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Sunday, May 25, 2025
Active vs. passive gaming
I had honestly planned to start playing Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 last week, but then played it for only half an hour before deciding to start playing Europa Universalis IV instead. That was not because Expedition 33 is a bad game, or Europa Universalis IV is "better". I simply wasn't in the mood for the active nature of Expedition 33, and rather preferred the passive gameplay of EU4.
In a game like Expedition 33, nothing happens when you aren't doing anything. You could stand in place for hours, and the game state wouldn't change. A few role-playing games have some sort of day / night cycle with NPCs performing a semblance of a day's activity, but other than the location and availability of quest NPCs, that doesn't change anything. The evil villain isn't getting any stronger because you were idling, nor does anything else interesting happen in the game world. That forces the player to be constantly active to make stuff happen, because otherwise the game is very boring. And that requires a certain amount of energy from the player to move things along.
In contrast, simulation games like EU4 have the possibility to unpause and let the game play for itself. Often the player is even forced to do that and wait, e.g. in EU4 while waiting for a truce to end, or your aggressive expansion to go down, before you can start another war. Or to finish constructing buildings, ships, or the recruitment of soldiers. And while the player waits, interesting stuff happens between the non-player nations. I'm currently in a game of EU4 in which I am playing the Teutonic Order, and what happens between Poland and Lithuania is of high interest to me. I actually spent one war just to break their personal union, trying to divide them, and prevent them from forming the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Well, they still reformed a military alliance afterwards, so I'm not sure whether this was worth it.
In any case, sometimes I just unpause EU4, wait, and watch. It is a far more passive sort of gaming. I still need to pause the game from time to time and give commands, but a good chunk of my time is spent watching how things work out and see my plans succeed or horribly go wrong. It requires a lot less energy from me as the player, and thus there are periods where I prefer that sort of gaming.
The other reason I prefer this right now, is that my activities in EU4 are more cerebral in nature. I plan, make a strategy, devise tactics, manage stuff. In Expedition 33 the activities are more action-focused, even if combat is mostly turn-based. But much of what you do during a game session is running around and interact with various points of interest, whether that is NPCs to talk to, or enemies to fight. There is of course some tactics involved in combat, and some strategy in character development, but that is only a part of the game. I am sure that at some point my mood will change, and I will be in the mood for this more active and less cerebral sort of gaming. Until then, I'll play Europa Universalis IV.
- posted by Tobold @ 10:35 AM Permanent Link
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But would you then say that Civ or other turn based games are more active as well?
If you say that you are thinking and planning, that would be active for me as well regardless of time progression. I guess it depends on the frequency of player intervention. If you need to pause and reassign actions that might similar to a turn based game.
The notion of watching it play out as a game is also tricky for me. Sure, if it is like a puzzle that you are solving and then you observe if it worked out, that would be still a game for me. But then you have "games" that are more interactive movies where you aren't really doing anything because your input can only decide which rail the story will follow.
If you say that you are thinking and planning, that would be active for me as well regardless of time progression. I guess it depends on the frequency of player intervention. If you need to pause and reassign actions that might similar to a turn based game.
The notion of watching it play out as a game is also tricky for me. Sure, if it is like a puzzle that you are solving and then you observe if it worked out, that would be still a game for me. But then you have "games" that are more interactive movies where you aren't really doing anything because your input can only decide which rail the story will follow.
I though that the Commonwealth was formad in first place as a reaction to the threat from the Order? I.e. to prevent it, you should have made the Order a peaceful organization, marry Order's nobles with Polish and Lithuanian nobles etcetera?
It would be really interesting to see what an "active" RPG looked like. I am not good at games like EU4 but love more personal experiences where I only have to worry about one or maybe a few characters. Seeing what sort of design would happen with a world that proceeds around you whether you choose to hang out in the tavern and ignore the plot or actually take action would be really interesting. I'd love to get a missive from the king to appear at dawn, ignore it, then have his men trying to arrest us for blowing the king off, leading down a rabbit hole of unexpected consequences. Right now the only way to see that in an RPG is at the table with live players for the most part.
Obviously they don't do it to the extent that you (Doctor Futurity ) want, but that is basically the ideal of the Elder Scrolls games. You can always ignore the main quest and engage in side quests, rise in guilds, etc.
Morrowind really spelled it out in that you were sent as a spy but when you contact the spymaster he tells you to blend in and get involved with the locals, and he'll call you when he has an actual mission for you...
Morrowind really spelled it out in that you were sent as a spy but when you contact the spymaster he tells you to blend in and get involved with the locals, and he'll call you when he has an actual mission for you...
True, some of these elements exist in Bethesda games. But imagine if you could start, say, a grand epic like Final Fantasy, ignore the big plot and then come back a year later to find the king deposed and a new ruler in town because you blew off the main quest. I suspect that the LLMs and other AI tools are probably going to contribute to game development in the not too distant future capable of this sort of emergent, organic and presumably unpredictable gameplay.
I mean that is the good outcome that you would like to see.
The more probable outcome is that a lot of things would brick because you are busy exploring something else or tending to a different side quest.
You would get the summon to the king, while the damsel is being kidnapped over there while this other baddy is burning down this town over here.
Which quests do you skip? Or imagine taking longer with an assignment because you don't play in the predicted way.
Or does the AI then account for you failing and arbitrarily slowing every thing down so that you can still succeed? Would that then not mean that you can always attend the kings summon?
This type of gameplay works for table top RPGs because the game master reacts to the specific scenario and offers a one time solution that is unlikely reproduced.
The game master can fudge the side quests to generate an interesting and enjoyable game.
But I think if the player is no longer in charge of progression, it won't be enjoyable.
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The more probable outcome is that a lot of things would brick because you are busy exploring something else or tending to a different side quest.
You would get the summon to the king, while the damsel is being kidnapped over there while this other baddy is burning down this town over here.
Which quests do you skip? Or imagine taking longer with an assignment because you don't play in the predicted way.
Or does the AI then account for you failing and arbitrarily slowing every thing down so that you can still succeed? Would that then not mean that you can always attend the kings summon?
This type of gameplay works for table top RPGs because the game master reacts to the specific scenario and offers a one time solution that is unlikely reproduced.
The game master can fudge the side quests to generate an interesting and enjoyable game.
But I think if the player is no longer in charge of progression, it won't be enjoyable.
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