Top 10 Reasons RPGs Suck
One cool thing about the human race is that everybody is pretty much different, with the exception of everybody who lives in Moldova: they’re all a bunch of buckwheat-chewing jerks. But outside of those dirty hicks, everybody has different opinions and preferences. While I enjoy Hong Kong action movies and Half-Life, there are plenty of people out there who think the only good action movies star Bruce Willis and that all first-person shooters are derivative pieces of crap.
That being said, I’d like to present my terribly biased and totally inaccurate reasoning behind my distaste for role-playing games (RPGs, as they say on the street). Before I get started here, keep a few things in mind. Firstly, I’m an idiot. Obviously. Secondly, my hatred of RPGs probably stemmed from the fact that I got stuck 3/4ths of the way through NES Dragon Warrior and didn’t even get past the sailing ship thing in Final Fantasy before getting my ass whooped. Which probably means I have the RPG-playing ability of a drunk 3-year-old.
Finally, I got really addicted to an old BBS MUD-type game (for those of you that don’t know, MUD’s are like Everquest without graphics, only text… kinda) called Swords of Chaos or something and have been dearly afraid of getting obsessed with something so inconsequential ever again. Uhh, anyways, here’s ten stupid reasons RPG’s suck, in my horrible opinion, based completely on my poor knowledge of the genre.
Top Ten Reasons RPG’s Suck:
10. Everybody Talks Stupid
An example of how dorks in RPG’s talk:
“Forsooth, merry traveler! Hail and well met! ‘Lo, there be a sparkling wench in the City of the Forked River. Pay heed with honor, noble crusader! May thy journey be blessed by Arthur the Might heself!”
WHAT DID YOU SAY?!?! Speak American, you armor-clad asswipe! Why does everybody in RPG’s need to talk in some kind of old-English slang only the Queen Mother can understand? I don’t understand it. I swear that all those cliché medieval phrases like “forsooth” (I don’t even know what that means) were made up by some drunken dudes at a renaissance fair like forty years ago. For all we know, people in the 1300’s gave “mad props” to each other and ended every other sentence by screaming, “Bitch, uh-uh!” So what’s with all this “thou hast enchanted thy crotch plate” junk? Get with the times, dudes!
9. Classes
Team Fortress has classes all figured out. You got your soldier, you got your pyro, and you got your spies. Those make sense. But with RPGs you’ve got crap like the half-dwarven shaman, troll ranger, erudite cleric, and halfling shopkeep. What the hell!?!? I know exactly what a spy or a soldier does, but I have no idea what a troll ranger is. Do they wander around national forests looking for bridges to hide under?
And Gnomes? “LOOK AT ME EVERYBODY I AM A GNOME! I BELONG ON THE FRONT LAWN OF AN ELDERLY PERSON BUT INSTEAD I AM BASHING RATS WITH A STICK IN EVERQUEST!” That’s pretty dumb if you ask me.
Oh yeah, and what’s with the females in these games? Apparently, they don’t need to wear any armor: a small strip of tiger hide across their chest is considered to be sufficient protection, I guess.
Oh no! It’s a tar troll! Look, I tried to find a picture of some hot RPG babe wearing nothing but a couple inches of bearskin or something so they could put the picture on the front page and get people to click on it, but all I found were pictures from Jurrasic Park. Go figure.
8. Lazy NPCs
RPGs are commonly populated with single-minded people who stand in the same place all day and dispense pretty much useless background information. Don’t these people have homes? Lives? Hobbies? Desires? More than two frames of animation?
Here’s an example:
Oh yeah? Well, if Pravoka is so friggin’ great, what are you doing hanging around this dump? Are you looking to cheat on your wife with the dancer twenty pixels away that is constantly complaining about how evil has descended upon the countryside, causing her scalp to develop a nasty waxy buildup? Why are you here? What is your name? Why are you prancing around in some skimpy red tunic? These are all questions I cannot ask. All I can do is run up to this guy, touch his stomach, and watch him spout the same spiel about how great Pravoka is over and over. LAME!
Also, these lazy bums don’t exactly motivate me to save their stinking little town from the forces of darkness. All they do is wander around in patterns all day and bitch about how bad things are. Don’t you think at least a couple of them could drag their asses to the sword shop, go outside the city walls, and kill some monsters their own damn selves? Oh no, they’d rather wait around for some “noble warrior” to do all the dirty work for them. And once you do, how do they reward you? They’re all like “oh thank ye” and “rock on!” No parades, no payment, no piles of merrywidows. Thanks for the encouragement, kind townspeople. That’ll really help numb the pain of the massive sword wound some evil knight inflicted on me for 49 damage points.7. Quests
Some NPCs do more than just complain about how helpless and pathetic they are. Some NPCs give you quests. Whoopie. This is total bullocks, guvnah. I mean, I’m already saving your town from this evil sorcerer or whatnot, but now you want me to do your inane little errands for you? “Find my lost golden amulet.” “Slay the dragon of the red caves.” “Rescue my daughter from the clutches of her Brownie Troop.” “Bring back my clothes from the dry cleaners and don’t forget to pick up a loaf of bread at the market on your way back.”
Yeah, sure, no problem. I love wasting my time servicing your every need when I could be out picking extra constitution points from bushes! Quests are just busywork, like those sheets of crossword puzzles the teacher gives you in Junior High Study Hall to keep you from throwing chairs at the Debate Team or impregnating leftover meatloaf from the previous lunch periods. Quests. Pfah!
The King dishes out yet another pointless quest designed to add another cheesy fifty hours of “gameplay.”
6. Lord British
Hahaha, a picture is worth a billion words.
5. The Same Damn Theme
Why is it that almost every RPG takes place in “the days of yore” anyway? Sure, there’s exceptions like Deus Ex and… umm… Wasteland, but beyond that, almost every RPG has orcs, dragons, taverns, trolls, and that kinda stuff. Some RPGs try to differentiate themselves by adding futuristic elements, but a wood elf whizzing around in a hover car while talking on his computer videophone really doesn’t do anything for me. Aren’t you people sick of beating the same collection of slimes and ogres over the head with different kinds of +3 broadswords by now?
Dudes running around in funny hats? Check. Stupid looking robes? Check. Excessive use of “Huzzah?” Check. It’s gotta be an RPG.
4. Skills
Hello, my name is Cristian, a level 12 Nose Goblin. I be have a +2 grammar skills (ooops, make that +1) and a -2 intelligence. My constitution is about +5 and I drank a potion to make my strength +4. I also have a +7 lock pick skill, a +4 microwaving food skill, and since I’m a Paladin I have enchanted my shoes with Velcro straps so I never need to tie any laces. Oh no, my Mana is low I better take a nap on this burlap sack full of gems before I sell it to the merchant, who for some reason keeps buying all these worthless gems from everybody even though he probably has a stockpile of twenty million of them squirreled away in the back room.
Oh yeah, since I brushed my teeth for the first time in eight years this morning, my charisma and charm levels have been raised +3 and +6 respectively!
This garden gnome has a whopping +93 Bonsai tree trimming skill. Don’t mess with him or he’ll prune your landscaping something fierce.
In case you haven’t realized what I’m getting at, skills are dumb. Don’t make me abjurer +18 the hell out of your clothes.
3. Tepid Soundtracks
Huh? What’s with all these pan flutes and harpsichords and piccolos and harps and stuff? All RPG soundtracks are littered with these antiquated instruments, which were cool before people discovered the nifty music you could create with electricity. Since I only like music with electric guitars, samples from popular 80’s sitcoms, and phat repetitive drum loops, all game soundtracks should cater only to me. After all, since I am the center of the universe, I am the only person that matters. All game developers should contact me before beginning production of their game since if I don’t like their game it’ll never make any money. Come to think of it, I’m kind of a God amongst men. My opinions matter more than yours because my Mommy said I’m special!
Even if RPG’s had soundtracks by DJ Slopheap and MC WaffleSnatchah, I still wouldn’t play ‘em.
2. Magic
What a cheap cop out. Magic is the RPG equivalent of crates in first-person shooters: if you need to fill up a room in an FPS, you use crates. If you need to justify why some item is particularly important or create some kind of cool special effect, then you have to use magic. Since all these games take place in an enchanted land of fairies and leprechauns, I guess this make sense in a twisted kind of way. But it’s still a shoddy excuse. “Why is this amulet so important,” you ask? Because it’s a MAGIC amulet, of course! And if you use this MAGIC amulet with this MAGIC instilled battle-axe you’ll have enough MAGICAL power to beat the evil MAGICIAN.
Wanna know why these sheep are glowing? Because they’re MAGICAL sheep, of course! Once you think about it, RPG’s are like a box of Lucky Charms cereal, except the only parts of an RPG you can eat are the cloth map or the dice that come with the game.
Wizards and sorcerers are pretty lame too. All they need to do is read a scroll and all of the sudden they can shoot giant balls of flame from their hands. Yeah, right. These days people have to go to magician school for years just to learn how to pull a bunny from a friggin’ hat, and these dunce-cap wearing bearded old geezers glance at a moldy piece of paper and instantly know how to summon huge hurricane attacks with a snap of their wrinkly fingers and a suppressed yawn? OK, sounds good to me!
And my number one reason which really isn’t a good reason at all is…
1. Turn-Based Fighting
Some RPGs use real-time battle systems, but most of them are turn based. What the hell!? NOBODY takes turns when they’re fighting. That’s because fighting is NOT chess. What, do the rules of chivalry decree that you’re always supposed to disembowel your enemies in a polite and courteous manner? If RPG’s were like real-life, this is what your average fight would look like:
The Ninja and the King square off! See, the King was just walking around the office from a top-down perspective when his vision went all blurry and this Ninja appeared out of nowhere, in a side-view perspective. Such is the RPG.
It’s the Ninja’s turn first, and he hits the King for 16 damage. The Ninja can see how badly he hurt him because the number appears above the King’s head.
Next it’s the King’s turn, and with a gentle tap he nearly slays the Ninja for a whopping 78 damage. This is because the King is level 50 and the Ninja is only level 10. Too bad!
So that’s it. I hope I’ve proven without a shadow of a doubt that all RPG’s are crap. Or at least made an ass out of myself. Either way, I win.
[Disclaimer: Nothing in this Top Ten is meant to be taken seriously, so don't get all riled up.]
