Decline Can an RPG be real-time?

[luj1]

If Borderlands is an RPG then a racing game with stats is also an RPG.

 

[Butter]

Might and Magic 6 stops being an RPG if you play it in real time.

 

[Gregz]

What kind of gay shit is this?

 

[curds]

'k

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Is time real, though?

 

[luj1]

Might and Magic 6 stops being an RPG if you play it in real time.

Is gameplay of Might and Magic 6 based on player skill?

What kind of gay shit is this?

Chill, it's a discussion

 

[Morenatsu.]

but what if real-time were an rpg

 

[Chanel Oberlin]

They could be, but in turn developers would have to program the systems in accordance to the stats and skill levels; if you create a character with the lowest possible dexterity, it should be slow in an almost unplayable way. But such design would alienate most of the playerbase so developers never go there. You have all these filtered zoomers who complain about the beginning of Deus Ex because they can't aim like a normal FPS. What you get nowadays are action RPGs where even a character with shit stats can still be a god of war. In short, if the skill of the average player can overcome the weaknesses of the character, then it's hard to justify the game as an RPG.

 

[OSK]

If it can be, I sure don't like it.

 

[Viata]

Does time stop when I'm playing the game? Nope. Thus it's in real time.

 

[Late Bloomer]

I prefer turn based for my RPG's in general but I believe an RPG can be real time too.

 

[Butter]

Is gameplay of Might and Magic 6 based on player skill?

The more pertinent question. I think it's plainly obvious in a case like Dark Souls that player skill is vastly more important than character stats, but this isn't really the case in M&M6, or any game with dice roll combat (Morrowind, UUW, etc).

 

[Robotigan]

My reflexes aren't great either, but you don't see me gerrymandering an entire genre to cope about it.

 

[Sunsetspawn]

Only with Bill Maher

 

[Broseph]

Are Eye of the Beholder, Dungeon Master, etc. not RPGs because they are real time? Obviously they are. But there’s definitely a threshold from real-time blobbers to action RPG to action game with RPG elements. Some games blur the lines a bit. Turn-based is generally preferable but there’s a lot of good shit besides those.

 

[Melcar]

Your mom likes it real time.

 

[═█═]

Are Eye of the Beholder, Dungeon Master, etc. not RPGs because they are real time? Obviously they are.

They are hybrids and play just as much like an odd dancing arcade game as they play as an RPG but YMMV with real-time bloobers. So sorry, you're wrong.

 

[Glop_dweller]

The problem with FPP in RPGs is that FPP aggressively promotes player substitution, where it tends to become the player in situ, rather than the character. But there are decent FPP RPGs; namely Arx Fatalis for one. Arx is realtime and FPP; (a supposed double whammy, but it's not). The Witcher is realtime. Both are good RPGs IMO.
Planescape is realtime, though the pause feature does allow for issuing commands to other party members, that is a needed feature if the player is to play each character in the moment. Planescape is an excellent RPG—better than Fallout, from a strictly roleplaying POV; Fallout is the better game though among the two.

 

[Doktor Best]

Might and Magic 6 stops being an RPG if you play it in real time.

Its an rpg with pause game.

 

[Morenatsu.]

The problem with FPP in RPGs is that FPP aggressively promotes player substitution, where it tends to become the player in situ, rather than the character. But there are decent FPP RPGs; namely Arx Fatalis for one. Arx is realtime and FPP; (a supposed double whammy, but it's not). The Witcher is realtime. Both are good RPGs IMO.
Planescape is realtime, though the pause feature does allow for issuing commands to other party members, that is a needed feature if the player is to play each character in the moment. Planescape is an excellent RPG—better than Fallout, from a strictly roleplaying POV; Fallout is the better game though among the two.

But Arx is an immersive-sim adventure-ish kind of game, and Witcher is pretty much just an action-RPG (even in its original shitty point-and-click rhythm game form).

 

[Glop_dweller]

Oblivion [IMO] would have been a passably decent realtime RPG, had the PC never been able to escape the prison cell.

But Arx is an immersive-sim adventure-ish kind of game, and Witcher is pretty much just an action-RPG (even in its original shitty point-and-click rhythm game form).

Is it to you? How so? Witcher is an outstanding RPG IMO (Arx as well). Geralt actually has a history with past acquaintances who know him personally, and has a reputation that precedes him. Not so with every Elderscrolls game for instance; where the PC might as well have fallen out of the sky one night, a full grown infant with no past, and lacking the skills to reach their current age.

Spoiler

As far as the gameplay goes... Writing aside, the gameplay and especially combat is the principle reason I played Witcher through to the end, along with the extra adventures.
_______________________

Side note: Though I voted that it can be real time, I do not hold this opinion of sequels to turn based games —and vice versa; this goes against the nature of the established series', and it becomes more of a spin-off title than proper sequel.

 

[KörangarTheMighty]

Character skill, not player skill must determine success and the focus of the game must be on roleplay in which the game acknowledges growth and/or changes in the character or lack-thereof. Real-time or Turn-based doesn't matter as long as the calculations are being made and the roleplay (C&C, morality, prestige, influence etc.) is acknowledged in-game.

I can LARP as a race car driver while playing a racing game, but the game will never acknowledge it, so a racing game it remains. At the same time, just because a game has stats doesn't necessarily make it an RPG. It may have acceleration, braking, speed, turning etc. as stats, but at no point are you ever playing the game as if you are the role of the driver or even the car. At no point are you ever thinking "I shouldn't sideswipe the car next to me because my driver wouldn't do that."

 

[Morenatsu.]

RPGs aren't real. They're turn-based. If an RPG is real-time, it's probably some other genre or hybrid or something. Always has been.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Not only can RPGs be real-time, but there have been classic real-time RPGs since Faery Tale Adventure and Dungeon Master:

 

[Serus]

A Real-time game can - in theory - be a crpg but in practice it almost never fully is. It usually devolves into some action-rpg hybrid. I voted no because i don't like action-rpg and i don't consider them real rpg but in reality it is more an issue of definition - which, I have to remind some people here - w don't really have. Certainly not one that is detailed enough.
The Dungeon Master* example above illustrates it. Classic real-time dungeon crawlers, blobbers or not, are CRPG in some or most areas but one important element, namely combat, is in most of them partially based on reflexes. What can decide the outcome is how good you can "dance" around enemy. Using not stats but skill at pressing keys well enough aka - your own dexterity. Same happens, in some, with the speed of attacking. Which makes those parts have mechanics that shouldn't have place in a crpg unless you are prepared to call it action-rpg. Or, because the term is already taken: crpg with action elements (rpg-w-a?).
As i said in the beginning, you could - in theory - make a game in real-time that will try to minimise as much as possible the input of players's dexterity in pressing keys but i have trouble thinking of one that really achieves it. Non-rt games with rt mode don't count if the rt mode plays differently depending on player's dexterity.

TL;DR: a "CRPG in real-time" must be - in practice, almost always - an action-crpg. So if action-crpg can be called CRPG they are. If not - they are not, depending on definition. I say "not".


*Perhaps DM is not the best example after all. Possibly it is better in that regard, I didn't played more that a few hours and it was eons ago. However i played others games of the RL blobber dungeon crawler sub-genre more extensively and they obviously all have the described "dancing problem" which implies the whole sub-genre has it.