The wide open void: An examination of invalid RPG playstyles
Hello all. Having played many an RPG, both for my own benefit and for my semi-regular blog thing I have noticed an obnoxious trend that can occur in any Western RPG (as well as the occasional super-customizable J-RPG such as Final Fantasy V). In this case, I am talking about the tendency, especially among RPGs with open character customization or choice as opposed to a more rigid (perhaps class...
Hello all. Having played many an RPG, both for my own benefit and for my semi-regular blog thing I have noticed an obnoxious trend that can occur in any Western RPG (as well as the occasional super-customizable J-RPG such as Final Fantasy V). In this case, I am talking about the tendency, especially among RPGs with open character customization or choice as opposed to a more rigid (perhaps class-based) ones, to have dozens of options but only a few viable ones. Obviously, this could be extended to any genre on some level, but it really rears it's ugly head in the world of RPGs. Still don't know what I am talking about? Allow me to explain and examine.
In the original Fallout, you have plenty of skills to put your points into such as science, energy weapons, and gambling. However, for the most part there is no reason to
Really. There is no reason to ever not use small guns, unless you hate yourself ever, ever, ever put points into weapon skills other than small guns and maybe energy weapons. Why, do you ask? Because the game fails to ever really supply a decent melee weapon, and why would you get close to someone when you could shoot them in the head from far away instead? This expands to plenty of other aspects of character customization, from the always worthless Charisma stat (really, this applies to all RPGs. There is never a reason to have a charisma stat over the default number in any game of the genre) to the gambling skill (why would you invest in a skill with such limited usefulness when you could put more points into small guns?) Why am I picking on this game in particular? It isn't that I don't like it (because I think that Fallout is ok), but because of the raw number of choices, a good 75% of which make the game far more difficult or unrewarding than just shooting people in the head or sweet talking them. Considering that advocates of Fallout constantly cite this level of customizability as one of the reasons why it's so great, I feel somewhat cheated. Maybe this comes down to "different strokes for different folks", but the idea of playing a self-crippled character in an already hard RPG is unappealing to me personally. Here are some more examples.
Daggerfall has a massive skill system, but it is perhaps one of the more egregious offenders of this issue. Of all the skills available, a good 70% are worthless. Etiquette? Oh wow. You can make nobles like you more... and that's about it. Language skills? You can click on a creature of your corresponding skill with your weapon sheathed and maybe it won't attack you. Maybe. Arcanum has an astounding number of options, but in the end a vanilla melee fighter manages to be far more effective than either a gunslinging technician or a straight up spellcaster. (oddly enough, I think that arcanum is one of the few games that gets the viability of a player choice in roleplaying somewhat right). Every D&D game ever made has never had a real use for the Bard class except as a joke or a filler character (Exception: the Blade kit in Baldur's Gate II is a surprisingly effective fighter-mage hybrid), and there is rarely a use for stealthy thieves either, considering the hoops required to backstab fools and the general uselessness otherwise.
An improvement, or a step back? Thankfully, this trend has diminished a lot in recent years. Archery is still kind of bunk in Dragon Age, as is the shapeshifter specialty class, but even then I find that RPGs have managed to steer clear of a lot of what I have spent the last 4 paragraphs ranting about. Why the change? First of all, it's because developers really don't make "that kind" of RPG anymore, and when they do it's somewhat watered down. Fallout 3 is perhaps the most recent mainstream example, and you can really get away with using anything. Sure, not focusing on combat skills will screw you over some of the time, but you can probably get through the main quest on stealth and speech alone. Second of all, I assume a more comprehensive playtesting regimen or perhaps design perspective in this balance. Either way, I think this is a good thing, but being that many of the RPGs I play and have yet to play are older than recent, I don't imagine avoiding it any time soon. Summary time
- RPGs, especially those that are more open in terms of character development, are usually victim to character options or builds that either make the game harder or far less rewarding. Things such as melee weapons in Fallout or language skills in Daggerfall are often of dubious usefulness, making them little more than filler or in worse cases, red herrings.
- While not game breaking, this does open up the opportunity for players without guidance to theoretically hit a brick wall while playing the game, which is one of the reasons why old school RPGs aren't especially accessible to new players in this day and age.
- This trend has diminished in recent years, but it still exists in some form, because at the end of the day there are a limited number of man-hours to balance and playtest everything.
Questions? Comments? Disagree? You read the entire thing?