Twisted roots of computer RPG systems
OPINION
Ever wonder why virtually all traditional computer RPGs seem to have more or less the same basic mechanics? You get warriors who excel in weapons and armour, healers who are good at healing and perhaps use weapons (often only blunt ones), thieves who are sneaky and mages who cast destructive spells
Most of us who have played conventional RPGs in addition to computer RPGs already know the answer to the above question - and, in fact, it was already hinted at at the end of the previous paragraph. Yup, you got it: Dungeons & Dragons, the one RPG that created the whole genre. D&D and its bigger brother, AD&D (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons) instilled it upon us that RPG characters should all belong to certain main classes or professions that have their strengths and weaknesses. And some of this makes good sense: you don't want to have your mages wear the best armour, because that would make them more powerful than the fighters (and it can still be argued that magic-users are always stronger than non-magic users). Similarly, some other professions have restrictions on what sort of weapons they can use (such as clerics not using any sharp weapons) in order to not make them too powerful.
And, in a matter of fact, the heritage of D&D follows us to this very day in many computer RPGs. The fact that there are a lot of other RPG systems out there that have managed to make a balanced system without profession/class restrictions and have even got rid of the levels entirely (such as Runequest) hasn't really occurred to many computer RPG developers. What's more, computer RPG developers have even succumbed to making MORE restrictions in order to balance their games, for example:
"No, you cannot wield a falchion before you are on the 9th level." What? Why is that? That's just like telling someone that they cannot try using a good badminton racket until they have reached the 10th level and suffered lesser rackets for long enough. Similarly, some games stop you from trying to use better sets of armour until you have reached a certain level for no apparent good reason. Basically, the need to create such restrictions merely reveals that no one bothered to balance the game system and the effects of the weapons and armour in the first place.
One area where we have seen some progress is in the computer RPGs with only one protagonist. Unlike in early systems where you could only play a warrior who then had to heal himself with magic potions and other items, or a mage who could wield both attack and healing spells, you started to see games in which you could learn both swordplay AND magic use. Basically, this means that such games no longer allow you to be a total non-magic user and this may annoy those you really LIKE playing fighters, thieves, rangers and rogues. However, even these modern games still usually retain the levelling of the character - insisting that skills can only increase when a given amount of experience has been gathered, and even then you can increase any skill you like even if your character has never even attempted to use that skill before.
Fortunately, there is a single exception (that I know of): Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. I don't know if the developers of Oblivion have read their Runequest rulebooks, but they have clearly taken the best ideas of that system: no levels, your skills increase as you use them; you can learn both magic and arms use as much as you want to, there are no restrictions on what armour you can wear or at what level (although you should develop skills in that armour classification in order to use it without penalties) etc.
Now, the problem with Oblivion is that it has spoiled me. I simply cannot tolerate other computer RPGs on the market that still insist on using a variation of the age-old restrictions in order to balance the game system (just as I cannot tolerate conventional RPGs that do the same). With mages not being allowed to wear armour I can live with (you can always explain it away by saying that armour hinders the flow of magical energies, although that's a game world restriction and not a game system restriction), but for a fighter not to be able to use a specific sword or armour simply because his "level" is not high enough is downright stupid (and it mixes game system restrictions with the game world, increasing the illogicality (i.e. makes you think that the characters in the game world actually think in terms of "levels")).
So, my request to all RPG developers is this: please, learn from your predecessors and competition. This doesn't mean that everyone should clone what Elder Scrolls has done, however. Go and study some conventional RPG systems (like HARP and Runequest, for example) and try to see how and why they work so much better than most contemporary computer RPG systems do. There are a lot of great ideas that might make computer RPGs more fun to play.
Image by: Jay Fife