Hm, okay, I get it, you are working from a bit of a different premises. I play both tabletop (rarely) or computer games for the immersion, for the feeling of being in a very different world. I don’t really care about excitement, winning or anything, if I wanted that I would just take a first-person shooter but in my mind RPGs are markedly different category. To me it is pretty much literally an interactive novel or movie.
I think you are working from premises that everything that is called a game is a game, is not different in essence from a shooter, or playing chess or basketball. There are rules, winners, losers and suchlike, excitement, overcoming challenges and all that.
If you work from these premises, then you are right, but from that angle there is no point in being such a thing as an RPG genre at all. “Immersion and suspension of belief in a different world that is like a movie or a novel” and “the excitement through beating challenges according to rules” are IMHO two very different categories of things. In this sense RPGs don’t even exist, because to the extent they are role-playing and thus the immersion, suspension of disbelief, and simulation elements are there, to that extent they are not fully games. In fact there is even a term “that is a too gamey move” where players pursue efficiency according to the literal letter of the rules and end up with something that is against the spirit / is too unrealistic in the simulated universe.
I am willing to admit that most players want more gaming and less role-playing than I, both in tabletop and computer games, though. In fact I wondered why doesn’t anyone makes a strategy videogame I would personally like. It would be like Medieval Total War 2, but without this hugely competitive aspect of everybody trying to conquer the known world ASAP. It would be more like just running your country. Sometimes there are wars, then you try to win them, but you are not trying be a second Alexander. You just try to keep your country in good shape. So pretty much like real history (or an optimistic reading of it). For example, amending the engine so that everybody teams up in alliances against factions that conquer more than five provinces would do it.
To me it is pretty much literally an interactive novel or movie.
There is no bright line (nowadays) separating games from interactive movies and there are certainly hybrids around. The problem with good full-immersion games is that they really hard to make, I think the screen and the controls actually get in the way and a good book is able to achieve better immersion because your imagination has more freedom.
Usually, if you want to experience a game just for the story, you can put the difficulty on Easy, one-hit everything and travel the game world. Some very successful games—like Skyrim—aren’t so much about “winning” as they are about constructing your own experience.
The landscape of games is pretty varied, though. If you want to “realistically” swing your sword you can play the Witcher series; if you want a Medieval-ish open-world sandbox without much pressure to conquer anything you can play the Mount & Blade series; Civilization-style games offer country management without the necessity to conquer everyone else...
everybody teams up in alliances against factions that conquer more than five provinces would do it.
Hm, okay, I get it, you are working from a bit of a different premises. I play both tabletop (rarely) or computer games for the immersion, for the feeling of being in a very different world. I don’t really care about excitement, winning or anything, if I wanted that I would just take a first-person shooter but in my mind RPGs are markedly different category. To me it is pretty much literally an interactive novel or movie.
I think you are working from premises that everything that is called a game is a game, is not different in essence from a shooter, or playing chess or basketball. There are rules, winners, losers and suchlike, excitement, overcoming challenges and all that.
If you work from these premises, then you are right, but from that angle there is no point in being such a thing as an RPG genre at all. “Immersion and suspension of belief in a different world that is like a movie or a novel” and “the excitement through beating challenges according to rules” are IMHO two very different categories of things. In this sense RPGs don’t even exist, because to the extent they are role-playing and thus the immersion, suspension of disbelief, and simulation elements are there, to that extent they are not fully games. In fact there is even a term “that is a too gamey move” where players pursue efficiency according to the literal letter of the rules and end up with something that is against the spirit / is too unrealistic in the simulated universe.
I am willing to admit that most players want more gaming and less role-playing than I, both in tabletop and computer games, though. In fact I wondered why doesn’t anyone makes a strategy videogame I would personally like. It would be like Medieval Total War 2, but without this hugely competitive aspect of everybody trying to conquer the known world ASAP. It would be more like just running your country. Sometimes there are wars, then you try to win them, but you are not trying be a second Alexander. You just try to keep your country in good shape. So pretty much like real history (or an optimistic reading of it). For example, amending the engine so that everybody teams up in alliances against factions that conquer more than five provinces would do it.
There is no bright line (nowadays) separating games from interactive movies and there are certainly hybrids around. The problem with good full-immersion games is that they really hard to make, I think the screen and the controls actually get in the way and a good book is able to achieve better immersion because your imagination has more freedom.
Usually, if you want to experience a game just for the story, you can put the difficulty on Easy, one-hit everything and travel the game world. Some very successful games—like Skyrim—aren’t so much about “winning” as they are about constructing your own experience.
The landscape of games is pretty varied, though. If you want to “realistically” swing your sword you can play the Witcher series; if you want a Medieval-ish open-world sandbox without much pressure to conquer anything you can play the Mount & Blade series; Civilization-style games offer country management without the necessity to conquer everyone else...
That’s Total War Shogun 2 :-)