Do you agree with how CRPGs handle "fun"?

[dagorkan]

Ignoring the rats, which are neither here nor there, Fallout starts with something along the lines of "For the first time in your life, you are seeing sunlight." And that pretty much sets the mood for me. It doesn't say "OMFG11!!! U see the sun!1! u never see it b4!!1! amasing!1!!" It gives you a fairly succinct statement of something awesome, and lets you contemplate it. That beats the shit out of forcing an "exciting" narrative on the player right from the get go.

Yeah but how does that convert into game terms? You have to LARP it.

That's my problem with Fallout, I love the game but not for it's plot or the setting. Really it isn't possible to roleplay as the specially selected young Vault Dweller on a dangerous mission in a completely new and alien world. I forget the starting story and roleplay more as a shiftless mercenary type which seems to fit much more into the dialog, quests and atmosphere of the rest of the game.

This is even more true with Fallout 2.

Arcanum was kind of the same (up to the point I've played). Just who the fuck are you? The backgrounds were only for slight changes to the starting stats usually overcome within a few levels. Too much is left to the imagination so that the player can have freedom.

I hate the Bioware design mentality but I have to say they are closer to striking the right balance. You need some kind of context to play within.

 

[Section8]

Yeah but how does that convert into game terms? You have to LARP it.

I'm not talking about fucking LARP, and I'm utterly opposed to the furry fucks who think Oblivion is the best role-playing game because it utterly fails to characterise your choices and you can just substitute pure imagination for emptiness.

I'm talking about a simple statement that drives imagination. Let's rationalise:

You see a cave exit.

You see light pouring in through a cave opening. For the first time in your life, you are looking upon sunlight.

The sidekick who has stepped you through the insulting patronising and compulsory tutorial sequence remarks - "Hey Chosen One, there's the cave exit. Isn't it amazing! This is the first time we've ever seen the sun!"

• Yes! It's astounding!
• No. I hate the sun.
• Er, if you give me money I might enjoy it more.

See how the first is simple and utilitarian, because otherwise it might interfere with your furry fucking LARPtastic view that your character hates the sun and is an elder vampire. The third is leading you in a pantomime fashion. I'm suggesting that the best compromise is to be utilitarian, but provide enough of an impetus to get the player's mind working.

Bioware character narratives are like reading something in second person. It feels... intrusive. You're being told how you think. The Elder Scrolls character narratives are blank pages that you write yourself, and chances are they'll end up being furry slashfics involving a character off your favourite TV show. Fallout's character narrative is the motherfucking Neverending Story. It provides the richly detailed world required to make you feel as though you're actually there, and ample gameplay options to project yourself into that world.

That's my problem with Fallout, I love the game but not for it's plot or the setting. Really it isn't possible to roleplay as the specially selected young Vault Dweller on a dangerous mission in a completely new and alien world. I forget the starting story and roleplay more as a shiftless mercenary type which seems to fit much more into the dialog, quests and atmosphere of the rest of the game.

This is even more true with Fallout 2.

That's mostly because the initial premise for Fallout 2 is fucking retarded. It's pretty easy to forget you're a dimwitted racial stereotype with a bone through your fucking nose, because there's no sensible reason to be.

Arcanum was kind of the same (up to the point I've played). Just who the fuck are you? The backgrounds were only for slight changes to the starting stats usually overcome within a few levels. Too much is left to the imagination so that the player can have freedom.

You define who you are throughout the course of the game. Your background should not be essential to any CRPG. Torment of course, does a great job by giving you a well developed background, but not holding you to it. In fact, much of what I've seen riffs off the fact that you're completely different now as compared to then.

I hate the Bioware design mentality <s>but I have to say they are closer to striking the right balance.</s> You need some kind of context to play within.

With my quick edit, we agree. You do need a context to play within. Fallout provides that. Bioware games give more than just a context, they force feed you either the one-dimensional "good" guy's take on the game, or the one-dimensional "bad" guy's take.

 

[Gambler]

You do need a context to play within. Fallout provides that

Where? It has no story and it gives you very little in terms of motivation. The main character has absolutely no background (although it is semi-plausible due to the whole concept of Vaults). Where is that context you are talking about?

 

[Section8]

You do need a context to play within. Fallout provides that

Where? It has no story and it gives you very little in terms of motivation. The main character has absolutely no background (although it is semi-plausible due to the whole concept of Vaults). Where is that context you are talking about?

It gives you a well-fleshed out, consistent and plausible (within its own rules) gameworld, it gives you a broad set of interactions with which to evoke your character, and it gives you narrative threads to tug at.

That's what I'm talking about with context. You get an environment conducive to evoking your character, and you use the tools provided to effectively write your own story.

A game shouldn't assign you a motive for playing. It should give you reason to develop your own motive. For Fallout, that was mostly checking out the world at large, but I also found myself wanting to find that waterchip to try and preserve the isolated utopia of Vault 13. Perhaps it failed to lead other players to develop their motive, but whether that's a failure of design or simply an alternate preference is up in the air.

But, I happen to think it shits all over the idea of "This guy, who the player has known for about 3 seconds, is very important to the character. Now he's been murdered, and you're pissed! Go get 'em tiger!" That's pretty clumsy.

 

[Atrokkus]

I really enjoyed Gothic and Fallout map design, that encourages careful exploration and being on your toes all the time because the content is not modified by your character level. That's one of the better concepts implemented in RPGs so far (well not as important as choice and consequence, but hell that is a genre-defining element all by itself so it goes without saying that it's absolutely paramount).

 

[Jasede]

[...] furry [...] furry [...] furry [...]

Jesus, lay down the crack.

Anyway, ALL those 3 ways of presenting something, the Oblivion way, the Fallout way and the Bioware way have their merits and their place. We've already established that RPG is -not- limited to a "write your own story and flesh out your character" game, even if it maybe should be. Else we would have to call Daggerfall, Wizardry, Baldur's Gate 2 bad RPGs because they do -not- offer the Fallout "play your own role and get feedback from the world depending on your role" perspective. Though of course Fallout was a good game at best, compared to the sheer distilled joy that is Arcanum.

Also, you call the "Gorion phenomenom" clumsy - ie, forcing you into a role and being forced to care about someone in character you don't care about out of character. That's not really as much a flaw of being a story-centric RPG [or shall I say JRPG?] as it's a case of bad writing. A good author won't introduce a character you're supposed to care about just to kill him off on the next page, so what you mention is really just a case of shitty storytelling. [Which is a pity - since Bioware games [well, Kotor at any rate] focus on the story so much, like JRPGs, the storytelling should at least be done well]

 

[Surgey]

Much like a theater play, it's best to begin an RPG with an exciting scene or something to draw the player in. Most of the Final Fantasy games have done this, and some CRPG's have. I remember, when my brother first tried Fallout, he quit minutes into the game because it was boring at the start.

But yeah, something exciting at the beginning of a game is a good way to get the player interested. Fallout didn't have that, sadly.

It's not like the start of Fallout isn't indicative of the rest of the game, though. If you shoehorned an "exciting" scene into the beginning, your brother might have played through that, and then quit minutes later. Clearly, Fallout isn't his sort of game.

It's not to indicate the rest of the game, really. It's just to catch your attention, like I said. Once my brother gave Fallout a chance, he actually did play through it. I remember Fallout. The beginning was pretty boring. But once I got through it, I was having fun blowing people's heads off and sledge hammering people in the face.

 

[Zomg]

I had forgotten this, but playing Dwarf Fortress adventure mode has reminded me of why I must have been so drawn to Fallout's combat, despite the low tactical content and deadtime problems. The detailed wounding and wrestling systems in DF are perversely fun to interact with because they end up creating these luridly entertaining mini-narratives in my mind, as Fallout's aiming system and damage blurbs must have before I became hyperfamiliar with them.

An example, I was in some cavern, and had lost my weapon at some point when I ran into a gremlin. The little bastard bit my throat out, which creates a bleeding mortal wound in DF - so, my character was walking dead, any winning/losing in game terms was out the window. However, in the last few turns of the character's consciousness, I wanted to kill this damn gremlin, but unarmed and not badass enough to beat his brains in with my shield in so little time. So, I grabbed his head in my hand, threw him to the ground and then tore out both of his eyes just before falling out. I mean... that's a pretty cool way to go. I must have had the exact same frisson from shooting a raider in the eye in '96, although inarticulately.

 

[Gambler]

You get an environment conducive to evoking your character, and you use the tools provided to effectively write your own story.

But you can say that about any good system game. GalCiv2 gives you the tools to create a story of your civilization. However, it's not really a story, just a sequence of related events.

You have choices, consequences, stats, dialogs... but it is an empire simulation, a 4X game.