The Blog has moved.

In case anyone stumbles across this site by accident, the blog has been moved to http://sequentialdegenerate.wordpress.com - please stumble over there to find the spiritual successor to this site.

But he wears a cool hat, right?

Huh. I just... don't know what to say.

I would say "Typical Trekkies, unable to distinguish between fantasy and reality, if you have a problem with a character, blame the writer, not the role the actor's paid to play..." But it's not Trek.

It's Firefly.

Huh.

Mmmm, flesh.

Someone needs to create this, just to watch the magnificent failure that it would be.

Treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen.

Being an RSS junkie, I was able to keep fairly up-to-date with Rock, Paper, Shotgun's recent psuedo-review of the Russian game 'Pathologic'. By all accounts, it's an incredible game, albeit with one very important caveat - it's not a game that's fun to play.

Now I know this seems to fly in the face of all we've come to expect from a game, and completely destroys the already vapid video-game rating system that many sites and magazines employ, but it needs to be taken into consideration. Year after year, we expect our games to be enjoyable - for us to want to keep playing them because they create feelings of relative happiness and satisfaction within us. And along comes a game like Pathologic - and game that, by all accounts, is a cruel and miserable game to play. But the difference is - and what the traditional game review falls apart on - is that even though a game makes you angry, disgusted, tired, paranoid, and all the other 'downer' emotions you can think of, it's still worth playing.

I know a lot of you will be up in arms, ranting and raving at me through your monitors. "What's the point?," you yell, "of a game that isn't fun to play?!"

It's a good point.

And it's a point that will see games forever consigned to nothing more than 'crude stimulations and ego-fantasy' by intellectuals and the media worldwide. I'm not trying to stir up the whole 'are games art' discussion, because that's a rant for another time. But what I'm trying to say is, as a medium, why do games have to be fun? Why do they have to make the player feel good about themselves or their actions? Nearly all other mediums of entertainment certainly don't aspire to be enjoyable. Some of them go out of their way to be as shocking and depressing as possible. And, for the most part, those are the works that people remember.

Take, for example, the medium of film. Are all your favourite movies happy and make you feel good? Mine certainly aren't. One of my favourite movies of all time - Paradise Now - is a movie that's so far from enjoyable it is, at times, physically and mentally painful to watch. And yet it's magnificent. It's extraordinary. It's depressing and violent and shocking and a torturous experience - and yet, for possibly all time, will consistently rank as one of the best films I've ever seen in my life. But why do I like it so much if it's not enjoyable? Why does making me feel so bad make it so good? I could go and watch Bambi or Mary Poppins instead - nice, safe, and enjoyable. They make you feel warm and fuzzy inside and don't challenge you intellectually or mentally. So why should all games be like that?

Why can't a game disgust you? Why can't a game depress you? Why must the game reward you with a sense of self-worth, a place of importance, a sense of satisfaction upon the completion of your tasks? Why do we, as developers, players, and dabblers, place such importance on making the player feel good?

I know the arguments against it all. Most games need to be sold, and you sell a game by making people want to play it. It's that simple. If you make a game that people don't want to play, then they aren't going to buy it, and that isn't going to make you money. Or, at least, enough money. And players today have gotten so attuned to that sense of accomplishment and joy that most games employ that they simply can't process a game that doesn't revolve around such conclusions. Even genres that seem pre-disposed towards the 'abuse' of players, such as Survival Horror, still illicit feelings of contentment and achievement in players. Players can still win, save the day, ride off into the sunset with Jill. Where's the survival horror in a game that you can win?

I'm not suggesting that all games shouldn't be fun. There is a time and a place for everything - there is a reason why every film isn't a Schindler's List - games are, by their nature, an escapist fantasy. But it's something that we have to take into consideration if games, as a medium, are to move beyond their status as simple, mindless distractions.

Guaranteed: No Rick-Rolls.*

*guarantee not guaranteed.

Just a link-dump for this entry. Like all the most productive people, I spend most of my time browsing instead of doing actual work, so over the course of a few days I tend to build up quite an.. interesting History backlog in Firefox. Browse away.

Project Rooftop: I remember coming across this gem of an art-blog not long after it first started up, but I lost touch with it over the next few years, only to re-discover it all over again. It's effectively a superhero fashion parade, but it's entertaining as all hell. You don't realise just what defines a character until you see someone else's take on it, and for all their differences and changes, they're still the same superhero you know and love. Plus, big love for Big Barda. That's always a plus in my book. I loved the character and always thought that she and her husband needed more time in the spotlight. Even though she's dead now. Bah, that never lasts.

Girl-Wonder.Org: See, I'm a fan of comics. And I tend to consider myself a reasonably level-headed and normal indiviual. And it's painfully obvious to me that the vast majority of women characters in comics seem to be either bimbos, ice-queens, or motivations for vengeance, plot advancement and dark, moody feelings. Girl-Wonder seeks to change that all by suggesting the rather bold idea that women be treated as caped equals. Weird, huh? They're doing a fabulous job giving a voice to the oestrogen-ed minority in comics, and more than that, they're all smart, intelligent, and level-headed people as well. I know, where do I find them, huh?

Archetype: The Fiction Writer's Guide to Psychology: A wonderful resource for those of us who don't consider their characters complete unless they have a crushing array of psychological problems (a characteristic most of them get from their writers, it seems). Aside from clearing up a lot of misconceptions concering psychiatry and common psychological disorders, it also contains plenty of interesting psych-based writings and general writing articles, all typed up in a manner that doesn't make your brain turn to vomit.

Inform 7: I've been thinking a lot about Interactive Fiction these days, and I've dabbled with the I7 system previously. It's an interesting genre, but it's obviously so far removed from the modern gamers perception of what a game is, the market is quite limited. But I love it nonethessless, even if I'm hopeless at the game I'm trying out.

Hardboiled Slang: Fact: the term 'getaway sticks' is the best slang for legs, ever.This fact is indisputable, and permission is fully granted to use it in every day speech, even where wildly inappropriate.

Oh, and lastly, some blogs that I've been recently reading.

And I must have listened to this about 50 times today.

Happy browsing!

+1 Pants of Drving. Pure win.

Now, in the first Random_Expansion article I did, I mentioned that out of all of the ideas there, I loved the Occult Tank Crusade idea most, and in passing, mentioned that I would love to play it as an RPG, rather than just some drive-along-and-shoot-em-up kind of game. So, looking for inspiration, I googled and Wiki'd all sorts of terms and words to try to get a feel for other vehicle-based RPGs, just to see what was out there and what had been done with the sub-genre.

And you know what? There's squat all out there.

As far as I could tell, many RPGs used vehicles as either a convenient means to get their characters from A to B (maybe pausing in the middle to fight monster C) or as simple combat extensions of their characters. The vehicles would be nothing more than vessels for the party members - sure, they might fight in the vehicle, use the mounted weapons and what have you, but ultimately the vehicle was not in itself a character, or even a significant part of a character. They were convenient to use, powerful to use, but other than that, no use at all. It ultimately came down to the fact that most RPGs had skills for every conceivable possibility in the game - but when it came to vehicles, the skill taken to operate one was entirely on the part of the player, not the character.

Now in most games, this makes sense. Most fighting / interaction doesn't take part entirely from the vehicle - instead most characters dismount to do such things. But what about a game that took place entirely from a vehicle? Where the tank / plane / submarine wasn't just a vehicle, but the most important part of the party itself - perhaps going so far as to say the vehicle is party, and the characters within mere upgrades? You see, the system I imagine is one where the party members exist solely as crew members of the vehicle. They are all parts of the vehicle's whole, each member bringing their own talents and capabilities to augment or enhance the vehicle's performance.

This presents us with a conundrum. Most RPGs have their stat systems aligned so that they take into consideration, and reflect, the direct physical prowess of the characters. But what use is Strength when you're holed up inside a metal shell? How much Dexterity is required to preform mindless loading actions? We see here that the traditional RPG stats fall apart when we introduce them into a world where the characters fight entirely from a vehicle. Physical stats don't mean anything any more, because they characters aren't being physical. They may preform physical acts - pulling levels, pumping shells - but these can be abstracted away by taking the rather bold assumption that characters know how to do the jobs they're trained for. You can just assume that a Gunner knows how to work the guns. That a Driver knows how to drive. You shouldn't have to test for something at that basic level of aptitude. They wouldn't be a Gunner if they didn't know how to work the guns to the best of their ability. A Driver shouldn't suddenly forget how to drive and strand the vehicle in the middle of nowhere whilst he tries to re-roll and remember which lever does which.

So, what stats can we use? Surprisingly, the mental stats (traditionally something along the lines of Charisma, Intellect and Wisdom) remain. Why? Because these stats are for dealing with interaction between people, and that is at the cornerstone of role-playing. Whilst we can assume that all combat and violence-based interaction will occur from within the vehicle, we can at least predict (and design) that the characters within the vehicle do on occasion get out and mingle with the townsfolk. This sort of system works best in a real-time game, where the accuracy and combat skills of the character are controlled directly by the player themselves rather than some closed-doors number rolling (this sort of thing thoroughly annoyed me in Morrowind, where you could stand right in front of something and not hit it, because your stats were too low. Dude! It's right in front of you! What kind of idiot am I when I can't even hit something with my twelve-foot sword at point-blank range!) We abstract away the stats that should be controlled directly by the player and the physical limitations of their avatar and leave behind the stuff that puts the role-play in RPG.

But, now that we have done away with the physical stats, how do we account for characters who are extremely skilled at their jobs? One of the possible ways is to introduce a skills-set based system. A Driver should have the Competent Driver: Tank skill if they're a competent tank driver. I don't know about you, but I certainly wouldn't let just anyone to drive a tank. I'd expect them do know what they're doing. And the inclusion of this skill means that you're able to drive the tank to the best of your own (that is, the player's) ability. Now, the inclusion of this skill now opens up a new skill-tree - Driving: Tank Skills. This is where the customisation of each character comes in, and is where their individual talents are introduced. This skill tree may include things such as Skilled Cornering (which advances into Advanced Cornering -> Masterful Cornering), Even Grounded (shakes the crew around less, allows for more accurate aiming) and the like. None of these raise your skills to an adequate level, they simply enhance it. Most RPG systems have you starting off not knowing how to do anything, and then building upon those skills until you're at a Competent or Beginners level. Why? Why not start out at a Competent level and, like I've said before, assume that the character actually knows what they're doing?

Of course, to go another way, you could instead go back to the number-based stat system, and replace the physical stats with some more traditional numbers. So instead of Strength, you have Gunnery, instead of Dexterity, you have Drive. Using a numbers-based system would be far more familiar to players, but it does take away some of the charm. Plus you'll always find it grating when you find those +1 Pants of Driving.

Another issue we have to take into consideration is that most games assuming that the damage being dealt to your characters is against their physical bodies. By fighting from a vehicle, you now have the problem of having 12 inches of reinforced steel between the attack and the character. The vehicle itself could just have the traditional armour / HP setup, or you could have something complex that requires a certain amount of penetration from the attacking weapon, individual health values for the crew members, etcetera.

These are just some random thoughts on vehicles in RPGs. Feel free to comment your own views on the situation.

Captain Grumpy.

I don't do April's Fools. So consider this blog your reprieve for the day.

Enjoy.