作者：S. John Ross

查看各款游戏作品及各个游戏世界你会发现，其中存在一定模式，那些倍受欢迎的作品都存在许多共性。在我看来，如下5个要素至关重要：

陈旧内容

Duchy of Crows from thebookofworlds.blogspot.com

运用陈旧内容，既有图像及其他熟悉元素能够让内容变得通俗，容易达成互相理解。若Game Master（游戏管理员）告诉你新活动以“Duchy of Crows”为背景，主要围绕邪恶牧师召集Hill Ogres支持他的事业，虽然听起来有些落入俗套，但这提供稳固的共同基础。所有玩家都能够即时加入，把握游戏的具体内容：PC及其探险活动。相比之下，如果GM告诉你，新活动发生在Shining Tertiary Plane of Tsalvanithra，融合玛雅神话，大萧条时期的讽刺文学，16世纪的法国政治及日本宫廷礼仪，那么你多半只有事先进行调查，方能选择游戏角色。热门游戏通常基于既有图像，方便跳至最杰出的内容。避开陈旧内容的游戏作品通常瞄准细分市场。

战斗

缺乏冲突元素，内容就无法变得激动人心，RPG游戏依靠各种各样的冲突元素。但斗争的具体价值主要依赖于游戏结构及战斗情境的内在魅力。在游戏术语游戏中，多数冲突形式都被定义成单个即时瞬间（游戏邦注：例如，悄悄从警卫身旁走过，施加治疗咒语）。将动作分解成若干步骤，内容就会失去意义，因为步骤本身缺乏戏剧效果，无法施加紧迫感。但在战斗中，无论是剑术、酒馆争斗，还是英雄激战，亦或是巫师决战，拳头或刀剑的摆动，能量的释放，都危险且包含重要意义。这令战斗充满系列选择和影响，给有趣的游戏机制提供肥沃土壤。更重要的是，它提供舞台，让PC能够进行合作，基于团队作战。就当前情况而言，只有若干其他类型的动作内容能够同此匹敌。没有玩家能够稳定保持胜出。

伙伴关系

RPG游戏是个组合媒介；核心体验是PC朝共同目标共同迈进的伙伴关系。优秀RPG游戏通常包含此要素，提供强化团队体验的工具，基于此创建机制，设定前提条件。这意味着内容会提供多样性（游戏邦注：包括角色构思及其可行性方面）。这一元素在一定程度上影响了成功RPG游戏的题材偏好，因为有些热门题材（间谍和推理）在兼容多元化PC共同合作的构思前，需要进行重新改造。同样，有些定型角色类型（独狼警卫、窃贼和刺客）同RPG游戏的联系变得更加密切，更多是以团队合作形式，而不是在背后徘徊沉思。RPG因无处不在的“Strange Bedfellow”而有所突破，变得更丰富多彩。

无秩序状态

RPG游戏在表级别中需要规则，但就角色方面而言，他们因无秩序状态而获得蓬勃发展。杰出RPG游戏通常基于这样的前提：探险活动全面展开，PC依靠自己的力量，能够自由制定自己的解决方案。强加指挥系统或是规定PC在进行可疑操作前需要请教“总部”的游戏会在游戏过程中限制其玩家。就连以1920年时期的刻板新英格兰为背景的《邪神的呼唤》游戏回合也旨在废除规则。在探险活动的早期阶段，大家都彬彬有礼，秉承有问题找警察的习惯，但当玩家进入黑暗领域，礼节和法律就变得烟消云散，这完全变成无政府主义的生存和理智斗争。同样，涉及军事或伪军事前提的游戏也从中受益匪浅。这深入RPG游戏的独特功能：战略的无限性。在《国际象棋》中，白棋皇后无法利用花言巧语说服黑棋国王放其一条生路；在《Squad Leader》中，士兵们无法通过打扮成修女悄悄溜进被占领的村庄。在RPG游戏中，你可以尝试任何脑中想到的东西，这就是基于无秩序状态的功能。

Squad Leader from worldatwar.eu

谜团

谜团质量无疑是这些元素中最难把握的。从字面上来看，它代表这样的游戏空间质量：Game Master的理解层次高过玩家。在许多游戏世界中，这代表着魔法元素。而在其他游戏世界中，这意味来自银河系的外星社会，或是阴谋政治的复杂谜团。除秘密的持久魅力外，这对Game Master来说是个静态的基本工具，Game Master可以利用这一交感“阴影区”充当情境的酝酿场所，这些情境即便缺乏合理性，依然会趣味横生，而且如果情节线索开始分散玩家注意力，而非令他们感到兴奋，那它们就会开始消失。就谜团而言，GM可以同时提出问题和答案，探险设计和活动管理变得不再是项烦人任务。这给游戏感染力带来广泛益处，因为任何缓和GM舞台战斗的RPG游戏都是旨在迎合玩家的游戏作品。

这些元素不是质量的关键所在，游戏融入这些元素也可能非常糟糕，没有这些元素也可能非常杰出。但它们能够有效突显RPG游戏的魅力，遵循游戏的常规惯例，将游戏世界的设计变得与众不同。

游戏邦注：原文发布于2008年，文章叙述以当时为背景。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Five elements of commercial appeal in RPG design

by S. John Ross

If we examine the games and game-worlds that have come and gone, patterns emerge and it becomes easy to spot dozens of elements shared by those with the widest appeal. Here are five I consider crucial:

cliché

The value of cliché ?the use of stock imagery and other familiar elements ?is accessibility and mutual understanding. If the Game Master tells you the new campaign is to be set in the “Duchy of Crows” and concerns an evil priest gathering the Hill Ogres to his cause, that may sound a bit threadbare, but it also provides a reliable common ground. Everyone can jump right in and focus on what the game is really about: the PCs and their adventures. If, by contrast, the GM tells you the new campaign takes place in the Shining Tertiary Plane of Tsalvanithra, a science-fantasy blend of Mayan mythology, Depression-era satire, 16th-century French politics and Japanese courtly manners, you’re in for some research before you dare put a mark on the character sheet. The most popular games rely on stock images as a language for skipping to the good parts (and for sharing in a celebration of things gamers enjoy celebrating). Games that make a point of shunning cliché tend to be more niche.

combat

Nothing’s very dramatic (or funny, or scary) without some kind of conflict, and RPGs thrive on every sort. But the specific value of combat depends as much on game-structure as the visceral appeal of a fight scene. In gameable terms, most forms of conflict are best defined as a single instant (sneaking past a guard, casting a healing spell) ?we gain nothing by breaking the action down into its component steps, because the steps themselves are seldom infused with drama without forcing the issue. But in a fight ?whether it’s swordplay, a tavern brawl, a superhero slugfest or a psychic showdown ?every swing of fist or sword, every blast of energy, is something dangerous and potentially important. That packs a fight with a series of choices and consequences, providing fertile ground for enjoyable game mechanics. What’s more, it provides a stage on which the PCs can cooperate and act as a team. Only a few other kinds of action can rival this under the right conditions, and none can trump it with any consistency.

fellowship

RPGs are an ensemble medium; the core experience is that of a fellowship of PCs cooperating (more or less) toward a common goal. The most successful RPGs embrace this, provide tools to enhance the group experience, and build system and setting assumptions around it. This means providing for variety, both in terms of character concepts and their viability (it’s well and good to say you can play a Librarian, but the game-world must also provide opportunities and challenges appropriate to the Librarian’s skills). This element skews the genre-leanings of successful RPGs to some extent, because there are some popular genres (espionage and mysteries, most notably) that require some re-tooling before they comfortably support the concept of a half-dozen diverse PCs working together. Similarly, some stock character types (lone-wolf vigilantes, burglars, assassins) become notably chummier in RPGs, seen more often clubbing with a team than brooding indulgently in the shadows. RPGs gain a lot of mileage and color from the ubiquity of “strange bedfellows.”

anarchy

RPGs need rules at the table level, but they thrive on anarchy at the character level. The most successful RPGs are built on the assumption that ?once the adventure is in full swing ?the PCs are on their own, free to make their own solutions. Games that impose chains of command, or require PCs to check with “headquarters” before they do anything questionable, limit their audience in the process. Even a Call of Cthulhu session set in the straight-laced reality of 1920′s New England is traditionally an exercise in the ritual abolition of order ?In the early stages of the adventure, it’s all urbane wit and let’s-call-the-police, but once the tentacles start dragging people screaming into the dark, propriety and legality evaporate to irrelevance, and it’s an anarchic fight for survival and sanity. Games with a military or pseudo-military premise likewise benefit from this kind of collapse. This taps into what may be the most unique feature of RPGs: tactical infinity. In Chess, the White Queen can’t sweet-talk a Black Knight into leaving her be; in Squad Leader, a group of soldiers can’t sneak through an occupied village dressed as nuns. In an RPG, you really can try anything you can think of, and that’s a feature that thrives on anarchy.

enigma

The quality of enigma is inevitably the most elusive of these elements. In literal terms, it means any quality of the game-world that the Game Master is presumed to understand on a level the players never can. In many worlds, this means magic. In others, it may mean an alien society freshly met from another galaxy, or the labyrinthine mysteries of conspiratorial politics. Beyond the enduring appeal of a mystery, this is a quiet, foundational tool for the Game Master, who can exploit this consensual “shadow zone” as a spawning ground for scenarios that play fun even if they wouldn’t otherwise make sense, and a place where plot-threads can vanish if they become distracting instead of exciting. From within the enigma the GM can pluck both questions and answers, making adventure design and campaign management less of a chore. The benefits to a game’s appeal are vast, because any RPG that eases a GM’s stage-fright (and opens up his creative latitude) is an RPG built to please.

These elements aren’t keys to quality … a game can be crummy with them and excellent without them. They are, though, a useful window into the appeal of RPGs as games, into the conventions of RPGs as a fictional medium, and into the considerations that make the design of a game world a beast distinct from other kinds of world design.（Source：www222.pair）