It's role-playing, not roll-playing
OPINION
In my previous blog post, I complained about the game systems that are used by most computer RPGs at the moment. Basically, the game systems sometimes become too apparent and the storytelling and role-playing are forgotten on the background. Now, on a related note, I'd like to say a few words about role-playing in general.
What most developers miss when they make computer RPGs is that RPG stands for role-playing game. It does not stand for adventure game, nor does it stand for hack'n'slash. Although both are part of a good RPG (who doesn't like some action now and then and adventures are a must, naturally), RPG is also much more. You aren't just going through and adventure, killing enemies and looting treasures, you are supposed to be playing a role. Unfortunately, most so-called computer RPGs forget this entirely and treat the genre as if it was simply a fancy name for adventure and hack'n'slash combined.
But, what does playing a role actually mean? What could the computer RPGs do better to take into account this facet of the genre? In the following, I'll study some aspects that will make a game feel like a real role-playing game.
1. Character design
Actually, the basic idea is pretty simple: you take on the persona of a character and interact with other characters (usually computer controlled ones, or NPCs, if we focus on single-player role-playing games for the moment being) and the world that these characters inhabit. In conventional RPGs (the real ones, without computers in the room), you get to make up your own character by designing the appearance, background, motivations, the attributes/stats as well as the skills of the character that you want to play. This process of design, in part controlled and guided by the gamemaster, makes sure that the player will have a personal link with the character that he's going to play.
In computer RPGs, you normally cannot have as much leeway as you have in pen-and-paper RPGs simply because programming such freedom would take a lot of time. However, in best computer RPGs you still get to design the general look of the character - or at least the facial features, pick the species or a race, and decide what sorts of skills you want the character to be good at. This makes the character feel your own and makes you commit that much more to the story that is about to begin.
2. Character interaction
In paper-and-pen RPGs you will naturally mostly interact with other human beings, meaning your fellow players and their characters and the gamemaster who controls all the rest of the characters in the game world. In computer RPGs, this is again an impossible goal, but something that should still be striven towards. We still get RPGs that only allow you limited control over your character by offering only one or, at best, two ways to react or respond to the events in the game world (e.g. "Yes, I will gladly help you" or "No, I'm too busy"). Of course, it is much work to take the interaction much further than this, but it is also the best way that you can increase the player's immersion into the game world.
Another thing that you should remember is to make the NPCs as alive as possible - you don't want to have them standing in the same spot days on end, or ignore what happens around them until the player character comes to speak to them. You want to have the NPCs to react to the events around them, try to stop the player if he tries to rob their house and go to sleep when it is night - perhaps even eat something once in a while.
When you make the NPCs part of the world where they live in and when you provide rich possibilities for interaction with them - interaction that also takes into account the possible history between the player's character and the NPCs, even if it is only the player character's fame - you are on a road to creating a real and living world.
3. Non-linear storyline
Role-playing games are all about player choice. Gamemasters may design big stories and plots that never get used simply because the characters decided instead to buy a ship and leave the city, or even the country, far behind. And, if you want the players to feel like they are living in a real world, you let them do just that, unless there's some plot point that you can use to make the water routes unusable or ships impossible to buy.
Again, in computer RPGs you cannot go quite this far. Whereas gamemasters can take their unused adventures and plots and use them again later in another campaign, computers aren't yet that smart. However, in computer RPGs you still have to give the player some freedom. You do this by providing as many subplots as you can afford to design and making many of them as long as convoluted as you can (such as the progress in the Guild hierarchies in Oblivion). You try to take into account all sorts of gamers: those who like magic, those who want to rely mainly on their melee skills and those who like playing the rogue/ranger bowman, or any mix of the above, and design quests and adventures that serve all of them. This way, you make sure that they all have something to do and you do not force them all to play through the exact same quests - this also greatly increases the longevity of the game, since the gamer may want to take on a different role the next time and thus chooses different quests to take. Also, you never ever force the player to play through the main plot if they don't want to do so. Let them play around in your world with as few restrictions as possible.
When you provide both a good game system (no senseless restrictions based on arbitrary things, such as levels) and real chances for the player to actually play a role in the game world, you've created at least a good RPG. Perhaps it still has fantasy weapons and armour that defy all laws of physics and nature, and the characters may still bounce around like super-balls (I sure hope we are getting rid of that, though), but at least it is a world that gamers can delve into for days of their lives. And, perhaps, then they will also stretch for the sequel when it comes out.