Realism in RPGs

It has potential but I think the main problem is that in a table top game you can engage in a fair bit of abstraction so that just the important elements and the basic threat are in play. Unless you come up with a novel design, though, the same mechanics will be like RP'ing with a lawyer as your GM. Every little fiddly detail has the threat of becoming an issue, and unless you present set piece situations which deal with only one axis of survival at a time (like your room example) you can never be sure that all the elements won't gang up on the player at once. You could stumble from the locked chamber, for example, only to die of thirst or bleed out from a wound seconds later. Or they could happen all at once in a perfect storm.

Another difficult thing to capture would be the whole internal psychology of survival that grants different individuals different levels of resiliency. One person may last for days longer with no food or water than another (and is it 'realistic' to know exactly what that threshold is)? The motivation can also change depending on circumstances-- maybe you can crawl with your guts hanging out if your family's life depended on it, or if you were a hardened veteran. Or maybe (as is likely in real life) you're paralyzed and just mess yourself.

If you make a game that has strong survival elements along with combat I think you're okay if you bill it as such. Much of the anger at this game design element's inclusion I believe comes from the fact that its inclusion tramples all over the hero myth-- people sign on to play Sir Lancelot and end up getting killed because they needed a restroom break. In traditional myth that's not heroic. If you can sidestep that audience, I think it's fine.

Yes, I think many of them are needed to make a good RPG. The only RPG on PC I liked so far is Baldurs Gate (all versions). And it had these:
Sleep
Weather
Item breakage
Permanent Death
Encumbrance
Natural Healing and injury
Corpses

Personally I often had problems with these types of realism, but this may be because of your mentioned "bad implementation".

Just to take water/food as an example. Usually it was just an annoying part of "work" and nothing that made the rp-world or the game any better.

The only exception from this was the game "Burntime" (old dos game). Drinking/eating was a very important part here, but in this game it was all about surviving in a desert world. It was more a survivalgame and food/water fit into this game.

To sum it up, in my opinion you should think about how it fits into the special game. You should always try to avoid annoying the player and if a feature like "eat or die" means that the player just has to look for the food merchant in every town to fill up his backpack with [BREAD] and afterwards continues to "play" - Then this looks like an annoying attempt to stamp some realism into the world.

In most cases you can use a middle course, to stay with the example of food/water. Add food to your world to enrich the world and make it feel more "complete", but dont let the hero starve to death one room next to the evil dragon because our hero forgot to buy enough food.


best regards,

The only RPGs that have managed to hold my interest for a time have been roguelikes, exactly because of these kinds of elements. Doing everything - including nothing - has a price, and that's how it should be.

Other ways of making things interesting besides "survival simulation" would be genuinely deep tactical combat, action, puzzles, or mysteries (do games have them these days?).
Or (I know, it's crazy to even ask) it would be nice to have choices that fundamentally alter the world, the story and/or your place in it, turning the game into a role playing game instead of another kind of game disguised as such.

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Original post by Haladria Yes, I think many of them are needed to make a good RPG. The only RPG on PC I liked so far is Baldurs Gate (all versions). And it had these: Sleep Weather Item breakage Permanent Death Encumbrance Natural Healing and injury Corpses

Yes, BG had some of those elements, but that game is an exception to the rule. It has become the axiom by which all other rpg games are measured. I know that many of the NWN modules out there implemented those features, but lately I haven't played anything that even comes close.

Another old school game that comes to mind is Ultima Underworld (1 and 2). While my character was exploring the Stygian Abyss he had to eat and sleep. I can still recall catching my first fish with my new fishing rod. Some crtics of the game didn't like that but I found it helped contribute to the games 'immersiveness'.

Take for example, the game dragon age. I really like the graphics and all the unique character interactions, but game still doesn't have the appeal that older games had. n dragon age, the only thing you can do is complete quests and there isn't any need to spend time doing anything else. It is just a fancy chose your own adventure story with combat elements.

The way Ultima Underworld did it was good in several other reasons as well.

I believe that hunger (or over eating) slightly effected the rate you regain vitality when you sleep. It wasn't until you were famished or starving that you actually lost vitality when you slept.

Food was more of a balance against abusing sleep for healing than anything. It was also very gradual, you knew how hungry you were, and unless you were really taking your time, wouldn't actually kill you.

There was also drink in the game, but I haven't figured out exactly what it does. Sometimes you would recover a little vitality.

A good example for an RPG that has all of those 'realistic' elements would be the old Alternate Reality series, the City and Dungeon. The series was trying to make a world as 'real' as possible. In some ways this contributed to fun, other times not so much. It was as much a survival simulation as an RPG.

Sleep:
Without sleep you would eventually become weary or fatigued. Your strength and stamina would slowly drain away until you found a place to sleep. Sleep was also used for regaining drained stats, recovering hit points, getting over being tipsy or drunk, and recovering from diseases.

Temperature / Weather:
The game kept track of how warm or cold you were. If you were too hot you would get thirsty faster, if you were too cold your skills and speed wheren't so good. Not too mention that prolonged exposure to extreme temperature dealed damage to hp, drained stats, and made you more susceptible to disease.

In the city there was time of day as well as weather. This had a large effect on the temperature. Your location also had effect, the wind would blow down certain locations and could make you colder.

The dungeon was actually simpler in this aspect, ambient temperature was all about location. You had other things to worry about though, such as having a source of light, and not getting lost.

The clothing you wore could protect or exasperate your temperature. (Clothing was also a sign of status, contributed to your 'noticeability' and were a way to feed your vanity)

Food / Water:
Your character could get hungry or thirsty. If not addressed your stats would start draining. There were other downsides as well.

Rotting Food:
Most definitely. Food packets could go bad in multiple ways. It could just go bad at random times, go bad for having for too long, or if attacked by giant molds.

Item breakage:
Items, particularly weapons, would get worn down with use and unless repaired would break. Some of my favorite items were the Sword of the Adept, which never got damaged, and a magical whetstone that would fully repair any weapon.

There was also a monster called the devourer that would show up when your inventory items where taking up too much memory, and would eat and destroy permanently stuff that you were carrying. It was also a pain staying alive fighting it.

Permanent Death:
The city had permadeath, the dungeon was a bit more merciful. If you died you lost some stats permanently, and then were rejoined.

Encumbrance:
This was only in the dungeon and it was possibly the nastiest system in a game I've encountered. The amount of weight you carry effects your speed, stealth, and how fast you become weary or fatigued. At high enough encumerance you also started dropping random stuff out of your inventory as it was hard to keep hold of it all. Enough weight and you were immobilized, and the only thing you could do was drop things.

What made this worse, is that things that you dropped on the ground might get picked up by some other creature.

There was a trap that dropped a cursed lodestone into your inventory that you couldn't drop. There were a few ways to get rid of it.

Natural Healing and injury:
The game had a basic hit point system, if dropped to 0 you died, but it was effected by your strength and stamina stats, which could be damaged by all sorts of things. The rate that you regain hp when sleeping depends on how well you slept, each hour of sleep it does a check based on how tired you are, how comfortable you are (How much money you pay the inn or retreat), if you had nightmares or not (If your evil you get plenty of these).

There were dozens of diseases, several types of poison (seperated into blood based and nerve based), intoxication, and some curses that you recovered from naturally. The diseases each had different ways of contracting it, incubation times, symptoms and effects (Including delusion, where the stats displayed on the screen are inaccurate, you may think you are still strong, but you really aren't). Some diseases like rabies, scurvy, and plague were particularly nasty, as they only got worse over time, and permanently damaged your stats until you found a healer. Many times you didn't even know you had a disease until you get diagnosed by a healer, or if the symptoms are far enough along, that your character would diagnose themselves.

Corpses:
Most creatures leave corpses when they die. You can pick them up a carry them around with you. Corpses tend to be heavy, and disease laden, but you could bribe a ghoul to leave you alone with them. They wouldn't let you into the retreat if you had any on you though, "Thou art welcome, but thy friend is not." LOL.

The game also had a bunch of hidden stats, that you could only make good guesses about. This included your alignment (good to evil), how much of a jerk and cheapskate you were (yes it's separate), how stealthy you are, how noticeable you are, how good you are at finding hidden treasure. Exactly how tired, hungry, thirst, or drunk you are. Also every stat had an actual value which may be different than the displayed value. Each location also kept track of your reputation at that establishment, and how often you visit. I think there were a few others as well.

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Original post by 00Kevin How many people here would really like to see an RPG game that includes a fair amount of realism? I know many people will suggest that adding these elements would simply not create a fun game, but I would have to disagree. I think the main problem with games that have added these elements is that they have failed to create any reason for them. They haven't incorporated them into the overall strategy of the game. In some case they have just done a very poor job of implementing them.

I can only speak for myself because obviously every player has different preferences and features that they love or hate. I think that people in general over-generalize way too often (e.g., I really love X, therefore everyone must love X). I would like to hit on a number of points that you addressed.


(1): Realism in games

I play games because they are fun not because they are realistic. If one begins a project to make a game with the primary goal that it is "realistic", your application starts to become more of a simulator than a game. My golden rule to game design is the following.

"Anything, and I mean anything that gets added into a game's design should make the game more fun either directly or indirectly".

Adding realism-like elements to your game is fine so long as they are fun. Our current reality (the "ultimate realism" if you will) is not fun a lot of the time. Too much grinding at the gym to improve strength stats, studying to improve intelligence stats, etc. [lol]


(2): Strategy

I strongly support your proposal to insert realism elements into a game for the purpose of making the game more strategic. With one important exception. If the new "strategy" involves tedious/repetitive actions or requires a lot of micromanagement, you've just decreased the amount of fun in the game. There's an important balance here. I know because I've been thinking about it a lot while working on my own game the last several years.


(3): Sleep

Sorry, maybe I'm not being imaginative enough but I can find no way to make sleep "fun". What do you do? Sit there and watch your character sleep? RPGs have "sleep" in the sense that you go to an inn, pay money, and a few seconds later your party is fully refreshed. If you are proposing something different than that (I assume you are since that form of sleep isn't "realistic"), then I'm curious what it is. Maybe you could play a mini-game in your character's dream while you wait for them to wake up? [grin]


(4): Realism example

I remember watching my brother play a Diablo-style RPG once (Baulder's Gate II I think?). I was watching him repeatedly hit a rock with a pick axe. I asked him what he was doing and he said "mining for ore". Wow. I never knew hitting a virtual rock was so much fun. *barf*




Anyway, the main argument I wanted to get across here was that you shouldn't just put realism elements into a game just for the sake of making the game more realistic. If it doesn't make the game more fun, leave it out. And be wary of combining too many elements that seem like they would be "fun" on their own, but when all put together in a single game create a frustrating and tiresome experience.

^He might've been playing Ultima Online, and playing a Miner was pretty fun. Though you shouldn't limit yourself to just a miner. It's an economy thing, being a tailor, blacksmith, miner, it can be fun. Its one reason why I hate majority of MMOs right now, UO ruined MMOs for me.

Personally I enjoy simulation games. I would love to see a gritty, dirty, survival driven RPG, where I can screw up and do some idiot move that costs me the game. (Such as forgetting to bring a jacket when I go out into the winter night,...)


Things like your character having to eat and rest don't have to be 'boring' elements. What do you eat? Do I want that better meal and extra rations, or do I want to get another quiver of arrows to take with me and I'll find food later? Do I keep going while tried and hope to make it to the inn? Or do I camp out here in the forest, and (after a few seconds of a black screen while the game updates) risk finding a friendly little wolf chewing on my boot when I wake up? Or worse?

For single player especially, if a task is long, slow, and very dull, I shouldn't have to WAIT for it to be done, but it doesn't mean I can't do it. Simple story teller mechanics: I want to do this, this and this: I 'did' this, this and this, and got these items for it and it took me X long to do, and Y happened to the world in that time, but I only sat there for 5 seconds while the game updated.

Personally, I can't stand contrived or realism-for-realism's-sake "gameplay".

I once had worked near a person who was convinced that his ultimate-realism MMORPG, in which suiting up in your armor for battle would require 5+ meat-space minutes and one or two in-game, non-NPC, assistants, was the greatest idea ever. Pretty much whenever someone starts waxing poetic about how events in-game have a realistic real-world timescale, or lamenting that swords never have to be brought in to the smithy for sharpening, my eyes glaze over and they become somehow less of a person to me [grin]

There's a reason people warn you that it has to be fun: If its not fun, it shouldn't be in your game. Therefore, if you can't make it fun, you shouldn't put it in your game. Period.

Its a hard thing to quantify though, this "fun", because its different to everyone. Trying to be all-things to all-people usually leaves you standing as nothing to no one.

Take encomberance for example. Encomberance on its own cannot possibly be fun -- what makes it *potentially* fun, is the fact that you can't charge into battle stocked like a small outdoor supplies store, with no chance of running out of anything. The fun in encomberance comes from making the challenges you will face rely on more than an unlimited stock of health potions -- to what percentages skill vs item selection should play in overcoming said challeng is debatable, but certainly overcoming a challenge is more, er, challenging when the game doesn't simply allow you to throw cash and loot at the problem. Notice, though, that this has nothing at all to do with the "real world" limitations a character might face in meat-space, even though that may be the apparent justification. If you ever find yourself thinking along the line of "Well, the average Anglo-Saxon male can carry N kilograms, so in my game..." you're probably on the wrong track, IMHO.

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Original post by Roots (1): Realism in games I play games because they are fun not because they are realistic. If one begins a project to make a game with the primary goal that it is "realistic", your application starts to become more of a simulator than a game. My golden rule to game design is the following. "Anything, and I mean anything that gets added into a game's design should make the game more fun either directly or indirectly". Adding realism-like elements to your game is fine so long as they are fun. Our current reality (the "ultimate realism" if you will) is not fun a lot of the time. Too much grinding at the gym to improve strength stats, studying to improve intelligence stats, etc. [lol]

Well fun is not the only reason people play games. Many people like to experience a mental challenge and come out with a sense of accomplishment. Take a look at the game Chess. Do you have any idea how much work it is to become good chess player. Playing chess is not really all that fun when you consider how much the brain has to work. There really isn't any pleasure derived from the experience. It is in fact the challenge that people enjoy

With that said, elements of realism can contribute to the challenge of the game and they don't have to be fun at all.

As for grinding, how realistic is it to walk into the dungeon of death and kill re-spawning monsters all day? There may be a fair number of games out there that promote such activity, but they don't do it for a sense of realism. The do it to maintain balance between player characters.

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Original post by Roots (2): Strategy I strongly support your proposal to insert realism elements into a game for the purpose of making the game more strategic. With one important exception. If the new "strategy" involves tedious/repetitive actions or requires a lot of micromanagement, you've just decreased the amount of fun in the game. There's an important balance here. I know because I've been thinking about it a lot while working on my own game the last several years.

If you are referring to micromanaging the character inventory then that is more a problem with the interface then it is with the fact that inventory might have realistic encumbrance. The way I see it, the interface can manage these problems for you and still maintain a sense of realism. On a side note, I used to maintain the exact weight and location of all my items when I played Pen & paper role playing games. It wasn't so bad with pen and paper and it shouldn't be a problem in a video game. Furthermore, a good and realistic rpg should allow you to use a pack mule, hire an npc, or find a room to store your gear. With that said, micromanagement is more of a problem with the design of the interface then it is a product of adding too much realism.

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Original post by Roots (3): Sleep Sorry, maybe I'm not being imaginative enough but I can find no way to make sleep "fun". What do you do? Sit there and watch your character sleep? RPGs have "sleep" in the sense that you go to an inn, pay money, and a few seconds later your party is fully refreshed. If you are proposing something different than that (I assume you are since that form of sleep isn't "realistic"), then I'm curious what it is. Maybe you could play a mini-game in your character's dream while you wait for them to wake up? [grin]

When sleep is implemented in a game you don't need to sit around and wait 8 hours for your character to wake up. Most games that include sleep usually blank the screen out and advance the time of day. For me that is good enough and provided there are consequences for not sleeping then I'm happy with the level of realism. I wouldn't refresh the character's health at all when they sleep. They can have the option of resting for several days and heal naturally or they can use magic to heal. In the old games if you rested until fully healed you would see the days (in game time) pass on by.

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Original post by Roots (4): Realism example I remember watching my brother play a Diablo-style RPG once (Baulder's Gate II I think?). I was watching him repeatedly hit a rock with a pick axe. I asked him what he was doing and he said "mining for ore". Wow. I never knew hitting a virtual rock was so much fun. *barf*

Actually, there are many people who enjoy just that. Regardless, the fun your brother is having is more related to the day when he will be able to craft that Vorpal sword of bunny slaying. Now, I don't think the game should be forcing the player to perform actions in that manner. Perhaps the game could simply advance the time of day or allow players to select an action for their character to perform when their not online.

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Original post by Roots Anyway, the main argument I wanted to get across here was that you shouldn't just put realism elements into a game just for the sake of making the game more realistic. If it doesn't make the game more fun, leave it out. And be wary of combining too many elements that seem like they would be "fun" on their own, but when all put together in a single game create a frustrating and tiresome experience.

Personally, I have a real problem immersing myself in a game that has removed many of the realistic elements that at one time were common place. Sadly, there is a very disturbing trend now to over simplify rpg games to the point that they have become a choose your own story game. Everything is just a click fest through story options and there isn't much more then that. There is no risk and no challenge. When characters die they automatically resurrect themselves. That might be fun, but it is really stupid. You usually can't start a fight with anyone other than the monsters. In some games you can't even jump in the 3D environment (very sad in this day and age ). All the story options lead to the same road. And the list goes on.

RPG games today really don't contain many of the elements that made the classic RPG games great. Today game designers are far too concerned with how fun a game is and as a result the games they create lack substance. All of this, really makes me wonder if game developers are catering to gamers who have serious ADD problems.

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Original post by 00Kevin Now in some of the Pen and paper games that I've played the repercussion of these events are very real. I can recall having characters that lost many items after being hit with a fireball, been frozen to death, or just couldn't carry all the dragons treasure horde away. I remember one adventure where the party became trapped inside a room and only had a few hours left before they suffocated. Isn't that what a good adventure is all about? Isn't survival in a hostile environment a good challenge?

Dragon's treasure hoard? Realistic? Real time traffic, 9-5 jobs and pointy hair bosses, that's realism.

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Original post by 00Kevin Well fun is not the only reason people play games. Many people like to experience a mental challenge and come out with a sense of accomplishment. Take a look at the game Chess. Do you have any idea how much work it is to become good chess player. Playing chess is not really all that fun when you consider how much the brain has to work. There really isn't any pleasure derived from the experience. It is in fact the challenge that people enjoy With that said, elements of realism can contribute to the challenge of the game and they don't have to be fun at all. As for grinding, how realistic is it to walk into the dungeon of death and kill re-spawning monsters all day? There may be a fair number of games out there that promote such activity, but they don't do it for a sense of realism. The do it to maintain balance between player characters.

Imho, fun is the main reason for games. Good designed mental challenges and well balanced sense of accomplishement are fun!

People spend a ridiculus amount of time on things like chess, card flourishes, martial arts, music because they are real, and the hard training/practice will set them apart from others who could not endure the hardship. And they are very very "fun" after you mastered them because of it.

But in a game I would never do that. You mean i have to pay for something and suffer so i could have a mental challenge from something not real? You could not possibly be serious. It is worse than working for nothing, technically i guess it is worse than slavery :)

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Original post by 00Kevin Today game designers are far too concerned with how fun a game is and as a result the games they create lack substance. All of this, really makes me wonder if game developers are catering to gamers who have serious ADD problems.

I wish the only problem all games have is "too fun".

I think game could never be more realistic than real life. And if realism is so important, why would anybody want to play game. The real life experience is just so much more rewarding.

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Original post by sitwind But in a game I would never do that. You mean i have to pay for something and suffer so i could have a mental challenge from something not real? You could not possibly be serious. It is worse than working for nothing, technically i guess it is worse than slavery :)

well millions of people are doing it now when they play Wow. Most of the time players are just grinding their life away. Is it really fun? I think not.

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Original post by sitwind I think game could never be more realistic than real life. And if realism is so important, why would anybody want to play game. The real life experience is just so much more rewarding.

In the real world you can't murder all the townsfolk and become known as 'The Butcher'. And for those how like to play good characters you can't become a hero by slaying the evil wizard.

All I'm saying is that there are some realistic elements that hard core rpg players want to see in games.

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Original post by 00Kevin well millions of people are doing it now when they play Wow. Most of the time players are just grinding their life away. Is it really fun? I think not.

Actually WoW is an excellent game. The pvp is really fun, quality sophisticated gameplay and getting end of the line gear only requires doing a half hour dungeon a day and an hour long raid a week for some months, and those are pretty fun and varied as well.

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Original post by sitwind People spend a ridiculus amount of time on things like chess, card flourishes, martial arts, music because they are real, and the hard training/practice will set them apart from others who could not endure the hardship. And they are very very "fun" after you mastered them because of it.

Chess? Chess is 'real'? More real than a computer game? Chess is more artificial and abstracted than a solid simulation. Its rules are completely arbitrary and fictitious. And yet it is more 'real' than something that is a direct simulation of the real world?

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Original post by 00Kevin In the real world you can't murder all the townsfolk and become known as 'The Butcher'. And for those how like to play good characters you can't become a hero by slaying the evil wizard. All I'm saying is that there are some realistic elements that hard core rpg players want to see in games.

Hi, 00Kevin,

Theoretically, anyone has a fair chance to become a hero or at least special if he/she is willing to work alot and put up with tons of suffering.

e.g. say someone practice alot to become a magician and starts to entertain and amaze people after one year. The astonishment he sees on their faces will be beyond any reward he could have from any game. but it requires alot lot of effort and he might fail or quit.

So I think basically people play game to have a near 100% sure reward with minimum effort. There are some psychology factors, like too little effort make it less satisfying, but basically a lot less effort than real world.

I agree with you that some times people demand some feature which should be "realistic". But that is not to be confused with the goal which is often to make the game more fun.

And Sociology tells us that the group with the loudest voice is not neccessarily the largest group, often quite the opposite. They are, well, just loud.

And besides that, a realistic feature which at the same time is fun is a more challenging task.

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Original post by sitwindPeople spend a ridiculus[sic] amount of time on things like chess, card flourishes, martial arts, music because they are real, and the hard training/practice will set them apart from others who could not endure the hardship. And they are very very "fun" after you mastered them because of it. But in a game I would never do that. You mean i have to pay for something and suffer so i could have a mental challenge from something not real? You could not possibly be serious. It is worse than working for nothing, technically i guess it is worse than slavery :)

You really don't know what you are talking about do you?

Many people spend time on those activities because they enjoy them, not because they want some sort of status. That is the reason people also play games on consoles and computers.

On top of that you evidently don't know about Starcraft playing Koreans or how much time American kids sink into perfecting raid runs in WoW. They do those things for status, either in the game world or among their co-competing peers.