No Violence Necessary: The case for The Sims as a role-playing game

Posted by Rowan Kaiser | Filed under gAmINg

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This is a weekly column focusing on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity.
Is combat a necessary component of a role-playing game? It doesn't seem to be, by any number of common definitions. Yet if you look at how the genre is interpreted, combat seems to be essential. RPGs are built around swords clashing and guns blazing, with occasional conversations. Sure, there are a few games like Fallout and Deus Ex which offer non-violent, alternative pathways, but the bulk of the game is still oriented towards players who want to fight.

There's a wildly popular, but under-discussed role-playing game that only includes a tiny amount of violence. It's The Sims, a game that shares almost every trait with role-playing games ... except combat. Don't believe me? Well, what do you actually do in The Sims?

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JoystiqNo Violence Necessary: The case for The Sims as a role-playing game originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 02 Mar 2012 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Read more | Comments (0) | March 2nd, 2012

A Diversity of Roguelikes

Posted by Rowan Kaiser | Filed under gAmINg

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This is a weekly column focusing on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity.
Once upon a time, the "Roguelike" genre was a semi-hidden cache of secrets in gaming. Games like Rogue and NetHack were passed around from floppy to floppy, not sold in stores, not discussed in magazines, and certainly not treated as part of the same tradition as an Ultima or even a Gold Box game. Maybe it's because the genre name is just so stupid. We don't call first-person shooters "Doomlikes" or puzzle games "Tetrislikes."

Unfortunately, I don't have a better term for it. Perhaps over the course of describing them in a column we can think of something. Here are the consistent attributes of the genres: it involves a series of randomly generated levels, starting hard and getting progressively more difficult. They're usually stripped-down role-playing games, where you roll a quick character, pick a class, buy a couple items, and then get killed permanently by a slime and have do it again. They're also designed for short play sessions.

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JoystiqA Diversity of Roguelikes originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Read more | Comments (0) | January 19th, 2012