Rogueism

"- anti save game trendencies
- permadeath
- etc"

necessarily equal "beautiful ideas" or that more modern RPGs do not. I see it as more of a accommodating vs. ascetic binary, or even indulgent fantasy vs. gritty "realism" (e.g. you die, you DIE). There are plenty of games with "beautiful ideas" but also beautiful visual execution of those ideas, which are not "rogueist." In fact, are rogueist games even allowed to be pretty? Anyway, I have to catch a bus now, later.

yeah I think that's my problem too... I didn't start playing RPGs until like last week, so I got no references

Also where did this idea that playing rogue-like games isn't fun come from!? They're very enjoyable, and not in a masochistic liking-it-because-it's-hard sort of way, but because it is all intricate but makes enough sense w/r/t itself that an accumulated set of knowledge (preferably gained from playing but sometimes from spoilers, I admit) can make one a better player.

Dude you have a job now, I got the whole fuckin' Battle Chest for $19.99 at GameStop!

If you play the game a second time, nothing changes. You don't have much of a leg up, because the "leg up" you get in the game is entirely how many hours you put in, level grind and cashflow being based on pseudorandom combat encounters in which the primary decision you have to make is the timing of your potion drinking or whatever. Additionally, if you're not even given the option to pick the classes of your characters, or where they stand in a formation, or anything like that, you've REALLY got nothing. This also goes for games where you are given an "illusion of choice" like my experience with Front Mission 4, yeah I can customize the shit out of these mecha, but there's clearly one best configuration for each character since their skill path is fixed and bigger guns are bigger guns, for fuck's sake.

In Rogueist games, even though a game might be turn-based and thus require no application of reflexes, you get a "leg up" from additional knowledge acquired AS A PLAYER, so that right from the start you know how to do things better and know about mistakes you have to avoid besides the "I wandered into a desert full of high-level monsters before finishing the 4-hour level grind session in the imp forest" mistake, because that one's bullshit anyway. Knowing the map and where you get your ass kicked (enabling you to MAKE speed runs) isn't about being given valid choices.

I'm on my second attempt at Fire Emblem for GBA and I've already gotten a very different experience that's a lot less riddled with errors than my first one. FE lets you achieve lots of different solutions to the problems it presents and basically forces you to live with your bad decisions by autosaving after every phase of each turn. It is 95% linear in plot and geography, but by omitting the illusion of choices in that regard it makes room for more complicated options in the field.

That's Rogueist, to me. Having to micromanage my peeps' inventories and try carefully to not get them murder death killed is part of it, but mostly what Dan said about being able to be a "better player" on repeat attempts, besides just knowing the map and story chronology.

Roguists would prefer there to be more games that are based on ideas that are beautiful. Non-roguists believe that this is anti-fun, and are maybe right.

(Laura)
I think that's a really romanticized notion. I don't know how

"- anti save game trendencies
- permadeath
- etc"

necessarily equal "beautiful ideas" or that more modern RPGs do not. I see it as more of a accommodating vs. ascetic binary, or even indulgent fantasy vs. gritty "realism" (e.g. you die, you DIE). There are plenty of games with "beautiful ideas" but also beautiful visual execution of those ideas, which are not "rogueist." In fact, are rogueist games even allowed to be pretty?

Okay, you are right to call me on this, I meant a very specific type of beautiful idea, beautiful is maybe even the wrong word rather than say "pure". An example I can think of is Loom (which is pretty much straight-up LucasArts except instead of inventory manipulation you have to cast "spells" by playing "music" on yr distaff to solve puzzles, you learn more as you go etc). Anyway anyway, Loom has a normal and a hard mode, in the normal mode when spell stuff happens you get coloured lights and the musical letters show up etc so you can be all "oh right that's untangle". But on hard, all you hear is the notes, you have to have music-type pitch-hearing to do it.

Ok so, to be to me this type of "hard mode" is fundamentally different to the hard mode on say Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance where there are just more monsters and they have more hitpoints etc - if both games were released with only hard mode, BADA would be "difficult" whereas Loom would be "rogueist" because the hardness would be an *effect* of a decision to choose pureautiful idea over unfrustrating play...

1) Roguelikes: Roguelikes :: Rock : Rockism (a videogame rockist: Tim Rogers!)

2) In a DROD-style puzzlegame, to alter a puzzle from allowing five wrong moves to allowing three is not rogueist. To alter it from allowing three to allowing one is.

Also I should sound less like a wanker, throughout.

Your Loom analogy is elegant.

What about platformers, though. Are there any that even qualify as having roguelike qualities? I remember Clash at Demonhead having a great deal of ridiculous, challenging shit going on, and not letting up for even a minute, but really just being able to choose your own route to the end game a la Mega Man isn't all it takes, is it? It's still the same game over and over, knowing the map is about the only trick you pick up.

Remember in the DOS Red Baron on 5.25" disks the "Realism" settings that would make your plane have all sorts of quirks and shit. Totally!!!!!!

This is what I think, too, and I think Rogueism isn't just about simulation being accurate in the confines of a very small set of circumstances, but letting you find lots of different solutions to the problems in the game. Exploring can take lots of different forms, my idea is that some kind of exploration being allowed (and rewarded) is the key. A simulation that beats you about the head with total "realism" in the context of one complex activity doesn't let you explore jack shit. Gran Turismo is all about whatever kind of garageload of ridiculous vehicles you want to build yourself to drive around whatever tracks you please, within the confines defined by gear ratios, tire wear and $$$$, which is why I put it forward.

...

thom jesus west (4:55:14 PM): oh dear. nethack-you just got killed.
thom jesus west (4:55:21 PM): you killed and ate some gnomes first tho.

I'm not saying it isn't I'm just asking cos I'm not sure I have a clear handle on what rogueism is still but I want to learn

What I though Tom was talking about here is the distinction between, say Kingdom Hearts, where you can wander around the beginning level for two or three days and get to lvl 100 before you start out, and Zelda, where if you don't have the next hot item, no amount of running around hitting things is going to get you past the next dungeon, so get to it! Actually Zelda has an out, it has rupees and things you can buy with them, but before I ever saw it I saw Alundra on the PS2 which was totally hardcore like that, and stunned me when I first realised.

Players can always impose rogueishness on a game, through speed runs/initial equipment/etc.

This is humans for you, give them something to do and they'll organize and innovate on it.

zing

Who knows; maybe generation algorithms have improved in 12 years.

Also, has anyone found a better interface for nethack -- isometric or 3d? I'm sick of the awful OS X keybindings....