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Message: <blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 5160147" data-attributes="member: 85870">Celebrim, I think I understand fundamentally what you are saying. I think some people are missing the "forest for the trees" in trying to pin down the minute definition of "useful" vs. "not useful" actions. The real point Celebrim is making is that a certain type of game system can, due to its design, inherently reward more "immediate gratification of achievement" types of players than not. Here's an example--I am a massively committed PC Gamer. I can't count the number of PC game titles I've purchased and played over the years. I'm also a massive RPG player, both on the PC and pen and paper. Yet in all my years of gaming, I never, ever once played any of the Diablo PC games. It just never appealed to me, based on what everyone said it was--"You adventure....and kill stuff....and level up....and you do it some more!" Yet a few weeks ago, I picked up the game Torchlight on Steam for a mere 5 bucks, because it had gotten generally positive reviews, and a bunch of my friends played it. Well, as far as I can tell, if Torchlight is fundamentally the same as Diablo (and by all accounts it is), then I do understand why Diablo I and II remained popular for so long. Diablo/Torchlight are classic cases of "achievement reinforcing gratification." Yes, there is some "strategy" involved in building your character, and utilizing the attributes/skills/powers/traps/magic in the most effective ways based on the encounter and terrain. But the real "reward" of playing Torchlight is the ongoing sense of "achievement leveling." I'm waiting for the next big weapon, the next big armor piece, the next gold stash so I can "enchant" my weapon to be more powerful, etc. Yeah, there's supposedly a plot thrown in about some evil underneath the mines, but it's really just an excuse to throw a bunch of bad guys in front of you constantly--and reward the player for successfully conquering them. Now, is Torchlight an FRPG? Well, by most definitions, yes--it has character customized stats, it contains "leveling," it uses fantasy tropes, there's magic and orcs and goblins and monsters. Yet the type of enjoyment I get out of Torchlight is much, much different than the reward I get out of something like Knights of the Old Republic. Yes, there's combat in KOTOR, but the downtime between combats is significant. In KOTOR, you're expected to engage with the NPCs in the game world in more interested fashion, you're given choices (however rudimentary) that actually affect the fate of those NPCs. Yet, here's the catch--the reward cycle of KOTOR is much, much longer. There's an investment of time in KOTOR to get that sense of achievement. I think the sense of accomplishment is greater in KOTOR when you really do achieve one of the major goals, but the fact of the matter is, doing a single large-scale quest in KOTOR is a 2 or 3 hour ordeal. Yet I can hop into Torchlight, and within 5 minutes, I'm having "achievement gratification." Now, is either way of approaching an "RPG" bad? No, not intrinsically; they're both valid ways of receiving "achievement gratification." But if a rules system is designed to push the "gratification cycle" into a shorter or longer time frame, then some players may be dissatisfied, depending on the experience they were expecting. And I do think Celebrim is right in saying that it's a dangerous proposition to push pen-and-paper RPGs too far in the direction of "short-cycle achievement gratification," because ultimately that's a losing battle. The very nature and features of pen-and-paper RPGs make them ill-suited to heavy doses of "short-cycle achievement gratification." You have to get together in one location, read notes, discuss play ideas together, socialize, use tactics collaboratively, etc. All of which inherently push against the intrinsic need of a gamer who's looking for immediate, "short-cycle achievement gratification." Seriously, video games and other forms of entertainment do "short-cycle achievement gratification" better than pen-and-paper RPGs ever will. They're multimedia, they have lights, sounds, flashing colors, you can see your avatar on the screen with the biggest, baddest weapon, whereas in RPGs you're just imagining it. And you don't have to have a "GM" to keep pushing encounters at you; the computer just keeps sending the baddies your way, and you tactically respond. One could almost say that the entire point of pen-and-paper RPGs is provide a longer, more satisfying reward cycle, to provide a sense of enjoyment that cannot be obtained through other means.</blockquote>

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