The Evolution of Fantasy Role-Playing Games - Michael J. Tresca [60]
There is little evidence of a narrative arc in PBBGs. Although they are inherently social, PBBGs are pyramid schemes in which power comes from popularity. The majority defeats the minority, making active players with large networks virtually unassailable. Like some MUDs and massive multiplayers, however, players can literally buy their way to the top by wielding their credit card to purchase advantages that give them an edge.
Personalization
Player characters in different PBBGs have a variety of rules systems, but their core statistics are similar. Most characters have an attack and defense statistic, compared to the monster or rival character’s opposing attack and defense. Items, spells, and other circumstances also add to the attack and defense numbers.
Similar to tabletop role-playing games, most PPBGs feature hit points that function in the same way, except that losing hit points only prevents the character from initiating further combat. Death is not permanent. Energy determines how often the character can go on quests. Stamina regulates the number of actions a character can take in combat. All three points slowly regenerate over time.
Each player has an avatar. Some represent just one character while others represent multiple characters. These avatars don’t usually have any actual effect in the game, although some PBBGs allow characters to rate the appearance of each other’s avatars with the chance of gaining a small benefit as a result.
Each PBBG has its own form of currency. In Castle Age, various castlelike structures cost money, which in turn generate more money. In this way Castle Age is similar to Magic: The Gathering, which used land to generate mana (Aetrox 2010).
Risk
Combat in PBBGs is usually a foregone conclusion. Each player accumulates bonuses to attack and defend, through magic items, spells, blessings from the gods, quirks of fate, or the character’s own personal skill. When initiating combat with a another player, all these variables are tabulated and compared, with offense and defense added together. However, the player does not choose what offensive and defensive elements are used in combat. Instead, the number of powerful abilities that come into play are determined by the number of the player’s followers.
The question isn’t whether or not one side will win or lose, but how much the winner will win by. The uncertainty in combat lies not in random number generation but through ignorance, as PBBGs rely primarily on a statistical comparison to adjudicate battles. In this regard PBBGs have a lot in common with multi-user shared hallucinations (MUSHes) and LARPs that use power comparison systems to resolve conflict. Winning by a lot usually bestows experience and possibly some other reward (such as treasure) upon the player character. In exchange, the player loses stamina and hit points.
It is theoretically possible for a player character to die in combat. Like MMORPGs, death in PBBGs is at worst a minor inconvenience. When hit points are sufficiently reduced, the character is no longer able to fight without healing. Healing happens over time, but can also be purchased (healing potions, the services of a healer, or some other means). The number of these purchased heals are limited by the game, preventing characters from instantly returning to combat.
It is possible for player characters to kill each other while the player is not actively playing in the game. On more than one occasion, I returned to Castle Age only to find my character had died. Because death isn’t crippling, this does not seriously hamper the player’s ability to play the game.
Roles
Browser-based games have an interesting set of roles. There