Can RPGs Be Easy to Learn Without Being “Dumbed Down?â€ÂÂ
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Games should be easy (and fun) to learn. If you aren't having fun in the first five minutes, something is wrong. I give RPGs a little more leeway, but maybe I shouldn't. This is a problem, especially if you have a game system that has a lot of mechanical depth which I have always enjoyed. In fact, some of my favorite strategy games are the ones in which I learn new tricks and expose new layers of depth every time I play. This is good game design to create a game that's playable and fun without having to understand all the details, but which rewards continued play and exploration with ever greater depth (and more skills to master to improve play).
Unfortunately, the industry's answer to this quandary has not been satisfactory, in my mind:
#1 Tutorials. Tutorials usually suck and are generally not much fun. They feel like hand-holding, often because they are so tightly scripted, and I often find myself looking forward to being (allowed to play the game) once the tutorial section is over. That's wrong. We should be playing from the get-go.
#2 Eliminate Complexity. This is too often the other approach to (dumb down) games so that there's not nearly so much to learn. I will admit that depth doesn't have to be the same thing as complexity, but this streamlining effort often throws out the baby with the bathwater.
#3 Clone Familiar Gameplay. Game developers are making RPGs play (just like) popular action games, so veteran gamers don't have to learn much new to get into the game. To me, this feels like RPGs are losing their distinctiveness and becoming just a minor variation on action games. I have nothing against action games don't get me wrong but I play them for a different reason than I play RPGs.
There have got to be better approaches to the problem than this. While this isn't exactly the same as (dumbing down) the genre, I'd say (watering down) is an appropriate description.
