> > I was thinking, which I do, contrary to popular opinion, and I thought something. I think that it would be great if somebody made a book or movie version of an RPG. Admittendly, there have been book and movie versions of other games, but no RPGs, and they've often been with same characters but diffent plots, plus they've been of games that don't have great plots.
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> As someone who really doesn't have much experience to back myself up, I may be totally mistaken, but isn't Dungeons & Dragons an RPG? They made that into a movie, and boy was it a flop.
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> Ell"Having the film tape cut off the top foot on the screen (in a Sacramento theatre) for the last five minutes of the movie didn't help matters, either"myruh

_The Matrix_ was based off of a Shadowrun game supplement.

However, like Ayako says in her reply, I think OCC was referring to the genre of console or computer games referred to as "role-playing games".

I don't particularly care for computer RPGs (commonly referred to as CRPGs). To a child of Dungeons & Dragons (been playing since the blue box came out), these Final Fantasy games or other run-around-and-kill-things video games aren't really "role-playing". To me, that's like saying Clue is a role-playing game because you're really playing Colonel Mustard. Or that Tomb Raider is an RPG because you have limited control over Lara Croft. Or that Doom or Quake are RPGs because you have stats for your character.

CRPGs are much more limited than real RPGs. There's a neccessity for making all the linear storylines in CRPGs: the time it takes to program the world. You only have a limited control over your character's interactions with other non-player characters. (Choose one of three questions to ask the pirate. Choose one of three responses to what he said. Keep going back until you've selected everything you can ask the pirate.)

You can't do anything unexpected. You have to go from point A, where you have to kill some creatures, to point B, where you have to kill some creatures, all the while encountering random groups of creatures that you have to kill. Sometimes you can go to point C, where you have to kill some creatures, on your way to point B. This is known as a side-quest.

In most of the CRPGs, you can't create a character. Your character in POAT is "Kenneth Connell". You're male. You're a technician. You can't play "Kenda Connell", a female ace reporter for the Daily Sun. In games that you can build a character, you're awarded for min-maxing. It certainly would be interesting if you could play a barbarian fighter guy who was of average strength and didn't like wearing armor. However, if you don't decide to max out your barbarian's strength and give him the best suit of armor he can afford, your character is going to die rather quickly as combat is all you do in these games.

Every "level" ends with a "boss" character who is more powerful than anything you've encountered, yet you still might be able to defeat him if you picked up the right weaponry/chose the correct spells.

Basically, you're playing a game of Quake where you can ask people pre-programmed questions and get pre-programmed responses. ("Where can I find the red keycard?" "Look by the sewer entrance.")

Perhaps one day there will be a CRPG that will actually allow one to fully role-play a character in a logically-consistant world.

No more going outside of the city to find bunnies and snakes slaying hordes of first-level stick-weilding characters. No more paying 200 gold coins for a suit of burlap armor. No more enormous cities that only have guild halls, weapon stores, and churches. The game Neverwinter Nights looks like a promising step in that direction. For me, I'll stick with the traditional role-playing game for a while.

-Faux "Wouldn't mind seeing Neverwinter Nights when it comes out." Pas