Putting It Together

The design of a CRPG is not a small undertaking. Aside from the fact that putting together a complex and believable world is an extremely difficult task, the amount of effort that goes into the design is extremely high when compared to other types of games .

A recent trend with CRPGs, evidenced by Neverwinter Nights , Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind , and Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magic Obscura , is the provision of an editor with the game to allow the more involved players to create their own scripted adventures in the game world.

This is a trend to be encouraged, because it extends the longevity of the game, which in turn increases sales. Neverwinter Nights has taken this to the extreme, and allows players to actively run the game, editing an adventure in real-time as other players journey through it.

While this is currently the pinnacle of CRPG design, there is still a long way to go. There is, in our opinion, an overly heavy reliance on the old pen-and-paper rules. Although they are useful as a basis, there are better solutions available for CRPGs. It does nothing for casual players to see "+20 Pushback" appear onscreen during combat. It only reminds them that they are just playing a game.

Another, more fundamental problem, only partially solved by the active GMing allowed by Neverwinter Nights , is the scripted nature of gameplay. It isn't true role-playing. The player isn't allowed to do absolutely anything, as they would be in the pen-and-paper game. This latter problem isn't something that will be solved anytime soon; suffice it to say that until we have true AI and dynamic content generation technologies available to us, all CRPGs are really only fixed-story games. As a designer of CRPGs, it's your job to arrange the smoke and mirrors successfully so that players feel that they are in a living, breathing world with the freedom to do what they want.

The true CRPG would allow the player to do absolutely anything, anytime, anyplace, but we're years , possibly decades, away from that level of technology.