Would You Still Enjoy RPGs If They Had No Story?

[kainemaxwell]

Gameplay and the story is what really got me into playing RPGs. First RPGs were Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy Not much of a story, but enough to made you feel that you weren't much of a nameless Joe wandering about.

Really started loving RPG storylines with FF2/4.

[Tritoch]

I agree with Soulblazer 100% as well. Single-player RPGs without a good story are almost always boring to me, even with the best battle system in the world. The only MMORPG I've played extensively is Ultima Online, and I enjoyed it because it offered some excellent RPing (when not around the l33ts) and player-created storylines (as well as GM-run events).

[Crush Crawfish]

Personally, I'd have to say yes I would. The story is never the main reason I play any type of game, even RPG's. A great story is never a bad thing though. However, I don't want the story to take precedence over the gameplay.

[scooterb23]

If I wanted a story, I'd read a book or watch a movie. So gimme a sword, gimme a dungeon, and gimme some baddies!!!

I don't like RPGs at all, but a mindless dungeon hack =

[calthaer]

Most console and PC RPGs are only statistical acquisition simulations anyways. Some of them - yeah, I'd probably play.

Some games like Planescape: Torment couldn't do without the story, though. Note that another valid question would be - "would you still play RPGs even if they had no stats / experience points / etc.?" Then you'd almost be playing adventure games.

[Habeeb Hamusta]

I thought Grandia 2 had an awesome story. I also loved Final Fantasy 8 (I am one of the very few who did).

[Lemmy Kilmister]

Most rpg's have the same old "anti-hero has to save world, resuce lover and destory a unknown villian", so I don't really see why it matters. :P

[SoulBlazer]

Two people agreeing with me now. Wow, this is a amazing day.

I'll agree with what Kaine said also.

[Psycho Mantis]

for me, i need a story for my rpg's. if it doesn't have a story, i'm not motivated to play through it.

[WiseSalesman]

I probably would not play console RPGs (in the strict sense of the word RPG) without a story. I don't consider games like Zelda RPGs. The correct term for those would be "adventure" or "action-rpg". I'd still play those. But traditional console turn-based RPGs with no story? No way.

[jdc]

Yep, I'd play them. Most rpgs that I've played all have the same central theme to them......something bad is going to end the world and a motley band of assorted types are off to beat the shit out of it.

I play rpgs for the random battles and getting those character's stats to max levels. I like to learn every skill and spell. That's the fun of rpgs for me. Story comes second....because I've seen it all before. That's why dungeon crawlers are great.

[Berserker]

Depends. The first RPG game I ever played, Dragon Warrior, had almost no story to it. "Thou shalt rescueth my daughter and slayeth that one guy." That's about it. And I loved that game. An RPG doesn't nescessarily need to have a story for me, as long as it compensates for that in other areas. Of course, I'm guessing that RPG's without story are in short supply these days. MMORPG's are about the last bastion of relatively storyless RPG's at this point, and even many of those have some kind of loose storyline that can be followed by doing quests.

On the other hand, if you're going to throw the same kind of random encounter turn-based Attack/Magic/Item type thing at me, then you're going to have to have a fresh story there, because we've all done it so many times, without some kind of new element it's just going to seem like a chore.

[kupomogli]

I'd enjoy an RPG if they had no story. I think more often, good gameplay can save a bad storyline, over a good storyline saving bad gameplay. Gameplay is more about just the combat though and if your standard RPG happens to have good combat, but the world design, exploration, and games progression is poor, then it's not really good gameplay. In the past I never skipped storyline in an RPG no matter how many times I've finished it because even though short it was good. Some of the new games have had storyline so boring that it's hard for me to stay interested and I had no problem skipping the story for those.

[Edmond Dantes]

Is it just me or have some posts been disappearing? In this thread I know I posted something about the individual merits of story and gameplay and how one can overcome the deficiencies in the other, but it seems to be gone.

The same also happened in the "good games for less than $5 (physical media only)" thread. I know myself and another poster mentioned Outrun 2, but both posts are missing now. And in general both these topics seem a lot shorter all the sudden.

What's up with that?

[kupomogli]

^The last post prior to mine shows 2004. Maybe you posted here, but I dunno.

[Tanooki]

I can't remember now which topic it was but I know I had something vanish in the last few days too. I distinctly remember writing something and hitting post and it showing up. Also in a related thing perhaps, I've noticed it largely stalling out when wanting to post, taking minutes, then it goes through. It did that yesterday, but so far not today.

[Daria]

I don't play RPGs for the stories, but I also lose interest very quickly in traditional RPGs if they lack humor and likable characters - two byproducts of the story telling. Without the dialogue I may as well be playing imports. So no for the most part I don't think I would.

That said there are some RPG type games that I enjoy that do focus entirely on gameplay: Tactical RPGs, dungeon crawlers, rogue-likes, zelda clones. These I could still play. But like Lunar or Chrono Trigger without any of the character that makes it memorable? No thanks.

Edit: Weeeee! Necrobump. :P

[lendelin]

We wouldn't even play videogames of any kind if there were no stories or better: at least a situation we can identify with. Storytelling and -listening is one of the basic drives of human beings, if there is no story, we make one up. This sounds exaggerated, but it is not.

Why is this simple game with two paddles and one pixel going back and forth called Pong and Tennis? Because we imagine it is a tennis game or table tennis game. But they are just abstract pixels which could be anything. I remember a video which shows Ralph Baer playing with his Brown Box moving a pixel, and he says "whee - I'm the Red Baron" and shoots with fun. Even with the first games and later on the Magnavox Odysee and Atari the developers made up a story or situation AFTER the game was developed. Needless or laughable? No, there is a deep need for stories as a first step to identify with game content when we play.

Great games live from distinctive atmospheres, and one of the most important parts is a great story or Situation. The gameplay mechanics can be fantastic, the graphics great, if the story or the situational atmosphere falls flat, you'll never have a good game. This goes for racing games like Gran Turismo, and even more so for RPGs. A RPG without a great story and atmosphere (music, sound, graphics, situations, dialogue and character development) is not good and offers no incentive to be played.

Stories and situations are so basic and perceived often unconsciously that very often we forget how important they are. You always need stories in games, even if they are standardized and stereotypical as hell.

[Gentlegamer]

If the forum index crashes, it's all your faults.

And now mine too.

[Jehusephat]

That was the first phrase to came to mind when I saw this topic as it is basically what an rpg without a story is. I love the wizardry series and other such games in that vein so I would have to say yes to the question.

My favorite RPG sub-genre is the first-person dungeon crawler, and those games, along with roguelikes and tactics-style games, are probably the only RPGs I would enjoy with or without a story. I do enjoy things like short paragraphs describing the purpose of a quest, character/item/location descriptions or brief discussions with dungeon NPCs, but I see them as flavor text more than actual contributions to the plot. For example, something like "this room is cold, and has a peculiar odor" is preferable to "H3," and "thank you for returning my amulet!" is preferable to "quest completed."

I don't know how descriptive a game's plot needs to be before it is thought of as having a story for the purposes of this discussion, but I've been playing a lot of Heroes of a Broken Land and have not been bothered by the general absence of a plot beyond the intro sequence. Running around the map clearing out dungeons seems to be holding my interest at the moment.

Also, while I don't tend to think of them as "real" RPGs, I could probably tolerate a loot-based action RPG such as Diablo with little or no story to keep me interested. The original Diablo would likely be very much the same game without any real story, given that its strengths lie in its (at the time) innovative item generation mechanic and art/sound/music design.