Rampant Games - How Should CRPGs Deal with High Level Gameplay?

aries100 · February 12, 2013

Jay Barnson has updated his blog with an entry about how crpgs should handle high-level gameplay. He thinks high-level characters should have the ability to change the rules of the game itself, he gives an an example using an old D&D Module called Necropolis. Apparently, this D&D module is harder than most D&D modules - Jay Barnsom gives an example if a party needs to choose between to doors not knowing what's behind these doors:

At the high-level game, players have access to all kinds of powers that can change the game. This was always by design, from the early days prior to even the first edition D&D rules. Does one door lead to certain death? Okay, well, the players should have all kinds of divination spells to learn what is behind each door. They can cast disintegrate spells on the doors (or the walls next to them) to bypass whatever might be on the doors themselves. They can teleport to where they want to go, bypassing the doors altogether. They could animate an object or summon an extra-dimensional being to do the job for them. Or they could try far more mundane tricks to figure things out. Simply tracking footprints to learn which door has almost all of the traffic could solve the problem. That's exactly how my players operated - with a combination of character abilities and their own personal problem-solving (and trying to see patterns everywhere to give them further clues). I think that's how the high-level game in RPGs should go, in general. At high level, characters should be able to change the rules of the game, to make the unfair reasonable.

Jay Barnson thinks that this should be how CRPGs were made; in able to do so CRPgs
need to live up these 5 things; here # 4:

#4 - An open-ended approach to creating challenges, including a willingness to make them completely unfair against a "brute force" approach, and a willingness to let the player ‘cheat' his way to victory. And no more making ‘boss monsters' impervious to the most debilitating spells!

More information.

rjshae · February 12, 2013

Right, but shouldn't your enemies have access to the same toolset? They should see you coming and be able to "cheat" their way to victory just as readily.

RampantCoyote · February 13, 2013

I imagine it *could* be done that way, but I don't see that as a necessity.

ChienAboyeur · February 13, 2013

Very hard to see what this article is about how how it could be applied to computer video gaming.

The only way to do this is to create a more open-ended design, and to make what some games would term bugs or exploits to be perfectly legitimate approaches to solving encounters.

Bugs and exploits are perfectly legitimate approaches to solving encounters in video gaming.
The computer is not such a GM to declare a bug/exploit unfair. Only developpers through patching can do that.

If the scepter is in deepest dungeon of the Fortress of Horrible Death, the quest to obtain it shouldn’t break if the player simply tunnels under the fortress and grabs the scepter in five minutes.

Many games have already that, that allows speed runs.

An open-ended approach to creating challenges, including a willingness to make them completely unfair against a “brute force” approach, and a willingness to let the player ‘cheat’ his way to victory.

It is also already the case. Some games do not bother to implement multiple resolution paths and going the brute force way is a sure way to fail when trying to complete certain quests.
There is also no cheating in video gaming, at least in SP.
All the program can refer to is the lines of code. If the lines of code allow it, it is allowed by simple application of code facts.

The article handles delicate notions that are hard to apply to video gaming.

Rampant Games - How Should CRPGs Deal with High Level Gameplay?

aries100

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rjshae

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RampantCoyote

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ChienAboyeur

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