The Authentic RPG and its Tragic Demise

[DraQ]

This article is a good case study on how it's possible to be right for the wrong reasons.

This.

Open RPGs with a lot of freedom regarding your actions and creating your character are a good thing. The only thing that matters is whether those open RPGs actually react to your actions or force you to larp and play pretend.

 

[drunkpriest]

bottom line it

"Games will never be the same"

 

[Murk]

I was more or less agreeing with the quoted section in the OP up until he compared Gothic to Fable in driving the gaming genre towards "action and cinematicism" -- unless he's referencing Gothic 4 in which case he can fuck right off.

 

[Claw]

and if I end up having to travel through Skyrim as a pre-designed hero, I might have to kill someone with a blunt object.

Like an axe for example?

I'd like to laugh, but then I recall that Risen categorizes maces and hammers as swords or axes.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Must admit, it is amusing seeing the types that claimed the oldschool CRPG was out of date are now themselves hurting. Wasn't it a Codexer who once said "at the rate things are going, Oblivion will one day be the poster child for what was once hardcore"?

 

[mondblut]

And just to remind you all the wise words of komrade oldschool back from 2008:

Funny thing about evolution. It tends to keep going even when you want it to stop.

So you guys killed off CRPG gameplay. You were a market force that demanded choose-your-own-dialogue adventure games instead, got what you wanted, and redefined the genre in your own image. Still pissed at you about that.

Here's where it gets funny. There is a whole new market force out there, and they could give a diplomatic rats' ass about C&C dialogue. Cinematic immersion FTW, baby! That's the "evolution" of your genre, like it or not. Welcome to the new new definition of RPG.

I'm betting they won't stop "evolving" the genre until they've reduced it to playing dress up with their avatar pre-game, rolling up some arbitrary traits, and then the rest of the "gameplay" involves doing this:

Press here to continue...

I have to admit, that amuses the hell out of me. Gameplay evolution at its finest.

 

[Darth Roxor]

^

 

[potemkin]

Here is the bare minimum a game must have to be an RPG:

- Player actions must be limited by character attributes;
- Player actions must be able to change the *main* story completely, not just side quests (companion stories are side quests) and see the effects well before the end of the game;
- Player character attributes and skills must be considered during conversations with key NPCs adding and removing dialog options and changing the *main* story;

 

[Darth Roxor]

No, for a game to be an RPG, laptop guy needs to have stats.

Thus, there are only three true RPGs: Bloodlines, System Shock 2 and Alpha Brotocol, as they have laptop guys and all of them have stats.

Behold the new Holy Trinity.

 

[7hm]

Here is the bare minimum a game must have to be an RPG:

- Player actions must be limited by character attributes;
- Player actions must be able to change the *main* story completely, not just side quests (companion stories are side quests) and see the effects well before the end of the game;
- Player character attributes and skills must be considered during conversations with key NPCs adding and removing dialog options and changing the *main* story;

Yes to 1. No to 2 and 3.

Those are optional and only required for storyfag RPGs. In a dungeon crawler I don't give a shit if my actions change the main story or even if I have much in the way of NPC interactions beyond a store and some minor questing.

2 and 3 are nice but they're hardly essential. An RPG is an adventure game with stats / character development and combat. Everything else is dross.

 

[Dorf]

The reason today's CRPGs suck on average is because they have removed imagination and skill of the player from the game. I remember in Bard's Tale where it was considered a game playing feature that you had to map the dungeons yourself on graph paper. Not that I think going back to that would be a good thing. The problem is that the pendulum has swung so far in the opposite direction.

You need to be able to immerse yourself into the game and you not only do that through your character but you do it through how you interact with the game. I remember how cool it felt in Fallout when for the first time I entered combat and that mechanical window opened in the lower right corner. My interface had seemed to transform before my eyes. Things like that created a connection with me.

Nowadays I don't get that very often, actually hardly at all, from cRPGs. They seem so generic and simple. Just point and click. The last game that I really invested myself and time into was Ark Fatalis. And the last halfway decent cRPG I played was NWN II.

The problem is they are dumbing down RPGing for people who just don't RPG and don't care. So much of RPG is imagination and lets be honest most people don't have one.

 

[Mangoose]

Here is the bare minimum a game must have to be an RPG:

- Player actions must be limited by character attributes;
- Player actions must be able to change the *main* story completely, not just side quests (companion stories are side quests) and see the effects well before the end of the game;
- Player character attributes and skills must be considered during conversations with key NPCs adding and removing dialog options and changing the *main* story;

Yes to 1. No to 2 and 3.

Those are optional and only required for storyfag RPGs. In a dungeon crawler I don't give a shit if my actions change the main story or even if I have much in the way of NPC interactions beyond a store and some minor questing.

2 and 3 are nice but they're hardly essential. An RPG is an adventure game with stats / character development and combat. Everything else is dross.

Actually an RPG does not need combat. What it needs is a way to express (1). In other words, it needs gameplay that utilizes the character's attributes (and is limited by them). It just turns out that combat is a lot easier to (and there is more gamdev experience with it) model in this way and implement as a complex system than, say, dialogue. If there were a dialogue system just as complex as ToEE's combat, then I'd say that game could be an RPG.

 

[Xor]

You know what we need? Another "what is an rpg" thread. It's been at least a month since the last one.

 

[mondblut]

RPGs don't exist!!1

Cool main story, bro.

 

[Phelot]

We must first ask ourselves, what is an RPG?

 

[potemkin]

Yes to 1. No to 2 and 3. Those are optional and only required for storyfag RPGs.

If you don't have a story, you can't role play. In your adventure games you play a role, you don't role play. If you can't change the story your actions don't matter thus you are not role-playing.

 

[Black Cat]

Here is the bare minimum a game must have to be an RPG:

- Player actions must be limited by character attributes;
- Player actions must be able to change the *main* story completely, not just side quests (companion stories are side quests) and see the effects well before the end of the game;
- Player character attributes and skills must be considered during conversations with key NPCs adding and removing dialog options and changing the *main* story;

It's good to see Betrayal at Krondor, the Gold Box games, Eye of the Beholder, etc aren't really role playing games. Thank you for enlightening us about it.

 

[Phelot]

Yes to 1. No to 2 and 3. Those are optional and only required for storyfag RPGs.

If you don't have a story, you can't role play. In your adventure games you play a role, you don't role play. If you can't change the story your actions don't matter thus you are not role-playing.

What if you're roleplaying a dude that just kills shit in dungeons?

 

[mondblut]

If you don't have a story, you can't role play. In your adventure games you play a role, you don't role play. If you can't change the story your actions don't matter thus you are not role-playing.

I see dicksmoker has finally found himself an apprentice. Or given in to creating alts? Either way, you wouldn't recognize an RPG when it rams its str 18/00 fist into your ass for 3d6 damage.

 

[potemkin]

What if you're roleplaying a dude that just kills shit in dungeons?

That's an adventure game.

What if you are playing an italian plumber that just jumps on shit to save a princess and increases his lifebar whenever he gets X points?

I'm trying to draw a line here, otherwise everything is an RPG!

 

[Admiral jimbob]

Yes to 1. No to 2 and 3. Those are optional and only required for storyfag RPGs.

If you don't have a story, you can't role play. In your adventure games you play a role, you don't role play. If you can't change the story your actions don't matter thus you are not role-playing.

STOP MAKING UP DEFINITIONS AND TREATING THEM AS FACT

 

[mondblut]

This thread has premises to setting new records in retardation.

 

[Dorf]

When it comes to the question, "What is a CRPG?", I think it is best to tackle it like this. Like a bald person you know a CRPG when you see one. Do we know what amount of hair, or lack there of, is required to be bald? No, but we sure as damn well know a bald person when we see one even though we can never pin point the magic hair the moment it falls out that turns a person with thinning hair into a baldy, but it must exist.

So, like a CRPG we can't point to one thing it must have or shouldn't have to make it a CRPG, or not, but when we play one we know instantly if it is a CRPG, or not.

 

[deus101]

A key factor to a good RPG is to have NPC's that will rape you if you are stupid enough to get them mad.
NPC/setting wrangling is as important as combat.

 

[JarlFrank]

An RPG is a game with stats and at least some amount of dungeon crawling/combat.

I love storyfag RPGs but having storyfag elements is not a prerequisite of being called an RPG.