Are you a Storyfag or a Gameplayfag?

[Theldaran]

"Sweeper, no sweeping!"

https://dora.fandom.com/wiki/Swiper

 

[barghwata]

The RPfag shows his true colors.

Yea.... how dare you be an RP fag in an RPg forum??!!!!

 

[Incendax]

I'm an Explorationfag, so I can deal with basic stories as long as there are interesting things to discover. Wizardry, Might & Magic, and Master of Magic are great examples.

But I do prefer a good story over good combat. So Explore > Story > Combat.

 

[Sweeper]

Yea.... how dare you be an RP fag in an RPg forum??!!!!

I know bro. The gall of some people.

 

[DalekFlay]

I require both to be great for the game to be truly great.

If only one is great, and the other not too bad, the game is probably good.

If one of them is terrible, the game is almost always bad (for RPGs anyway).

 

[octavius]

Yeah, roleplaying in a ROLEPLAYING game? Preposterous!

But a CRPG can never equal a good GM, so role playing and C&C in a CRPG will always be inferior to a good GM ina pen&paper game.

But computer games can do things like combat, logistics, character development and exploration better than any other medium I can think of.

 

[Theldaran]

Yes octavius, CRPG are the fix we rpgtards get when we can't do tabletop.

The results vary. But they're still called RPGs.

 

[DalekFlay]

Yes octavius, CRPG are the fix we rpgtards get when we can't do tabletop.

What percentage of Baldur's Gate 2 or even Pillars of Eternity players do you think have actually ever regularly played a pen and paper RPG game?

 

[Theldaran]

Yes octavius, CRPG are the fix we rpgtards get when we can't do tabletop.

What percentage of Baldur's Gate 2 or even Pillars of Eternity players do you think have actually ever regularly played a pen and paper RPG game?

Mate, BG2 was released in 2000, when still a significant part of the mid PNP roleplayer generations was going at it. I started playing D&D in late 1999.

Around that time, Magic the Gathering was doing fine (a hobby sometimes adjacent to roleplaying), and things like the Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms novels weren't still exhausted, but already evidenced decline; it was about the time when TSR relinquished the keys to WOTC.

All in all, there was still plenty of people getting into the D&D universe be it from the game itself, things like Warhammer or Magic, or fantasy novels.

Fast forward to about 2015 that was when Pillars was released and the world is almost post-ap. D&D is doing fine with Fifth Edition (sales wise) but it has conceded some ground to other games such as Pathfinder. The world in 2015 is overall much more cyber and techy, with people reading less and less (even us that we used to do it a lot), and less interested in an "analogue" hobby such as tabletop gaming.

You can kinda get my answer from that.

 

[Sweeper]

Well I just bought Age of Decadence.
Guess I ain't as pure of a combatfag as I thought.

 

[Theldaran]

Well I just bought Age of Decadence.
Guess I ain't as pure of a combatfag as I thought.

There's still combat, but combat aimed to hard masochists.

 

[Sweeper]

There's still combat, but combat aimed to hard masochists.

 

[Ludwig von Eisenthal]

I'm neither a gameplay- nor a story- but more of a gameworld-fag: The most important part for me is that the world I play in is believable, coherent and gives me much to explore. Story is important, but not as important as a convincing worldbuilding. The world should be interactive to a certain degree and gameplay should be in harmony with the world. Other than that it's not extremely imporant for me. Gothic 2 for example had a relatively shitty main story and quite some problems in gameplay/combat/overall controls but a damn finely built and realistic world.

 

[Sardine Dev Poster]

Not an rpg, but Hotline Miami showed me it's okay to be a storyfag in the closet and eventually be both gameplayfag with it as well. The issue with vidya stories isn't the quality at times, but more about how it's told, how well paced it is, and how intrusive it is to the gameplay. I only played Hotline Miami because the gameplay seemed fun but lucked out and saw this incredible story beneath it, that never felt like it was overstaying it's welcome.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Well I just bought Age of Decadence.
Guess I ain't as pure of a combatfag as I thought.

My Imperial Guard run netted 216 frags. Could be more.

 

[DalekFlay]

You can kinda get my answer from that.

It was a question with an agenda in the sense that I bet a large number weren't into PnP D&D, but it was also a genuine question since the number could be higher than I'd guess. I'm not even sure what I'd guess, honestly. In any case, I have never thought being a good PnP adaption was more important than being a good video game.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Explorefags are usually Bethes'tards. Zed Duke of Banville being a prime example.

The Codex suffers from a lamentable dearth of discussion concerning Dungeon Master and its descendants, such as Legend of Grimrock II, the map of which was pictured in my previous post.

 

[RNGsus]

I used to assume anybody playing games was a gameplayfag.

 

[Lilura]

The Codex suffers from a lamentable dearth of discussion concerning Dungeon Master

That may have something to do with DM being 33 years old. I mean, we're just exploring copy-pasta bitmaps that represent a dungeon. It was coded for a stock 68000 microprocessor and 512kb ram (no custom chips).

Other than the fact it was the first to do this or that (seminal), there is nothing remarkable about it on an objective level (same goes for EoB). Literally any competent ST coder could have made DM; it was just that FTL got in first.

Real and meaningful exploration (as opposed to just derping around) is reactive; that is, it is based on the gameworld reacting to the PCs stats, choices etc.

Take the example of Arcanum's Tarant... specifically, reactivity that governs entry modes to the Bates estate. That is real and meaningful exploration.

 

[HansDampf]

So in the end I think it's sad too witness the emphasis on stories in CRPGs, and it's sad to read the words "I play games for the story".

Funny. When I look back on the games I played in the last 10 years ... or even longer than that, I see over 90% gameplayfaggotry. Even with games that have story-rich presentation, I am mostly interested in the gameplay. And yet, VtMB is my favorite game of all time (tied with Deu sEx), and it sure isn't because of its fantastic gameplay. It's the atmosphere, the characters, the dialogue. Somehow, the storyfaggotry of VtMB trumped my usual preferences in games. From this perspective, I can kind of understand how some people would claim they play games for the story, because they are seeking that kind of experience. And I can't deny that many gameplayfag-games also have great atmosphere, memorable characters, or soundtracks that I enjoy. But the gameplay has to look interesting to draw me in first (usually), just like some people need good graphics to get into a game.

Games are weird. Most of them are only one part actual game, the other part being story, music, dialogue, etc. none of which affect the actual gameplay. You play one bit of gameplay to get to the next bit of the story which introduces you to the next bit of gameplay. Only the proportions vary. On one end of the spectrum we have something like Tetris, which is pure gameplay. And on the other end we get Walking Sims and Visual Novels with no gameplay. Unless you consider clicking dialogue options to be gameplay. Then flipping pages of a book is also gameplay. And when we review and rate games or compile our top 10 games of the year/decade/ever lists we are supposed to compare gameplayfag-games with storyfag-games, because they all fall under the grand unifying definition of "Game". It's dumb.
What is a game? It is systems that you can learn and master, be it mastering controls in twitchy action combat or finding the best strategies and moves in tactical combat. This learning process and mastery is what makes games fun. That's the case for non-computer games, anyway. No matter if it's chess, snooker, basketball, or solitaire, you are always learning and mastering the game's systems. If there isn't anything to learn and master, it's not a game. So how is it that we still call something a "Game" which can consist of less than 50% actual game? The definitions make little sense.

Technically, movies are the ultimate form of storyfaggotry. But nobody is getting shamed for enjoying them, because they aren't defined as "Games". They aren't competing with games. Imagine an alternate universe in which computer games had been invented before movies. It is likely then that movies would be created as a sub-genre of games, a game without gameplay just to enjoy the story. Then we'd have people making fun of movies for their lack of gameplay.

 

[Lilura]

Only a loathsome vampfag would prefer an edgy popamole for hipsters over Arcanum.

 

[Curratum]

The Codex suffers from a lamentable dearth of discussion concerning Dungeon Master

That may have something to do with DM being 33 years old. I mean, we're just exploring copy-pasta bitmaps that represent a dungeon. It was coded for a stock 68000 microprocessor and 512kb ram (no custom chips).

Other than the fact it was the first to do this or that (seminal), there is nothing remarkable about it on an objective level (same goes for EoB). Literally any competent ST coder could have made DM; it was just that FTL got in first.

Real and meaningful exploration (as opposed to just derping around) is reactive; that is, it is based on the gameworld reacting to the PCs stats, choices etc.

Take the example of Arcanum's Tarant... specifically, reactivity that governs entry modes to the Bates estate. That is real and meaningful exploration.

You just don't understand the appeal of first-person dungeon crawling, Lilura. That's not something you need to be ashamed of or mad about. You can learn to live with it and accept yourself for who you are.

 

[Lilura]

You just don't understand the appeal of first-person dungeon crawling, Lilura.

The most monocled isometric RPGs (Jagged Alliance 2, Arcanum, Fallout etc.) have more reactive exploration than blobbers, which have no strong-points at all unless you think derping around in mazes is fun.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Real and meaningful exploration is reactive; that is, it is based on the gameworld reacting to the PCs stats, choices etc.

Take the example of Arcanum's Tarant... specifically, reactivity that governs entry modes to the Bates estate. That is real and meaningful exploration.

Arcanum kicks major ass concerning gameworld reactivity. In addition, talking to Bates as dwarf gives hilarious line: "Cut our beards? We'd better cut our heads!". Not to say that Bates could be safely killed and info gathered through his journal or conjure spirit spell.

A masterclass in game design that went largely unnoticed by unwashed masses and ignored by major devs.

 

[Curratum]

You just don't understand the appeal of first-person dungeon crawling, Lilura.

The most monocled isometric RPGs (Jagged Alliance 2, Arcanum, Fallout etc.) have more reactive exploration than blobbers, which have no strong-points at all unless you think derping around in mazes is fun.

The thing is, with blobbers, I get a kick out of the simple sense of wonder of seeing what's behind the next corner and down that dark corridor, I don't need spectacular reactivity, I just enjoy the sense of wonder and seeing what's lurking in that dark hole in the ground.