General RPG Quirks and Oddities

[Revier]

I have played a fair few SRPGs at this point, and while my knowledge is certainly not that great, I've picked up on a few quirks and oddities they tend to exhibit. Some examples:

• The asshole friend who usually either betrays the main protagonist, or ends up as an early enemy.
• The secret prince/princess who is destined for greatness. 
• The manipulative guy who thinks the ends justify the means, and constantly betrays people to achieve their aims.
• The "rival" who comes out of nowhere and constantly defies death, retreating from defeats until a climactic encounter or a narrative death.

What quirks and oddities have you personally observed in these genre of games? Post them here!

Edited July 14 by Revier

[Integrity]

not to poo-poo your thread but those are pretty much all just jrpg tropes, not at all specific to srpgs

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Just now, Integrity said:

not to poo-poo your thread but those are pretty much all just jrpg tropes, not at all specific to srpgs

Rival character that keeps coming back from death, yeah like Ultros in Final Fantasy 6. Thirty years later, more attractive these Rivals may be. But certainly not as cartoonishly funny as dropping an anvil on you at the opera.

2 hours ago, Revier said:

The manipulative guy who thinks the ends justify the means, and constantly betrays people to achieve their aims.

Honestly I wouldn't mind seeing this guy more in SRPG. Both in a villainous role AND as the protagonist. With SRPG typically featuring ensemble casts the size of a fire emblem game, there's a lot of room for covering interpersonal dramas, conflicting motivations between characters. Culture shocks of diverse backgrounds. A winning smile can buy you some fast friends. But true leadership is getting people who don't like each other to work together.

[Revier]

1 hour ago, Integrity said:

not to poo-poo your thread but those are pretty much all just jrpg tropes, not at all specific to srpgs

Yeah I guess they're p much generic RPG tropes, they just seem to come up quite often in SRPGs. Anyway, I'll edit the title now.

[Jotari]

In terms of gameplay, I find the idea of missing an attack mildly fascinating. It's something that's been built into the bread and butter of RPGs right from the very start, so much so that basically no one questions it as a mechanic. But, taking a step back, isn't it kind of weird that it's such a staple mechanic of the genre? That you have a small chance to just whiff and miss an attack outright? I haven't researched it, but I'm sure it originates from the table top DnD days with dice rolls, wherein missing does have a point as you're trying to reach certain stat benchmarks and this RNG system was an easy way to ensure tension in combat. But forty something years on I question wether there is value for the ability to miss being in basically every RPG. What is it adding to the game to just occasionally feel the disappointment of failing through no fault of your own? Granted, some games do still integrate missing into their gameplay, I think Fire Emblem is actually rather good at it by balancing weapons around accuracy, but for many games the ability to just miss an attack is really only there by genre convention.

[Polinym]

19 minutes ago, Jotari said:

In terms of gameplay, I find the idea of missing an attack mildly fascinating. It's something that's been built into the bread and butter of RPGs right from the very start, so much so that basically no one questions it as a mechanic. But, taking a step back, isn't it kind of weird that it's such a staple mechanic of the genre? That you have a small chance to just whiff and miss an attack outright? I haven't researched it, but I'm sure it originates from the table top DnD days with dice rolls, wherein missing does have a point as you're trying to reach certain stat benchmarks and this RNG system was an easy way to ensure tension in combat. But forty something years on I question wether there is value for the ability to miss being in basically every RPG. What is it adding to the game to just occasionally feel the disappointment of failing through no fault of your own? Granted, some games do still integrate missing into their gameplay, I think Fire Emblem is actually rather good at it by balancing weapons around accuracy, but for many games the ability to just miss an attack is really only there by genre convention.

I don't know how much other developers think about this, but I've always considered missing to be an immersion thing. In real life, you don't always toss the basketball into the net, you don't always hit the baseball when you swing, and you certainly don't hit the target with every arrow you shoot. Accuracy exists because it's a real thing.

Edit: To add my own two cents, I've always found it bizarre how nearly every RPG in existance still keeps "death" as a state and locks you from healing except with explicit revive moves. The idea of your characters literally dying and being revived 10 times for every boss fight is just absurd. Granted, it fits immersion-wise when you're trying for a western-style RPG with a focus on realism, treating death like death. At least, some few titles let it say "wounded", unconscious or "Swoon" 😛 or something to indicate that your character is incapacitated but not actually dead.
It gets very annoying when the game's boss fight gameplay just consists of Fenix Down, Life spell, char dies, Fenix Down... I've been playing Arc Rise Fantasia recently and so many of the boss fights have boiled down to that.

There's a very easy solution: just let regular heal spells revive characters, and don't call it "death". Why don't developers do this? I did this to my game, at least. 🙂

 

Edited July 14 by Polinym

[Jotari]

36 minutes ago, Polinym said:

I don't know how much other developers think about this, but I've always considered missing to be an immersion thing. In real life, you don't always toss the basketball into the net, you don't always hit the baseball when you swing, and you certainly don't hit the target with every arrow you shoot. Accuracy exists because it's a real thing.

 

This certainly works as immersion in a 3D live combat where if you attack too far from your foe than obviously your attack isn't going to hit. But Ina game where characters are lined up and doing the same action consistently it doesn't really feel like it's part of the immersion to me. Especially when you get big huge attacks that cover a wide area and still miss (the most amusing Fire Emblem example is side stepping Foreblaze). If reality is to be adhered to then attacks would miss a lot less and parries would be a lot more common. At least from my experience with fencing, blocking is a lot more common than swinging and just completely missing your opponent.

36 minutes ago, Polinym said:

Edit: To add my own two cents, I've always found it bizarre how nearly every RPG in existance still keeps "death" as a state and locks you from healing except with explicit revive moves. The idea of your characters literally dying and being revived 10 times for every boss fight is just absurd. Granted, it fits immersion-wise when you're trying for a western-style RPG with a focus on realism, treating death like death. At least, some few titles let it say "wounded", unconscious or "Swoon" 😛 or something to indicate that your character is incapacitated but not actually dead.
It gets very annoying when the game's boss fight gameplay just consists of Fenix Down, Life spell, char dies, Fenix Down... I've been playing Arc Rise Fantasia recently and so many of the boss fights have boiled down to that.

There's a very easy solution: just let regular heal spells revive characters, and don't call it "death". Why don't developers do this? I did this to my game, at least. 🙂

 

Don't most games call it KO?

Edited July 14 by Jotari

[Polinym]

33 minutes ago, Jotari said:

This certainly works as immersion in a 3D live combat where if you attack too far from your foe than obviously your attack isn't going to hit. But Ina game where characters are lined up and doing the same action consistently it doesn't really feel like it's part of the immersion to me. Especially when you get big huge attacks that cover a wide area and still miss (the most amusing Fire Emblem example is side stepping Foreblaze). If reality is to be adhered to then attacks would miss a lot less and parries would be a lot more common. At least from my experience with fencing, blocking is a lot more common than swinging and just completely missing your opponent.

I guess that's true... in Fire Emblem's case though, the miss seems to also seems to also double as a dodge mechanic, meaning often your attack "missed" because the opponent dodged.

34 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Don't most games call it KO?

Maybe... but still! Come on developers! Let my heal spell "revive" dead party members! 😄

[Revier]

To also be fair to Fire Emblem, each "tile" is supposed to represent a fairly wide space guarded by the unit, who could also be assumed to have their own escorts etc. But, of course, the level of abstraction is not consistent, even within each game, which perfectly leads to my next quirk:

• A serious case of inconsistency in the abstraction, where a party capable of slaughtering dragons and giants on their own is overwhelmed by a small army of mooks. On the flipside, three heroes heading into battle is treated as an army charging the enemy.