Rogueism

you control the game with his dangly bits

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v418/PavingMAntis/01.jpg

we got some HATS now, muthafuckas!

"Rogueism" as described above doesn't necessarily equal complexity so much as difficulty. Things can be really, really difficult (and frustrating) without being very in depth (Ever played Ghosts N Goblins?). Also, lots of later RPGs were very complex and sophisticated (Materia? Conditional turn-based battle systems?). I'm not saying they were always good in every instance, but they weren't EASY--it's not like you sat around mashing buttons between cutscenes as some people who have never played them imply. Strategy is indispensible in any truly "fun" RPG.

Also, I think level grind is inevitable in RPGs, at least to some extent. 2D RPGs were not immune to this either, though perhaps it is a matter of degree. Wandering around "hunting for more and better equipment" sounds a lot like grind to me, at least when you spend long enough doing it.

yup. soooo many memories of doing this even back in the Ultima days.

i wonder when Lord British is actually going to back a decent american game again, anyway...

i mean moria was pretty straightforward.

I would say the depth with which rogue-like games (again, specifically Nethack) leverage the inventory aspect is much more a part of the identity of the category than anti save game trendencies or permadeath (which are both really the same thing, aren't they?). Sure this is true to some extent of all RPGs of any sort, but while many console RPGs for example assign each character a specific weapon and armor type which have very clear-cut levels of quality (rainbow blade is better than steel is better than copper), and arrive at relatively pre-defined points during the course of the game (you start with the wood sword and never get the steel sword before getting the copper one), the player of a rogue-like game has to develop a deeper understanding of their inventory relative to a lot of other game factors. Part of playing the game is learning not only which armors grant you a better AC, but balancing that against the weight of the armor, special resistances, tendency to rust, stuff like that; and this is true for every single type of item in the game!
(really though, I don't know why we have to talk about "rogue-like". It seems to me that no other rogue-like game comes within leagues of Nethack in any aspect. It's just better than all the rest.)

I think Zangband is good and some of the nethack clones are also.

The most roguist thing I have ever seen isn't Nethack at all, but rather this faq for a now-abandoned MMORPG - check out the answers to the pvp, spawning and gods questions!

Kinda like Metroid, then, HUH.

Diablo and games like Fire Emblem or FF:Tactics are 100% linear or very nearly so - is extensive exploration really required to be rogueist? I can't figure it out because the linearity of Sierra adventure games really ticks me off, but the games above don't. The Baldur's Gate game I played through on PS2 was totally linear and pretty difficult at times, especially some of the "puzzles."

I'm not sure if I appreciate sheer difficulty as being Rogueist, though. I think perhaps the difference should lie in the puzzle solving. Dragon Warrior games are completely Non-Rogueist because seriously people it's nothing but level grind and a-button mashing. Earthbound/Mother is probably the exception. Diablo vs. Dragon Warrior, though - wtf is the difference besides realtime combat?

I'm way too fuckin' ontological for my own good.

I think Dan's point about inventory weighage-up vs copper->steel->rainbow stuff is useful here but like Diablo is hardly the paragon of roguishness anyway! Linearity seems like kinda a red herring to me, I mean both extreme linearity and extreme non-linearity strike me as potentially positive values, in rogueism...

do the "perfect run" movies circulating on the net represent rougeism?

pls tell me if you do!!

Completely, if they were in fact made in one single take. I'm sure a lot of people take their best times from seperate levels and paste them together into one video as if it were playing through as normal, though I have no proof of this.

and I've read the whole thread... sorry guys

For me, both permadeath and 'having to save all the time' are (at least potentially) rogueist bcz they represent rogueist response to the "problem" of "well, people can save, does this not trivialise the challenge of our game"? So one dude says "we shan't let them save!" while another says "right! well, we'll make them save ALL THE TIME THEN, so it is still challenging!". Whereas a non-rogueist response wld be "yes, but they probably won't save all the time, because that is No Fun"...

x-post yep!

Both roguists and non-roguists like Katamari, because the idea is simple and good and unsullied, and also it is really fun!

"- 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.