[MUD-Dev] What is an RPG?

[Mike Rozak]

>From Sean Middleditch:

>>> Why not dump the whole level thing altogether? Every character
>>> is equal from the time they start to the time they quit.

>> It isn't really an RPG at this point, is it? Now you've got an
>> First Person Shooter- possibly modifier to third person or to
>> swords/spells isntead of guns.

Here are some random thoughts that look at levelling in a different
light:

  When Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson(sp?) added levels to Chainmail,
  why did they do it? My guess is this: Assume that fighters start
  out at skill level where it's a challenge to kill an orc. Players
  spend several adventuring sessions killing orcs and kobalds, which
  eventually gets boring. They want a change in "scenery". However,
  if their fighters retains the same skill level, the players
  certainly can't attack a dragon, or even a troll.  Therefore,
  Gygax added levelling so that PCs gets stronger over time,
  allowing them to kill stronger and stronger monsters, which
  coincidentally means new content. Players first kill a few hundred
  orcs, get bored of that, graduate to killing a few hundred
  hobgoblins, get bored, graduate to trolls, dragons, etc. Levels
  were set far enough apart so that content (monster types) could be
  re-used, but not so far apart that players would get completely
  sick of the current content (having to kill thousands of orcs).

    => Levelling is a rationalized way of controlling content
    flow. As your character's level increases the content changes.


  However, Gygax could have used other mechanisms, such as every
  hour of play automagically causes a level up, or money causes a
  level up, or levelling is really a matter of how good a weapon you
  have (FPS appraoch). Gygax chose killing monsters (and gold
  acquisition) to affect levelling because it's similar to the real
  world where practice makes perfect.

    => Levelling based on practice-makes-perfect and training
    (gold). It makes intuitive sense, not necessarily game sense.

That's basically why face-to-face RPG has levelling.

In a virtual world, levelling has other implications:

  For one, the level of the character has retention value for the
  player, since the more powerful/rare/effort a PC is, the less
  willing someone is to give it up. (Level doesn't have retention
  value in face-to-face games because if a 10th level PC dies, the
  GM usually replaces it with an equivalent, or slightly lower,
  level PC. However, players still don't like to see their favorite
  characters die.)

    => Retention value for virtual world.

  And some other aspects:

    => Metric of how well the player is doing (gold could do just as
    well)

    => Higher level characters are able to more easily kill/grief
    lower level characters.

    => Levelling as a payment that encourages players to perform
    certain activities - This is used in face-to-face RPG as a
    penality, whereby the PC loses a level if they change alignment.

    => Others? I can't think of any, but I'm sure there are few
    more.

Now that I've listed why levels are useful in a CRPG game, I'll
discuss some points:

  -- "Higher level characters are able to more easily kill/grief
  lower level characters" - This is a problem. It's a very big
  problem for games don't have PC death, since in a death-less world
  the character's level is approximately equal to the amount of time
  the player spends in the game killing things. (Player skill can
  increase the rate of advancement, but level is fundamentally based
  on time-in-game spent killing things.) Hence, any PvP is a
  function of how much time the two combatants have spent playing
  the game. Higher levels (more time in game) beat lower levels
  (less time in game). Player skill is a secondary consideration.

  This system is a geritocracy where the old rule, the young are
  trodden upon ,and the skilled are ignored. A meritocracy would be
  more fair and probably produce a better game; it certainly
  produces better governments.

  A meritocracy can be created if PC death is added, since all PCs
  will eventually die and force the player to restart. The more
  skilled players will manage to get higher level characters
  (somewhat) quicker, and keep them alive longer than the less
  skilled players. However, PC death has other well-known negative
  ramifications. (I'm not necessarily an advocate of PC death, just
  pointing out a problem that occurs with not having it.)

  A merticracy might be created without resorting PC death, but I
  can't think of a way (at the moment).

  -- "Retention value for virtual world" - This makes sense for
  business reasons, but it's a poor solution. A virtual world should
  be fun to be in for its own sake, and shouldn't try to trap
  players into staying. But then again, world peace would be a nice
  thing, but it ain't gonna happen.

  -- "Metric" and "Payment to encourage players" - These can be
  achieved through other means than just levels. Money works very
  well, so does property, social status, etc.

  The two remaining reasons for levelling are "levelling as a way to
  control content flow" and "practice-makes-perfect theory"...

  -- "Practice makes perfect" - The obvious alternatives to
  practice-makes-perfect are "pay for advancement", or "advance by
  finding better weapons/armor". These encourage twinking though,
  and twinking usually isn't good for gameplay reasons.
  Alternatively, PCs could level based on the player's time in the
  game, but then people would log on for 24/7 and do nothing.

  Another solution is for PCs to level based on content
  milestones... once the PC gets to the end of dungeon #1 he
  advances to level 2. To get to level 3 the PC must get all the way
  through dungeon #2, etc. This might make more gameplay sense,
  since it ensures that PCs entering dungeon #2 has gone through
  dungeon #1 and are skilled enough to get through. It may not make
  much intuitive sense. It also removes any choice the player has
  about which content to enjoy.

  Are there others? Maybe. I can't think of any at the moment.
  Practice-makes-perfect seems to be the best solution.

  -- "Levelling as a way to control content flow" - This ensures
  that users consume content in a measured amount, rather than
  gulping it all down at once. If content can be consumed too
  quickly, players will do so, and they'll "finish" the game feeling
  unfilfilled. If it takes too long to progress through the content,
  players will complain about "the levelling treadmill" and get
  frustrated.

  There are other ways to control the rate of content usage besides
  levelling:

    - TV manages content usage by putting out an hourly episode
    every week.  Games could restrict players to a few hours of
    content a week, the rest is limited to chatting.

    - A corallary to a weekly episode is to take real-time to
    accomplish some tasks. IE: Travel between dungeon #1 and dungeon
    #2 takes 24 hours of real time, so the player might as well log
    out. All CRPGs use a minor form of this because it takes real
    time (approx 30 sec.) to heal up after a battle.

    - Puzzles - as in adventure games. But, many people (especially
    those wanting to get a higher level so they can kill/grief other
    players) will cheat and use walkthroughs

    - Others? I can't think of any at the moment, but they must
    exist.

  (Note: If levelling is used as a way to control content flow then
  PC death is a bad idea because when a PC dies, the player will
  have to re-experience the same content over again. This is
  boring. One solution is that on PC death, either drop the current
  character down a few levels, or if a new character is begun, it
  advances quickly (2x as fast?) until it reaches the player's old
  character level.)

What does all this mean? I haven't revealed any new solutions to
levelling, but hopefully my digression will encourage people to
think what role levelling has in gameplay, and why it's there in the
first place.

Mike Rozak
http://www.mxac.com.au
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