Genre from Beyond

So the last two real posts I made (not counting the disclaimer) were both written as a lead in to an eventual article on leveling systems.  This is not that article, as it's still pretty important to understand where exactly leveling systems come from, which is the Role Playing Game genre.

RPGs have been one of the most popular genres of computer games for the majority of computer gaming's brief history.  Of course, it did not originate there, but in tabletop form, which itself was an offshoot of the strategy games (Warhammer and the like) genre that was originally started way back by H.G. Wells.  Anyone who's seen or played these knows that players assume control of a side, and decides when and where units will move and attack.  Since these are meant to be simulations of combat, they tend to be fairly complex affairs with a great deal of math and dice rolls. 

Tabletop RPGs are essentially the same thing, except scaled down to controlling a single person with pretty much all the complexities of that whole army compressed down into one character.  So instead of simulating armies in combat, now the game is simulating characters fighting, but more importantly expanding that control beyond into the myriad number of things a person might do, so a character who is handy with a sword and a bow may also speak 3 languages and have a hobby of woodworking.  This expansion beyond combat and focus on a single character is why it's called a Role Playing Game.   Just like the term used in acting, you're assuming a specific role (your character) for the sake of the experience.  But ultimately, the heart of the game is numbers and simulating things with those numbers.  The "acting" part of it is actually pretty ancillary to the numbers. 

Also worth noting here is a change of emphasis on competitive play (two opposing armies) to a cooperative one (multiple people on a quest together).  Since this sort of gameplay still required someone to act as opposition, there is always a Game Master of some sort running the show and trying to provide a memorable experience.  And with this, can be seen some of the unfortunate necessities that tends to come with the game:  lots of numbers to track, lots of dice to roll, lots of rules to remember, an odd man out GM, and it can be really hard to enjoy by yourself.  Of course, a computer is great with numbers and probability.  It can even provide a scenario and let someone enjoy the game itself.  So needless to say, it wasn't much of a jump for people to start making computerized version. 

Of course, one might note that many RPGs both tabletop and electronic don't seem to follow this form as much anymore.  Things change after several decades, and even the originals like Dungeons and Dragons have changed since then.  But what the genre has become isn't as important as the conventions that it has managed to retain.  In this case, we're talking specifically about leveling. 

Leveling was this system put in place to help quantify the improved capabilities someone gets from life experience.  New abilities are granted once a character reaches specific levels, stats are improved, and most abilities are directly affected by the level.  Two characters at the same level are probably equally capable of taking on a monster of a given level.  This makes it pretty easy for a human being to come up with appropriate scenarios, instead of looking at all the individual stats for a character and trying to guess.  Progression to the next level usually required significantly larger amounts of experience (generally an exponential curve), and typically had a relatively low maximum level.  The reason for these two things comes down mostly to the limitations of humans and books. 

While a human being is very much capable of doing complex calculations, it is time consuming, and isn't very enjoyable to have to do for every little thing.  So the math has to be kept to a minimum: addition and subtraction can be done easy enough, to a lesser extent multiplication, and an even lesser extent division, assuming that the numbers stay fairly low and only require one operator at a time.  For anything more complicated, it's easier for someone to just look up a value in a table and use that.  And since these tables were all physically printed out, the higher the range of numbers, the bigger the tables would get and the more expensive it would be to print the books.  So the simplest solution was to make a given enemy give a perfectly consistent amount of experience, and just increase the amount needed to reach the next level.  This means a once intimidating enemy that could contribute a significant percentage to reaching the next level would only contribute a tiny percentage when at a high level it was nothing more than cannon fodder. 

When RPGs started showing up in the electronic realm, most of the conventions set up by the early tabletop games came over with it, straight down to simulating the dice rolls and the tables.  Of course, since computers can quickly do complex calculations and cheaply store information, changes have been made to better take advantage of that.  However, they all still carry these systems with them at the heart, and much of the praise and complaints leveraged at an RPG is how it handles it.  But more on this and leveling next time.