CRPG Analyzer: A checklist for computer role-playing games

Definition of a CRPG (V0.92)

The three core categories Character Development, Exploration and Story that need to be applied and quantified to determine if an interactive computerised game can be defined as a Computer Role Playing Game (hereafter referred to as CRPG) are listed to show the necessary component elements and qualifying factors. Any proposed or purported CRPG must contain all three core categories and their Must Have (MH) elements fulfilled to achieve CRPG status.

These core categories must maintain some form of progressive nature that will improve from when the game starts and leads to a conclusive game ending.

Each category also has a related Should Have (SH) sub list, the reviewer should make a comment if a sub list item is not fulfilled. Should one or more (SH) not be fulfilled the game is most likely a special CRPG (see Tags) or a CRPG light.
If all (SH) are fulfilled too there's no further discussion necessary ->
the game is a true CRPG.

(Tags) are computer game tags that qualify the CRPG label even further.

Optional elements are listed in the Nice to Have (NtH) list. With it you get precise information which optional CRPG elements are implemented in the game.
A general game info questionaire is added too, to do some rating.
-> Link

A CRPG is a computer game that fulfills these criterions:

Character Development
C1) (MH) you can control one or more characters (=party)
C2) (MH) you can develop your characters' stats and/or abilities by solving quests and other game actions like exploration, conversation, combat,…
C3) (MH) you can equip and enhance your characters with items you acquire
C4) (SH) you can create your characters
C5) (SH) character development requires careful thought and planning

Def.: Information source: places, persons, items which can provide information.
Examples: (NPCs, speaking trees, statues , riddle stones, audio tapes, lore book…)

Exploration
E1) (MH) by exploring the gameworld you can find new locations
E2) (MH) you can find items
E3) (MH) you can find information sources
E4) (SH) you can manipulate the gameworld in some way (levers, buttons,…)
E5) (SH) the gameworld can affect your party (weather, traps, closed doors, …)
E6) (SH) you may have to think or plan to progress or overcome obstacles, unlock locked areas …

Story
S1) (MH) you can get information (hints, goals, quests, skills, spells, training, …) from information sources
S2) (MH) you can follow quests (at least one main quest)
S3) (MH) you can progress through connected events (= Story)
S4) (SH) the story is influenced more or less by your actions
S5) (SH) you can interact with information sources (Examples: NPC conversation, answer riddles,…)
S6) (SH) you can make choices in those interactions
S7) (SH) your choices have consequences
S8) (SH) advancing in the story requires thought (riddles, irreversible choices,…)

Combat
F1) (SH) Combat efficiency (e.g. amount of damage, chance to hit, weapon access…) is in some way tied to character stats or abilities
F2) (SH) Combat should be challenging (preparing, use of tactics and/or environment possible)
______
F=Fight

Wulf said:

In any RPG, each and every single possible interaction, whatever the method or terminology or descriptive words used, is an act resulting from *exploration*

There can be no *character* progression or *storyline* progression without *exploration* therefore *exploration* is the key core element progressor of a RPG.

Any interaction may or may not progress the *storyline* or *character*

So no interactive npc's are needed at all in the (MH) - by listening to a statue or heavenly voice or angel, read a lore book, etc' etc' can aid progression by determining which interactions are progressors and which are not.

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Yeah that's my point about NPC and anyway there's known example.

You way you look at it by centering it on exploration isn't something I read often, much better known is the character progression management allowing make a distinction between adventure games and CRPG. It's definitely what was special and that first CRPG borrowed to PnP RGP. Exploration is something many other games had even at that time, but it was rather new to have a very developed character development system.

There's novels, movies, TV series episodes, and more, where the whole 'story" is developed in a single room, no exploration. I already quoted a CRPG without any exploration. Because of this I don't consider exploration as a core element of the tag, but clearly it's a major element of most CRPG along the time line.

Definitely, creating a world is for me what is matching the best to complete character progression management, and the whole has to be merged in a game.

Moreover the world creation is the secret dream of RPG designers. That's what is behind the idea of Sandbox, the ideal would be a world simulation and you interact with it, but programs don't know do it well, particularly when it's about generating interesting core/story/stories elements.

@Ihaterpg & @Wulf

I considered your remarks in version 0.92.

CRPGs that create a story by the player exploring and interaction instead of a more predefined story can now easier categorized.
NPCs are no longer a Must Have and can be replaced by various information sources.

"Quest" (from Wikipedia): "A quest is a journey toward a goal, frequently used as a plot device in fictional works."

Ihaterpg said:

They are CRPG, the series at the origin (I think) of the Sandbox tag is the Elder Scroll series, you can't find something more CRPG than this series.

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True. One has to wonder then why people are hesitant to call Saints Row (or to a lesser degree, GTA) a CRPG. Those games coined the term "Sandbox" as a genre and were even advertised as such I believe, while Elder Scrolls are seen as Sandbox-CRPGs. Why? What's the difference? Is it the setting? Imagine GTA etc. didn't take place in the modern world, but in a fantasy setting with magic instead. Instead of cars you'd have different horses, instead of guns you'd swing around swords and magic spells. Would that be enough? Or is it simply because there is no real sense of an overarching quest? Or something else?

Ihaterpg said:

Yeah, story, NPC, exploration, quests, are very cool stuff to develop to make a fun deep CRPG.

But I don't consider them more important than adventuring, simulation, stuff to resolves (from find how reach a secret hinted, to puzzles and riddles, or find a sneak path, and many more), lore and obviously pets.

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We use the three categories Story, Exploration and Character Development as more or less abstract spheres, and that seems to be working quite well. Pretty much anything you can think of as an RPG element can be assigned to one (or more) of those categories.
Maybe the terms just aren't completely appropriate …

We say "Story", but what we actually mean is "Narrative" — I guess we should change our term to reflect this. There's a difference between the two (cf. 1, 2). Narrative is a "system of stories". The difference is academic, but precisely for that reason important for our definition. Stories, or story pieces, make up the narrative of a CRPG (link 1 has good examples.) Incidentally, this is what Fluent wrote on the first page:

Fluent said:

Ken Rolston made this very simple. He says there are 4 main pillars of RPG gaming.

1. Narrative
2. Advancement
3. Exploration
4. Combat

If a game has those 4 elements, then it's an RPG. Easy enough.

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We use "Character Development" instead of advancement. I think that's fine.


Interesting article on gamasutra, by the way: Game Design Essentials — 20 RPGs, in which the author analyzes 10 WRPGs and 10 JRPGs to see what makes them tick. I haven't read it yet (lots of text), but what's noticeable is the titles of games they included. How would they fare?

HiddenX said:

Should we broaden the meaning of NPCs to fit games like Dungeon Master better?
System Shock 2 is a similar case - most NPCs are lying around dead - you get new quests/goals by finding and reading their audio diaries.

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I don't mind, but in this case we should probably include other games that are relatively weak in one category but strong in the two others. That is to say, broaden the CRPG definition and call more balanced CRPGs "full fledged CRPG" or something along those lines as proposed by Ihaterpg.

So we'd include:
Rogue-like games, Sandbox-RPGs, Dungeon Crawlers, … (mostly Character Development + Exploration)
linear CRPGs, … (mostly Character Development + Narrative)
Adventure-RPG (mostly Exploration + Narrative; although a game with barely any character advancement does not sound like a CRPG, really… )

I'm not a native english speaker but I think:

Narrative: something that is told (german: Erzählung)
Story: the sum of interactions, conversations and choices of the avatar of the game + narrative of the game that acts like a Game Master of PnP-RPGs. (german: Geschichte, Erlebnisse)

I like story better - it is fitting in more cases.


We include all games that fit the Must Haves -> CRPG.
If one or more Should Haves are not fulfilled the game must be qualified with a tag:
Rogue Like CRPG, Dungeon Crawler CRPG,… or the reviewer adds a comment.

If all Must Haves and all Should Haves are fulfilled it is simply a CRPG.

Adventures without Character development are no CRPGs.
But again:
Even if a game fails the CRPG tag is is very informative to read all checklists.

I like Shooters with some CRPG elements for example.

Skyrim:

Definition of a CRPG (V0.92)

A CRPG is a computer game that fulfills these criterions:

Character Development
C1) (MH) you can control one or more characters (=party) yes
C2) (MH) you can develop your characters' stats and/or abilities by solving quests and other game actions like exploration, conversation, combat,… yes
C3) (MH) you can equip and enhance your characters with items you acquire yes
C4) (SH) you can create your characters yes-nicely integrated in the game
C5) (SH) character development requires careful thought and planning no - Skyrim is a sandbox game, very forgiving, wrong decisions can be corrected later

Def.: Information source: places, persons, items which can provide information.
Examples: (NPCs, speaking trees, statues , riddle stones, audio tapes, lore book…)

Exploration
E1) (MH) by exploring the gameworld you can find new locations yes
E2) (MH) you can find items yes
E3) (MH) you can find information sources yes
E4) (SH) you can manipulate the gameworld in some way (levers, buttons,…) yes
E5) (SH) the gameworld can affect your party (weather, traps, closed doors, …) yes
E6) (SH) you may have to think or plan to progress or overcome obstacles, unlock locked areas … sometimes in dungeons yes, but more no - you can explore very freely in Elder Scrolls games

Story
S1) (MH) you can get information (hints, goals, quests, skills, spells, training, …) from information sources yes, much info everywhere
S2) (MH) you can follow quests (at least one main quest) yes, many
S3) (MH) you can progress through connected events (= Story) yes
S4) (SH) the story is influenced more or less by your actions yes
S5) (SH) you can interact with information sources (Examples: NPC conversation, answer riddles,…) yes
S6) (SH) you can make choices in those interactions yes
S7) (SH) your choices have consequences - yes sometimes, but often not.
S8) (SH) advancing in the story requires thought (riddles, irreversible choices,…) more no than yes, again: the game is very forgiving, for example: you can be Grandmaster in ALL guilds

Combat
F1) (SH) Combat efficiency (e.g. amount of damage, chance to hit, weapon access…) is in some way tied to character stats or abilities yes
F2) (SH) Combat should be challenging (preparing, use of tactics and/or environment possible) yes
______
F=Fight


Skyrim is a 1st (3rd) person Sandbox CRPG, fantasy setting, very non-linear, exploring is pure fun.

HiddenX said:

Narrative: something that is told (german: Erzählung)
Story: the sum of interactions, conversations and choices of the avatar of the game + narrative of the game that acts like a Game Master of PnP-RPGs. (german: Geschichte, Erlebnisse)

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No, it's the other way around, that's my point. See Why story is not narrative.
In short, a narrative is a "system of stories", a story is just an "event unit".

So using your examples: Narrative = sum of interactions, conversations and choices of the avatar + other story pieces or individual stories.

I thought Narrative came from narrare (= to tell something, Latin)

I think we should make the definition in german - and someone can translate it later

deleted

Narrative is totally wrong it refers to a passage that has been narrated, orally spoken, as HiddenX quite rightly points out.

A narrator is a person who narrates, tells a story, however if a narrated piece is read from within a storyline say in a book it can be referred as the narrative. eg: you can write down something that has been previously spoken then read it as a "narrative that was spoken"

Please revert to the definition as in (V0.92)

Done - I trust a native speaker

But I replace

S4 (MH) you can progress through a story.

with

S4 (MH) you can progress through connected events (= Story)

This reflects better that for a large part you can create/form the story by yourself in a CRPG.

Thank you,

Re:-
S4 (MH) you can progress through connected events (= Story)

Yes that is nicely put and is more 'flexible'.

From a non native language speaker, both narrative and story are quite wrong, it's not important but it means something.

A story is a story, it's a very old school point of view matching the old forms, books, movies and so on. It's all the difference between a world creation and a story creation. And it's all what's so special and difficult to manage in games trying a different approach.

I already explained why I disagree on the whole "Story" section about have it MH. But connected events doesn't mean at all events you connect.

I did mentioned that book can create a world and then a very linear RPG can work anyway. I think it's partially true and misleading. It's really about how a world is created in a satisfying way. The combination story+exploration wants evoke this but is misleading. Instead of (=Story) it would be perhaps (=Lore or Story you build yourself).

But again I disagree on the current definition so…

A game like Legend of Grimrock is a more satisfying world creation than some linear RPG. Many of the first CRPG was dungeon related because it's more easy to create a consistent world inside this special setup.

I do believe (right or wrong) that it's current CRPG mainstream that stick you to story. And that's also why so many CRPG fans aren't fully satisfied by some linear RPG. They definitely attempt the world creation but show so many artificial barriers that some players just broke.

A story is very powerful and this is the reason why also many players can enjoy a lot some linear CRPG. But I think it's not CRPG related, not even CRPG required.

Wulf said:

Narrative is totally wrong it refers to a passage that has been narrated, orally spoken, as HiddenX quite rightly points out.

A narrator is a person who narrates, tells a story, however if a narrated piece is read from within a storyline say in a book it can be referred as the narrative. eg: you can write down something that has been previously spoken then read it as a "narrative that was spoken"

Click to expand...

While that might be a very narrow definition of the term, it's really not the whole story (forgive the pun). Firstly, 'narrative' is "found in all forms of human creativity and art" [1] and it doesn't have to be only oral or be based on oral utterances.

Secondly, I was talking about the academic difference of the terms 'narrative' and 'story' in literary discourse. While both terms can and are often used interchangeably in common usage, we are trying to analyze RPG elements and distinguishing between the terms may be helpful or even necessary to avoid confusion.

There's a very interesting essay about the subject, in which the author details the meanings and differences of narrative, story, plot and structure. It's very interesting because it can be directly applied to our subject matter, namely that of defining "story elements" a CRPG must or should have. Incidentally, the lack of a proper distinction is part of the confusion we experienced in regard to NPCs and 'pieces of information' and how they relate to story telling.

Ingrid Sundberg said:

[some] artworks are considered narrative because they recall a story through association. Herein lies the truth of narrative, it can be a story but it does not have to be. A narrative is about story, and creates connections to story and storytelling but does not in and of itself have to be a story.
(Source: Terminology and the Difference between Narrative and Story)

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In that sense, our 'information pieces' are simply narrative elements through which little stories are told. Ihaterpg mentioned that he once read a novel without a story. What he read, then, was a narrative without a story (or perhaps it had a story, but no plot?). CRPGs, then, usually have strong narratives — reading about lore, information pieces, seing things that "tell stories", moods, thoughts, world building, … which doesn't necessarily mean that they need to have actual stories. That's what Ihaterpg is trying to convey, I believe.

Wikipedia:Narrative said:

"Narratology" is a term coined by Tzvetan Todorov in 1969, and generally refers to the structuralist analysis of narrative. In this process, the narrative is divided into its constituent parts in order to determine their function(s) and relationships. Here "story" refers to what is narrated (usually a chronological sequence of events) and "plot" refers to the logical and causal structure of a story, explaining why its events occur.
— (Source: wikipedia)

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Anyway, while I would prefer we make the distinction in order to be more accurate in our definitions, I'm fine with using only 'story', as long as it's relatively clear to both us and future users what we mean. Being conscious about the differences can be helpful, however.

There is not one gamer in the whole wide world of gaming who does not know what "Story" means, let us not over-clutter the definition with protracted modernistic and artistic synonyms.

It is assumed and goes without saying (unless it is preferred to mention) that "storyline" is inclusive and conjugative of the core CPRG category "Story"

"Storyline" where pieces of a game story progress to fit together, to integrate and build a direction to aid the gamer to the final outcome, the right path, the solution, the goal.

The definition construction input so far has been commendable.

Wikipedia is wikipedia, BTW. Written by and for geeks who love to invent new ways to apply old words to modern computery things (like video games). Notice how early it appears in the list of examples with paintings at the end? That's a clue right there…

Yes, this definition effort is wonderful so far.

I could include a sub definition of the term Story to avoid unnecessary discussions.
I'm a mathematician - we're doing these kind of things

Definition: Story of a CRPG

The Story of a CRPG is the sum of the following:

• All actions, interactions, conversations and choices of the avatar in his progress through the game
• All reactions, answers, consequences and events the game is providing
• All quests and goals of the game
• All kinds of background information (main plot details, descriptions, lore, history…) that can be found out by the avatar

In short: The connected actions, reactions and events that happen when the avatar is exploring the gameworld supplemented by the background information.

Very nice. I approve!

Up until now, each of the the three core category (MH)'s have stayed individual while also being able to integrate or overlap with the other core categories, this is the clear essense of the definition.

To broaden the definition of the core categories for more clarity is a good thing but there is a danger of cross-category-pollution where a defined element can also be part of another defined element and could result in some confusion.

Example:-

Q: All actions, interactions, conversations and choices of the avatar in his progress through the game?

A: this is also in the descriptor to Exploration.

Even though they may fit, it is better not to use similar definitions per element
We must not spoil the core categories - - still thinking.

@Wulf
The sub-definition: Story of a CRPG should only explain the term Story in our context better. Similar like the sub-definition for the term Information Source.
The (MH) und (SH) in the categories for the CRPG definition stay the same.

***

The category Character Development examines how the avatar (party) can be developed and equipped with items over time.

The category Exploration examines what possibilities (finding items, information sources, locations) the gameworld is holding for the avatar.
Can the avatar interact with the gameworld and can the gameworld affect him ?

The category Story examines what happens when the avatar starts to interact with the objects and information sources he found.

We could rename the three categories into:
Character Development -> Character Development & Equipment
Exploration -> Exploration of the Gameworld
Story -> Story & Interaction