lately been thinking about trpgs, its influence on storytelling in games and fiction, and so on

[highimpactsex]

every time i play a game these days, i've often come to the realization that this smells like a tabletop game. the SaGa games are very obvious, but you'll also see this in titles like Disco Elysium and Citizen Sleeper that use the non-combat trpg systems out there to tell their stories. it gives it a more open-ended feeling for players to express themselves.

so i'm just gonna blog about it because i find it interesting and i like to solidify these thoughts before i post it on my real deal newsletter about player expression. this is just another dreamwidth wordvomit and should be read not as something systematic but as the aphoristic ramblings jotted down in some notebook.

the roleplayer in predefined settings

roleplaying in video games is pretty weird when you think about it. in most jrpgs, you're just following some predefined hero. but it isn't any better in crpgs: you might be creating a character from scratch, but the worldbuilding has already been defined for you.

this is pretty apparent in games like Skyrim: no matter who you roleplay as, you're already the Dragonborn. you're a chosen one, you can't really roleplay as anyone but that. sure, you can shirk off those responsibilities but this roleplaying guideline is hardcoded into the script and game. ignoring the Dragonborn crap doesn't mean you're not the Dragonborn.

you're just acting with some guidelines.

trpgs are unique because you can honestly do whatever. when i did my Pathfinder sessions with some pals, i played as Irene Sachs Kayaking who is some random white girl wanting to eat a bento in japan before she got tensei'd by a truck. the DM has to consider my shenanigans and indeed, the dice rolls that i and my trpg comrades make will influence the story.

this is not possible in a computer game. kawazu isn't in your computer, the game is just following a bunch of predetermined campaigns that you're going through. you can't really influence how the game plays the same way a trpg does.

but the more trpg-influenced roleplaying games like the SaGa games do require some roleplaying. bringing back the Skyrim example, you the Dragonborn can do whatever you wish and the predetermined campaigns respond to your actions.

and i think this plays into a distinctive strength of interactive mediums like video games: they are incomplete without the players' participation. the campaigns, while determined compared to their trpg counterparts, are in reality digital spaces to explore. you are truly roleplaying in these kinds of games, just with less randomness because computers suck at being dms.

computer dms

so okay, is the main difference between video game rpgs and trpgs how deterministic they are? of course not, there's been attempts to emulate dice rolls in video games, especially in the CRPG front.

but playing those games kinda sucks today. i'm thinking of the original Baldur's Gate series especially: you're dealing with a combat system you can't control directly. the game is doing dice rolls for you, so you're seeing the outcomes.

the outcomes of your player not attacking this rat because your dice rolls keep failing lmao.

and what's worse: you could be super unlucky and die. a computer would not give a shit if you're having a bad day like a human dm. it's just gonna follow the rules: time to TKO you and start from scratch.

indeed, RNG doesn't work like the randomness we see in tabletop rpgs. even if games simulate dice rolls, the context of these dice rolls is always strict. a more forgiving human DM can lower a skill check depending on factors like moods, atmosphere, or even to give themselves time to figure a truly unexpected move from the players out. RNG, on the other hand, is just a number and numbers are the law for algorithms. there will be no bending of the laws to allow smaller or bigger numbers through.

we see this in other contexts too: a DM could change the HP of a boss on the fly if they recognize the party's too strong; however, that's already predetermined in video games and you could easily destroy a boss in one hit.

of course, computer games have played with dynamic difficulty like Resident Evil 4 or shmups, but they can only sense the variability in numbers. the SaGa games cannot take into account how the spells and weapon arts you've acquired will impact the game because that would involve human approaches to the games. you can only manually finetune this stuff, which is why in RomaSaga 2 remaster, there's a superboss designed to counter a spell you would often use against the final boss.

such cheese tactics can easily be countered in trpgs because a human dm would know how to navigate that. they could modify the rulebook and insert or delete rules and mechanics for the game. trpgs are a "social game" played by the players and designers.

it's social intercourse, not a video game. unlike a video game where the player "completes" the game, the trpg campaign is created and completed by the participants and designers of each session.

your own personal stories

but obviously, there has been successful attempts in emulating this freeform nature. the likes of SaGa lean into the player "completing" the game more than most titles, but it must also allow leniency and some care.

so you would want to design games with some lenient rulesets and a not-so-punishing DM.

but what's also noteworthy that these games can be "story generator"-adjacent (a pure example would be Dwarf Fortress). an example of such a TRPG-influenced game is Wildermyth where the game gives you campaigns and stuff to tell your own story. the same is said with titles like Skyrim where the choice of undergoing predetermined quests creates your own journey.

everyone more or less has a different "first time" going through these games. it makes every action you take (and don't take) meaningful.

this is the kind of trpg game design i like to see more in video games. linearity is fine for some games, but i would also like to see nonlinearity not as a means for Big Worlds but as a means for player expression. it's not exactly The TRPG Stuff, but it is quite close. and i also think it's the unique thing that distinguishes video games from everything including TRPGs: you are interacting with the setpieces already laid out for you.

it is your choice to understand what that hermeneutic cycle means.

following the rules?

i've also been thinking about, say, that Sekiro meme: "You not only cheated the game but yourself." it's hilarious but also understandable -- we are, in some ways, breaking the fundamentals of the game design. in a (social) trpg context, it'd be akin to telling the DM to fuck off and saying we're playing my game.

and i think the reason it's such a tantalizing meme is because you could be rupturing that hermeneutic cycle. you are making a mockery of the setpieces laid out for you. you should be enjoying it the same way the designers intended it.

but while i understand that, is it entirely possible to play the game the way designers intended it? imagine playing Pokemon Gen 1 without bugs, a task that's almost impossible. to some extent, we're always breaking the game in how we roleplay the same way we might do something contrary to a dm in a trpg.

it's just that computers don't know how to react to our nonsensical moves. for multiplayer games, that can be alleviated with patches and players surveilling each other through social cues. single-player games, not so much. there can be mitigations via intensive QA-ing, but there will always be suboptimal moves. that's why, in video games, there's a more pressing need to have a code of honor: save states are for noobs, using cheat engine is cringe, and so on.

otherwise, player expression might be diminished or worse eliminated. video games would lose their identity. i think that's the core meaning of that Sekiro meme.

the antifragility of player expression

but "unfairness" like that in most single-player games isn't detrimental to player expression. if anything, it should reveal the multiple approaches a player can have. it's just that instead of a dm sensing our terrible days, we put in a cheat code and make our lives easier.

even people playing single-player games have bad days.

it may make enjoyment of a game a bit weaker, but it is still a choice the player can do. the computer is your dm and you're "completing" the game with that computer dm. unless you're playing in some competitive scene, it's you and the code. you should be able to do anything you want to it because it's your game, your story if you will. the developer can't do anything about it -- indeed, NGU Idle pinkypromises the player they can cheat if they wish but just don't upload it to the high scores.

and this is the most extreme end of player expression in these trpg-influenced games: to cheat, to give yourself 99/99 STR, to break the game with unintended mechanics (either through haxx0rz or in-game) etc. it's what makes games really unique because you can't ever have this kind of modification with a book or a movie: you're a passive consumer.

you could make fan edits, but that's just creating derivative content. it's not a direct engagement with the game. the game is the space where you fuck around and see what happens. that is player expression at its fullest in a video game imo: the roleplayer who wants to break the roleplaying system in half.

curated freedoms

in the end, all game designers have a choice: how much freedom should they give to the player to fuck around in their spaces? should they tutorialize and railroad you -- like A Plague's Tale where the game punishes you if you go off-script on a play you don't have access to -- or give you ultimate freedom to fuck around and die? or even allow you to modify the game through toolkits and give yourself "trainers" like in Rimworld?

for the more trpg-influenced games, this question matters the most because it decides how the players can tell their stories. all too often, there are bottlenecks in titles like Citizen Sleeper where you must pass this one quest in order to proceed; it shows how fake the openended-ness is. but if you can make player expression fun, that artificiality might not matter.

i see learning to get good at video games as learning how to express yourself in the language. once you get good in games like X-Com 2, you should be able to "sing" anything through that gameplay. the same can be found in these trpg-influenced games, just more consciously so.

so i welcome more trpg-influenced games and, in general, more games that allow player expression and freedom to do whatever the fuck they want. trpgs are, by nature, social intercourses and they're cool in their own right since you can tell some organic stories. but video games are more like "languages" you learn: here's the predetermined mechanics/grammar, now: express it.

if a video game gets so mechanically deep it becomes wise to call it a language, then it's a fascinating exemplar of the medium in my books. that language can create interesting stories that, while predetermined, remain personal and yet lovingly curated by the devs. it's this balance of the Chaos in TRPGs and the Fixed State of Non-Interactive Media that makes video games so compelling to me. this fluidity is hot stuff, even if it's a paradox at times.

but that's what makes for the good stuff: the player resolving the tensions of contradictions within the text/game can feel some incredible resonance. it's what gives video games their oomphs, in unique ways from a TRPG ever will.

video games are truly curated freedoms that lead to some fascinating moments of expression.