Archived from groups: rec.games.computer.ultima.series (
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Quoth Spalls Hurgenson <yoinks@ebalu.com>:
[]
> >I've also heard it suggested that Deus Ex is an RPG, but that, for my
> >money, isn't so. It's a FPS with RPG overtones, certainly, but the
> >emphasis is squarely on the combat rather than character interaction
> >and development.
>
> Unlike, say, Baldur's Gate or, for that matter, Ultima 5? Almost all
> CRPGs put the emphasis squarely on combat. It is usually the primary
> method of skill advancement (e.g., gaining XP) and the usual method of
> resolving conflicts.
I see what you're saying, and you're right, they do -- but the best
ones are about more than battles.
Of course there's going to be some overlap; adventure games, especially
the Quest for Glory series, had a strong CRPG element -- in fact, QfG
was more an RPG than most top-down/isometric games described as such.
Conversely, I still don't consider games like Diablo and Nox to be
CRPGs, because not only the emphasis, but the raison d'etre of the
game, is fighting everything in your path.
This just demonstrates there isn't a single definition we can point to
and say, "This is what makes a CRPG." But I can still have opinions on
the matter, and the limits I put on what makes one are fairly tight.
> The primary difference in Deus Ex (and similar
> "action-RPG") is that they rely, at least in part, on the PLAYER'S
> skill to determine the outcome of the combat (or or any other actions
> the player character might take, such as lockpicking or sneaking)
> rather than relying solely on stats and numbers.
>
> Arguably, this is truer to the "ideal" of a role-playing game, where
> the player gets to take the role of some other person without all the
> (or less) abstraction forced upon him by traditional role-playing
> systems.
I've never subscribed to the idea that every game is an RPG because
you're always playing the role of someone else. I don't see myself as
Max Payne or Lara Croft -- I merely direct their actions. When I play
proper RPGs, I /am/ my character (though he -- or she -- isn't always
me, of course). That was one of Ultima's great strengths: it made such
a view possible.
But in Deus Ex, I'm not JC Denton. I can change his appearance a bit,
but the fact remains he's a character in the story, not /my/ character.
> It changes the game from "I click on my "hide in shadows"
> skill button; it rolls a 90% , yay, I'm invisible" to "I move my
> on-screen avatar so he ducks from the shadow in the corner of the
> room, runs crouched along the wall and rolls under the desk; yay, I
> got past unseen."
As a veteran tabletop roleplayer, I think the abstraction of reality is
part of what the genre is about, unless one actually /is/ playing
oneself as a character. It's therefore required to some extent in
CRPGs, too.
In addition, CRPGs should offer a proper gameworld with locations the
player can revisit unless there's a good plot reason not to, and have
their eye on a higher goal that beating stuff up. Deus Ex offers the
latter in spades -- one of the reasons it's perhaps my very favourite
game -- but doesn't quite manage the former, alas.
YMMV, obviously.
--
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