Turn-Based Combat in Western RPGs – A Eulogy

By
Lawrence
 – October 5, 2010Posted in: Role Playing Games, RPG Feature Stories
SSI Gold Box Combat

Turn-based combat in SSI's "Gold Box" series of AD&D CRPGs.

In the early days of computer and console role-playing games, turn-based combat was the norm.  This was not a compromise imposed by technological constraints, as one might suspect.  Most early computer and console video games, influenced by the arcade, were twitch-based action games.  Including real-time combat in an RPG would have been no more difficult than including it in any other genre.  Early RPGs like Wizardry, Might & Magic, Ultima, and The Bard’s Tale adopted the turn-based combat mechanic by choice, because their designers took their cues from pen-and-paper RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons, which employed turns and dice rolls to simulate combat.  This design resulted in combat systems that challenged a player’s ability to build and develop characters, and to think tactically in battle, rather than relying on fast reflexes and gamepad (or, at the time, joystick) mastery.

Some of these games, like The Bard’s Tale, presented turn-based combat as a series of menu choices.  The player would consider the strength and number of the enemy, the hit points and supplies of his or her party, and then select (for example) to Attack, Defend, Cast Spell, or Flee.  Other RPGs, like Ultima 3 and SSI’s Gold Box series of AD&D games, presented combat on a separate battle screen, where the player and the computer took turns moving party members and enemies around a map like figurines in a tabletop war game.

As time passed and the appeal of video games widened to include Madden-loving frat boys and Doom-obsessed shooter fans, RPG developers began to suspect that they could attract a wider audience by making RPG combat more action-oriented.  This theory was proved beyond all reasonable doubt by the massive success of Blizzard’s Diablo, which had originally been designed with turn-based combat but transformed mid-development into a non-stop action click-fest.

Soon after Diablo’s release, Bioware bridged the gap between turn-based and real-time combat with the innovative “pausable” combat system in Baldur’s Gate, which presented combat in real time but permitted the player to pause to use items and issue orders.  (Square’s active-time battle system, which set turn-based combat to a timer, signaled a similar trend in Japan, although pure turn-based combat continues to thrive in the east.)  First-person RPGs were also influenced by the astounding success of the first-person shooter genre and adopted many of its conventions in hybrid shooter-RPGs like System Shock 2 and Deus Ex that substituted real-time shooting for turn-based combat.

Baldur's Gate combat

In Baldur's Gate, Bioware introduced the "pausable" combat system, a version of which it still uses to this day.

There have been turn-based combat holdouts.  Fallout 1 and 2, which released around the same time as Baldur’s Gate and its expansion, hewed to a traditional turn-based combat mechanic.  Troika Games developed the excellent Temple of Elemental Evil in 2003, which also employed pure turn-based combat.  But in recent years, the subgenre has all but died in the west.  (I’m not counting games like the recent King’s Bounty and its sequels, which I consider to be strategy games more akin to Heroes Of Might & Magic than the main, RPG entries in the Might & Magic series.)

We could argue endlessly about how to define the RPG genre, but in my opinion, one of its key identifying characteristics is the separation between player skill and character skill.  If my desert ranger in Wasteland is an awesome marksman, then he is likely to hit his target, regardless of my mouse and keyboard skills.  In an action RPG, though, this distinction is minimized.  My Infiltrator in Mass Effect 2 may have great stats, and those stats will definitely help his aim.  But no matter how high his level, he will always be a better shot if controlled by a veteran FPS gamer.

Combat in Mass Effect 2

Combat in Mass Effect 2 relies on both character stats and player reflexes.

Don’t misunderstand.  I enjoy pausable combat and real-time combat.  Some of my absolute favorite RPGs, such as Dungeon Master, Ultima Underworld 1 and 2, and The ElderScrolls series, demonstrate how fun real-time combat can be.  All I’m saying is that I like turn-based combat, too, and I miss it.  One play-through of EA3D’s excellent (and free) browser-based RPG Dragon Age: Journeys reminded me how much I miss this game mechanic.

Yes, pausable combat mitigates the issue to some extent.  The combat in Mass Effect 2 and Fallout 3 is a tense affair, arguably better played on a console with a gamepad, but the ability to pause, survey the battlefield, and cue up actions (and sometimes just take a deep breath) helps bring turn-based combat skills into play.  But pausing is still a compromise.  Would it be so difficult for RPGs with pausable combat to include an option for full-blown turn-based combat, so that gamers seeking a slower, more measured experience would have that option?

The trend toward action-based combat does not appear to be changing.  To the contrary, RPGs are hurtling headlong in this direction.  Previews of Dragon Age 2 suggest that combat in that game will be more action-oriented than it was in the first Dragon Age, which itself was more action-oriented than the combat in Baldur’s Gate.  Even a game like Hunted: The Demon’s Forge, which is being marketed by Brian Fargo, the founder of Interplay, as a return to CRPG roots, borrows its combat system from Gears of War, not The Bard’s Tale.

So is this post really a eulogy to turn-based combat in western RPGs?  In the video game industry, the death and reappearance of game mechanics is routine.  If Telltale brought back point-and-click adventure games – arguably the least “action-packed” of all video game genres – then anything is possible.  All it would take is one fantastic turn-based combat RPG to succeed in the marketplace, and we would see a renaissance of this style.

In the meantime, we can always look to Japanese RPGs like Dragon Quest 9 and Etrian Odyssey 3 for our turn-based combat fix.

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