The Evolution of Fantasy Role-Playing Games - Michael J. Tresca [97]
When alignment did come into play, it featured a simple mechanic. Killing a good-aligned being made the character evil and vice versa. Later games expanded the possibilities of influencing alignment. Among these were donating to a particular religion, performing acts of kindness or cruelty, and the like. Fable demonstrated the dangers of quantifying moral behavior; a player could simply donate to the appropriate evil or good deity to reverse the consequences of ethical choices made in other parts of the game, in essence “buying off the gods” (Barton 2008:381).
Temple of Apshai was groundbreaking because it was a CRPG explicitly modeled after the traditional tabletop RPG style of play. Although characters from tabletop Dungeons & Dragons could be imported into the game, the dizzying variety of magic items couldn’t be accounted for. As the manual explained, “the limits of a microcomputer-based system do not yet permit the use of all the different sorts of magic items you may have picked up from other games” (Johnson 1982:9). The upper levels of the game were suitable for up to third level characters, while the lower levels were suitable for up to sixth level (Barton 2008:57).
Speaking of magic items, Japanese role-playing games introduced a “socketing” feature that is related to the Dungeons & Dragons “+N” system. The socketing feature combined magic item acquisition with weapons and armor improvement. This allowed different improvements, such as a green gem socketed into a weapon or armor bestowing acid damage or acid resistance, respectively.
Another feature common to Japanese CRPGs is the ability to combine items, thereby creating a different, more improved item. This variant, similar to socketing, provides incentive to mix mundane items with new results, providing each piece of equipment at least two or more uses. Arx Fatalis featured this mechanic (Barton 2008:315).
Spell-casting is perhaps where CRPGs varied most from the Dungeons &Dragons template. As established in earlier chapters, Middle-earth didn’t have a quantifiable magic tradition, and the Vancian school didn’t sit well with many game designers. Spell points were usually the solution, which allowed for quicker recovery of spells, a reflection of the psionics system introduced early in Dungeons & Dragons.
Other spell systems included combining elemental glyphs, finding reagents (Ultima), runes (Arx Fatalis) or even hand gestures (The Summoning). What’s interesting is that although Advanced Dungeons & Dragons implemented a component-based system (divided into verbal, somatic, and material), the careful accounting required of every component meant that in practice few players kept track of it. CRPGs provided a means of tracking components and holding the player accountable for the missing items, which meant spell casting became more of inventory management challenge (Barton 2008:266).
Risk
Unlike interactive fiction games, CRPGs channel a player’s energies into a narrower role, usually combat. Inheriting the Dungeons & Dragons legacy of miniatures rules and complexity, this is the mechanic best defined in fantasy gaming. As a result, CRPGs tend to emphasize this aspect of the game more than any other.
From a pure challenge perspective, although combat can be difficult, it is statistically surmountable. Solving a riddle in an IF game can lead to frustration, as it’s an either/or proposition; the player either solves the riddle or he doesn’t. Combat, using a dizzying number of variables, can be won. This leads to a form of trial and error on the part of the player, who experiments with such variables as party configurations, what