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An assessment of Oblivion after having first played Skyrim, then Morrowind

Reapa

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some sexy bandits you can rape with loverslab mods

If this is your utmost priority, then that is really telling.
come to think of it, there is a mod out there that will let you become their sex slave if you play a female character. so you can actually role play in skyrim with the right mods. you get tied up and gaged and must pleasure them till you earn enough trust. they will untie your hands after a while and you can try to escape. or you can role play a submissive slave till they free you.
and there's also a quest mod out there that will put a chastity belt on you and you must find a way to get rid of it. it has pretty detailed texts that narrate what you do while restrained like that. unable to pleasure yourself you start giving hand jobs and blow jobs to everybody, becoming a total slut.
 
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Roguey

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well, that definition includes Wizardry then! that's all I wanted to settle. Be sure to let Sawyer know he contradicted himself.

The pre-Bradley Wizardries do not allow you to to define and express your character's personality in a way that meaningfully changes the development of the story.
 

Cross

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Adventure games typically don't allow you allow you to define and express your character's personality in a way that meaningfully changes the development of the story
meaningfully changes the development of the story
So I guess that also excludes Pillars of Eternity from being an RPG.
 

circ

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That excludes just about everything except maybe some elaborate jappo romance sim. Proving once again that devs are for the most part crap at this whole rpg thing.
 

Roguey

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That excludes just about everything except maybe some elaborate jappo romance sim. Proving once again that devs are for the most part crap at this whole rpg thing.

Josh is far more lenient about "meaningful change" than most Codexers.
 

Dakka

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That excludes just about everything except maybe some elaborate jappo romance sim. Proving once again that devs are for the most part crap at this whole rpg thing.

Josh is far more lenient about "meaningful change" than most Codexers.
I'm guessing he thinks "same basic story events but a few side quests and and word choices are different" is meaningful change?
 

Roguey

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I'm guessing he thinks "same basic story events but a few side quests and and word choices are different" is meaningful change?

Scripted reactivity to the words and actions of multiple character types is meaningful, yes.
 

Dakka

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I'm guessing he thinks "same basic story events but a few side quests and and word choices are different" is meaningful change?

Scripted reactivity to the words and actions of multiple character types is meaningful, yes.
To an extent, I'll give you that. It would be nice to go beyond that though. So few games do that, like circ mentioned. I guess a game would have to be purposely developed with that idea in mind.
 
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aweigh

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there's a big problem with sawyer's definition and it's the fact that it would include games like grand theft auto 5.

any defintion of RPG which includes a game (like) GTA5 or its ilk, but excludes a game (like) Wizardry and its ilk, is objectively incorrect, and everyone here would agree with me on this.

it all circles back to the "adventure game hybrid" versus "scripted A/B/C story states" argument.

if we go by Sawyer's definition then R.L. Stein's Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books for kids are the epitome of role playing.
 

Roguey

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if we go by Sawyer's definition then R.L. Stein's Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books for kids are the epitome of role playing.

There are gamebooks with role playing systems (e.g. Lone Wolf). :M
 

Zed Duke of Banville

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There are gamebooks with role playing systems (e.g. Lone Wolf). :M
The term 'gamebook' was coined to refer to a new type of book that combined CYOA novels with RPG elements, although it seems that nowadays many people lump CYOAs together with gamebooks proper when using the term. Anyway, gamebooks relative to RPGs were far too simplified in nearly all respects to be considered proper RPGs rather than hybrid of CYOAs and RPGs. The 2016 version of Warlock of Firetop Mountain stands as the best computerized gamebook ever made, and although it's great for what it is, it clearly demonstrates the differences between a gamebook and an RPG.
 

Axie

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Morrowinds lockpicking mini game

You mean... clicking until the thing decided to work?
Yeah... that's one way to do it I guess.

lockpicking chance % = ((security + (agility / 5) + luck / 10)) x lockpick quality x (fatigue modifier - lock level)​

fatigue modifier = 0,75 + 0,5 x current fatigue / maximum fatigue​

EDIT: And there is different one for the spell, of course. It includes sound, spell cost, will instead agility, etc.
 

Iznaliu

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One could make a gamebook equal to the average crpg, but it'd be a lot of work (more than anyone's been willing to commit).

One could make a toaster equal to the average cRPG, but it'd be a lot of work as well. That doesn't make toasters RPGs.
 

Ventidius

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well, that definition includes Wizardry then! that's all I wanted to settle. Be sure to let Sawyer know he contradicted himself.

The pre-Bradley Wizardries do not allow you to to define and express your character's personality in a way that meaningfully changes the development of the story.

This seems like an arbitrary way to define roleplaying though. Why is roleplaying only valid in the context of a story? Why not in the context of a combat operation? In the latter, different units or unit types can play different roles. Scouts, snipers, assault troops, they all have their roles in the operation. In old-school CRPGs you also have different character types that have their roles both in the context of dungeon exploration and in combat. Mages, clerics, thieves, and fighters - and mixtures thereof - all play different roles. Again, if you don't read anything into the term "roleplaying", this is valid as well. The main feature that distinguished RPGs from wargames, historically, has been character customization (exploration too, but that is less important). RPGs, both PnP and computer alike, always have had elaborate character systems that allow the player to build their character or party in different ways.

The "role" has never in practice been a composite of in-game actions (let alone dialogue choices), but an abstraction (usually quantitative) fashioned from the possibilities offered by the ruleset and the character system, and RPGs have always been notorious for offering a large variety of such possibilities or options, at least compared to other genres. Of course, these possibilities have often also allowed different playstyles, but the mechanics of those playstyles are not exclusive of RPGs. For example, many RPGs allow for stealth mechanics which you can access - or at least only use optimally - only when you build your character as a thief, but the stealth gameplay as such is something you could find in stealth games proper, and in more sophisticated form. This is the case regardless of whether the stealth "minigame" is a full implementation of real-time virtual sneaking, or a heavily abstracted pnp simulation.

What I am trying to say is, RPG gameplay can be anything, it can be CYOA, wargame-style turn-based tactics, dungeon crawling, or stealth. That is not what matters, what matters is that the gameplay interactions are driven by a sufficiently elaborate character system. This means that, for example, Age of Decadence does count as an RPG, since the dialogue options and quest resolutions that are available to you are heavily dependent on your character build. On the other hand, interactive movies/novels such as Telltale games do not count as RPGs since dialogue options and resolutions do not depend on character build. In that sense, RPGs are a very unique genre since they are not defined by their gameplay components, or at least that is the case in so far as one does not consider character/party building a gameplay element, though it might well be taken as such, as it constitutes an implicit strategic layer that, even in games in which one does not have to micromanage this aspect too much, tends to be the most decisive factor in conflict resolution and the tactics available to the player at any given time.

This argument is further reinforced when one considers the definition of RPGs from a historical point of view, e.g. one defines RPGs synthetically, since in practice this is how most RPGs ever made have been; and as I pointed out initially, even analytically, there is nothing in the definition of roleplaying that discredits these traditions.
 
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aweigh

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that is why i have such scorn for the codexers who believe only branching story states or dialog word count dictate "rpg-ness".

I believe the agency in an RPG stems from everything in it, but primarily comes from its gameplay, such as the classic trapped chest scenario in Wizardry which is a very succinct example of true emergent game play in an RPG featuring more mechanically driven agency than many top Codex RPGs.
 
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Zed Duke of Banville

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well, that definition includes Wizardry then! that's all I wanted to settle. Be sure to let Sawyer know he contradicted himself.

The pre-Bradley Wizardries do not allow you to to define and express your character's personality in a way that meaningfully changes the development of the story.

This seems like an arbitrary way to define roleplaying though. Why is roleplaying only valid in the context of a story? Why not in the context of a combat operation? In the latter, different units or unit types can play different roles. Scouts, snipers, assault troops, they all have their roles in the operation. In old-school CRPGs you also have different character types that have their roles both in the context of dungeon exploration and in combat. Mages, clerics, thieves, and fighters - and mixtures thereof - all play different roles. Again, if you don't read anything into the term "roleplaying", this is valid as well. The main feature that distinguished RPGs from wargames, historically, has been character customization (exploration too, but that is less important). RPGs, both PnP and computer alike, always have had elaborate character systems that allow the player to build their character or party in different ways.

The "role" has never in practice been a composite of in-game actions (let alone dialogue choices), but an abstraction (usually quantitative) fashioned from the possibilities offered by the ruleset and the character system, and RPGs have always been notorious for offering a large variety of such possibilities or options, at least compared to other genres. Of course, these possibilities have often also allowed different playstyles, but the mechanics of those playstyles are not exclusive of RPGs. For example, many RPGs allow for stealth mechanics which you can access - or at least only use optimally - only when you build your character as a thief, but the stealth gameplay as such is something you could find in stealth games proper, and in more sophisticated form. This is the case regardless of whether the stealth "minigame" is a full implementation of real-time virtual sneaking, or a heavily abstracted pnp simulation.

What I am trying to say is, RPG gameplay can be anything, it can be CYOA, wargame-style turn-based tactics, dungeon crawling, or stealth. That is not what matters, what matters is that the gameplay interactions are driven by a sufficiently elaborate character system. This means that, for example, Age of Decadence does count as an RPG, since the dialogue options and quest resolutions that are available to you are heavily dependent on your character build. On the other hand, interactive movies/novels such as Telltale games do not count as RPGs since dialogue options and resolutions do not depend on character build. In that sense, RPGs are a very unique genre since they are not defined by their gameplay components, or at least that is the case in so far as one does not consider character/party building a gameplay element, though it might well be taken as such, as it constitutes an implicit strategic layer that, even in games in which one does not have to micromanage this aspect too much, tends to be the most decisive factor in conflict resolution and the tactics available to the player at any given time.

This argument is further reinforced when one considers the definition of RPGs from a historical point of view, e.g. one defines RPGs synthetically, since in practice this is how most RPGs ever made have been; and as I pointed out initially, even analytically, there is nothing in the definition of roleplaying that discredits these traditions.
From the time Dungeons & Dragons coalesced into a distinct genre from miniatures wargaming, exploration has been at least coequal in importance with combat and characters, if not paramount. Though otherwise a fine post, you are narrowing the definition of RPGs to exclude two of the three main categories of game mechanics (only characters but not combat or exploration), and by doing so you are, perhaps paradoxically, lending credence to a popular corruption of the term RPG, which broadens the term so as to include anything with RPG elements relating to character customization and progression, regardless of how distant the other game mechanics are from RPG game mechanics.

The proper way to define a game genre is to examine its mechanics, and for RPGs that requires taking into consideration characters, combat, and exploration, as eliminating any one of these three foundational categories transforms a game from an RPG into a distinct genre.
 

Ventidius

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well, that definition includes Wizardry then! that's all I wanted to settle. Be sure to let Sawyer know he contradicted himself.

The pre-Bradley Wizardries do not allow you to to define and express your character's personality in a way that meaningfully changes the development of the story.

This seems like an arbitrary way to define roleplaying though. Why is roleplaying only valid in the context of a story? Why not in the context of a combat operation? In the latter, different units or unit types can play different roles. Scouts, snipers, assault troops, they all have their roles in the operation. In old-school CRPGs you also have different character types that have their roles both in the context of dungeon exploration and in combat. Mages, clerics, thieves, and fighters - and mixtures thereof - all play different roles. Again, if you don't read anything into the term "roleplaying", this is valid as well. The main feature that distinguished RPGs from wargames, historically, has been character customization (exploration too, but that is less important). RPGs, both PnP and computer alike, always have had elaborate character systems that allow the player to build their character or party in different ways.

The "role" has never in practice been a composite of in-game actions (let alone dialogue choices), but an abstraction (usually quantitative) fashioned from the possibilities offered by the ruleset and the character system, and RPGs have always been notorious for offering a large variety of such possibilities or options, at least compared to other genres. Of course, these possibilities have often also allowed different playstyles, but the mechanics of those playstyles are not exclusive of RPGs. For example, many RPGs allow for stealth mechanics which you can access - or at least only use optimally - only when you build your character as a thief, but the stealth gameplay as such is something you could find in stealth games proper, and in more sophisticated form. This is the case regardless of whether the stealth "minigame" is a full implementation of real-time virtual sneaking, or a heavily abstracted pnp simulation.

What I am trying to say is, RPG gameplay can be anything, it can be CYOA, wargame-style turn-based tactics, dungeon crawling, or stealth. That is not what matters, what matters is that the gameplay interactions are driven by a sufficiently elaborate character system. This means that, for example, Age of Decadence does count as an RPG, since the dialogue options and quest resolutions that are available to you are heavily dependent on your character build. On the other hand, interactive movies/novels such as Telltale games do not count as RPGs since dialogue options and resolutions do not depend on character build. In that sense, RPGs are a very unique genre since they are not defined by their gameplay components, or at least that is the case in so far as one does not consider character/party building a gameplay element, though it might well be taken as such, as it constitutes an implicit strategic layer that, even in games in which one does not have to micromanage this aspect too much, tends to be the most decisive factor in conflict resolution and the tactics available to the player at any given time.

This argument is further reinforced when one considers the definition of RPGs from a historical point of view, e.g. one defines RPGs synthetically, since in practice this is how most RPGs ever made have been; and as I pointed out initially, even analytically, there is nothing in the definition of roleplaying that discredits these traditions.
From the time Dungeons & Dragons coalesced into a distinct genre from miniatures wargaming, exploration has been at least coequal in importance with combat and characters, if not paramount. Though otherwise a fine post, you are narrowing the definition of RPGs to exclude two of the three main categories of game mechanics (only characters but not combat or exploration), and by doing so you are, perhaps paradoxically, lending credence to a popular corruption of the term RPG, which broadens the term so as to include anything with RPG elements relating to character customization and progression, regardless of how distant the other game mechanics are from RPG game mechanics.

The proper way to define a game genre is to examine its mechanics, and for RPGs that requires taking into consideration characters, combat, and exploration, as eliminating any one of these three foundational categories transforms a game from an RPG into a distinct genre.

I personally put a lot of emphasis on exploration myself, and do think it is essential. Heck, I said as much a few posts back:

People shouldn’t be too dismissive of exploration as a valid aspect of RPG design to focus on, as it should be noted that it was one of the core features, along with character customization, that set RPGs apart from wargames. The reason for this is obvious, a role never exists in a vacuum. Both in the real world and in RPGs, a role implies an ecosystem of which the role is node and a complex of relationships, as much as it is a substantive thing in itself.

Also, I agree with you that it could also be argued to be such from a synthetic/historical point of view. It just seems to me that from an analytical point of view it does not really seem to be quite as essential to the definition of RPG as character building is. Also, to put exploration as paramount would lead, I think, to some unintuitive conclusions such as considering Zelda or Metroid games as RPGs, and denying Blackguards its status as such. Depends on what you mean by paramount, I suppose. If one considers exploration as necessary and sufficient requirement for an RPG, we do have the Metroid-is-an-RPG reductio ad absurdum scenario, but I doubt that's what you are advocating. Perhaps it is more plausible to say that exploration is necessary but not sufficient, and only when combat and character customization are thrown in do we have an RPG. Then, I think, Blackguards still does not make it, but I guess I could bite that bullet. I am not hostile to your interpretation BTW, it just seems a bit harder to defend, that is all.

Also the idea that combat is essential is, again, one I am not hostile to either, in principle. But this seems even more of an arbitrary and historically-dependent case to make than the exploration issue. As a thought experiment, what would you think of a Blood Bowl RPG? In other words, a game with team customization and exploration that used Blood Bowl matches instead of combat, and, as such, a conflict-resolution system that is not, strictly speaking, combat. Would that be an RPG?

For the record, I think your approach is fully valid from a historical point of view, but not everyone seems to accept this kind of method when defining a genre. Others, and this seems to include Roguey and Sawyer, seem to put more stock on analytical judgements, or what the genre is, by definition. That is why my argument against Roguey's point was two-pronged, I questioned the notion of roleplaying-is-only-story-roleplaying both from a synthetic/historical point of view and using the very analytical approach he seems to be using.
 
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Roguey

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This seems like an arbitrary way to define roleplaying though. Why is roleplaying only valid in the context of a story? Why not in the context of a combat operation?

Ah yes, the old "Well you play a role in every game" chestnut.

Hexen is not a role playing game.
 

Ventidius

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This seems like an arbitrary way to define roleplaying though. Why is roleplaying only valid in the context of a story? Why not in the context of a combat operation?

Ah yes, the old "Well you play a role in every game" chestnut.

Hexen is not a role playing game.

Wow, is that what you got from that? That is not at all what I said. I said that it is utterly arbitrary to constrain roleplaying to playing a role in the context of a "story" simulacrum or simulation, which is another way of saying that role need not be only defined as a conglomerate of social inclinations, emotions, motivations or interests, which is what often happens in RPGs that rely heavily on dialogues and quests. You roleplay a person with a certain kind of character in such games. It is also possible for a role to have a functional meaning, ergo the role of X character is Sniper, hence character X is defined by their combat function and not the fact that, say, he is a sneaky rogue who feels contempt for laws and law-abiders and is only interested in his own profit, for example. Both ways of conceiving and conceptualizing roles in a given game and ruleset are valid.

Not every game is a role playing game, obviously. RPGs are such because they allow for clearly defined roles to be played in the context of many different kinds of a simulacrum, and they achieve this by modelling said simulacrum around an abstract role, or character, system. Said simulacrum may be of the "story" kind and thus involve expressing the role in the form of certain actions that are given certain meanings by the reactions in the virtual world. But it can also be done with a pure combat or dungeon crawling gauntlet by providing manifold and detailed combat roles and we are not in the least removed from roleplaying. What matters is that this is all driven by a sufficiently robust character system, which is what ultimately the most important factor separating RPGs from non-RPGs.
 
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