Making a Rogue-Friendly RPG, Part III: Beyond Lockpicking
Monte Cook (co-author of the 3rd edition Dungeons & Dragons rules) wrote an essay once called "A Second Edition Joke." I recommend reading it now - it's short - because I'm gonna go and spoil the punchline in the next paragraph. Not that it's all that funny, but it's better to read it now. Go ahead. I'll wait.

At the end of the story, the former-thief laments, "When we were low level,I could open doors and occasionally -- very occasionally -- get in a backstab. They kept me around because I was sometimes useful. Toward the end I realized they were just keeping me around out of nostalgia."

How About Getting Rid of the Rogue?
While illustrating the weakness of the class in 2nd edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, it also suggests an interesting question. Are we just keeping the rogues around out of nostalgia? Are we including it in fantasy RPGs (at least) out of blind adherence to tradition set by a tactical miniatures variant introduced in the 1970's? Have we evolved past needing it now?

For Cook and his team, the answer was "no." The answer was to fix the class - give it a more solid role in groups, lots of neat options, and some capability that wasn't made superfluous at higher levels.

For some kinds of CRPGs, such as the "jRPGs" or Japanese console-style RPGs, the answer may be "yes." And that's perfectly valid. Many jRPGs have simplified (some might say "optimized") the RPG experience down to a story-driven guided navigation through combat encounters. I'm fine with that. It doesn't fit everywhere. I can enjoy those games.

But I'm still going to prefer the games that allow me to play my own variation of Indiana Jones, the Stainless Steel Rat, James Bond, or Shadowspawn.

The Mechanics: Active, Passive, and Reactive
I tend to think of gameplay as "making interesting decisions." Decisions that have a cost (or opportunity cost), a risk, or require some strategy to pull off. For the purposes of dealing with rogue-centric abilities, I've been thinking about character abilities in terms of active, passive, and reactive skills, and how they interact with gameplay.

Passive abilities are those abilities that automatically take effect based upon something happening to the character. Defending against a fireball, or sensing an ambush, for example. These are great abilities to have in a computer RPG because they require very little in terms of interface work. They can differentiate races or classes, and at most you have to let the player know that his ability was USED for some reason. However, they aren't really actions that the player takes. They aren't verbs.

Passive abilities are special effects in a mechanical sense. They don't add too much to the actualy gameplay, other than changing some of the parameters upon which the player bases their decisions. For example, if a character has a high level of fire resistance, a fire-based threat is less of a risk than usual.

On the flip side, there are active (or "pro-active") abilities. These are abilities that the player must consciously decide to use, and can choose to use them at any time (or in very common circumstances, like in combat). In a well-designed game, these decisions are "interesting" as described above. For instance you may have to choose between drinking a healing potion right now, thus giving the monster an extra hit, or taking one last attack in hopes of finishing the beast off (and saving yourself an extra hit). It's simple, but it works (and makes up 90% of the decision process in the dungeon-crawl sequences of Empires & Dungeons).

Then there's what I call reactive abilities. These are abilities which are only useful in reaction to specific, unusual circumstances in the game. For example, a skill in a rarely-encountered language would be both passive and reactive (the worst of both worlds?) . Usually, when the opportunity is called for to exercise this ability, it's a no-brainer. You encounter a locked door in a dungeon. Do you use your lockpicking ability?

Duh.

So they aren't very interesting from a gameplay perspective. They aren't interesting decisions. And the player only gets to use these abilities when the game master (in a dice-and-paper game) or the game (for CRPGs) effectively lobs the ball directly at him. That's extra work (and expensive work, for CRPGs) for the designer / developer, especially for something that's only going to be worth a single a routine ability check. And while appreciated by the player, they still aren't very exciting.

And in too many RPGs, far too many of the "rogue-centric" abilities fall into the passive and "reactive" category. Detecting traps and secret doors. Disabling traps. Picking locks. And too often their active skills are like picking pockets - useless in the most common situations (you pick the pocket of a monster you are going to kill and loot, anyway), and of such a poor risk / reward ratio that they are virtually useless even when they should come in handy.

And that is where unhappy rogues come from.

Breaking the Rules the Thief Way
The Thief game series, originally by Looking Glass, were action games based around things that sounded fun about being a (pseudo-)medieval (well, steampunk) thief. They created the "first-person sneaker" genre, and were popular and enjoyed great critical acclaim. They put the player in a rogue's situation - hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned, where attempting a direct assault was guaranteed failure. This wasn't just a storyline in the fiction of the game, but the real situation. Surviving direct combat with a single guard was chancy at best - but attempting to take on the entire level's worth of alert, warned guards was impossible. Stealth was your key to success.

Many people talk about the stealth mechanic of Thief, which was certainly the key gameplay element. You had to keep to shadows to stay hidden, and keep to areas of the floor that would muffle your footfalls whenever there were guards within earshot. But you also had to know when to break cover and race across lit areas. Timing was everything.

All by itself, the stealth-and-timing mechanic was a lot of fun. Hiding in a pitch-black hall, waiting for the guard to pass by close enough to steal his keys was incredibly tense and thrilling. But what took the game over-the-top was the additional options provided to you by the tools you could purchase to aid you in your task. Water arrows could be used to douse torches. Noisemaker arrows could cause distractions for the guards. Rope arrows could allow you access to otherwise unreachable portions of the map. Moss arrows would allow you to move silently over areas that would otherwise be too noisy to traverse.

In other words, these tools allowed the player to manipulate the environment and manipulate the AI. Fiddle with aspects of the game level traditionally denied to players. It allowed players a limited, selective way to break the rules.

Could similar mechanics be borrowed by RPGs to allow the same thing? I really don't see why not.

Simulation or Story?
They key is having a more open, organic rule system. This has been done in RPGs before - most notably the hit action-RPG Oblivion and the classic Fallout series. Unfortunately, it means relinquishing some control over the storyline and how the player progresses through the game. The game must focus on the player accomplishing objectives, rather than enforcing how those objectives are met. It means treating the game-world as more of a simulation that a story.

This has pros and cons that have been debated endlessly in blogs, forums, and articles for years. But if you are really trying to support a style of play that specializes in derailing, it is probably best to avoid rails. Striking a decent balance between the two extremes is one of the great challenges of any game designer.

Other Good Uses of the Rogue
Other games offer some fun, active abilities that make the rogue (or a rogue-like character) worthwhile.

Baldur's Gate 2 and Neverwinter Nights allow the rogue to construct traps, as well as disarm them. This was a great way to turn a reactive skill into an active one, and was potentially the rogue's most powerful offensive ability. But you had to be tricky to pull it off, and convinced the AI (rarely a problem) to stumble into your previously-trapped territory.

The Baldur's Gate games also had what was possibly the most powerful use of a rogue's stealth abilities I've seen in a CRPG. In conjunction with a magic-user, a rogue could act as a "forward observer" for powerful area-effect spells. By the time a magic-user moved within range to see his opponents, they would also see him (or her), and attack. But a rogue could sneak up on the enemies, opening up the visibility and allowing the mage to cast his spell at a safe range. Sometimes, the monsters wouldn't even move out of the threatened area after the first attack (where WERE those fireballs coming from?), allowing follow-up attacks.

In Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, a character with high stealth could clear levels of most opponents by sneaking up behind them and breaking their necks (or drinking their blood, if you were far enough away from other enemies). Oblivion and other games often rewarded high-stealth characters in a similar manner, allowing huge bonuses for attacking from hiding.

The D20 rule system (the core of the 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons rules) gave rogues access to the "Use Magic Device" skill - an extrapolation on the apparently little-used 1st edition rule that allowed a high-level thief access to magic-user and cleric scrolls. (I say "apparently" because I sure took advantage of the ability back in the day...) This allows the rogue to "fake" the requirements necessary to use certain magical items, opening up his options considerably at higher levels. Fortunately, this rule has made it into the computer games based on the dice-and-paper rule system.

In Fallout, one of the early missions allowed you a chance to infiltrate a gang of marauders (or, actually, join them). You could bluff your way through to see the boss, and then get into a fight with him.

Some Theoretical Rogueishness
I haven't seen anything like these examples in a CRPG, but I don't see why they wouldn't be possible:

Faction Fiction: A few games have set up faction systems (the Elder Scrolls series, many MMORPGs, Neverwinter Nights) . However, there's often some kind of zero-sum math involved: Improving your standing with faction A decreases your standing with their enemies, Faction B. (A noteworthy exception is Oblivion, which was criticized for not featuring many of these "interesting" faction decisions). Why couldn't a rogue use deceptive practices to frame others or conceal his involvement in the "faction wars," manipulating his faction levels artificially?

Escape Artist: Players never seem to run away or get captured by bad guys in computer RPGs (except as an unavoidable scripted event). Probably because the "load" command makes it be victorious in every encounter. But assuming you can lick the one problem, having the rogue there to help the party make a run for it - or to overcome the deathtraps of the villain's lair.

AI Manipulation: Just borrowing directly from Thief, why wouldn't a rogue be able to no re-route the AI's movements and patrols via misdirection? On a more abstract level, the rogue could even reduce (if desired) the number of random encounters, or choose when such encounters take place (due to his enhanced stealth and perception)?

Art of Disguise: In Final Fantasy VI (III in the U.S.) - while it was a special, hard-coded sequence - there was a segment where you could disguise yourself as an enemy soldier to sneak around an enemy-occupied town. I can envision a game where this is made a more general skill - less powerful than magical shape-changing, but passing muster as an alternate form of stealth if interaction is avoided. While this could get you closer to the boss without fighting through all the other monsters, escaping after the fact might be a whole 'nother story. Could it be done without blowing game balance? Could it be made fun, and not so overpowering that it becomes a dominant strategy?

Interception!: While this certainly doesn't need to be limited to rogues, what about having AI attackers (or even player characters, in multiplayer PvP) telegraph their next move in ways that a player character can possibly identify and interrupt or at least prepare for? Maybe it's my brief fencing experience talking, but I can imagine a combat system built around feints and counters this way. I don't know if it would be any fun, but I can imagine it.

Gadgets: In many "rogue stories," the rogue is outfitted with a number of gadgets. James Bond has his high-tech equipment, the Stainless Steel Rat has a variety of miniature bombs - heck, even ninjas tend to have a lot of low-tech tools to accomplish their deadly business. Expendable tools of all varieties could certainly be used by non-rogues... but a specialist character might be most skilled in their employment. Aside from lockpicks (common in manyRPGs), how about other devices that allow the player to "break the rules" in a limited fashion? A smoke grenade to increase chances of escape. Sleeping or blinding powders. Ear plugs to defend against sonic / charm attacks. Caltrops. A shock buzzer to escape grabbing attacks. Sneeze powder to interrupt spells. A vial of vomit-inducing poison to pop open in case the unfortunate possessor gets swallowed whole. And ways to wire up many of these items as a booby trap. If all else fails, the rogue can almost act as a back-up mage in this way --- using gadgets, magical items, and tricks to pull off "magical" effects.

Rogues In the Group
Within an adventuring party, the rogue's skills (and methods) are going to transfer at least to some degree to the rest of the group. At the very least, they will benefit from the rogue's enhanced abilities. But the rogue should grant additional options for the rest of the party. Which may or may not be to the liking of the party's paladin.

For example, if the rogue has the rare skill (in CRPGs) of climbing walls in a game, why shouldn't he be able to lower a rope down and extend that skill to the rest of his party? Ditto for disguise and stealth - he can help the rest of the party hide.

And as long as we're at it, why can't the rest of the party help out in disarming traps? That aspect of the game would be much more interesting if it was a multi-step process, handled interactively like combat, and involved group participation. Maybe.

Let Me Explain. No, There's Too Much. Let Me Sum Up.
This concludes for now my diatribe on rogues in RPGs. At least for now. I've talked about why it is difficult to design a generalized RPG with rogue-like characters in mind. I've also talked about what sort of role a "rogue" might fulfill in an adventure, and what player expectations might be. And I've given some concrete examples of what has been done and what can be done to help a player with a preference for that type of adventure experience a game

Ultimately, I wrote this series for my own benefit, as I've been trying to wrap my head around some of these issues for my own benefit. I hope you haven't minded - I've appreciated your comments and insight as you've helped me think about things from different angles.

What it really comes down to is broadening the horizons of the Computer Roleplaying Game and incorporating more styles of play. I think that's something most players and designers would agree with, at least in principle.

I'm not saying every game should incorporate all styles of play! While that might be a goal for larger games (especially MMOs), it's not necessary. And I really do enjoy some good ol' school hack & slash fantasy. But computer RPGs tend to get stuck in a rut (as with every other game genre out there), and I think it behooves both game designers and players to demand a little bit more. We can use some games that let us - or even encourage us - to explore new styles and possibilities in the vast potential of the genre. Where's the RPG that really lets us be James Bond, or Indiana Jones, or the Stainless Steel Rat? I am waiting anxiously!


(Vaguely) related mutterings of a diseased mind:
* Making a Rogue-Friendly RPG Part I: Rogues Get No Respect
* Making a Rogue-Friendly RPG Part II: The Rogue's Role
* Innovation in RPGs?
* Roleplaying and Computer Roleplaying Games
.

Labels: Game Design, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 8:00 AM (Permalink)