okay. We're now left with the third criterion --- your Avatar's attributes / traits must have a strong correlation with the progress in the game.
So now, we take Façade 2 and Façade 3 --- the second and third acts of the story (maybe each act takes place in a future date) and combine them together into one giant game. Between each act, you get to "level up." You get to choose one additional trait. This isn't necessarily the acquisition of a new trait, so much as it is also the perception of this trait within you by the NPCs. If you choose the same trait a second or third time, then you get two or three times the bonuses. They shouldn't be contradictory. If you choose both serious and funny, for example, you might be able to influence the tone of the conversation in either direction.
I've Created A Monster!
So now, do we have Façade, the RPG?
Well, we've now probably multiplied the content requirements by about 6x. Not only did we triple it by adding a second and third act, but we also increased the complexity by requiring that Trip and Grace respond to your chosen background information. The fact that you were Grace's ex-boyfriend could come up more than once in a conversation. And to take advantage of those professional skills, we need to make sure that the player who chose to be a doctor will have a few chances to throw their medical credentials around. That's a lot of additional conversation to create and record! Not to mention test.
We've also greatly increased the complexity of the game engine, and the AI. Adding a bit of randomization shouldn't be too hard, but figuring out all the bonuses that could apply could be a little tricky. And then there's game balance issues! Does choosing "rich" or an artist background give you undue power in the game? (Since the game really doesn't have an "objective," then arguably it doesn't.)
But I'd argue that, should we take upon ourselves this foolish task, what we've ended up with at the end is an RPG - the genuine article. There's no fantasy, no combat, no inventory system, and the storyline is extremely open-ended and untraditional.
But yes, I'd argue that at this point, we have an RPG.
(Vaguely) related steaming piles of insight:
* Non-Combat RPG: A Fool's Errand?
* The Rules of Role-Playing Games
* RPG Conversation Redesign
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Labels: Adventure Games, Free Games, Game Design, Roleplaying Games
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