"Characterfag"?

[Zanzoken]

Does such a thing exist? Because if so, I’m pretty sure I am one.

I’m talking about player characters here – the process of visualizing and building a unique, meaningful, and interesting avatar over the course of a gameplay experience. To me the ability to do this is what sets the RPG genre apart from everything else, and it’s the most important factor with regards to how much I end up enjoying a game.

Let me make a wizard who can tap into ungodly fire magic, but at the risk of going a little insane and blasting his friends along with his foes. Let me make a swordmaster who can split himself into four separate images and attack in tandem. Let me make an assassin who conjures a ferocious battle axe at the moment of the kill and beheads his targets. Etc etc.

I’m over being saddled with the same old D&D stuff that’s been aped in pretty much everything -- “you are an archer, so you can shoot bows good, and... uh... well”. I feel like a lot of games are too confining to really do anything intriguing, and if I can’t create a character that I actually want to play as then I end up feeling unmotivated to even get started.

Basically what I look for are systems with the freedom and game assets to let me develop a particular vision from both a mechanical and stylistic standpoint. Appearance, items, abilities, personality – all are part of the overall package, and the stronger each part is, the more realized the overall character will be and the more fun I’ll have playing with it and interacting with the rest of the game’s systems.

What do you guys think?

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

Sounds like a new term that could be adopted.

I understand the way you feel, about like being able to play as the character that you want to play as, something that's not strictly regulated by classes and such.

I've created an RP system called RIPE RP to address these kinds of issues like giving the player the ability to create whatever character they'd like to play as, while still allowing player progression and stuff and a way to measure a character's overall power. Alas, being some kind of newfag/outcast in other places has left me with an inability to ever test that system lol.

But regardless, those kinds of ideas are kind of the reason why I play RPG games. It's also the reason why I go into an 'analysis paralysis' mode when trying to decide what class/whatever I want to play in a game because really none of them ever really 'fit' what I have in mind of playing.

 

[Bruma Hobo]

You're a C&Cfag, like it or not. Just because it's mechanic choices and not scripted borefests doesn't mean it's not meaningful choices and consequences what you want. And I think this is the reason why early codexers thought C&C were essential for the role-playing genre, before some people strawmaned them into something that must be acknowledged by NPCs or the end credits and discarded it as superfluous.

Or maybe i'm just wrong.

 

[Animal]

Skyrim!

Spoiler

OT: I appreciate the idea, but I place more importance on a good system. Also, limitations, like D&D, make for a bit more balanced game. Freeform usually leads to overpowered builds that suck the fun out of it...

Shadowrun let's you throw points all over and it isn't too bad. But combat is not really it's strong point imho.

 

[Curunír]

I don't know if characterfag would be an appropriate term, but there is certainly *some* sort of faggotry going on in the OP.

 

[a Goat]

more like fagfaggot

 

[Grokalibre]

Does such a thing exist? Because if so, I’m pretty sure I am one.

I’m talking about player characters here – the process of visualizing and building a unique, meaningful, and interesting avatar over the course of a gameplay experience. To me the ability to do this is what sets the RPG genre apart from everything else, and it’s the most important factor with regards to how much I end up enjoying a game.

Let me make a wizard who can tap into ungodly fire magic, but at the risk of going a little insane and blasting his friends along with his foes. Let me make a swordmaster who can split himself into four separate images and attack in tandem. Let me make an assassin who conjures a ferocious battle axe at the moment of the kill and beheads his targets. Etc etc.

I’m over being saddled with the same old D&D stuff that’s been aped in pretty much everything -- “you are an archer, so you can shoot bows good, and... uh... well”. I feel like a lot of games are too confining to really do anything intriguing, and if I can’t create a character that I actually want to play as then I end up feeling unmotivated to even get started.

Basically what I look for are systems with the freedom and game assets to let me develop a particular vision from both a mechanical and stylistic standpoint. Appearance, items, abilities, personality – all are part of the overall package, and the stronger each part is, the more realized the overall character will be and the more fun I’ll have playing with it and interacting with the rest of the game’s systems.

What do you guys think?

I think you want to play dolls. Like, for real, I'm not even trolling, the characters you give as exemples are just cosmetic variations of how to kill stuff.

 

[Azarkon]

Does such a thing exist? Because if so, I’m pretty sure I am one.

I’m talking about player characters here – the process of visualizing and building a unique, meaningful, and interesting avatar over the course of a gameplay experience. To me the ability to do this is what sets the RPG genre apart from everything else, and it’s the most important factor with regards to how much I end up enjoying a game.

Let me make a wizard who can tap into ungodly fire magic, but at the risk of going a little insane and blasting his friends along with his foes. Let me make a swordmaster who can split himself into four separate images and attack in tandem. Let me make an assassin who conjures a ferocious battle axe at the moment of the kill and beheads his targets. Etc etc.

I’m over being saddled with the same old D&D stuff that’s been aped in pretty much everything -- “you are an archer, so you can shoot bows good, and... uh... well”. I feel like a lot of games are too confining to really do anything intriguing, and if I can’t create a character that I actually want to play as then I end up feeling unmotivated to even get started.

Basically what I look for are systems with the freedom and game assets to let me develop a particular vision from both a mechanical and stylistic standpoint. Appearance, items, abilities, personality – all are part of the overall package, and the stronger each part is, the more realized the overall character will be and the more fun I’ll have playing with it and interacting with the rest of the game’s systems.

What do you guys think?

You're a systemfag, and even described yourself as one.

Character/class mechanics are classic systemfag.

You're a bit of a graphicfag in terms of wanting to look the way your character is, and a bit of a C&Cfag for wanting character choice to decide game choices, but that's about it.

 

[naossano]

Or just a plain and simple fag...

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Give Sims Superstar a try.

 

[Null Null]

You seem you'd really like actual tabletop RPing. Are there any groups in your area?

 

[zeitgeist]

Basically what I look for are systems with the freedom and game assets to let me develop a particular vision from both a mechanical and stylistic standpoint. Appearance, items, abilities, personality – all are part of the overall package, and the stronger each part is, the more realized the overall character will be and the more fun I’ll have playing with it and interacting with the rest of the game’s systems.

What do you guys think?

 

[Daemongar]

Arcanum was one of the best examples of what you are looking for. However, that horrific system allowed people who played the game several times to create godly builds, while morons first time players could be saddled with impossible to pass areas (BMM.) You can't create a system with player freedom unless you go the Fallout3/Fallout:NV/Skyrim route where every build is a winner! And in that case, I agree with others: you are just playing with dolls.

I like systems where you just get points and can put them in anything you want, but there must be tradeoffs. The system you shit on (D&D) allows people to fight in combat and conjure shit, but don't expect to wear armor while doing it. Now that I think about it, what the fuck are you talking about? D&D allows all this and you could do it in NWN2. D&D is an excellent system for unique character crafting. Dragon Wars is also a good example of a system done right: you could put points in anything you wanted, but those points were hard to come by, so you had to be strategic and balance the party out.

RPG's use defined classes because they are made for groups of characters emulating a tabletop session, and it makes it easier to track which is which. It puts the role in role playing game. Each character has a role (neat, eh?). Solo or small party rpgs allow much more dynamic character creation to give characters more freedom and to make up for skills that are missing. You can be a healer/mage/fighter, you just aren't expected to be all that good in any area. This has been there since Pools of Radiance, and is nothing new.

 

[Lhynn]

Arcanum was one of the best examples of what you are looking for. However, that horrific system allowed people who played the game several times to create godly builds, while morons first time players could be saddled with impossible to pass areas (BMM.) You can't create a system with player freedom unless you go the Fallout3/Fallout:NV/Skyrim route where every build is a winner! And in that case, I agree with others: you are just playing with dolls.

Fuck off, freedom to fuck up is the only true freedom when it comes to games, especially in this day and age.

 

[Neanderthal]

Let me make a wizard who can tap into ungodly fire magic, but at the risk of going a little insane and blasting his friends along with his foes. Let me make a swordmaster who can split himself into four separate images and attack in tandem. Let me make an assassin who conjures a ferocious battle axe at the moment of the kill and beheads his targets.

Wizard using fireball and not caring about AoE in almost any IE game, especially Ignus in Torment. Arcane Warrior or Fighter/Mage using mirror image, found in IE games and NWN games. Use Axe of Torment as a finishing spell on a mage specialised in stealth and killing to make an Assassin Nameless. This all has been done and is not really original, though it's a lot better than the boring tank and spank system that every game has to use now, with Fighters being punching bags and all that shit.

I can see what you're saying, that you want more stylised and flashy combat but that's mainly the role of the ARPG now, whereas in bog standard RPGs flashy combat is way down the list of priorities. A shame really because it might help liven up some of them, especially those where you grind thousands of foes to progress. I wouldn't want it going DMC stupid anime fighting or retarded WoW armour and weapons, but a bit more oomph and attention to detail couldn't hurt. And classes (or ideally classless) with a bit more originality about them than fucking Rogue, Fighter, and all the usual stuff you see.

 

[Daemongar]

Fuck off, freedom to fuck up is the only true freedom when it comes to games, especially in this day and age.

I agree with you. I personally loved Arcanum. Just pointing out that freedom brings baggage in that some cannot handle it. People who played Arcanum more than once can point out 20 different ways to game the system and talk about how easy it is, while first timers whine universally about BMM/being underpowered at this or other areas. Would a developer do all that work to be bitched at, or just go the Skyrim route and make every build viable but equally awesome, no matter how stupid the build is on paper? (hint: everyone is going the skyrim route)

(Note: yes, I know you reading this played Arcanum and was killing everything in your path at 5th level the first time you played because its so piss easy to just cast blah, blah, blah. I recognize your exceptionalism.)

 

[MilesBeyond]

Fuck off, freedom to fuck up is the only true freedom when it comes to games, especially in this day and age.

I agree to an extent, but at the same time, balance (within reason) helps to create more choices. If choosing an option would be gimping yourself, then it's not really a choice, is it?

Plus in most RPGs making a poor choice is often a frustrating sort of "fucking up" because it often comes down to things you couldn't really know until you're familiar with the game. I mean how are first-time players supposed to know things like the buff against giants being useless because there are only two giants in the game, or that they shouldn't take fire magic because most of its spells aren't available until the last third of the game or that they shouldn't use greataxes because a bug in the code means that they only do 1 damage? That's the problem with "trap" options - it's not that they aren't obvious, it's that it's not even possible to know they're traps without intimate knowledge of the game.

Like Arcanum. There's nothing in the game itself to indicate that guns - or tech in general - actually kinda suck.

I guess what I'm saying is that there's a difference between fucking up because you made a bad choice and fucking up because you made a choice that should have been good but for a design flaw in the game.

 

[Crevice tab]

Arcanum was one of the best examples of what you are looking for. However, that horrific system allowed people who played the game several times to create godly builds, while morons first time players could be saddled with impossible to pass areas (BMM.) You can't create a system with player freedom unless you go the Fallout3/Fallout:NV/Skyrim route where every build is a winner! And in that case, I agree with others: you are just playing with dolls.

Or place a difficulty slider which should keep even shit builds viable.

Ultimately I'd say player freedom can be gotten through designing a properly responsive game for whatever character you build and then letting you progress freely. That way you'll be encouraged to stick to a viable path but also give enough freedom to meander around with character creation.

 

[Lhynn]

All rendered moot because arcanum is beatable with p. much any character.

You beat the game, now play it again, this time with a better character. Theres absolutely nothing wrong with this idea. If you got to a point were your character simply cannot progress, then restart the game, make it better, thats half the fun of rpgs.

 

[Delterius]

What do you guys think?

Sounds like you enjoy RPGs.

 

[Zanzoken]

"Systemfag crossed with a LARPer" actually sounds fairly accurate. To me that's just what makes RPGs unique, though, and is a big part of the fun.

If you play a Mario game, you are Mario. If you play a Batman game, you are Batman. Those games might have good combat, storytelling, world-building, itemization, level design, etc -- all things that are important for RPGs as well. But you have to play a pre-defined character. Creating and developing your character in an RPG gives you the chance to experiment and interact with the game in different ways via your PC, which to me is very satisfying.

Also -- not to turn this too far into a "balance" discussion, but I see people talking about good vs bad builds... isn't that indicative of design problems to begin with? It's not uncommon even in good games that something which seems like it should work on the surface -- the firearms example for Arcanum is a good one -- doesn't actually perform too well. I think a well-balanced game is one where each option has its strengths and weaknesses but ultimately feels roughly equivalent in power to the others, while also feeling distinct.

Not to be confused with an over-balanced game, where everything feels too similar/your choices don't really matter/it's impossible to fuck up.

 

[Crooked Bee]

"Systemfag crossed with a LARPer" actually sounds fairly accurate.

Heh, I actually deleted that comment because I thought it was unfair, if lulzy.

 

[Zanzoken]

Haha, it's all good. No shame in my game!

 

[gestalt11]

I would say City of Heroes had quite a lot of this sort of thing. In fact some people only used it for the costume editor and doing costume contests in Atlas Park.

 

[Mastermind]

how to kill stuff.

Which is the only thing that matters you disgusting storyfag.