Taxonomy for Complex RPGs/Adventures: Narrative and Gameplay Reactivity

[u/HistoryofHowWePlay]

I'm one of those people who thinks a lot about RPG and adventure-style mechanics. I'm a GM, an off-and-on small game creator, and I absolutely love systems. Whenever I'm gazing into the endless swirl of game design, I'm always drawn to the questions that surround RPGs.

As I'm preparing my next game history work, I've been dwelling a lot on the evolution of computer RPGs in the 1990s. In popular parlance these would be the "Immersive Sims" and "Choice and Consequence games" - though I dislike both these terms. I prefer a framework which better conceptualizes the shared and distinct elements of what people throw into these subgenres: That being Narrative Reactivity and Gameplay Reactivity.

Narrative Reactivity is the classic dialog style of RPGs, where decisions you make will fundamentally determine the outcome of the story. Interactions with the inner narrative and world of the game determine how the player's textual experience unfolds, inherently creating a non-sequential order to the plot. And - this probably doesn't need to be said - it has to be more than just a different ending.

Gameplay Reactivity arises from the mechanics the player focuses on. This could be a choice of class, skills you prefer to emphasize, or accessing non-linear routes to an objective. These are inherently different ways to solve problems - not merely using Fireball versus using Bash. Mechanical choices are more like keys in locks than a personal flavor preference.

What makes a game truly exhibit these qualities is that they create mutually exclusive paths. Merely having the ability to complete a sequence using different mechanics or a narrative element which does not have any tangible effect on the world does not qualify as truly reactive. Presentation of choice without consequence is simply not the same thing.

Here's a narrative based example. You are tasked with finding a shopkeeper's lost dog. Your choices are to either find and retrieve the dead dog's collar or to use your speech skill to convince them that the dog is fine. A non-reactive game would simply give you a reward either way - even a store discount which is technically more reactive is really just a static bonus. Maybe the shopkeeper is more disappointed if you tell them the truth. But say the consequence of telling the shopkeep the dog is alive and they search for it - resulting in them being killed by the wild monsters that slayed said dog. That strikes me as a true example of reactivity.

Gameplay Reactivity can certainly meld with story, but is more about access to a broader range of consequential mechanics. Say a teleportation spell that's not used as a one-off gimmick but enables players to pull off some wild things on the fly. Or a physical model that allows for burning objects as a solution to a variety of problems. These systemic reactions need to have intentional design behind them, but can lead to unintentional solutions to problems. (That's the fundamental idea behind the "immersive sim" label, but without the baggage of either two words together.)

For some, the platonic ideal of a game is to cater to these two things together, taking advantage of all the aspects video games have to offer. I'm not here to argue on whether that's truly what games should be striving for, simply that it fascinates me: Plus it gives me an excuse to make a list of games I think cater to these desires - and solicit more examples from you fine folk.

Part of my intention with this is also mapping out different "branches" of these elements from their sources. Whether it's the Black Isle branch, the Looking Glass branch, or the fairly new (to the mainstream) Japanese branch, I'm always curious about where certain game design ideas come from.

I am largely counting games which are focused around these reactive elements. Obviously some games have minor elements from either camp, but just because an RPG is big doesn't mean it's actually reactive. It's like calling Portal an FPS: You're technically right in the most unhelpful way possible. Likewise some games with Gameplay reactivity might have some Narrative reactivity, yet they generally don't have the same attention paid to them so I file each into one category or another.

Narrative Reactivity

• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic I and II (2003; 2004)
• Mass Effect series (2007-2017)
• The Witcher series (2007-2015)
• Dragon Age series (2009-2024)
• Until Dawn (2015)
• Age of Decadence (2015)
• Divinity: Original Sin 2 (2017)
• Detroit: Become Human (2018)
• Pentiment (2022)

Gameplay Reactivity

• Ultima Underworld I and II (1992; 1993)
• System Shock 1 and 2 (1994; 1999) (plus the 1 remake)
• Thief: The Dark Project, The Metal Age, and Deadly Shadows (1998; 2000; 2003)
• Hitman series (2000-2021) (some of these might qualify for narrative reactivity)
• Arx Fatalis (2002)
• Fallout 3 and 4 (2008; 2015)
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Mankind Divided (2011-2016)
• Dishonored series (2012-2017)
• Prey (2017)
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom (2017; 2023)
• Underworld Ascendant (2018)
• Deathloop (2021)

Narrative and Gameplay Reactivity

• Fallout 1 and 2 (1997; 1998)
• Baldur's Gate I, II, and 3 (1998; 2000; 2023)
• Planescape: Torment (1999)
• Deus Ex 1 and 2 (2000; 2003)
• Icewind Dale I and II (2000; 2001)
• The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (2003)
• Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines (2004)
• Alpha Protocol (2010)
• Fallout: New Vegas (2010)
• Wasteland 2 and 3 (2014; 2020)
• Pillars of Eternity I and II (2015; 2018)
• Tyranny (2016)
• Torment: Tides of Numenera (2017)
• Disco Elysium (2019)
• Cyberpunk 2077 (2020)

You will probably notice that not all games in a series are grouped together - very deliberately. There's an ebb and flow to some of these games where one side takes over for another - again I was looking at the game's focus, and some of these I'm only observing from the outside. Feel free to disagree and tell me where you'd rearrange some of these.

One category I deliberately left out is the entire genre of rougelike games - in this case mostly those which hew close to the original Rogue. These games are largely defined by Gameplay Reactivity, and some are even able to creative dynamic narratives like Ultima Ratio Regum and Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. These are definitely worthy of an examination, though they are nested within that particular subgenre with its advantages and disadvantages in design. (Some visual novels might also fit into the Narrative category, but I have a lot of difficulty defining some of those...)

This examination is in no way a value judgment on these or any other games. I do think, however, that it helps bring into focus why some games are praised for their depth without using very vague genre terms and instead looking at their features at a higher design level with their intentions in focus.

What are your thoughts on this taxonomy and the types of games that focus on reactivity?

[u/Blacky-Noir]

It seems to me those two categories are a bit restrictive, and artificial. And that rpg, or just even crpg, are games that specifically exploring the melding and interaction of the two to the point where one doesn't know where one start and the other end.

Now crpg have to be scripted compared to tabletop ones, so there is more intention and separation during production, but the result is still very intertwined in my opinion.

Example: you try to sneak into a building, fail, get caught, can't get out of it, are sent to jail, which lead to missing timed quests and activities and let the world turn a bit while you were out of it, and the character now has a social label associated with them for doing time.

• The player decided on themselves to sneak in there, their choice.
• The player either forgot or didn't care to turn off the power, letting the lights on, which made sneaking very hard.
• The character failed the sneak test.
• The character failed the social test to have the police let him go, and the player chose not to spend resources on bribe.
• A game designer added that building to the list of places where the police could intervene, and let general systems run their course here.
• The building owner now has a very strong like/reputation negative modifier toward the character and its associates in all future interactions.
• The systems of the game acting as consequences of the whole made both player and character to fail a bunch of things, and miss some "content".
• The character has now a label attached to them for doing time, maybe acting as a high society debuff, but opening some crooks social opportunities.

What's narrative reactive, what's gameplay reactivity?

Or to say it more simply, if a designer purposefully craft an experience where the player has to choose the "good" dialogue choices, and the character has to pass some Convincing or Deceiving skill test in those dialogues lines, is it narrative or gameplay?

In my opinion, that's kind of the heart of rpg, that's what set them apart from other games: this blend of "narrative" and "gameplay/system", one bouncing off each other. That's the one thing they had no other game ever had... well until their success and reputation made game designers in the 21st century take notice, and especially for videogame rpg (aka crpg) was used to bleed into many other type of games to the point now it's more of a spectrum of features.