Wizardry & Disco Elysium: how are these games the same genre?

[rusty_shackleford]

Itt combatfags who've never played a Pathfinder campaign in their lives fail to realize role playing games are about having fun with a player character.

Being a combat fag second.

Why would I play a shitty d&d knockoff?

 

[Volourn]

"POTENTIAL Combat is essential for a CRPG"

FIXED.



"It can be said that people who have not played AoD in full diplomat route have never really played it as well. Because the game is meant to be replayed multiple times, experienced with different approaches each try. It's a very specific game, you don't beat it once and say "Yeah, I got the AoD experience". "

The magic number is 7 times. One does not actually play a game until they play it 7 times. 6 times or less = bust.

 

[Harthwain]

Itt combatfags who've never played a Pathfinder campaign in their lives fail to realize role playing games are about having fun with a player character.

Being a combat fag second.

Why would I play a shitty d&d knockoff?

Nobody here is recommending you to play Divinity: Original Sin.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Disco Elysium is a good videogame digital gamebook.

I don't usually write "I fixed it for you", but I fixed it for you.

 

[grimer]

games are meant to be played not read

 

[V_K]

Disco Elysium is a good videogame digital gamebook.

I don't usually write "I fixed it for you", but I fixed it for you.

Still have a typo there though.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Storyfags are midwits.

 

[Terenty]

I played DE without savescumming and it was as tense as any combat rpg. I'm not joking

 

[thesheeep]

People who think you cannot have an RPG without combat must have never played any PnP at all.
If you are playing stat-heavy, you'll be rolling the dice all the time for various things, combat or not.

You cannot have an RPG without conflict - but that conflict does not necessarily have to be combat, it can be many things.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

People who think you cannot have an RPG without combat must have never played any PnP at all.

"I am an apple" says the banana

 

[thesheeep]

People who think you cannot have an RPG without combat must have never played any PnP at all.

"I am an apple" says the banana

Given PnP is where the entire definition and genre of RPG comes from, that's a bit of a wild statement to make.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

People who think you cannot have an RPG without combat must have never played any PnP at all.

"I am an apple" says the banana

Given PnP is where the entire definition and genre of RPG comes from, that's a bit of a wild statement to make.

Given D&D is effectively where the definition and genre of RPG comes from, it's a bit of a wild statement to make asserting that just because something is pnp it gets to decide the definition of RPG.

 

[Harthwain]

People who think you cannot have an RPG without combat must have never played any PnP at all.

"I am an apple" says the banana

An idiot is what you are, because this isn't about categorization at this point.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Given PnP is where the entire definition and genre of RPG comes from, that's a bit of a wild statement to make.

CRPGs started as an attempt to adapt PnP but became their own thing--same as every single other genre ever. Recall that Zork was as much an attempt to recreate D&D as Wizardry, yet is a totally different game and led to the adventure game genre. Moreover, D&D was nothing but a dungeon crawling game--the original DMG instructed the DM to "Start by designing the first 10 levels of your dungeon." Gameplay along the lines of DE is totally alien to early PnP which were an offshoot of war games. Story-based PnP are also an evolution, a subgenre of tabletop games that developed in parallel with CRPGs.

Considering the main strength of story PnP--total freedom to improvise solutions--CANNOT be implemented in CRPGs, comparing them is moot.

CRPGs are combat simulators. DE is a point and click adventure game. QED.

 

[thesheeep]

Given D&D is effectively where the definition and genre of RPG comes from, it's a bit of a wild statement to make asserting that just because something is pnp it gets to decide the definition of RPG.

RPG is defined - among other things, but this is the main one - by outcomes of an action being determined not by physical player skill, but by character stats (+ some randomness, usually).
Nothing anywhere says this has to be combat - because it doesn't.

CRPGs started as an attempt to adapt PnP but became their own thing--same as every single other genre ever.

If you want to make the argument that cRPGs require combat - fine. I don't know if that is true, but don't really care about it either.
But cRPGs are but a sub-genre of RPGs.

We're talking about the house here, not single rooms within the house.
And that house has enough space for games like e.g. Baldur's Gate as well as DE.
Though I wouldn't even say that DE is purely an RPG - more like an RPG / visual novel hybrid. You know, like some games are action / RPG hybrids.

In that sense, Wizardry is certainly more "pure".

 

[Joggerino]

Guys it's 2021 and DE is an RPG, alright?

 

[Ol' Willy]

OK, combat aside, how good C&C is in DE? How about non-linearity? How different builds affect the game? Can you have shitty or OP builds? How good is reactivity? I would definitely enjoy combatless RPG if it's non-linear with profound C&C, reacts to player's actions and has various builds that allow you to tackle the problems in various ways.

 

[Lady Error]

OK, combat aside, how good C&C is in DE? How about non-linearity? How different builds affect the game? Can you have shitty or OP builds? How good is reactivity? I would definitely enjoy combatless RPG if it's non-linear with profound C&C, reacts to player's actions and has various builds that allow you to tackle the problems in various ways.

You have to play Age of Decadence for that. Disco Elysium C&C is mostly fake.

 

[Joggerino]

OK, combat aside, how good C&C is in DE? How about non-linearity? How different builds affect the game? Can you have shitty or OP builds? How good is reactivity? I would definitely enjoy combatless RPG if it's non-linear with profound C&C, reacts to player's actions and has various builds that allow you to tackle the problems in various ways.

It's very linear but builds are vastly different and affect the game on a deep level.

 

[V_K]

OK, combat aside, how good C&C is in DE? How about non-linearity? How different builds affect the game? Can you have shitty or OP builds? How good is reactivity? I would definitely enjoy combatless RPG if it's non-linear with profound C&C, reacts to player's actions and has various builds that allow you to tackle the problems in various ways.

The Geneforge remake would be a much better choice for that. It has combat though.

 

[jackofshadows]

OK, combat aside, how good C&C is in DE? How about non-linearity? How different builds affect the game? Can you have shitty or OP builds? How good is reactivity? I would definitely enjoy combatless RPG if it's non-linear with profound C&C, reacts to player's actions and has various builds that allow you to tackle the problems in various ways.

Reactions on prot's remarks are the best and actually depending on the build. People arguing here that it's a book, remember? In some cases it is about actions though. Some quests (secret ones included) will be much harder to complete, especially if playing by design w/o savescumming. But there's almost no major C&C, described above is all for flavour and joy.

Anyway, try DE, it's one of a kind. Better yet though, try mentioned above The Age of Decadance if you haven't already for some reason, I'm sure it's your kind of game.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

RPG is defined - among other things, but this is the main one - by outcomes of an action being determined not by physical player skill, but by character stats (+ some randomness, usually).
Nothing anywhere says this has to be combat - because it doesn't.

Move those goalposts.
Suddenly who created the definition no longer matters because it doesn't suit your argument. There's no point in arguing with people like you because words have no meaningful definition in your world.

D&D is the definition of what an RPG is. Wizardry is very much like D&D. DE is almost nothing like D&D.

 

[Bruma Hobo]

This thread proves that, while storyfags are the biggest retards around, combatfags are the biggest agents of decline.

Stop believing in false dichotomies, you imbeciles.

If Disco Elysium is shit, that's because it's mechanically weak, so it cannot offer non-cosmetic customization options allowing unique playstyles (which is the whole purpose of RPG mechanics). Combat is just the easiest (i.e. laziest) way to do so in a consistent way, which explains why it ends up everywhere, but it will never define role-playing games, and the sooner we get more RPGs with complex mechanics about something other than combat, the better.

 

[thesheeep]

Move those goalposts.
Suddenly who created the definition no longer matters because it doesn't suit your argument. There's no point in arguing with people like you because words have no meaningful definition in your world.

I never moved any goalposts, but I guess the attempt to discredit my argument was worth a try?
PnP created that defintion, as they were the first RPGs. PnP RPGs are defined by the exact same thing - it's not you doing any actions (you just "give the command"), it's your character.
The nature of these actions - combat or not - is utterly irrelevant.

D&D is the definition of what an RPG is. Wizardry is very much like D&D.

D&D might have been the first RPG, but that doesn't mean only what is exactly like it is an RPG.
That's just not how genre definitions work or all genres would be only defined as "whatever is exactly like the first entry".

DE is almost nothing like D&D.

It is in one of the most important aspects - layer of abstraction between player and acting character(s).
Doesn't make it a pure RPG as I wouldn't define that as the most important aspect of DE itself, but it does make it a hybrid.

 

[Harthwain]

You have to play Age of Decadence for that. Disco Elysium C&C is mostly fake.

This criticism is true for the vast majority of narrative-driven cRPGs though.

In Planescape: Torment (the Codex's number one RPG on the list of top RPGs) everything you do leads to the same outro. Yes, you can make some choices - which the game acknowledges - but at the end you will still get what amounts to "Game Over" screen, explaining why you fucked up. This is the game's way of saying "You broke the critical path. Restore a saved game to restore the weave of fate". Morrowind does this as well, only in Morrowind you can continue to play the rest of the game, instead of being forced to reload the earlier save. So there always is a "critical path" that must be followed by the player. What made Planescape: Torment a lot of fun was the amount of interactivity (including "Game Over" choices), despite these choices being "mostly fake", as you put it. Which is something that Disco Elysium also offers, via your stats. Because they are what constitutes your body, which allows you to experience the world around you, thereby giving you access to different input and output.