Justin: I know a few of us who were at E3 were somewhat disappointed in the general state of the RPGs on the show floor. There was little innovation among a great deal of the RPGs (with the exception of a few choice titles). Do you think this general lack of creativity on the part of the designers will hurt the genre, and how do you feel about the current and future state of RPGs?

Seán: Personally, the lack of creativity hasn't hurt the designers for the last twenty years; I don't think it'll start to now. RPGamers seem to be more or less content with shelling out money for something a bit shinier and with a slightly more complex main plot.

Matt: I think that a lack of creativity and innovation isn't necessarily a Bad Thing. Look at novels, for example. There really isn't too much room left for innovation, but people still buy and read them by the hundreds of millions if not more. Innovation, of course, is always welcomed, but as more and more innovations are made, the harder and harder it becomes to make further innovations. More complex plots are debatable, since more complex isn't necessarily better.

Googleshng: There's a few differences between books and RPGs though. If RPGs were books, they would almost all have the same setting, plot structure, writing style, and cost a good 5 times more than everything else on the shelf. Another problem with that is that when you're buying a book, all you're paying for is a story. With an RPG, you're also paying for a game. So honestly, one should feel a bit gypped if they've essentially played that game before.

Seán: The other thing is, there have been a number of debatably innovative games, both in the past and more recently, but they tend to be much less publicized, should they even make it to North American shores: For example, Square's Live A Live.

Justin: Yes, and it seems that even the most innovative RPGs that make it to American shores are ignored by the vast majority of gamers.

Michael: We stand today at a crossroads in terms of creativity and innovation goes. I think the technology today allows more of this today than at any other time in the history of RPGs. Unfortunately it seems that many companies seem to be happy producing graphically upgraded games and nothing else. So long as we, the consumers, don't demand innovation we won't get it. If we stop buying RPGs because we want something new, then companies will take notice and start producing the innovative games the new technology allows.

Googleshng: I think the real problem with the occasional really innovative game is that they're always published by people who don't have enough marketing muscle to get them out there.

Michael: The reason for this is usually because the big publishers don't want to take chances. Currently the games they publish make a lot of money, so why would they change their strategy?

Googleshng: that and the big publishers tend to be busy with their own in-house stuff. If a big name publisher took a chance and gave a big advertising budget to a quirky game, though, they could draw in an audience that normally ignores RPGs.

Michael: That did work with Final Fantasy VII. Of course, Final Fantasy VII was only ground-breaking graphically.

Michael: If we demand innovation in our games though, we need to send a message to these companies with our dollars.

Seán: However, that's problematic, as they may just interpret it as a lack of interest in RPGs as a whole. The innovative games are usually in short supply, and thus simply buying them instead isn't always an option.

Googleshng: Also, the bulk of people playing RPGs AREN'T sick of seeing the same old thing. They've only been at this for about 5 years.

Andrew: Hey, I've been playing RPGs for 12 years, and I'm still not particularly tired of the same old thing, provided it's done reasonably well.

Googleshng: Same here, but I like the occasional variation too.

Andrew: Yeah, variation is a nice change. For example, I'm not sure if this is what you'd consider innovation, but the integration of the card game and the junction system in FFVIII for me made that game worth playing, where it would otherwise have been not nearly as easy to stomach.

Michael: All it does take is one company to take a chance on a truly ground-breaking game to change everything.

Justin: That really means nothing if the players won't accept it.

Michael: True, but eventually people will tire of re-hash after re-hash of the same idea.

Andrew: I wouldn't be so sure. How else can you explain Celine Dion? Or the countless Friends clones of the mid-90s? Every medium is infested with mediocre stuff like that, precisely because people can and do stomach repetitive, uncreative garbage. Unfortunately, RPGs are no different. There's going to be the element that will happily lap up the same old thing again and again and again and again. So I don't see innovation ever being a forced issue.

Matt: Money is the issue.

Andrew: Yeah? Then how come petitions never work?

Seán: Well, there's a sizeable difference between petitions and online petitions...

Andrew: Maybe so, but I'm just using that as an illustrative example of what you could consider a smaller or smallish portion of the community attempting to make itself known.

Googleshng: One of the larger components to change in any form of entertainment is honestly jaded critics. There aren't many of those in this industry though.

Justin: It's a young industry. Give it time.