Realism in Roguelikes

[Gr3yling]

Since Xecutor's recent topic about "legalized experience and item farming" turned into a discussion about the role and implementation of realism in roguelikes, I figured that it might be worthwhile to create a new topic devoted to that subject. 

There are a least two parts to what I have to say.  Here is the first one, and if anyone is actually interested in what I have to say, I’ll get into the second later.

I think it is reasonable to say that you have to prioritize what realistic aspects to include in a roguelike, because complete realism, or even anything close to it, is impossible.  I think that as you add more realistic elements the game does obviously becomes more realistic, but I think that the returns also diminish with each new element.

Take the idea of attributes, for example.  When I think of increasing realism, increasing the number of attributes used to describe the PC is the first thing I think of.  The PC is arguably the most important part of the game world, so it seems reasonable to start adding realism there. 

Lets use the system of attributes in ADOM as an example.  It has 8 visible attributes (I think), one of which is dexterity.  There is no agility attribute per se.

I think it would be more realistic to have a separate attribute for dexterity and agility.  This is because fine movement, performed relatively slowly, using mostly hand muscles (lock picking, some forms of craftsmanship) probably develops independently from coarser, faster movements, performed with large numbers of muscles over the entire body (leaping, dodging, running).

But, the problem is that there really aren’t that many tasks that would use this new, more specific dexterity attribute.  There’s lock picking, pickpocketing, playing music…And that’s about all I can think of.  The game isn’t improved in any significant way by its addition.  If having just dexterity simulates reality with 99% accuracy (just to make up a number here) having dexterity and agility might increase the accuracy of that simulation to 99.9%.  I want to believe that matters, but I'm just not sure it does.

Even if you did decide to go ahead and implement a separate dexterity and agility attribute, there’s no reason to stop there.  For greater realism, you could separately assign each limb attributes, like strength of muscle contraction, speed of muscle contraction, coordination, and endurance.  Perhaps the hands could even be separate from the rest of the arms to account for manual dexterity.

So, the question is, where do you stop?  How realistic is “realistic enough?” How many attributes and skills describe the PC accurately enough to create a sense of immersion?  If it does make sense to add a bunch of additional attributes, how do could you communicate all this additional information to the player in a clear, concise way?  And, incidentally, should each attribute be equally useful?  Can having a perception score of 20 rationally be made as beneficial as having a strength score of 20?

By the way, I do think it would be cool to add the more detailed attribute systems that I was just describing, I’m just not sure there’s actually any merit in doing so.

[Krice]

Can having a perception score of 20 rationally be made as beneficial as having a strength score of 20?

It's not very realistic to have attributes as numbers. It could be possible to model a realistic enough game world, or at least give that kind of impression to the player. It wouldn't be impossible, but you should also think about how powerful monsters are, because with typical roguelike monsters the player (if human) would not survive.

[Quazifuji]

I think I disagree with the notion of increasing the number of attributes being the best way to increase realism.  As you pointed out, it makes some sense and could be cool if done right, but would be hard to balance and in the end would likely add a lot of complexity and bookkeeping without actually adding a ton of depth to the game.  Sure, you could have separate strength and dexterity stats for each limb, or seperate agility and dexterity stats, but creating compelling gameplay from either of those ideas would be difficult.  You could also do things like have a food system where you actually have to worry about your character's nutrition and not just hunger, but a lot of people find hunger-only systems to be a nuisance, let alone a nutrition system.

I think to some extent, as Krice pointed out, you have to accept that a Roguelike will always be a simplification of things.  You're essentially reducing your character to set of numbers in any turn-based roguelike, after all.

However, it might actually be an interesting idea to try to represent your character's attributes as things other than numbers.  Consider health, for example.  It's not at all realistic that your health is represented as a number, and that the number being low is, in most games, meaningless, except that when it hits 0 you die.  If you really wanted to make a game more realistic, you could try to have a more realistic injury system.  Of course, the downside is that a fully realistic injury system would involve your character having to recover in bed for weeks after suffering a bad sword wound and possibly never being able to fight again, so you still have to find a balance.

One thing I think could be interesting would be trying to implement a "realistic" magic system.  I realize that the phrase "realistic magic" is silly, but what I mean is trying to create a consistent mythology of how the magic in the game works and actually implement the gameplay that way.  A lot of books have magic systems akin to a set of scientific laws governing how magic works, what it's capable of, etc, but most games just represent spells as things that drain from a meter that recharges over time.  It would be cool to see a game that actually has a complete mythos behind the magic system with a more complex end result than "spells cost mana and you can't cast spells when your mana's empty."

[NON]

I think you shouldn't confuse realism with detail and complexity.

You could have a perfectly realistic game about a fight between two swordsmen of equal skill. If the whole fight is decided by a coin toss, this is totally abstracted, yet completely realistic.

Abstraction (lack of detail), can just as well support realism. For example the early days D&D hit points do this - they represent wounds, stance, stamina, fighting spirit, etc. It's highly abstract, but it's believable I think.

As for detail, complexity and simulation. Humans (mammals) are so complicated machines (to humans), and hard to simulate in a Roguelike without Dwarf Fortress level of dedication. What if we have a Roguelike only about robots? Still very complicated, but far more plausible to get a decent simulation of. Many of the traits could be expressed as SI-units.

[Darren Grey]

Many of the traits could be expressed as SI-units.

Heh, that'd be hilarious You could have them fight on a frictionless plane and such too, so that all the physics equations can be correctly modelled...

On the many stats thing, what I'd maybe prefer to see some time is a many traits system. So the basic rules are extremely basic - say you die in 3 hits, every attack hits for 1 damage. But there are numerous traits you can have which modify this, some of them to great complexity, yet you only ever have a few traits active in the game. The gameplay becomes about balancing the traits you have, with a bit of gamification around that. I'm mostly modelling this off Small World, a board game that's a bit like Risk but much more fun, with the conquering rules being simple but various exceptions to the rules adding complexity.

As an example, you have a Tough trait which gives +1 max health. A Dodge trait that gives 25% chance to avoid damage. A Heavy Swing trait that does double damage but attacks take double time. A parry trait that deflects attacks from people you attack. Etc etc... You'd build it in a way that everything has interesting interactions with each other, and it would be easy to expand and add new traits as the game is updated.

[Gr3yling]

I think I disagree with the notion of increasing the number of attributes being the best way to increase realism.  As you pointed out, it makes some sense and could be cool if done right, but would be hard to balance and in the end would likely add a lot of complexity and bookkeeping without actually adding a ton of depth to the game. 

Okay, you mentioned that more realistic attribute systems might be cool if it they were “done right”.  Are you thinking of any particular ideas when you say that?

Sure, you could have separate strength and dexterity stats for each limb, or seperate agility and dexterity stats, but creating compelling gameplay from either of those ideas would be difficult.  You could also do things like have a food system where you actually have to worry about your character's nutrition and not just hunger, but a lot of people find hunger-only systems to be a nuisance, let alone a nutrition system.

Right, but I’m trying to figure out approximately how many numbers I can throw at the player and the game still be enjoyable.  Are ADOM's 8 attributes too many?  Would you take some away?  If so, what would they be?  What games have you played that you feel have done a really great job of describing the PC to the player in a detailed yet streamlined way?

I guess maybe the ultimate question is how rapidly a player can comfortably interpret information.  I mean, we’re talking about attributes here, but the same basic question applies to the information conveyed by the systems for modelling injury that you mention later.  Heck, someone may have even done research on this sort of topic.

I think to some extent, as Krice pointed out, you have to accept that a Roguelike will always be a simplification of things.  You're essentially reducing your character to set of numbers in any turn-based roguelike, after all.

Oh, I completely agree.  But, again, I want to know more specifically what degree of simplification is the most appropriate.  Say, for fantasy themed games like ADOM, Nethack, Crawl, etc.  I’m looking for a more concrete answer to these questions, basically.

However, it might actually be an interesting idea to try to represent your character's attributes as things other than numbers.  Consider health, for example.  It's not at all realistic that your health is represented as a number, and that the number being low is, in most games, meaningless, except that when it hits 0 you die.  If you really wanted to make a game more realistic, you could try to have a more realistic injury system. 

I realize there is some truth to that, but I think the idea of quantifying health numerically might be more realistic than some people think.  Vital signs do just that, for instance.  So do most lab results.  A lot of aspects of a patient history and physical examination are qualitative rather than quantitative, it's true, but numbers can give you a reasonably amount of information about someone's physical status.

Even in a more realistic model for injury, it seems like you are still going to have to use some sort of numerical system.  If injuries are highly localized, aren't we just talking about the HP of an arm instead of some sort of global HP value?  Or were you thinking of something else?
 

One thing I think could be interesting would be trying to implement a "realistic" magic system.  I realize that the phrase "realistic magic" is silly, but what I mean is trying to create a consistent mythology of how the magic in the game works and actually implement the gameplay that way.  A lot of books have magic systems akin to a set of scientific laws governing how magic works, what it's capable of, etc, but most games just represent spells as things that drain from a meter that recharges over time.  It would be cool to see a game that actually has a complete mythos behind the magic system with a more complex end result than "spells cost mana and you can't cast spells when your mana's empty."

I agree.  That sounds really cool.  How would you do it?

[Gr3yling]

I think you shouldn't confuse realism with detail and complexity.

You could have a perfectly realistic game about a fight between two swordsmen of equal skill. If the whole fight is decided by a coin toss, this is totally abstracted, yet completely realistic.

But this is a really specific case, wouldn't you say?  Most outcomes aren't really decided by a single binary variable.  I hear the point you are making, but I feel like it is making this problem sound simpler than it is.

EDIT: My point is, it seems that a decent amount of detail/complexity is required to approach realism in most situations a player encounters.  So, maybe detail, complexity, and realism are different, but they are certainly closely interrelated.

Or, maybe you have ideas for a more elegant solution to these sort of questions than I have come up with?  I'm certainly open to any new ideas you want to put forth.

Abstraction (lack of detail), can just as well support realism. For example the early days D&D hit points do this - they represent wounds, stance, stamina, fighting spirit, etc. It's highly abstract, but it's believable I think.

Okay, and this is what I'm really trying to get at.  What is it about the information that D&D gives the player which makes their character believable and allows immersion in gameplay?  What is about those numbers that makes the PC seem more real?  Do you think D&D's six attributes are the "magic number" or would you use more or less in your ideal game?

[miki151]

It's a matter of how much you love numbers. I don't like stats like charisma that merely affect shop prices and such. For me, a more interesting mechanic would be different gender combinations interacting differently. It would be more realistic too, I think. Is there any game where a female PC gets lower prices if the shopkeeper is male?

[NON]

My point is that my idea of realism is not tied to how detailed the game is.

For me, realism is something more like:
* The game's features are consistent with the setting.
* The game's mechanics, text, AI, etc does what you'd expect, based on reality. This reality may be modified to allow magic, elves, zombies, etc, it can still be realistic within that premise, and must still behave like you'd expect a world with elves to behave (I cringe every time I hear the argument "the game has elves and magic, don't complain that it's unrealistic that you can eat an apple to instantly heal all your wounds")
* Features should primarily be added to enhance immersion in the game world, not to add abstract gamey little mechanics. If you add dynamite, it should be because it would make sense that the game world has dynamite, not because you want to add an area of effect attack.

I'm mostly concerned with immersion and atmosphere.

If I take my own game Infra Arcana as example. Imagine I add gold coin items, and put shops where friendly cultists sell you items for gold. From a purely game-mechanical perspective, it would be a fun mechanic. But it would be ridiculous and unrealistic - in the sense that it would break immersion. Sure, the game is all about unnatural monsters and magic... but that's a completely different thing. I try to create a virtual world with the premise that there are unnatural monsters and magic. I don't need detailed simulation to do that, but I need consistency and a heavier focus on immersion than abstract mechanics.
As for detail, I just try to keep it as simple as possible (to develop and for the player) to convey the things I want.

With that said, I'm really fascinated by high detail simulation-oriented games like Dwarf Fortress, Aurora, Cataclysm DDA, etc. It's a noble pursuit

[Zireael]

It's a matter of how much you love numbers. I don't like stats like charisma that merely affect shop prices and such. For me, a more interesting mechanic would be different gender combinations interacting differently. It would be more realistic too, I think. Is there any game where a female PC gets lower prices if the shopkeeper is male?

ADOM as far as I can remember. I think ToME 2 did it too, in the past.

Gry3ling: I think 6 are ideal as long as they are all useful. I've added Luck, because I felt it was missing, but I wouldn't exceed 7 attributes in any case.

[AgingMinotaur]

It's a matter of how much you love numbers. I don't like stats like charisma that merely affect shop prices and such. For me, a more interesting mechanic would be different gender combinations interacting differently. It would be more realistic too, I think. Is there any game where a female PC gets lower prices if the shopkeeper is male?

ADOM. But it's done in a pretty horrible way: For male characters, shop prices are determined by Charisma, and Appearance is completely useless. For female characters, shop prices are determined by Appearance, and Charisma is probably useless (except for bards and other characters with pets). From a gameplay perspective, this means all your elves should be created females and all other races male, since that minimizes shop prices (since obviously orcs share the beauty ideals of humans and find their own species just as disgusting as we would; poor orcs).

But I think it could be interesting in a RL to try to implement gender and sexuality in a more meaningful way. I know Anamnesia does this to a certain extent, but I haven't played it enough to say much about how it's done. Considering how RL settings are often a bit over the top, the least I would expect of a gendered RL would be that sexual life is as diverse as the rest of the world, rather than implicitly measuring everything from the perspective of white, human, male heterosexuality. Imagine stuff like magic items to swap your gender (see the myth of Tiresias), allowing you perhaps to seduce an NPC who'd normally not be interested, or gain access to areas that are taboo for one gender. One starting point could be The Thousand and One Nights, with its portrayal of all kinds of romance (from "prince rescues princess" to "lesbian mocks fat guy who lusts for her"). In a scifi setting, you wouldn't even have to limit yourself to two genders. There could be species that reproduce though agamogenesis, parthenogenesis, or why not even trigametogenesis!

As always,
Minotauros

[Vanguard]

How realistic is “realistic enough?” How many attributes and skills describe the PC accurately enough to create a sense of immersion?

I hear this all the time but I don't get it.  Why is it good for video games to pretend that they're not video games?  Why is that necessary to achieve immersion?

By "immersion" you mean becoming completely absorbed in a task or a piece of media until it has your complete attention and the rest of the world just sort of falls away, right?  Heavily abstracted games can do that just as well as simulationist games with a thousand character stats.

Like, one of the most immersive things about ADOM is how the world is really mysterious in a way that directly affects you, the player.  You want to give the game your full attention and figure out what's going on.

It's a matter of how much you love numbers. I don't like stats like charisma that merely affect shop prices and such. For me, a more interesting mechanic would be different gender combinations interacting differently. It would be more realistic too, I think. Is there any game where a female PC gets lower prices if the shopkeeper is male?

I really don't like this.

You're assuming that every shopkeeper is out looking for sex or romance or whatever.  You're assuming they're all interested in the opposite sex.  You're assuming they will all be attracted to your particular character and that personality won't have a significant effect on any of that.  Mechanically, you're giving the player an incentive to choose their character's sex based on which will give better advantages instead of picking whatever they like.

It isn't realistic at all.  An expert haggler with an imposing presence will always get better prices in a barter system.  A meek personality is a huge disadvantage in negotiation regardless of sex and sexuality.

I agree.  That sounds really cool.  How would you do it?

There are usually two methods suggested for this kind of thing.  The most common is to come up with a set of pseudophysics for how magic works in your setting.  Real life physics are used as a common starting point (eg come up with magical analogues for Newton's laws of motion and the laws of thermodynamics).  Mana is a quantifiable form of energy that can be converted into other forms of energy, wizards are effectively scientists in the context of a world with different physical laws, etc etc.

So let's say that in your fantasy world, the sun is the source of all magic.  Wizards need exposure to sunlight to regenerate their mana.  Mana potions are solar energy that has been somehow forced into a liquid form.  Or maybe wizards can only cast their spells while standing in sunlight, and the brighter it is the stronger their magic.  During the day wizards might be incredibly powerful, but completely helpless at night, so non-magical fighters tend to use tactics and equipment that are appropriate for night time and darkness.  You could have wizard towers full of mirrors to better focus solar energy.  Maybe all magical effects are based on heat and light, or maybe other types magical effects exist, but are weak and inefficient because of the need to convert solar energy to electrical energy or whatever.

Basically just come up with any idea for where magic comes from and draw the appropriate conclusions from that.

The less common and cooler method is to base your game's setting on conceptual rather than physical laws.  Use myths and fairy tales as your inspiration.  Look at the weird way the human mind perceives the world and build your fantasy setting around that somehow.

So for example, say that you want to go with an animistic setting.  Everything that happens in the world is because of spirits rather than physics.  The spirits that live in stones are stubborn and conservative, and the stone's nature is derived from its spirits nature.  Night time in a forest doesn't feel spooky because of wild animals or irrational paranoia, it's because hostile and frightening spirits like to be there at that time.

Maybe wizards are people who can communicate with the spirits and give them commands.  Maybe they have to give the spirits something in exchange.  Or about spirits that like beautiful people and want to protect and help them so a higher charisma stat means stronger magic?  But what if the spirits' idea of beauty is really different from most humans' ideas about beauty?  Maybe different types of spirits like different things, like earth spirits appreciate power and durability, so being really xstrong means you can cause earthquakes and rockslides.

It doesn't need to be the usual natural/elemental stuff either.  Everything has a spirit.  There are spirits living in the road you travel on, and if you offend them, all of the wheels on your wagons break when you travel.  Doors have spirits too, and the person who earns their favor can bypass any lock.

[miki151]

You're assuming that every shopkeeper is out looking for sex or romance or whatever.  You're assuming they're all interested in the opposite sex.  You're assuming they will all be attracted to your particular character and that personality won't have a significant effect on any of that.  Mechanically, you're giving the player an incentive to choose their character's sex based on which will give better advantages instead of picking whatever they like.

It isn't realistic at all.  An expert haggler with an imposing presence will always get better prices in a barter system.  A meek personality is a huge disadvantage in negotiation regardless of sex and sexuality.

Well you usually make assumptions when designing a game. You don't have to take those particular ones if you don't like them. I'm assuming males are more easily manipulated by females, even if they're not looking for sex. This may or may not be true in real life, let's not go into this.

My point is, before you go into adding attributes like charisma and appearance, you can consider using sex for the mechanics, and I argue that it would be more interesting. I really like AgingMinotaur's ideas above, by the way.

[Vanguard]

I'm assuming males are more easily manipulated by females, even if they're not looking for sex. This may or may not be true in real life, let's not go into this.

Good call.

[Gr3yling]

Gry3ling: I think 6 are ideal as long as they are all useful. I've added Luck, because I felt it was missing, but I wouldn't exceed 7 attributes in any case.

I do feel like the attributes you chose for Veins of the Earth are good ones, but what made you pick seven?  It is a somewhat magical number, I agree, but I'm just curious what was behind your decision. And why did you pick those in particular?  Are there mechanical reasons that you felt others, like perception, just wouldn't "work" in the game? 

As far as the number seven goes, I thought I had read that US phone numbers are seven digits without the area code because this is the longest number of that you can easily recall, maybe for reasons related to chunking?  I am not well educated in this area, so I could be wrong.  Was your decision related to that?

I'm really not sure the number attributes has to be limited by the ability of the player to memorize them as long as they have a really rough idea of whether the PC is good or bad at something.  A lot of times you aren't even paying much attention to some of them.  You often don't care a lot about the PC's strength if they are a wizard, or their mana if you are a warrior, right?