Vapourware Pen and paper RPG mechanic missing in CRPGs

[Strange Fellow]

The point of games is to have fun. How can you find it more fun to play with your nose glued to a walkthrough than to figure things out for yourself as you go along? That's incomprehensible to me.

 

[Lilura]

The point of games is to have fun. How can you find it more fun to play with your nose glued to a walkthrough than to figure things out for yourself as you go along? That's incomprehensible to me.

No one of relevance mentioned walkthroughs and guides. If anything, it'd be RTFM. Or in the case of ToEE, hyperlinked ruleset integrated into combat feedback = the ability to see under the hood, on the fly.

 

[luj1]

Isn't this similar to the "loaded dice" mechanic that Larian has introduced in Baldur's Gate III?

That's a free reroll (pure decline). Numenera went even further with Effort (boosting rolls via resource) which is disgusting

Let dice be dice. The only reroll that should be allowed is stuff like Slippery Mind

 

[rusty_shackleford]

If you don't like roleplaying, maybe the roleplaying game genre isn't a good fit for you?

 

[Strange Fellow]

The point of games is to have fun. How can you find it more fun to play with your nose glued to a walkthrough than to figure things out for yourself as you go along? That's incomprehensible to me.

No one of relevance mentioned walkthroughs and guides. If anything, it'd be RTFM. Or in the case of ToEE, hyperlinked ruleset integrated into combat feedback = the ability to see under the hood, on the fly.

We're talking about mechanics being left obscure on purpose, which implies that they're not explained in the manual.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I really can't understand the argument against this. Do you guys also think secret doors shouldn't exist? That puzzles should just have solutions attached to them?

 

[grimer]

Are people getting proud because they don't know what's going on under the hood in stone age RPGs?

they dont want to know whats under the hood. ultimafags cant comprehend more than 3 stats

 

[JarlFrank]

Not the devs fault if you decide to ruin your experience by reading a fucking guide on the game before even playing it.

And it's not my fault that you choose to hamper yourself for the sake of your immersion.

"hamper yourself"

lmao

The best gaming experience is to play a game completely blind.

I had this when I got Arcanum, Morrowind, and Baldur's Gate 2 from my Romanian pal as a teen. Got them on pirated CDs, didn't even know what to expect beyond "they're good RPGs", didn't have a manual. Just jumped in and enjoyed the experience.

Then during the interent age I started reading about games before playing them and it removed most of the magic.

Nowdays I purposely avoid even official preview material so I can go into a game as blindly as possible.

Blind play >>>>>>>>>>> knowing what it's all about before the game is even fully installed on your hard drive.

 

[DeepOcean]

I was listening to the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast episode where they interviewed Jon Petersen, the author of a book about the history of traditional RPGs called The Elusive Shift.

At some point they talk about Gary Gygax admitting on occasions to rolling the dice just to make noise. Meaning, while DMing he would “steer” the RNG in the direction he wanted take the scenario, disregarding the numbers game in favor of the experience.

The author commented that in the 70s legit debates were had about how the game should be played. Should people be allowed to LARP their characters and make silly voices or not? Should the rules be enforced at all times? Stuff like this.

In video games, we usually see a debate between RNG vs no RNG, but I don’t recall examples of games where RNG is used in this particular way.

The closest application in games I can think of is unkillable enemies, but that is gaming the system to cock block the player.

Diablo style games probably manipulate the loot drop RNG continually like some evil social experiment, and that might be closer to the PNP RPG example because both aim to keep players engaged, albeit in very different ways.

TLDR: rigged dice rolls

They are sort of covering Gygax ass a little bit, this thing of rigging rolls for story reasons is always convenient for the GM and NOT the players but pretending otherwise sounds much better, same way Bioware claimed for years that ilusion of choice being a great thing as if lying for players about missing features was a thing of genius.