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The Fundamental Aspect of an RPG is...

What do you think?

  • 1. C&C

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 2. Support for diverse playstyles/ robust branching skill sytem

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 3. Ability to create your own character

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 4. Freedom of exploration

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 1 & 2

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 1 & 3

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 1 & 4

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 2 & 3

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 2 & 4

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 3 & 4

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 1, 2, & 3

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 1, 2, & 4

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 1, 3, & 4

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 2, 3, & 4

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • It MUST have all 4.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    0

mondblut

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Zeus said:
Still, it's interesting to note that the titles you mentioned were all science fiction, rather than fantasy games. Maybe by removing the fantasy, they also removed some of the need for power fantasy as well.

It owes more to the fact they are all based on variations of same ruleset (except Planet's Edge of course). And that scifi is ought to be more realistic - no divine interventions, it's a magics and other typical justifications for level growth.

Still, I hardly think that C&C is one of the fundamental aspects of CRPGs when it only gained popularity ten or twelve years ago.

Precisely. Except that it gained popularity no more than 4-5 years ago, here of all places, and then was retroactively found in no more than half a dozen of games not older than Fallout. And when an RPG is not made by BIS or Troika, it doesn't exist. Fanbois are so fanbois :roll:
 

mondblut

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spectre said:
Hmmm. Tricky. The same can be said about all sorts of wargames.

Since RPG did appear as a wargame variant, that's only natural.

What is the difference between combat value of royal grenadiers and stats of any random rpg hero?

Royal grenadiers in wargames often gain experience too, upgrading from green recruits to veterans to elite. So experience is irrelevant here.

Social skills? But these are actually the same, you just have to see all these persuasions and haggles as alternative means for solving problems.

Close. Not necessarily social even, just not strictly combat related. The way I see it, RPG was born as a distinct genre the moment when, having finished another set-piece individual-level tactical battle, the gamemaster paused before reaching for a sheet with the next set-piece battle and said "there is a moldy chest in a corner... care to look around?".

And this extended unit stats and their application for problem solving from playing out preset military engagements into all kinds of imaginable interactions, giving birth to another gaming genre.
 

mondblut

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Jasede said:
This is a horrible poll. Where is the Combat option?

Quoth the Raven, "(excluding mondblut's of course)". :lol:

See, for them we are like Nazi for the modern West. Our statements horrify them so much, our voice makes those fragile glass houses they've built for themselves to hide inside and convince themselves God created world in 1997 and His name was Tim Cain tremble and shatter so pitifully - that they opt to shut their eyes and close their ears and repeat "they don't exist... choices... i am alone here... Avellone... consequences... Troika... Tim Tim Tim make evil people go away!!!" :lol:

Mondblut! With our powers combined we are... the last 2 RPG fans left on the planet.

Not really, a plenty of wise people of good understanding contributed to this thread as of late, while newfags just vote. Probably has something to do with the fact they are taught only to pick one from a bunch of offered options, not to type in keywords :lol:
 

jsaving

Educated
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20
I think the fundamental aspect of a role-playing game is that different characters achieve different results with the same action based on the statistics chosen for them by their players.

RPG where player twitch skills matter = action game, even if you can explore a large world and choose your own character textures. It might be an action game with RPG elements, but it's an action game.

RPG where neither statistics nor player twitch skills matter = adventure game, even if there is a compelling narrative and you feel like your decisions have an impact on the world. It might be an adventure game with RPG elements, but it's an adventure game.
 

Darth Roxor

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mondblut said:
Not really, a plenty of wise people of good understanding contributed to this thread as of late, while newfags just vote. Probably has something to do with the fact they are taught only to pick one from a bunch of offered options, not to type in keywords :lol:

I couldn't help but lol
 

phanboy_iv

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Zeus said:
Well yeah, I never said a CRPG without statistical character growth was unimaginable, just exceedingly rare. Still, it's interesting to note that the titles you mentioned were all science fiction, rather than fantasy games. Maybe by removing the fantasy, they also removed some of the need for power fantasy as well.

Still, I hardly think that C&C is one of the fundamental aspects of CRPGs when it only gained popularity ten or twelve years ago.

Has C&C not always been an underlying principle of good P&P sessions? And isn't D&D's class system a form of C&C?
 

Black Cat

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@ topic

If we are talking about just computer ones, then only by having 2, 3, and 4 will you have any sort of meaningful, as in non scripted, choice and consequence. And really, while i do not have anything against the kind of pre-scripted choice and consequence most people around there seem to think is what role playing games are about, i have seen and played bloody Otome games with more of the pick-an-option-in-a-dialogue-tree kind choices and consequences than bloody fallout, and with entire chapters changing in their entirety because of such options. Are, then, Otome games the pinacle of choice and consequence? Nyahahahahaha, please!

I mean, like, really, if you want that kind of thingie go play visual novels and stuff. I like them, and there are some pretty good ones if you know your way around a japanese dictionary, but they are not role playing games. And while that kind of interactive storytelling is good and nice and stuff in a role playing game heavy on plot and interaction, it is not what makes it a role playing game. And if you think otherwise you should come out of the closet and go play THIS. It has six diferent romance options, and sports three completely diferent middle sections, six completely diferent late sections, and twelve endings depending on your choices, and small changes all the way through! Yay! Best role playing game, like, ever! Screw you.

In pen & paper, choices and consequences matter because it is not the gamemaster making you pick from a list but giving you a situation where you have free reign on what to try. That will not happen in computer based ones, so there: If you want Choices and Consequences go play some hardcore dungeon crawler with lots of skills, resources to manage, freedom on how to tackle the levels and what to try on the puzzles, and be done with it. Will you go straight down to conserve rations or explore each level wholly to try and discover more? Will you try to kill that out of depth creep to loot its lair of high level loot even if doing so will put a big strain on your mana or daily spells and maybe force you to rest, and thus eat, more? That's the only kind of true choices and consequences computer role playing games will ever have, so you either like them or you go get yourself some friends and a place from were to torrent the rulebooks and call it a day.

And as i say i do not think it is wrong to have options from where to pick in how the plot develops and stuff, i like that since i actually do like those japanese interactive story thingies as long as they are not porn and stuff, but role playing games have nothing to do with that. That's a bonus, like having cool graphics or good art or a monster design that doesn't suck or music other than generic fantasy sounds #1000000000004, but even a game without any of those things would be a role playing game, even if it would most surely suck for me or something since i like my games with good art and stuff.

So all of you who took anything other than 2, 3, and 4 are fags and should move to the bioware forums or something, bloody nya.



Postedit: For Belphegor's sake, look at those results! The two most important things in role playing games are choices and consequences and support for diverse playstyles?! Invisible War is the best role playing game, like, ever!!! So much for the Codex's bloody reputation, nya. This is the new hardcore and stuff.
 

Zeus

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phanboy_iv said:
Zeus said:
Still, I hardly think that C&C is one of the fundamental aspects of CRPGs when it only gained popularity ten or twelve years ago.

Has C&C not always been an underlying principle of good P&P sessions?

Of course, that's why the "C" in "CRPG" is bold. Obviously, it's been a part of pen and paper RPGs since the beginning. But since computer RPGs made due without much C&C for so many years, I can hardly consider it their "foundation."

phanboy_iv said:
And isn't D&D's class system a form of C&C?

Sure, as much as Mortal Kombat's character select screen is a form of C&C.

Choice: I pick Stryker.
Consequence: Stryker sucks.
 

Winter Ale

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phanboy_iv said:
Has C&C not always been an underlying principle of good P&P sessions? And isn't D&D's class system a form of C&C?

The key word in what you said is 'good'. Maybe a good P&P session has lots of C&C (someone tell me what that means - choice and consequences?), but that's just a quality measure.

The system below it is what's fundamental. The mechanics are what's fundamental. How the whole bloody thing works. That's fundamental.

How people go about playing with the thing, or setting the thing up - that's what affects how good things are.

So the poll in this thread is completely missing the point.
 

Zeus

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Winter Ale said:
phanboy_iv said:
Has C&C not always been an underlying principle of good P&P sessions? And isn't D&D's class system a form of C&C?

The key word in what you said is 'good'. Maybe a good P&P session has lots of C&C (someone tell me what that means - choice and consequences?), but that's just a quality measure.

Generally it means a branching storyline where you can cause big events to happen through dialog choices. So at one point, you could either ally yourself with some guy or fight him in a boss battle, that sort of thing.

Two things to keep in mind:

1) All CRPGs and P&P RPGs have a degree of interaction. If you let your character get worn down enough so that a single blow kills him, one could argue that it's the consequence to your choice, but obviously, C&C is different than simple interaction -- it's more about having an impact on the plot and not being forced down a Final Fantasy style storybook plot.

2) Pen and Paper RPGs like D&D aren't defined by Choices and Consequences. Using your favorite edition D&D Sourcebook (mine's 2nd), you can construct a totally linear quest and then force your players along a predetermined path, with any straying immediately punished by the DM. This means the players' interaction will largely be tactical; it's their job to keep their guys alive (much like the original CRPG dungeon hacks) and finish the quest. This is known as "railroading" in the tabletop RPG circle, and while it's usually considered the mark of an inexperienced DM, it doesn't make the game of D&D "not an RPG"

Winter Ale said:
The system below it is what's fundamental. The mechanics are what's fundamental. How the whole bloody thing works. That's fundamental.

Agreed.
 

PorkaMorka

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None of those things are particularly important to a RPG at all. I've played some fun RPGs with preset characters, no exploration, no C&C and a simplistic skill system with very little support for diverse playstyles. (for example, Fire Emblem)

A computer roleplaying game is a game with character statistics* that simulates at least two out of the three main elements of pen and paper roleplaying games. These elements are

a) Combat heavily driven by character statistics
b) Storytelling
c) Adventure**

* These statistics must be meaningful to gameplay to count, of course.
** This would be the common sense meaning of the word, not necessarily the adventure game meaning.

Not all games with stats are RPGs... see sports sims.

Not all games with combat heavily driven by stats are RPGs... without storytelling and/or adventure elements, you're just looking a at tactical/strategy game. Squad Leader isn't a RPG.

But you can have a RPG without adventure elements, strictly stats based combat and story telling.

Or you can have combat and adventure, but no real story telling (a dungeon crawl).

Or you can have meaningful statistics (used for example in skill checks), adventure and storytelling, but no combat. This is pretty common in P&P, where it's not that rare to see the occasional session with no combat, but it's obviously less common in a full length CRPG of course. But what seperates this type of RPG from a plain old adventure game is the character stats which are still meaningful for gameplay.
 

Winter Ale

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Zeus said:
Winter Ale said:
phanboy_iv said:
Has C&C not always been an underlying principle of good P&P sessions? And isn't D&D's class system a form of C&C?

The key word in what you said is 'good'. Maybe a good P&P session has lots of C&C (someone tell me what that means - choice and consequences?), but that's just a quality measure.

Two things to keep in mind:

1) All CRPGs and P&P RPGs have a degree of interaction. If you let your character get worn down enough so that a single blow kills him, one could argue that it's the consequence to your choice, but obviously, C&C is different than simple interaction -- it's more about having an impact on the plot and not being forced down a Final Fantasy style storybook plot.

2) Pen and Paper RPGs like D&D aren't defined by Choices and Consequences.

Right. I took one step too far in what I said above. My first comment was better.

We pretty much agree.
 
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Zeus said:
Pen and Paper RPGs like D&D aren't defined by Choices and Consequences. Using your favorite edition D&D Sourcebook (mine's 2nd), you can construct a totally linear quest and then force your players along a predetermined path, with any straying immediately punished by the DM.

You can also take a pillow and choke somebody with it. Does that mean pillows not be labeled as safe?

Sure you can make an extremely linear pnp game, and every time a player wants to do something you don't want him to you'd just say "You can't", or "He doesn't tell you anything" or "There's invisible wall blocking your way" but that's not really the point of roleplaying is it? You're just doing it wrong.
 

Darth Roxor

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Black Cat said:
Postedit: For Belphegor's sake, look at those results! The two most important things in role playing games are choices and consequences and support for diverse playstyles?! Invisible War is the best role playing game, like, ever!!! So much for the Codex's bloody reputation, nya. This is the new hardcore and stuff.

卐 THIS IS THE NEW SHIT 卐
 

Naked Ninja

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Aren't CRPGs the hybrid children of tactical wargames and adventure games? Some resemble the former and emphasize stats, systems, and mechanics. Others skew toward the latter, and focus on characters, world-building, and narrative. And still others try to split the difference idiosyncratically.

Taken together, they comprise such a wide spectrum that I don't think you can isolate any "fundamental aspect"--at least not without arbitrarily chopping off entire branches of the CRPG family tree. (In that respect, it's exactly like PnP, where RPG systems vary so greatly that both rules lawyers and freeform players can find something they like.)

This.
 

Ohlie

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Several insightful posts have shown the Codex "consensus" to be that character stats are essential to CRPGs. I'd like a little more clarification on this position, however.

Open Question: Since other genres also employ avatar statistics, what further conditions distinguish CRPGs from non-CRPGs?

EDIT: changed to specify CRPGs; less chance of confusion
 

mondblut

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Ohlie said:
Open Question: Since other genres also employ avatar statistics...

Which is typically referred to as "RPG elements", coincidentally.

what further conditions distinguish RPGs from non-RPGs?

In RPGs they are not "elements", silly.
 

MetalCraze

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Since other genres also employ avatar statistics
But do they employ everything else related to them?
Mondblut is correct because in RPG a gameplay fully depends on stats - from basic combat to any interaction with a world. Not mentioning higher materias like tactics.
Now compare with "+10% dmg to your gun" "skills" which do only that much in Ass Effect.
 

Forest Dweller

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MetalCraze said:
Dicksmoker said:
What's you're basically saying is that consequences of your actions are only valid if they happen at the end
"doesnt matter in the end" means "doesn't matter as a result of your actions", not literally "in the end" of course.
That's funny. I of course assumed you meant "in the end" since I had given specific examples of things mattering as a result of your actions.

Losing party members is hardly in-party larping. That means you can't use them in combat or any of their skills, as well as in a few quests.
Except that is also the case in every single dungeon-crawler which does not have any C&C you want. And it brings the exactly same effect.
You can't revive fallen in dungeon crawlers?

And even if you can't, that doesn't negate the other quest-related benefits that you would lose in PST that wouldn't be an issue in a dungeon crawler.

sand-in-the-eyes C&C
What does this mean?

It means he keeps stopping frequenty while he's moving across the map. Very annoying. In that way the game makes you feel what your character is feeling.
Which is exactly a LARPing I dislike. Your character could also get blindness in combat, I guess in a way that will make you feel pity for him. No in context of my discussion I meant f.e. that no matter how much evil TNO will do in Sigil in those rare cases that he can - nobody will ever react to that.
That's a joke, right? You constantly get reactions in that game.

Yet PS:T was heavily concentrated around this while not caring about the elements you don't consider fundamental which hurts it as a game very much even though it has shittons of what you call C&C
Your problem is that your definition of a game is limited and that restricts your enjoyment of perfectly legitimate games.
 

Forest Dweller

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Darth Roxor said:
Black Cat said:
Postedit: For Belphegor's sake, look at those results! The two most important things in role playing games are choices and consequences and support for diverse playstyles?! Invisible War is the best role playing game, like, ever!!! So much for the Codex's bloody reputation, nya. This is the new hardcore and stuff.

卐 THIS IS THE NEW SHIT 卐
IW had neither truly diverse options nor any good implementation of C&C.
 
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Yeah, this is one of those times when mondblut is right. Actually, for all of his venom on the subject of "larping", he is pretty much on point with his criticisms of RPGs.
 

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