What's there to roleplay in AoD? It's a CYOA game not RPG.
You still have to build up the character's skills to be able to have access to certain "adventures", which is what makes it an RPG. The "CYOA" part is just the vessel that conveys what happens depending on what you choose.
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How can a game be an RPG where you can't activate the combat, sneaking, pickpocketing, etc. whenever you want?
This is the Codex... when you make a blanket statement about being able to do whatever you want whenever you want, it's assumed you mean that you also expect to always succeed at doing those things as well.... if every character can do everything any time they want, it ceases to be a game where characters play a given role.... i.e. it's not an RPG.
If you meant just being able to click "pickpocket" from a list, and click on a target, but it still being feasibly impossible for you to succeed due to lack of a developed "pickpocket" skill, that's something different.... but then your argument becomes purely about a text-based vs. graphical representation of the same mechanical calculation.
lossantos said:
All you do is click something on the dialog screen, then realize that the character you have created has insufficient skills and you have to start the dialog from the beginning by an endless save/load grind. You guys calling a text-based game decorated with graphics an RPG.
As opposed to what? Clicking on the visual representation of a chest and watching an animation that results in you failing to unlock it over and over and over again before you figure out on your own that you're always going to fail because your character's lockpicking skill isn't high enough?
Or maybe the polar opposite of that and having the game designed so that you can neglect all of your dialogue/social/charisma-based skills, and just keep reloading until you hit that default 1% window for success, while LARPing that your character is a "mathterer of perthuasion, hurrr durrr..."
These are the sorts of tedium and inconsistent innanity that AoD's design means to do away with (and on a broad conceptual level is in the same wheelhouse as New Vegas's skill system).
Planescape Torment, Fallout 1-2, Baldur's Gate , Arcanum, VTMB, Gothic, Underrail, Might & Magic, Dragon's Dogma, Ultima etc.
These are the games where the rpg elements I mentioned can be activated whenever you want. It's not just bethesda.
To the best of my knowledge, all the games you mentioned required your character ACTUALLY build their skills up to be competent at doing the things those skills are associated with.... merely activating the skill without having, to some extent, built up the ability means nothing other than you might get to, as I said above, watch a failure animation play over and over again. (and FTR, not every character in some of those games can do everything any time they want... a Paladin in Baldur's Gate, for example, can't ever attempt to sneak, pick locks, cast magic missile, or summon a pet bear).
A hallmark of Bethesda's "RPGs" is it being possible to use things like UI-manipulation (i.e. use basic FPS tactics to exploit shoddy AI) and Meta-gaming tactics (i.e. Save-skumming for extreme RNG love) to circumvent the need to actually build up the statistical representation of a given character's skills.
