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PRPGs I'd love to see get a proper CRPG treatment:

Gangbusters
Cyberpunk 2020
Rifts (I know, cell phone game ... bah)
Boot Hill (Western)
Paranoia (now that would be a challenge...)

You know, I like the idea of a Western RPG. Where if you are playing the bad guy, you could watch your wanted poster reward rise. Where you have to worry whether the town is tired of having it's bank robbed and is taken steps to ambush the next robber.

You could even be a night time guy and raise your explosives skill. Or could build a party of Gun toters, and Explosives people.

The thing that say a Stars Wars RPG and other Fantasy based ones have is, Magic, in SW magic is based on the force. In the western one, there is little magic, little tech. But you are right, Fallout and Fallout 2 are awesome RPGs.

There has to be a way.

Arcanum was a good Western-Steampunk CRPG. Maybe not everyone's cup o' tea, what with goblins in tuxedos, but it was genre.

Nice articles, thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts. One reason that the fantasy setting is so popular has to do with our unconscious understanding adn knowledge of the characters. Since these archetypes have been in our culture for so long, they have strong and easy meaning for most of us. As the Cyberpunk and SciFi literature and culture is younger, these areas my have less reach with the public. Now old guys like me would have much more unconscious material available with Western games since I grew up with Saturday morning westerns. I am more acculturated in that world, and perhaps more of us old timers would be. I do wonder how that would sell with the kids though as they have not been immersed in that culture.

Trey

I think a huge part of it is that CRPGs are still almost all D&D clones and are saddled with the whole "hp/ac/levels/classes" method of dealing with combat and character progression. Using the old D&D approach is somewhat workable in a heroic fantasy environment (where taking many blows to bring down a hero seems reasonable) but pretty stupid in many other environments (having it take dozens of bullets to bring down a science fiction hero seems much less appealling).

The pen&paper roleplaying world moved on past D&D many, many years ago and there are lots of better systems for all sorts of RPGing. But CRPGs have rarely dabbled in them. Maybe if some of the pen&paper innovation finally reached the computer world we'd see more innovation genre-wise.

But Brent in Fallout, it took many shots to bring a man down, even unarmored. Unless you got lucky with a crit.

People do not want realism in games, I mean look at the FPS. In real life, one bullet will slow someone a second will kill, but in most FPS only a bullet to the head will kill someone, as as far as slowing down, none.

So you could have armor, granted none of it in the old west will stop a bullet, leather would be about the best and maybe save a hit point or two.

Funny, I almost mentioned Fallout for using a more advanced skill system instead of dull classes but didn't because it still used the loads of hp thing. You caught me. =)

Fallout was also very cartoony (in a good way) so the lack of realism didn't seem like a bad thing at all. You're totally right that folks don't want realism, so maybe just anything other than the boring old D&D stuff would be good, realistic or not.

One of my favorite non-fantasy RPGs (and it's sort of fantasy but quite unique) was the Shadow Run game made for Sega Genesis. This was, of course, based on the pen and paper RPG Shadow Run by FASA. I'd love to see a sequel of that, or as Josh above wrote, Cyberpunk 2020 converted to a CRPG. There have been a few other science fiction RPGs of note, such as the action/RPG hybrids Deus Ex 1 & 2 and System Shock 1 & 2. I don't know if you can call KotOR science fiction what with swords and force powers and such but I guess it counts as much as Shadow Run does. Fallout of course.

But there have been a lot of "loser" CRPGs that were not elves and magic, too, and I think the problem is that studios and maybe publishers feel that other genres are more risky. Take for example Arcanum. The game tanked. But was it because of it's unique setting? Or all the bugs? Or "Cops 2170: The Power of Law", a great idea, terrible implementation (I reviewed that game over at <a href="http://www.gamechronicles.c...">Game Chronicles</a>).

Personally I am an optimist and assume that the bugs and the quirky real-time/turn-based hybrid combat system were to blame, but I know a lot of gamers that give you that blank stare when you mention Arcanum like they never even heard about it. It didn't have D&D on the label so it just didn't sell. And maybe that's just it, a game has to tie into a massive franchise to make massive bucks.

Then again, look at the success of Jade Empire, which is not tied to any franchise and also deviates from the standard fantasy motiff. So I guess my point is, it's just really hard to say why more games in non-fantasy genres don't do well. Some do, a few, and a lot don't. But there seems to be some kind of mentality among the game makers that fantasy sells better. And hell, maybe it does. Doesn't mean I don't long for a good scifi game, though. :)

I think Arcanum didn't do so well because it was essentially just another Fallout game. While I loved Fallout and Fallout 2, the whole "stranded in the middle of nowhere and killing small animals" was too much slog for me. I never got that far into it before I gave up on it.

I think Shadowrun is a natural. It combines Cyberpunk and Fantasy. While that might sound weird to some folks, I think anyone who has taken a look at the source material probably agrees that the two different genres blend together quite well.