"Why I Hate Fantasy RPGs"

[Diamond]

Article at RPGVault.

 

During my recent intense bout of this market research (heh!), I finally came to terms with the fact that, after 23 years of playing them, I hate fantasy RPGs. I hate them, and I hate myself for making them.

 

I will now describe the two worst things about these games. It will be a two-part column, since that is the only way that the space will be big enough to contain my hate.

 

The first horrible thing. Fantasy role-playing games are unique among computer games in one thing: they are fundamentally about starting out weak and learning to be strong. And that learning process generally involves a lot of tedium.

 

Consider other sorts of games. In Doom or Quake, you start out weak. How do you get strong? You pick up a big gun, and suddenly, you're hardcore. Sure. In Madden, you start out a good football team, and you play some football for an hour, and then you get on with your life. When you play Tetris, you don't have to rotate the L-shaped pieces for three hours before you're good enough to handle the straight ones.

 

But the fundamental, unifying quality of pretty much all fantasy RPGs is that you start out as a puny loser, barely able to flush a toilet with both hands, and then you train and practice and work until you are a certifiable badass. And how does the game simulate this learning process? By reaching out and grabbing a gigantic, triple helping of your time.

 

In a shooter, you start out as a hero, and you do hero things, so you can have a shooter that lasts 10 hours. In a fantasy RPG, you also have to spend all the time learning to be a hero. An RPG that lasted 10 hours wouldn't make sense.

 

I just played Final Fantasy XII, for the PlayStation 2 - an entirely worthy role-playing game. And, by turning the combat speed to maximum and skipping all optional quests, I managed to win it in only 47 hours. There was one quest in it that finally broke my spirit.

 

You have to find this secret door into this castle. Fair enough. And you find out how from this guy in the sewers who sounds like Apu from the Simpsons, but a grumpy old man.

 

He knows how to open the hidden door into the castle. But does he give you a key? Or just, Heaven forbid, open it for you? No. He says, "To get into the castle, you must first get a darkened sunstone. Then you need to fill it with sun energy. By wandering the lands to the south, and searching for the four shadestones. Then you fill the crystal with sun energy. Then you..."

 

SHUT UP! I don't want to spend hours wandering and killing wolves and for the shadestones, whatever those are, to open a door. It doesn't make any sense! Just open the door for me, you creepy old Apu-sounding FREAK!

 

Finding the shadestones and charging the sunstone took 90 minutes. I could have watched a good movie in that time. It was a completely nonsensical activity, but I fully understand the point of it. It was to get me to spend time wandering around and killing the same wolf 500 times so I could get experience and get stronger.

 

In any other sort of game, I could start out playing someone competent and immediately do stuff. In role-playing games, I have to prove that I deserve to be competent by enduring tedium. Then it lets me do the heroic stuff. And multiplayer games are like that times 10. Anyone who ever spent an hour in World of Warcraft killing 50 goblin chiropractors to collect 10 chiropractor shins knows what I am talking about.

 

And the games I write are no better. They do exactly the same thing. Sure, it might be cool to make a game where your character starts out a level 50 badass and then just trashes bozos. But it just wouldn't sell as well. The addictive, statistic-increasing, time-eating quality isn't the problem with these games. It's the point.

 

I'm tired of starting a new game and being a loser. I'm tired of running the same errands to prove myself. The next time I enter my fantasy world, I want it to not assume that I'm a jackass.

 

So now, thinking about playing an RPG just makes me tired. I may play one again someday. All I need is a huge surplus of time oppressing me that I need to kill with extreme prejudice. And, until that happens, unless a game can be finished in under 10 to 12 hours, I'm not interested.

 

 

I know that the fellow is just sick of playing RPGs and most people will say that he misses the entire point of playing RPGs and point out that he mixes MMORPGs with sacred Fallout, but he makes some good points which my experience confirms. With non-RPG games you can play casually, an hour or two, and carry on with your life. RPGs usually require you to invest massive amounts of free time in contiguous chunk in order to enjoy the game.

Edited February 16, 2007 by Diamond

[Tale]

Action games are also pretty tedious if you just sit down for 10 minutes. You shoot imps in a hallway... and then what? Nothing, unless you play a bit further to the reward at the end of the level. Action games aren't a lick of a bit different from RPGs in that regard. Nor are they any different for people sending you off to do other things before they open doors. Often you have to go find some obscure key that's all the way on the other side of the base just to open a storage closet.

 

Of course, the inspiration for his post is FF XII. Myself, 5 out of 8 owners of the game on a private forum I regular, and at least one other person on this forum have all either taken extended (indefinitely) breaks from the game or just stopped playing it altogether out of absolute boredom. So, it's not exactly an ideal representative.

Edited February 16, 2007 by Tale

[Morgoth]

That's why I love Monolith so much when it comes to Action/FPS games. No orcs, elves, klingons and other teddy bear stuff. Just cool and extraordinary characters like Ghosts, rapists, murderes, huge japanese war mechs, heavy-armored psychotic genetically altered super-soldiers, or just a good ol' fashioned french mime driving on a kids bycicle.

[Morgoth]

Sorry double post.

Edited February 16, 2007 by Morgoth

[Walsingham]

Er.... *boggled* I too have wondered why on Earth I'm spending so much time echieving levels in something that has no point to it. This is why in general I play for storyline and characters. And why I haven't bothered finishing Oblivion, even though I paid forty quid for it. If there's one thing more frustrating than slaving for hours so I can be a badass, it's slaving for hours and NOT being a badass.

[LadyCrimson]

He knows how to open the hidden door into the castle. But does he give you a key? Or just, Heaven forbid, open it for you? ...

 

Finding the shadestones and charging the sunstone took 90 minutes. I could have watched a good movie in that time. It was a completely nonsensical activity, but I fully understand the point of it. It was to get me to spend time wandering around and killing the same wolf 500 times so I could get experience and get stronger.

It's a decent point - but the key to any fantasy medium, be it game, movie, or novel etc. is that the nonsensical gives us an illusion that makes us look beyond the fact that it isn't reality. I think he's just trying to rationalize why he doesn't like to play RPG's anymore. It's a little unsettling to like something for so long and then suddenly not, sometimes - we look for reasons.

 

One can see the silliness of something and still be entertained. Done well, it doesn't neccesarily equal boredom. Done badly...well, that's why the Bargain Bin gets full and why I hope there won't ever be another Lucas SW film.

[Atreides]

Seems related to hardcore players saying games ain't long enough nowadays.

[Llyranor]

This is really why the whole 'lol NWN2 is 20 hrs only sniff sniff sob sob' was all BS to begin with. Finishing NWN2, it could have benefited from being half as long.

[Dark_Raven]

Seems related to hardcore players saying games ain't long enough nowadays.

They aren't. A lot of games are made for short attention span players.

[Girias_Solo]

They aren't. A lot of games are made for short attention span players.

 

Hear hear!

[Slowtrain]

I like developing my player characters?

[Diamond]

Seems related to hardcore players saying games ain't long enough nowadays.

They aren't. A lot of games are made for short attention span players.

...or for those who have less and less time to play games?

[Lyric Suite]

I know that the fellow is just sick of playing RPGs and most people will say that he misses the entire point of playing RPGs and point out that he mixes MMORPGs with sacred Fallout, but he makes some good points which my experience confirms. With non-RPG games you can play casually, an hour or two, and carry on with your life. RPGs usually require you to invest massive amounts of free time in contiguous chunk in order to enjoy the game.

 

Casual gamers already have an ample of non-RPGs games to choose from. What are the more 'serious' gamers going to do when every single genre is tailored to suit the needs of people with short attention span and who for the most part would rather do something different with their time (which begs the question, why bother playing video games in the first place)?

 

I also fail to see how 'fantasy' RPGs have anything to do with this rant.

[Lyric Suite]

Seems related to hardcore players saying games ain't long enough nowadays.

They aren't. A lot of games are made for short attention span players.

...or for those who have less and less time to play games?

 

Any particular reason why the industry should bend backward for those people? If you don't have time to play game, don't play games. Who gives a ****? Besides, what's the rush in finishing a game? What difference does it make if it takes you three weeks or three months?

[Slowtrain]

I personally would love to see a return to longer games that you really get to sink your teeth into.

 

this idea that shorter games are better than longer games because they are essentially the distilled and refined essence of a longer game is bizarre.

[Hurlshort]

My favorite part of RPG's are when I start out as a barely experienced noobling. Once I become uber, I become bored. The problem is I'm so powerful in real life,that I really enjoy the fantasy of struggling to kill rats and large insects.

[Slowtrain]

My favorite part of RPG's are when I start out as a barely experienced noobling. Once I become uber, I become bored. The problem is I'm so powerful in real life,that I really enjoy the fantasy of struggling to kill rats and large insects.

 

 

I agree. I thought FO, for example, was much more fun when I was running in leather armor with a 10mm pistol and a sawed off. That was sweet. By the time I got the power armor and the TPR I was pretty bored.

[Volourn]

The myth that games are - RPGs or otherwise - are shorter now than before is just that, a myth.

 

And, fantasy RPGs rock.

 

Period.

[Diamond]

I also fail to see how 'fantasy' RPGs have anything to do with this rant.

Probably because the author of the article talks about... fantasy RPGs?

 

Any particular reason why the industry should bend backward for those people?

No reason. It bends to whoever dominates the market. A fact of life.

 

If you don't have time to play game, don't play games.

Invalid argument. "I dont' have time to play games" != "I don't want to play games".

 

Besides, what's the rush in finishing a game? What difference does it make if it takes you three weeks or three months?

Well, RPGs (at least that I play) are usually story-driven, and if you progress in a story in little chunks, it starts to lose its appeal. The same way, you wouldn't want to watch a movie in 15 minutes periods for a week.

[Slowtrain]

@Diamond, isn't it possible to enjoy a long game over a period of days or week as neccessary? Does a game have to be played in just one or two short sittings over a weekend?

[Diamond]

@Diamond, isn't it possible to enjoy a long game over a period of days or week as neccessary? Does a game have to be played in just one or two short sittings over a weekend?

Not necessarily in a weekend, but it usually requires having to allocate reasonable contiguous periods of time.

[Slowtrain]

@Diamond, isn't it possible to enjoy a long game over a period of days or week as neccessary? Does a game have to be played in just one or two short sittings over a weekend?

Not necessarily in a weekend, but it usually requires having to allocate reasonable contiguous periods of time.

 

 

People read long novels over a of period of weeks though, and don't seem to lose the impact of the book.

[Diamond]

People read long novels over a of period of weeks though, and don't seem to lose the impact of the book.

Long novels tend to contain a lot more than movies. But then if I start a book, I prefer to finish it without a break, if possible. I guess that is just my take on entertainment media.

[Slowtrain]

People read long novels over a of period of weeks though, and don't seem to lose the impact of the book.

Long novels tend to contain a lot more than movies. But then if I start a book, I prefer to finish it without a break, if possible. I guess that is just my take on entertainment media.

 

We'll I'm not saying it wouldn't be great to finish a book or game without a break! Just that as you point out when you have a real world to live in often that isn't possible. And I don't neccessarily think that the answer to that problem is simply to make all books and games short enough to fit into a tiny window of time. But still, that's just my take.

[J.E. Sawyer]

The first horrible thing. Fantasy role-playing games are unique among computer games in one thing: they are fundamentally about starting out weak and learning to be strong. And that learning process generally involves a lot of tedium.

 

Fallout, Deus Ex, and System Shock are also like this.