If you asked someone to come up with a list of features as to what defines a role-playing game, you’d be liable to get a drastically different set of answers depending on what RPGs they had played. Some might answer turn-based combat, party-based character building, and a robust crafting system. Then again, the person right next to them might answer with real-time combat, moral choices, and the opportunity to sleep with your party members.

Of course, neither person is wrong; there are such a wide variety of RPGs out there that such a sprawling list of responses is inevitable. Of course, if you dig down past a lot of the aesthetic and mechanical choices designers make, there are still some core tenets of role-playing games that hold true across the board. In my experiences, one of those core ideas is that of growth. It could be growth in the sense of characters gaining levels and abilities, growing stronger in a very mathematical gameplay sense. Or, it could be a more metaphysical growth of character, with the snot-nosed punk from the small village blossoming into the kind-hearted hero of the land. In either the case, the idea of becoming something greater than what you were before in order to overcome the obstacles before you remains the same.

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There is a refrain that I hear often on gaming sites: “turn-based combat in RPGs is dead.”  As anyone who has been paying attention knows, it is a favorite hobby of games journalists and bloggers to proclaim the death of this, that, or the other.  For instance, adventure gaming has been declared dead on more occasions than I can count, and yet seems to be enjoying quite a resurgence at the moment; episodic Monkey Island games, some fantastic-looking titles like Machinarium, and a host of others are popping up for download on a weekly basis.

So why the eulogies for turn-based (TB) combat?  The general consensus seems to be that TB combat is simply too boring in this new world of HD graphics and multiplayer FPSes. People want speed and twitch gaming, the writers say, and turn-based is just too slow and old-fashioned to keep people interested.

This is a pretty shallow way of thinking, I’d argue.  Yes, turn-based combat is by definition slower than real-time, but that does not automatically make it boring.  Boredom is in the eye of the beholder, and for those used to speed and action, turn-based systems must feel like a long walk through a muddy swamp.  But depth and choice can be exciting, and TB systems can usually offer those in spades.

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