[Villfarelse]

Your point?

That since, like gambling, it isn't all text-based, it's a mini-game. Completely and often very well integrated into the game and the game world, but a mini-game still.

I haven't played The Witcher, but I'd imagine that the dice poker minigame doesn't involve much in the way of character skills.

There wasn't, as far as I know - but that doesn't really mean anything. Imagine if the same dice game would have been featured in Oblivion, or Fallout 3? Since they have Luck attributes, the game would be effected by stats. Still a mini-game?
If you're interested, here's a video featuring some dice poker. Mostly him selling stuff until 2 minutes in, though.

Eh, what?  It's not always disconnected aesthetically (for example, Chrono Trigger), and I've never seen a jRPG that has combat that is disconnected from player stats.

As I said, my first hand experiences with jRPGs are rather limited, so I guess it was wrong to use such broad terms. Narrow it down to just FFVII and VIII, for example - the combat in those two are nothing but a mini-game, despite there being hardly anything else to do in the game (you know, other than walking down the railroad). It's like reading a book, say LotR, except every time there's a battle going on you get to play it out yourself.
And combat is disconnected stat-wise from the rest of the game, since those stats has no meaning at all outside of combat. That is what I meant, at least.

[Sodomy]

Your point?

That since, like gambling, it isn't all text-based, it's a mini-game. Completely and often very well integrated into the game and the game world, but a mini-game still.

You didn't think this through very well, did you?

So, let's take AOD's combat.  Now, instead of having the interface it currently has, instead, you have a dialogue option to take a step in any direction, a dialogue option for any of your equipped item actions, and a dialogue option for your inventory.  Nothing needs to be changed about the actual system- does this make it a minigame?

Obviously not.  All you're doing is miring combat onto a shitty interface.

There wasn't, as far as I know - but that doesn't really mean anything. Imagine if the same dice game would have been featured in Oblivion, or Fallout 3? Since they have Luck attributes, the game would be effected by stats. Still a mini-game?

Given that Fallout and Fallout 2 had gambling, and I've never heard anyone consider it a minigame, then no, I can't imagine anyone thinking that it would be a minigame if it was determined by a luck attribute.

Narrow it down to just FFVII and VIII, for example - the combat in those two are nothing but a mini-game, despite there being hardly anything else to do in the game (you know, other than walking down the railroad). It's like reading a book, say LotR, except every time there's a battle going on you get to play it out yourself.
And combat is disconnected stat-wise from the rest of the game, since those stats has no meaning at all outside of combat. That is what I meant, at least.

Except, in FFVII (can't speak for VIII, given that I haven't played it), combat is NOT a minigame.  It's the core gameplay.  All of the stats, equipment, materia, and leveling system tie into it.  All that other shit you have to do, like the slapfight, escaping from the gas-chamber, riding the dolphin, riding the motorcycle down the highway, the submarine thing, etc., THOSE are minigames.  And terrible ones at that.

[Shemar]

Combat is not role playing.  That doesn't mean that they're mutually exclusive, merely that they are unconnected.  How is combat in Fallout any more role playing than combat in Halo?

I disagree. Combat is role playing. The way you go about in combat is one of the most important aspects of role playing, especially in games like FO3. Do you fight as if your line is really on the line or just charge in to get it over with and re-load if it does not work out? Do you move causiously and clear every room and every hallway before moving on, like a trained soldier would, or do you run around looking for things to shoot like an ADD teenager?

[Gambler]

Role-playing is a process where you project a certain personality upon a character in the game world and the game world reacts to that personality. Stats can serve to describe certain aspects of the character in a way the game system can understand and also to make sure those aspects behave in a sensible way. For example, your character is either strong or not. It's not something you should decide every time there is an issue that would depend on his strength. But that's a bad example, because people always think about stats in term of capabilities. Race would be a better example. The reactions to your character might be different based on the race (as in Arcanum). That's what important, the reaction.

It is possible to have a role-playing game without stats you pick and without character creation. The game can simply give you a character. You can still project a fitting personality upon it and observe the reaction. Here is a good analogy to how choices can combine into a role:
http://rogeralsing.com/2008/12/07/genetic-programming-evolution-of-mona-lisa/
Each polygon is a choice. The final picture is your role. So it's not a matter of being presented with 3 pre-defined pictures over and over again, and then choosing Mona Lisa each time. Each polygon by itself is a crude shape, but they eventually combine into something more interesting. That's how choices in an RPG should work.

What does this have to do with mini-games? I don't know, you brought this up.

The question of which pars of which game were mini-games is not the main question that should be asked. The first thing you need to find out first is what features create the phenomenon of mini-game. I can name one: isolation. What we can confidently call a mini-game is always somehow isolated from the rest of the game world. One thing to keep in mind here is that the result (lock opens, computer hacked) is not a part of the mini-game itself. What's isolated is the process of achieving that result. Technically, you can have 2 big parts of the game isolated from one another as well.  There won't be anything "mini" in that case, but it is it going to be a good design trait?

[Moose_and_Squirrel]

Combat is probably the single worst example to cite as something that has nothing to do with role play.  Every act, even something as simple as drinking a cup of coffee (the classic exercise and starting point for method actors), can be considered in terms of a role.  IMO, no consideration could be less trivial than how a character might fight for its life.

But that's not normally how it works in video games / arcade games.  PacMan, for instance, is merely an identity the player controls, not a role he plays.  He's there to gobble stuff up, and that's all there is to it.  He never thinks, never feels, never falters....

Developers can make whatever games they want and call them whatever they want, of course.  But if they're going to make RPGs, they really ought to think in terms of roles and how they're played.

[Hector]

Combat is not role playing.  That doesn't mean that they're mutually exclusive, merely that they are unconnected.  How is combat in Fallout any more role playing than combat in Halo?

I disagree. Combat is role playing. The way you go about in combat is one of the most important aspects of role playing, especially in games like FO3. Do you fight as if your line is really on the line or just charge in to get it over with and re-load if it does not work out? Do you move causiously and clear every room and every hallway before moving on, like a trained soldier would, or do you run around looking for things to shoot like an ADD teenager?

Now there I see your point.  My argument is that combat is not in and of itself role playing.  You can role play in combat, which is why the two aren't mutually exclusive, but combat is not role play (at least, no more so in an RPG than in Halo).

I disagree with Sodomy's definition, because I don't believe that role play requires statistics to determine success (if it did, 90% of my role playing would be "doing it wrong").

[Sodomy]

I disagree with Sodomy's definition, because I don't believe that role play requires statistics to determine success (if it did, 90% of my role playing would be "doing it wrong").

Judging from this, I can say that you're doing it wrong 90% of the time.

[Fosse]

Yeah, Hector.  You ninny.     Now stop bothering Sodomy, everyone.

[Shemar]

Now there I see your point.  My argument is that combat is not in and of itself role playing.  You can role play in combat, which is why the two aren't mutually exclusive, but combat is not role play (at least, no more so in an RPG than in Halo).

The way I see it 'role playing' and 'role playing games' are not the same thing. You can role play in almost any game, at least any game where you control the actions of a character or group of characters and you can play role playing games without role playing at all.

I role play in IL-2 (WW2 flight sim), both with the way I fight and with little details like asking for permission to take off and land from the control tower even though nothing different in game will happen if I don't bother. Role playing is not limited to role playing games.

[Moose_and_Squirrel]

You can role play in almost any game, at least any game where you control the actions of a character or group of characters....

Buy a child a doll, and he's liable to play with the box it came in instead, role-playing with it for hours.  So if you're willing to try hard enough, you don't actually even need a character at all.  

I role play in IL-2 (WW2 flight sim), both with the way I fight and with little details like asking for permission to take off and land from the control tower even though nothing different in game will happen if I don't bother. Role playing is not limited to role playing games.

True, but I wonder how that would compare to the role play kids achieve, playing only with boxes?  I know when I was a kid, not only did I imagine what my boxes might do, I would also imagine how they might do it.

All video games put the player in charge of decision making.  But an honest-to-God computer role playing game would enable and encourage the player to make more definitive decisions, ones related to how and why their characters do the things they do.

[Shemar]

I am not sure what kind of children you refer to, but I never decied to play with the box rather than the toy soldiers that came in it. And I never put myself in the shoes of one of these soldiers and try to see things from their perspective, so I don't see how any of this could even remotely be called 'role playing'.

To me role playing means to put myself in the position of someone else and make decisions as if I was that someone else for real, instead of a player controlling them in a game. And by my concept of role playing, there is no greater challenge to the role player than to pretend that your life and everything you care for is on the line, when it really is not and everything is just a saved game away.

[Moose_and_Squirrel]

I am not sure what kind of children you refer to, but I never decied to play with the box rather than the toy soldiers that came in it.

Sorry my example didn't work for you.  It's a cliche as far as I can tell, but not as universal as I assumed, apparently.

I'm suggesting that decisions about what to do are one thing while decisions about how and why to do them are another.  If the latter isn't part of the game you happen to be playing, then you could always just imagine all of that yourself (the way a child does when he's playing with nothing but a box).  But is that a comment about a game or the person playing it?

So to suggest that, since every video game you play can be enhanced with your imagination, enabling you to role play, there's no difference between cRPGs and other video games, makes no sense to me.

If video games could be made any way at all, if there were no limitations technically or otherwise, then I think the difference would be a lot clearer.  Myself, I can imagine how they might work a lot differently (and more like role playing games).

[Shemar]

So to suggest that, since every video game you play can be enhanced with your imagination, enabling you to role play, there's no difference between cRPGs and other video games, makes no sense to me.

I am not sure where you get all that. I never suggested anything of the sort. Neither that imagination is the only pre-requisite for role playing, nor that there is no difference between cRPGs and other games. What I did say is that role playing games are not the only games where the player role plays. In fact the very term "RPG" is more commonly used to indicate that the game includes character stats and their advancement than anything to do with actual role paying. RPGs are different with other games but their difference is in the mechanics of the game and not in that in an RPG the player role plays while in others they do not. In general RPGs are more conductive to role playing but they have neither the exclusivity on role playing nor the need to role play in order to play them.

[Moose_and_Squirrel]

I am not sure where you get all that. I never suggested anything of the sort.

Well, this conversation went nowhere fast, didn't it?

OK, I get it now.  You can easily imagine how you can role play in any game.  And sometimes you can't imagine it at all.  And role-play has little to do with RPGs, anyway.

That's a perfectly valid point of view and one I've read on forums like these many times.  My mistake.  I don't know how I misunderstood you.