“RPGs Were a 30-Year Detour” Debate, Continued

Telepath RPG: Servants of God creator Craig Stern is the latest independent developer to share his thoughts on the controversial “RPGs always wanted to be action games” statement made by inXile’s Matt Findley during a recent interview with Gamasutra. With a title like “So you created an action RPG. Stop congratulating yourself.”, you should have a pretty good idea which side he’s taken:

Action games are just a genre; real-time gameplay, merely a mode of interaction. It has its advantages, sure, and it can be extremely enjoyable. But turn-based gameplay has advantages as well, some of which were recently articulated by the CRPG Addict in this piece. To his observations, I would add that there is something extremely satisfying about the deliberate play that turn-based games afford. Because of the slower pace and greater degree of predictability in most turn-based games, the player is able to plan much farther ahead and execute more elaborate plans in order to achieve victory. It is also nice not to have to make any and all tactical decisions on a split-second basis. Whether it is actually better is, of course, a matter of taste.

Some people attempt to justify the notion that games are fundamentally about action-based gameplay because such gameplay (they insist) simply isn’t possible outside of video games, whereas turn-based gameplay is easily reproduced via board games. This is nonsense.

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To say that action game challenges require more skill than turn-based game challenges is rather like saying that orange is more colorful than purple. The whole premise is nonsensical. Consider baseball and chess. Sure, baseball requires physical skill, excellent reflexes, and a limited degree of tactical decision-making from its players. But while chess does not require physical ability or reflexes, it does require tactical skills several orders of magnitude greater than those a baseball player requires. One cannot really say that either game requires more skill than the other: both require skill, but of different types.

I challenge the action gamer who thinks turn-based RPGs require no skill to play Eschalon: Book II or Nethack for more than an hour. I think he will find himself quite lacking in certain skills that he never had to develop playing Gravel-Voiced Manly Sword-Swinging Demon Slayer Of War 5. And while it is certainly true that not all turn-based RPGs require the same level of skill that Eschalon or Nethack do, we needn’t pretend that action games are all paragons of challenge either. They aren’t, aren’t and aren’t.

So let’s be honest with each other. Development houses aren’t churning out action RPGs because they require skill to play. These developers aren’t sitting around their offices playing turn-based RPGs, thinking (Gosh, this game is so easy; if only we made it so the player had to mash a button.)

No. Skill isn’t the reason for the recent glut of action RPGs: money is. Development houses are churning out these games because they see a large market for them, one larger than the market for turn-based games. And that’s fine. They are businesses, after all, and they are entitled to cater to the market however they think will best ensure their continued survival.