One of the most beloved RPGs of the last decade is Disco Elysium. A game in which you play a cop who wakes up in a dingy hotel room with no memory of anything, and he has a murder to solve. What follows is a very strange game set in an alternative Earth with its own strange history, countries and technologies, before you even get to the actual game itself. You have twenty stats, who each talk to you based on how much you use it and how much you put points into these stats. All in all, a very unique and memorable game.
As with everything people praise, there is pushback. The most interesting of these arguments, is that Disco Elysium can't be one of the best RPGs because it's actually an adventure game. (Or the more extreme cousin, a CYOA) Some say this, stating that despite the game having stat checks, not having combat disqualifies the game from being a RPG. Others because the gameplay, despite having stat checks, is mostly following an adventure game template. Use an item on something, in this case selecting equipment to give yourself an edge in certain stats, and most of the game is a dialog puzzle. Things which usually aren't thought of as RPG gameplay, more as adventure gameplay.
Most of the time, this argument comes from RPG players, and usually people who seem to view calling a game an adventure game an insult. But despite this, the idea is intriguing, and doesn't seem like it's been discussed much by people who actually like adventure games. So, is Disco Elysium an adventure game? Should we cover it a thousand years in the future when we get to 2019? Feel free to bring up its spiritual predecessor, Planescape Torment, as well, since that often gets hit with some of the same arguments.
I think this is a very similar discourse as the one surrounding Roguelikes, in that the status of many games described with the label are contested. As a genre, the Roguelike is generally agreed to have a set of common conventions and mechanics (it's even got a fancy name, the Berlin Interpretation).
ReplyDeleteI quite like the Berlin Interpretation because it's not wholly prescriptive: you don't need to check off every item in the list to make a case for being a roguelike, but the more you have the stronger your case is.
Looking at Disco Elysium from this angle, if we had a Berlin Interpretation Of RPGs, I think we'd say, yes, it doesn't have a combat system*, which is a point against its claim. But it so manifestly fulfils so many* of the other common criteria of the CRPG that I'd say this still easily passes the bar.
You could make a case for it being an adventure game, I guess, but that's true for a lot of RPGs since the genres have a common origin. And you've reviewed hybrid RPG-adventures on the blog before, so I think coverage here wouldn't be inappropriate.
* off the top of my head: dice-based skill checks; a customisable character build of statistic that meaningful influences the aforementioned; levelling and experience; NPCs with branching conversation options; choices with meaningful consequences for the story; an interface that very closely resembles one of the most common CRPG forms; multiple forms of character progression (equipment that provides stat bonuses and maps to specific body slots, a perk system, improvable stats); a functional economy that goes beyond money as a inventory puzzle solution; and last but not certainly least, real role playing choices that allow the player to make qualitative judgements about how to respond to events in a way that expresses something about their interpretation of the player character.
** although it does have a few instances of what can reasonably be described as combat, they're just not resolved by a separate system of combat mechanics.
I think if we're going to go with a Berlin Interpretation style thing, we'd need to figure out what exactly that would be for adventure games. Because use an item to solve puzzles, for instance, is generally in every adventure game, but it's also in a lot of other genres. Would said system be designed to include visual novels and walking sims? (Which are lumped in, even if they are their own things)
DeleteThe economy thing is an interesting point. The stats in Disco could be written off as a more freeform way of solving certain puzzles, even if, for better or worse, it's looser than most adventure games, but I can't think of any adventure games off-hand which were loose enough with their money that you'd get as much freedom as your average RPG.
One of the distinctions I make between adventure games and RPG's (or RPG hybrids like the games I make) is in how items and abilities are used. I call it "puzzles vs. problems" - Most adventure games have puzzles that can only be solved in one way. The best CRPG's and TTRPG's have resources and problems. Which resources the player uses to solve a problem is often up to the player.
DeleteIn Shannara, Jak is fishing at the start of the game when he is rudely interrupted. Lori and I asked ourselves, "What else could Jak use a fishing pole for, besides catching fish?" We decided that his pole is a stout wooden branch rather than today's flimsy fishing poles. He could certainly use it to snag something above his normal reach. It's strong even to be used as a prybar for leverage.
I think we initially came up with six ways Jak could use his fishing pole in the game. At the third or fourth, Bob Bates said, "Wait a minute! You can't let Jak solve all his problems with one item!" So I think there are only two places in the game where Jak uses the pole to solve problems. Or puzzles. :-)
In an RPG, you might solve hundreds of "problems" (enemies) with one sword. Although likely you have to upgrade that sword 5 or 6 times to get a really powerful sword that will work against the strongest enemies. (Think about that for a second. IRL, a sword is a sword. Maybe one is a little better balanced, or a little heavier, but the best ones don't do 20x the damage of the worst. It's just an RPG trope, just as using a common item in an unusual way - and only having that work in one place - is an adventure game trope.)
Anyway, adventure games and RPG's are both children of tabletop RPG's. One emphasizes story and puzzle-solving, while the other emphasizes improving character abilities, and combat, but both game types are really very similar in other ways.
dont know, havent played it yet. Its in my backlog. Mind that my backlog has around 3000 games right now, some of oldest entries are from 1991 (not the games, the time where I started my backlog)
ReplyDeleteI will say that despite some concern that the writing would either be too quirky or too pretentious, both of those fears were unfounded. Though I never went for the joke dialog paths in any of my three playthroughs.
DeleteMore coverage of an interesting game is always better than less coverage of an interesting game. No further justifications required :)
ReplyDeleteThe claim that Disco Elysium is not a RPG because it doesn't have combat seems quite weak to me. DE makes extensive use of its RPG systems for most interactions — it just so happens that they are overwhelmingly non-violent. Even then, there is actually one encounter in the game that could be classified as "combat", and just like the rest of the game, the outcome relies on your skills, equipment, choices and a bit of luck with your dice rolls, just as you'd expect from any RPG. Meanwhile, there are many games with just as many RPG systems (skills, checks, character progression, equipments, and so on), that use them solely for combat and nothing else. So, which game is "more" RPG? The one that uses RPG systems for nearly all kinds of interactions, or the ones that use them for combat and nothing else?
ReplyDeleteAs for the argument that DE mostly follows an adventure game template... I mean, sure, you do a lot of item and information gathering, but at its core it's still a RPG focused on skills, checks and character progression. Most items you collect are actually used to help you on skill checks, and most of them are not required to complete your quest anyway. If anything, I'd say that games like Ultima IV/V/VI or Magic Candle are much more "adventure-like" in that regard (not that I'm complaining, I love those games)
I know there are at least two, I think the one you've forgotten is how you can fight Measurehead, even if that ends with almost no fanfare. Of course, since both are resolved through dialog, these wouldn't count by that reasoning.
DeleteYou do bring up a good point, because there are a lot of hack 'n' slash games which get criticized for not being real RPGs. Diablo, in particular, got hit with this a lot, at least a few decades ago. JRPGs too, also get hit with this, since combat and everything else often come off as entirely different systems. I'm pretty sure these are mostly different people, which makes it all the odder that I've never seen the two groups argue about this.
Most items you collect are actually used to help you on skill checks,
Could you not say that this is merely a modern updating of adventure game design? Rather than forcing the player into one choice, you give them many.
@Kitami, the "many choice" aspect was in adventure genre from the inception - just remember how multiple party members worked in Maniac Mansion.
Delete@Kitami, also to your point, I think the difference between "a choice" and "an RPG" boils down to the amount of information given to the player.
DeleteIf I look at Disco Elysium character creation, then I clearly notice that the game communicates archetypes, individual skills, and their interaction to the player. It further gives multiple skill checks related to the archetype, which can be passed even due to dumb luck - what's more, it broadly gives you a system to see which checks you can check when.
If I look at the aforementioned Maniac Mansion, then the whole thing boils down to "each character gets to do one action that others don't", which is "kinda" communicated at the beginning.
Disco Elysium, on the other hand, has between 200 and 300 checks per each of 24 skills (on top of my head, I'm not checking it). There are so many of them that getting through the game without some sort of system is impossible. What's more, you get clear communications about how these checks pop up, and can expand the list to include more if needed based on some common sense.
King's Quest also had side paths for violent and non-violent options, and Dale Disharoon titles gave the player a lot of freedom in how they approached the game, but these were kind of oddities. Most adventure games we've covered didn't even have that kind of freedom.
DeleteBut I think between this and what others have said, it does really put the whole thing in perspective. In-game luck to pass a skill check is not an adventure thing, it's player luck if they figure out the right item on the right object. Outside of rare and not liked exceptions, everything is a flat "you win or not" type of deal. I think for me, this is definitely putting me now in the category of "it might feel like an adventure, but it's definitely a RPG".
https://mixnmojo.com/news/Double-Fine-among-Xbox-studios-facing-closure
ReplyDeletesad news, I hope they can survive. too many developers getting shut by their mega-rich owners.
DeleteBefore Disco Elysium was created as a PC game, it was a brainchild of, AFAIR, Kurvitz, and it was developed as a role-playing system. The steps in developing the said role-playing system were pretty typical: settling on skills, checks, world background, and so forth. The end result contains a number of skills that can be used both in ranged and unarmed combat, if someone else ever uses this system for anything.
ReplyDeleteDisco Elysium the game faithfully uses this system to implement an RPG with skills checks, stats, leveling, and so on. Therefore, in my book, it is an RPG. The fact that this RPG is mostly nonviolent (only one combat is mandatory, and there are a few optional ones) is the designer's choice, but, overall, it pretty faithfully implements what is a full blown RPG system.
That's a shockingly good point now that I hear it. DE feels very much like a video game adaptation of a non-combat TTRPG. And yet, for reasons I don't think I could analyze thoroughly, my soul feels that the genre of DE is "Adventure game informed by RPG mechanics" rather than CRPG
DeleteI wonder if in fact this is somehow illustrative of why CRPGs are something distinct from "A TTRPG implemented on a computer"
Considering the argument, I've never actually heard anyone say that a TTRPG isn't a TTRPG because it's unwise or difficult to get into combat. For instance, Vampire - The Masquerade is the kind of system where getting into combat is generally an unwise choice, and that was reasonably popular in the TTRPG sphere before Requiem and the reboots. But computer games aren't necessarily tabletop games, considering that certain things are lost in translation unavoidably and some changes need to be made lest you make a kind of crappy video game.
DeleteI've never actually heard it myself, but it definitely FEELS like there would be a large community of DnD-style TTRPG players who consider non-combat-centric TTRPGs like Vampire to be "illegitimate" or "not REAL rpgs"
DeleteThere's definitely a cultural split between the 'story games' and the combat-oriented games, and I feel I should note the antipathy isn't purely unilateral - popular TTRPG think-haver Quinns recently caused a stir by taking a swipe at games he deemed 'creatively hollow', including not just entrenched behemoths like D&D but also plucky indie darlings like Draw Steel.
DeleteBut I think outright disavowal is generally limited to the fringes. You're going to have a hard time arguing that any game which has players sitting round a table with their character sheets, each declaring their actions, with one player acting as a sort of combined coordinator/narrator/referee, is not a TTRPG.
Remove any of those individual elements and people are still likely to call it one. Separate systems for resolving combat and non-combat challenges is another such element, but as you guys have pointed out, a sufficient number of sufficiently successful TTRPGs have forgone it to render its presence non-essential.
I always feel like Wittgenstein's theory of family resemblances is more useful when it comes to games than trying to enforce a set of stringent definitional criteria. This is similar to That, and That is similar to The Other, so that we can comfortable with the idea that That, This, and The Other are all Thingamajigs, even if This and The Other are really quite different.
(This is also how you end up with interesting/tedious (delete as appropriate) discussions like 'is a VN an adventure? Is a VN even a game?'. Adventure games and RPGs are both genres that contain strange bedfellows. But that's probably a topic for another article!)
I agree that it feels like there should be, but considering that I do hang out sometimes on a forum which has a considerable number of people who feel this way about Disco, but never really bring that kind of ire down on Vampire or any TTRPG that I can think of. Because it takes a lot of effort to make a TTRPG that disavows combat completely and the ones that do are those weird Itch.io ones which might have other issues which may mean they don't count as TTRPGs. (And are also such things that people don't really pay attention to)
Delete"This is also how you end up with interesting/tedious (delete as appropriate) discussions like 'is a VN an adventure? Is a VN even a game?'."
Sounds like we have our next discussion point!
I know genre can be a little wobbly at times, but personally, I think the primary purpose of genre is to connect audiences with media they are most likely to enjoy. So the question shouldn't really be whether or not the absence of combat disqualifies it from "technically" being an RPG (which for the record, I don't believe at all), but rather, who is more likely to enjoy the game - adventure fans, or RPG fans?
ReplyDeleteHaving never played it myself I can't answer that question, but that's my thought anyway.
When I played it, I felt like I was actually playing a game that allowed me to do more than just pretend I was doing something in so and so manner, instead acknowledging it. Which I would say is something that appeals to RPG players looking for something that is an actual RPG...except that the whole detective bit felt more like something out of an adventure game, not something tacked onto a bigger RPG. Take that how you will.
DeleteMy view is that for at least a decade or more, most games feature at least elements of two or more different genres. Disco is absolutely an RPG and an adventure game. For me I approached it as an adventure game. What choices do I make to solve this problem and advance the story? I also had to decide what kind of character I wanted to be in solving that problem. When I approach a RPG, I can usually separate the character and decisions I make as that character from the strategy I use to play the game. Even without combat I can choose a strategy. Do I seek every advantage before decision points? Am I exploring all the things or going from story beat to story beat? I think disco limited that strategy. I did things in a different order and made different decisions, but ultimately saw most of the same things.
ReplyDeletewant to add another game that is one of the weirdest genre crossovers. Brok the investiGator. Mix of graphic adventure with beat em up. Thats right, you are basically playing a classic research story, and suddenly you are Axel Stone from Streets of Rage punching and comboing everyone
ReplyDeleteI did at one point, argue (perhaps somewhat tongue-in-cheek) that Ultima VII: The Black Gate is an adventure game.
ReplyDeleteHowever, Disco Elysium puts it's dice rolls front and centre, and despite playing as named character, your actions and levelling choices do make a difference to how that character interacts with the world.
That said, my own playthrough kind of stalled, and being covered on this blog might help me get back into it! Perhaps I will have finished it before the thousands of years have passed though.
It feels very relevant that in DE, it is possible to "solve" a puzzle's logic and still fail because of a bad dice roll, which used to be a thing in adventure games a long time ago, but has not been for some time. But on the other hand, it's possible to affect the outcome by "grinding" for better stats before attempting to solve the puzzle, which has never really been an adventure game thing, with the possible exception of Quest for Glory, which is very much a hybrid.
DeleteAnd I'd point out that a bad dice roll in an adventure game is generally considered bad game design. After all, if sometimes an action does what you want, you might not realize you're doing something wrong if it fails sometimes. Though none of them were upfront about it being randomized.
DeleteI'm not a fan of such games, but for this discussion, I think I'll use the argument once put forward by Jimmy Maher: his definition of an adventure game (as opposed to something else), somewhat loosely put, is if it can be solved by following a walkthrough.
DeleteWhile the occasional dice roll is present in some adventures, by and large it is evil when it is present. Look at the last title I played, KQ7. Almost nothing random added to the quality of the game, it only added to the frustration of needing to replay sections over and over again.
I suppose this is why, although I am not usually a fan of other genres, I have a soft spot for games like the early Gand Theft Auto titles. Before they started adding "leveling up"-style activities, like needing to work out and buy outfits, the games could easily be solved following walkthroughs. After they added those variables, the games became a lot less fun for me.
I'm more of a sandbox explorer anyways.
My hot take: "Planescape Torment" is an adventure game (like I said in my introduction interview for this site a long time ago), and "Disco Elysium" is at least three times an adventure game than PT is.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, DE has no combat? Sounds like someone didn't manage to get all the pieces of armour from the enforcer corpse.
The above comment was from me BTW.
DeleteCoincidentally, The Digital Antiquarian just published his coverage of Planescape: Torment in two posts starting here.
Delete@Busca, a surprisingly shitty coverage at that.
Delete@RG: Don't think this is the place to discuss opinions on entries in another blog which can and is done in said articles' comment section. I just mentioned and linked it, given the context, so readers of this blog here can form their own view, if they so wish.
DeleteI'll just note that said coverage consists of two articles, the first describing the background and genesis of the computer game, the second dealing with the game itself, its content and style based on the article's author's own impressions and analysis thereof. So a generic 'shitty' is not very helpful, as it does not really say which part(s) you find deficient, whether he got any facts wrong, missed important aspects or just has different views on some elements than those you hold.
But again, those details are best discussed directly on the respective entry itself. You have voiced your opinion there, others can decide to judge (and comment if they want) themselves in the same place.
PS:T is not as much an adventure as it is a relatively straightforward RPG where there's a very weird design choice: the second act of Sigil, when Clerk's Ward and Lower Ward are opened, are overstuffed with adventure-like quests, and are unavailable after you leave for Ravel's Maze. Which bottlenecks a lot of player into completing all these quests before leaving; which, in turn, gives it too much of an adventure flair.
DeleteIf you skip this completely optional content, it plays very differently.
What's more, PS:T has one very obvious grind area in under-Sigil, and one not so obvious grind area in Mordon's dungeon, but, again, because people are trained to go after "wordy quests" (and because PS:T was explicitly marketed as such), then this creates a pretty funny voluntary trap in how people approach it.
https://mixnmojo.com/news/Adventure-Gamers-forum-archive-lives--on-Mojo
ReplyDeleteI think a more interesting question might be to ask, assuming Disco Elysium is somehow "different" enough to warrant questioning it, what Esoteric Ebb falls into. Esoteric Ebb is based on d20 mechanics, in some cases almost straight, and has a fair amount of actual combat (but more "scripted" than usual).
ReplyDeleteEsoteric Ebb also owes its existence quite directly to Disco Elysium, and even has the various stats (Strength, Charisma, Wisdom, etc) chatter to the player in the same way the ones in Disco Elysium do.
I can't imagine someone saying a game that is literally a d20 tabletop derivative isn't an RPG without just deciding all our usual categories are useless and we should draw up new ones.
Based on what I've seen people say? The Disco Elysium category. But I don't think they saw any combat in that game. (I didn't know that before you mentioned it, though it could just be because I haven't paid much attention to it yet) It doesn't matter that it's from a TTRPG either, the upcoming Vampire - The Masquerade game done in that style is also getting hit with it.
DeleteAs a player of both tabletop and video RPGs, the idea that there must be combat for a game to qualify as an RPG is outdated IMO. There are plenty of tabletop RPGs with no combat at all.
ReplyDeleteTo me the nature of a roleplaying game is that you are playing a role - taking on the persona of a different character, and interacting with the world through the choices you make in that role. I do feel that for a game to be an RPG there actually has to be some agency in the role - i.e. your character can do different things, and those things matter. So Monkey Island isn't an RPG, as although you're 'playing' Guybrush, there are no meaninful choices that change who Guybrush is or how the world sees him. But some more recent adventure games like Walking Dead, Life is Strange or Detroit, Become Human might be.
I think there is a blurry area between adventure games and RPGs, especially more recently - as with some of the titles above, and Disco Elysium falls into that category. It has puzzles, inventory and character interaction as its core features. If Quest for Glory is an adventure game as well as an RPG, I'd argue Disco Elysium is both too.
I was really struck by what the CRPG Addict said: Traditional RPGs had two major aspects to them: the collaborative storytelling aspect, and the combat aspect (someone pointed out that the most recent D&D edition describes it as having three pillars: combat, social and exploration). It is a quirk of fate that we consider games which are primarily focused on reproducing the combat aspect to be "CRPGs" and games which are primarily focused on reproducing the collaborative storytelling aspect as "Adventure Games". If things had played out slightly differently, it would be Zork and Adventure and their lineage that were considered "CRPGs" while games in the tradition of Ultima and Wizardry would be called something different, like "battle simulators"
DeleteHistorically, of course, TTRPGs evolved out of wargames, with D&D originally being an experiment to see if you could make a wargame in a fantasy setting.
I feel the neatness of this 'two halves' distinction is a little too pat. It seems to me less likely that adventure games inherited the 'collaborative storytelling' aspect of TTRPGs, than that they were more obviously inspired by traditionally linear narrative media (especially cinema).
DeleteAdventure games have always had relatively high production values, and this has necessarily limited how reactive or dynamic their stories can be. Most adventures don't even support multiple solutions to a puzzle, much less stories whose outcome the player can meaningfully affect (although more modern titled sometimes obfuscate this with forks that converge* and similar systemic sleights of hand).
Thus, as the traditional adventure began to fade, it gave way to the 'action adventure', and games from creators who proudly wore their cinematic influences on their sleeves increasingly came to prominence (Kojima and Naughty Dog being the prime examples).
*I was sure these were called Morton's Forks, but apparently not!
QfG always struck me as a relatively straight-forward hybrid of the two genres, since it seemed like the intention was to always combine the interactive bits of both genres together into a better whole, whereas DE's hybrid-ism, or possible status as an adventure game, is a far more unintentional change.
DeleteBut going along intentional hybrid theories, you could reasonably make the argument that Zork is a hybrid, even if I don't think anyone would really consider it. Since under the hood there are stat improvements, and if we go by some of the logic we've been discussing, it would qualify. It would also beg the question if some adventure games with combat systems (Like Twin Valley Kingdom) would be in the picture.
@Ross, actually you've hit on at least one point people have made regarding DE not being a RPG. Since they sometimes argue that since RPGs are derived from wargames, they have to have combat. Not an argument I put much stock in myself, but that could be because I would find "so and so metal album has to sound like this because it's derived from blues" to be an absurd argument.
It's interesting you should mention Twin Valley Kingdom. That's a game I think of as clearly being in the adventure genre, but if you squint it starts to look a bit like an RPG, whereas to me Disco Elysium is the opposite.
DeleteBack in the 1990's, when Ken Williams and Sierra On-Line were looking into porting Sierra games to consoles, something surprising came up. In the console world, there was also a distinction between RPG's and adventure games, but it was reversed from PC gaming definitions! King's Quest was considered an RPG, and Wizardry was an adventure game. I think JRPG's were called that, but they were generally considered to be story and exploration games. The character stats and combat were just part of the stories.
DeleteBy the way, a far better question is "What is Omen Exitio?". Is it still an RPG, or is an adventure?
ReplyDeleteTreat this response as the ignorance it is, but looking at the Steam page, it might be a gamebook. Which is a genre even if we try to force things in the usual smaller amount of genres most websites keep around.
Delete