Design: Principles - Roleplaying

In another post in the series of design principles, today I want to discuss roleplaying. I must admit, I feel in many cases this is an area that is overlooked in community modules, or at least, seems to fall short in its implementation. While I could write a lengthy essay on the subject, I'll just give a brief overview of what I believe are key elements of roleplaying.

Story
First and foremost in any RPG is the story the player is being told. If this does not grip the player and spur them to keep playing, to find out that next piece of the plot, the game is already fighting an uphill battle to maintain the player's interest. An RPG requires just as much depth in its story as a novel, if not more.

Without an exciting story, why does the player even care what happens to their chosen character? It is the story that makes the player care about their character and their choices, why it makes people develop an attachment to their gaming experience that simply does not occur in FPS or RTS games. It is the story that provides the player and their character with a motivation to play.

Motivation
The motivation of the character is a key component in defining their personality. Many players have an idea of a character in their head when they play an RPG, and the options are many and varied:
· A hero striving to destroy evil at all costs, even if it means their life.
· A lawful zealot, dispensing justice without mercy.
· A selfish scoundrel, trying to make a profit without risking their life.
· A manipulative powermonger, using deception to further their own ends.

Of course, these are just a few quick examples, and there are hundreds and thousands more options. The aim of the RPG is to provide the ability for the player to roleplay their character and its motivations, whatever they might be. Therefore, "the problem is choice".

Choice
This is a core element of roleplaying. It is choice that provides the ability to shape a character, to have an effect on those around. It is choice that means the player is not simply on a pre-defined path. The story must be flexible enough to allow the character's motivations to affect it, yet still be strong enough to keep player on a path to its conclusion. Without choice, the player may as well watching a movie or reading a book, but there cannot be so much choice that the story becomes weak or inconsistent. This balance is one of the hardest aspects of the game designer, as it means providing consequences for those choices.

Consequences
But in allowing the player to make choices, there has to be a reason for them, and more importantly, a consequence. If choices do not have ramifications, then what difference does it make if the player picks one over another? Consequences make the player think about their actions, to make them consider their decisions and to roleplay their character. Consequences reward roleplaying with a believable and engrossing experience – they provide verisimilitude.

Verisimilitude
Many RPGs are set in pre-established worlds or universes because they already contain the necessary background. More than a year of the development for BioWare's Mass Effect was spent simply creating the intellectual property to provide the setting. If a player doesn't believe the setting they are in, it breaks the immersion and this is one of the things that game designers attempt to avoid as much as possible.

Just as the player has their own personality and motivations, so do all the people in the world that they meet, and this should come through in their speech and actions. This is the means of tying together all of the above points into a cohesive package that makes a player want to keep gaming.

And that is the ultimate aim – to create an experience that the player not only does not want to put down, but to go back and experience it again after they've finished.