Vault Dweller said:
Years ago? You speak as if they've stopped.
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Review Dumbing down RULEZ! (A Fable review)
- Thread starter Vault Dweller
- Start date
Years ago? You speak as if they've stopped.
Keldryn
Arcane
There is a difference between "dumbing down" and simply trimming down the clunky, largely-useless baggage that has encumbered RPGs for decades.
How's that for a controversial statement that's bound to get more than a few noses out of joint here at the Codex? Bear with me...
Step back in time a good thirty odd-years. Dungeons & Dragons was essentially the first of what would come to be called "Role-Playing Games." The two people who are most often credited with its inception were Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. Gygax had written rules for a medieval tabletop minatures wargame, called Chainmail, as well as a fantasy supplement for it. Arneson is credited with being the first to adapt these rules to apply to individual "heroes" instead of armies. Thus, fantasy role-playing -- complete with its major emphasis on combat -- grew out of miniatures wargaming. I'm sure a large number of people here know this, but it's important to the point I wish to make.
Role-playing games originally took place entirely within the players' imaginations. Or so they claimed, but many groups used (and of course still do) miniature figures to represent characters in combat. But there had to be some way of representing each character in game terms, and of resolving actionsk, and thus each character was defined by a set of statistics representing the capabilities of that character.
In those early days, there weren't really any such thing as "skills" or any non-combat-oriented statistics for characters. Taking the six attributes of D&D characters -- which most of appear by one name or another in basically every RPG since -- we can immediately see that some are generally more useful than others. "Useful" being defined by how often they come into play, and the degree of benefit that they provide. Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution are all vital to a character in any game that has much in the way of physical combat. Intelligence? Well, if you're a magic-user, it determines how many spells you can learn, and your chance of learning a spell. And how many languages you can speak. Wisdom? Makes you a little more or less susceptible to mind-affecting spells. If you're not a Cleric or Druid, it's otherwise pretty worthless. Charisma? The dump stat from day 1. If anyone actually bothered to use "Henchmen" as per the rules, it determined how many you could have and how loyal they would be to you. Otherwise, it only affected... basically whether a monster would fight you or not upon first sight.
And the debate has raged on for years as to whether the "mental" attributes are best left up to the player to role-play as he or she sees fit, or whether to have them as specific game statistics. In that case, it forces a smart player to be stupid, or means that the DM has to keep giving hints to a dumb player because his magic-user has an 18 Intelligence.
Can you imagine playing a CRPG where you (the player) solves a difficult puzzle, but the game then says "you aren't smart enough to figure this out" and you are forced to fight instead? Or, if your character in the game is very intelligent, the game puts a big glowing arrow on-screen, pointing you toward the solution? Either way, I'd feel cheated.
The vast majority of CRPGs use Intelligence simply as a factor affecting how well the character uses magic. In a few games, it affects how many skills/skill points you have. And in even fewer games, it affects your dialogue options. Most CRPGs don't have the equivalent of Wisdom, although there is often a Willpower, Perception, or Magical Defence stat that encompasses some aspect of it. Planescape: Torment is the only D&D CRPG that actually made Wisdom a worthwhile stat, but even that wasn't really much different from how Fallout used Intelligence to determine dialogue options. Charisma almost always gets the short end of the stick in CRPGs, and most CRPGs don't even bother with it. Of the games that do, it still doesn't do much more than make merchants charge less when buying items. Sometimes, it affects whether a character likes you or not, but that tends to be brushed aside whenever a character important to the plot is considered.
In many ways, these statistics become limiting, rather than enabling. If I think of my character as being rather dim-witted, I'll choose the "Huh?" dialogue response. If my character is charming and suave, I'll pick that option. There isn't much point in the game's dialogue engine giving me choices that I can't statistically be successful with.
In a game where you control your character directly in real-time, such as Fable, the role and usefulness of statistics changes. The point of the "to hit" roll was to simulate swinging a sword at your foe. You don't need that in a game like Fable, where you control your character with the thumbstick and swing your sword with a button. Which is why I find it incredibly annoying when that happens in Morrowind. An attribute such as Strength is still useful, as it could affect how much damage you do, what objects you can lift, and how many hit points you have. Dexterity wouldn't be that useful in determining whether or not you get hit, but could affect how quickly your character swing his sword, and how quickly he recovers from an attack. Intelligence would be more appropriately named Magical Aptitude, and is useful for determining magical ability. But what other stats are really useful?
A Perception attribute/skill could be helpful for alterting you to "hidden" objects or secret doors, but... I always feel cheated when the objects/doors are actually invisible on-screen until a check against my character's "Perception" skill is successful. If I, as the player, take the time to closely examine a wall for a telltale crack, or look behind the fireplace to find the switch, that should be all there is to it. This type of a skill/stat only add complexity and limits the player's options.
A Lockpicking skill is often present in CRPGs, but there aren't always enough locked chests/doors to make it a useful choice over other skills. Especially if you have the ability to just break chests or smash down doors. It could be reduced down to a simple Dexterity check. But we have no limitations on physical props in a CRPG. I'd feel a lot more like I was role-playing a thief if, when I pulled out my lockpick and started picking a lock, a lock-picking interface came up, and I would actually have to match up sections of a tumbler or something (didn't Hillsfar do this?). A time limit would be stupid and illogical, but if the game world didn't pause, and there was a guard patrolling the area...
(There are many other examples, but I'm running short on time!)
I think that we RPG gamers get too hung up on numeric stats. If your Strength is 18 (D&D), 89 (Morrowind), 28 (Ultima VII), 9 (Fallout), or "Powerful" (Ultima IX), is there any real difference, other than how finely broken-down the differences are between each value on the scale? In 3rd Edition D&D, for example, an 8 has no statistical difference from a 19; the +5 is the only value that really matters. Is there a purpose in maintaining the range of ability scores that it uses, other than maintaining D&D traditions? The computer's greatest strength is to keep track of all of these numbers, so that the player doesn't have to, and can just focus on playing the game. People complained that Ultima IX didn't have stats (among many other complaints which are fully justified), but it did; the stats were just values of 1 to 4, with significant effects upon reaching a new value. Ultima IX used words to describe the values of your attributes, and Fable tried to use visuals, but still included the numbers. But as long as you, as the player, can clearly see the progression of your character, does it really matter how the information is conveyed to you? Whether you open a stats screen and see that your Strength is 20, or you look at your character model and see bulging muscles, and you see how quickly you can take down that Orc, why does it really matter?
Fable certainly has its flaws, but I think that it does a good job of cutting out a lot of the RPG baggage that is leftover from pencil & paper gaming, and tabletop wargames. And Morrowind is an example of a game that I feel is limited by its adherence to RPG conventions. It applies stats to too many things that don't need it, and I find that very limiting. Final Fantasy VIII is another good example of a game that is limited by its adherence to RPG trappings. It's billed as an epic love story, and I'm sure it's there somewhere, but I lost interest in the story during the hours of repetitve, random battles spent levelling up and drawing magic from monsters. Hundreds or thousands of random battles over the course of a game do not help the storyline flow smoothly.
Actually, Japanese RPGs are the worst offenders in showing the player a screen full of statistics that the player cannot directly adjust and never making it clear exactly how they affect the gameplay. Not to mention the ridiculous game logic of being mobbed by sewer rats with 2,300 hit points.
I'm not claiming that having stats in an RPG are bad. Turn-based games certainly need a full set of stats in order to resolve actions -- but not too many (Realms of Arkania). The two Fallout games remain two of my favorite games of all-time, partly due to the SPECIAL system. But in a real-time or action RPG -- which I do not consider an inferior type of game -- stats are often just RPG baggage that would be better left behind because the player has a more direct way of interacting with the game world.
And this is an area where I think Fable excels. It's not dumbed-down, but it is streamlined. A complex system is not necessarily better or possessing more depth. It's a fun game with plenty to do. It's full of optional stuff for those of us who like to explore everywhere and do everything. Some people blew through it in 7 or 8 hours, and I was at around 20 hours when I finished it. I bought one or two houses, but never even started buying shops and the like. Yes, the good/evil mechanic was overly simplified, but Fallout is about the only game where "morality" seems to be tracked on more than one dimension. And Fable has a great control system; I wish Morrowind controlled half as well.
Making a game more accessible and streamlined is not necessarily "dumbing down" nor is it necessarily a bad thing, although it can certainly end up that way (Ultima IX). Statistics that have little effect on the game or which are rarely used are best left out. If there is a better way to represent something in the medium other than a statistic, why not go with that? Your beloved game doesn't suddenly suck because non-hardcore gamers might enjoy it, too.
And all a game really needs to be accessible is a good in-game tutorial (with an option for verterans to skip the painful step-by-step directions) that begins with a limited set of options, and then gradually introduces more complexity as the game progresses. And a manual that isn't intimidating. Baldur's Gate II has one of the worst manuals I've ever seen in my life. It's terribly organized, and is mostly a waste of paper. Do we really need over a hundred pages of spell descriptions and reproductions of D&D rules? That's all in the in-game contextual help anyway. Tossing a player into a game with all options available right from the start doesn't do anything other than intimidate new players and give veteran players a smug sense of superiority.
How's that for a controversial statement that's bound to get more than a few noses out of joint here at the Codex? Bear with me...
Step back in time a good thirty odd-years. Dungeons & Dragons was essentially the first of what would come to be called "Role-Playing Games." The two people who are most often credited with its inception were Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. Gygax had written rules for a medieval tabletop minatures wargame, called Chainmail, as well as a fantasy supplement for it. Arneson is credited with being the first to adapt these rules to apply to individual "heroes" instead of armies. Thus, fantasy role-playing -- complete with its major emphasis on combat -- grew out of miniatures wargaming. I'm sure a large number of people here know this, but it's important to the point I wish to make.
Role-playing games originally took place entirely within the players' imaginations. Or so they claimed, but many groups used (and of course still do) miniature figures to represent characters in combat. But there had to be some way of representing each character in game terms, and of resolving actionsk, and thus each character was defined by a set of statistics representing the capabilities of that character.
In those early days, there weren't really any such thing as "skills" or any non-combat-oriented statistics for characters. Taking the six attributes of D&D characters -- which most of appear by one name or another in basically every RPG since -- we can immediately see that some are generally more useful than others. "Useful" being defined by how often they come into play, and the degree of benefit that they provide. Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution are all vital to a character in any game that has much in the way of physical combat. Intelligence? Well, if you're a magic-user, it determines how many spells you can learn, and your chance of learning a spell. And how many languages you can speak. Wisdom? Makes you a little more or less susceptible to mind-affecting spells. If you're not a Cleric or Druid, it's otherwise pretty worthless. Charisma? The dump stat from day 1. If anyone actually bothered to use "Henchmen" as per the rules, it determined how many you could have and how loyal they would be to you. Otherwise, it only affected... basically whether a monster would fight you or not upon first sight.
And the debate has raged on for years as to whether the "mental" attributes are best left up to the player to role-play as he or she sees fit, or whether to have them as specific game statistics. In that case, it forces a smart player to be stupid, or means that the DM has to keep giving hints to a dumb player because his magic-user has an 18 Intelligence.
Can you imagine playing a CRPG where you (the player) solves a difficult puzzle, but the game then says "you aren't smart enough to figure this out" and you are forced to fight instead? Or, if your character in the game is very intelligent, the game puts a big glowing arrow on-screen, pointing you toward the solution? Either way, I'd feel cheated.
The vast majority of CRPGs use Intelligence simply as a factor affecting how well the character uses magic. In a few games, it affects how many skills/skill points you have. And in even fewer games, it affects your dialogue options. Most CRPGs don't have the equivalent of Wisdom, although there is often a Willpower, Perception, or Magical Defence stat that encompasses some aspect of it. Planescape: Torment is the only D&D CRPG that actually made Wisdom a worthwhile stat, but even that wasn't really much different from how Fallout used Intelligence to determine dialogue options. Charisma almost always gets the short end of the stick in CRPGs, and most CRPGs don't even bother with it. Of the games that do, it still doesn't do much more than make merchants charge less when buying items. Sometimes, it affects whether a character likes you or not, but that tends to be brushed aside whenever a character important to the plot is considered.
In many ways, these statistics become limiting, rather than enabling. If I think of my character as being rather dim-witted, I'll choose the "Huh?" dialogue response. If my character is charming and suave, I'll pick that option. There isn't much point in the game's dialogue engine giving me choices that I can't statistically be successful with.
In a game where you control your character directly in real-time, such as Fable, the role and usefulness of statistics changes. The point of the "to hit" roll was to simulate swinging a sword at your foe. You don't need that in a game like Fable, where you control your character with the thumbstick and swing your sword with a button. Which is why I find it incredibly annoying when that happens in Morrowind. An attribute such as Strength is still useful, as it could affect how much damage you do, what objects you can lift, and how many hit points you have. Dexterity wouldn't be that useful in determining whether or not you get hit, but could affect how quickly your character swing his sword, and how quickly he recovers from an attack. Intelligence would be more appropriately named Magical Aptitude, and is useful for determining magical ability. But what other stats are really useful?
A Perception attribute/skill could be helpful for alterting you to "hidden" objects or secret doors, but... I always feel cheated when the objects/doors are actually invisible on-screen until a check against my character's "Perception" skill is successful. If I, as the player, take the time to closely examine a wall for a telltale crack, or look behind the fireplace to find the switch, that should be all there is to it. This type of a skill/stat only add complexity and limits the player's options.
A Lockpicking skill is often present in CRPGs, but there aren't always enough locked chests/doors to make it a useful choice over other skills. Especially if you have the ability to just break chests or smash down doors. It could be reduced down to a simple Dexterity check. But we have no limitations on physical props in a CRPG. I'd feel a lot more like I was role-playing a thief if, when I pulled out my lockpick and started picking a lock, a lock-picking interface came up, and I would actually have to match up sections of a tumbler or something (didn't Hillsfar do this?). A time limit would be stupid and illogical, but if the game world didn't pause, and there was a guard patrolling the area...
(There are many other examples, but I'm running short on time!)
I think that we RPG gamers get too hung up on numeric stats. If your Strength is 18 (D&D), 89 (Morrowind), 28 (Ultima VII), 9 (Fallout), or "Powerful" (Ultima IX), is there any real difference, other than how finely broken-down the differences are between each value on the scale? In 3rd Edition D&D, for example, an 8 has no statistical difference from a 19; the +5 is the only value that really matters. Is there a purpose in maintaining the range of ability scores that it uses, other than maintaining D&D traditions? The computer's greatest strength is to keep track of all of these numbers, so that the player doesn't have to, and can just focus on playing the game. People complained that Ultima IX didn't have stats (among many other complaints which are fully justified), but it did; the stats were just values of 1 to 4, with significant effects upon reaching a new value. Ultima IX used words to describe the values of your attributes, and Fable tried to use visuals, but still included the numbers. But as long as you, as the player, can clearly see the progression of your character, does it really matter how the information is conveyed to you? Whether you open a stats screen and see that your Strength is 20, or you look at your character model and see bulging muscles, and you see how quickly you can take down that Orc, why does it really matter?
Fable certainly has its flaws, but I think that it does a good job of cutting out a lot of the RPG baggage that is leftover from pencil & paper gaming, and tabletop wargames. And Morrowind is an example of a game that I feel is limited by its adherence to RPG conventions. It applies stats to too many things that don't need it, and I find that very limiting. Final Fantasy VIII is another good example of a game that is limited by its adherence to RPG trappings. It's billed as an epic love story, and I'm sure it's there somewhere, but I lost interest in the story during the hours of repetitve, random battles spent levelling up and drawing magic from monsters. Hundreds or thousands of random battles over the course of a game do not help the storyline flow smoothly.
Actually, Japanese RPGs are the worst offenders in showing the player a screen full of statistics that the player cannot directly adjust and never making it clear exactly how they affect the gameplay. Not to mention the ridiculous game logic of being mobbed by sewer rats with 2,300 hit points.
I'm not claiming that having stats in an RPG are bad. Turn-based games certainly need a full set of stats in order to resolve actions -- but not too many (Realms of Arkania). The two Fallout games remain two of my favorite games of all-time, partly due to the SPECIAL system. But in a real-time or action RPG -- which I do not consider an inferior type of game -- stats are often just RPG baggage that would be better left behind because the player has a more direct way of interacting with the game world.
And this is an area where I think Fable excels. It's not dumbed-down, but it is streamlined. A complex system is not necessarily better or possessing more depth. It's a fun game with plenty to do. It's full of optional stuff for those of us who like to explore everywhere and do everything. Some people blew through it in 7 or 8 hours, and I was at around 20 hours when I finished it. I bought one or two houses, but never even started buying shops and the like. Yes, the good/evil mechanic was overly simplified, but Fallout is about the only game where "morality" seems to be tracked on more than one dimension. And Fable has a great control system; I wish Morrowind controlled half as well.
Making a game more accessible and streamlined is not necessarily "dumbing down" nor is it necessarily a bad thing, although it can certainly end up that way (Ultima IX). Statistics that have little effect on the game or which are rarely used are best left out. If there is a better way to represent something in the medium other than a statistic, why not go with that? Your beloved game doesn't suddenly suck because non-hardcore gamers might enjoy it, too.
And all a game really needs to be accessible is a good in-game tutorial (with an option for verterans to skip the painful step-by-step directions) that begins with a limited set of options, and then gradually introduces more complexity as the game progresses. And a manual that isn't intimidating. Baldur's Gate II has one of the worst manuals I've ever seen in my life. It's terribly organized, and is mostly a waste of paper. Do we really need over a hundred pages of spell descriptions and reproductions of D&D rules? That's all in the in-game contextual help anyway. Tossing a player into a game with all options available right from the start doesn't do anything other than intimidate new players and give veteran players a smug sense of superiority.
kris
Arcane
Keldryn said:
Your post was to much to read, but I am calling your hand on this one. First you talk about exploring being optional stuff, what do you mean? There WAS NO EXPLORING in Fable. The game was practically linear. Unless "finding" the whorehouse was exploring for you. You also claim there is plenty to do, what is that thing that you can do? farting is funny once, and then? the small little features like buying houses and marry is just shallow and very unpersonal. Also, could be beaten with eyes closed.
Of course it is dumbed down, from the start to finish.
That does not make it a stinking pile of crap though. It was quite fun and the enviroments had lot of personality.
Vault Dweller
Commissar, Red Star Studio
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2003
- Messages
- 28,044
The only useless baggage that's dragging the genre down is the morons who play action games with some stats, call them RPGs, and demand more of them.Keldryn said:
What point is that? That you can use Google?
And in the even earlier days the graphics were made of ASCII characters. So? There was a time when there were no computer RPGs, does that mean that we should throw the entire genre out now?
Wow, what a load of crap. Must be embarrassing for you.
Design, stupid. It's all about the design. If you are given a "2+2=?" riddle, then obviously you'd feel weird if your character can't solve it. If it's handled in a PST-like manner (i.e. the skeleton armor puzzle) then it works great, the player doesn't feel cheated, and the time-space continuum is safe once again. Same goes for the arrow.
That's basically an equivalent of saying "there are mediocre games, there are decent games, and there are great games". Your point is? Or was it a purely educational rant?
And if you think that your character should always hit because you think that he has a magic sword or general awesomeness? In other words, who cares what you think? There are rules, they govern the gameplay and everything that happens in it. If you want to play a strong but dim-witted character, create such a character using stats and skills, and the game system will take care of the rest for you. Simple as that.
The point of the "to hit" roll was to determine whether you hit or miss, genius.
That sounds great! I love it. Let's rename Strength to Damage Aptitude, Dex to Defense Aptitude, etc. Better yet, let's have 3 stats: DAMAGE, DEFENSE, MAGIC. That would be like totally awesome.
Or, and this is a crazy idea, so bear with me, what if game developers actually design some awesome stuff to make INT more useful in games? Won't that be something?
It's role-playing. Who cares what you, the player, can see? If your character can't see it, it aint there. If you, the player, want to be the one who calls the shots, go play fucking Quake.
I think it's fair to say that you have no idea what an RPG is, so let's rephrase "I think that we action gamers..." Anyways, since it's clear you have no idea what you are talking about, I'll ignore the rest of your rant, except for the following
Ability scores are what separates your skills from your character's skills.
HardCode
Erudite
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2005
- Messages
- 1,139
Keldryn said:
Complete and utter bullshit. Remember the game "Wasteland" for the Commodore 64? That game had a Perception skill. If you sat at the table in the bar, your perception determined if you would notice the letters "UQAQTLN" scratched into the table. Even as a kid back then, I really appreciated the value of that element of the game.
Are you telling me, then, that a game 20+ years old is more, and I quote, "... of a skill/stat only add complexity and limits the player's options."? Sadly, it may be true, because the newest games are usually the shittiest games in the RPG genre.
Your quote above kind of shows that you are in the "graphixz0rz" category, because if you see it, your character should see it.
crufty
Arcane
Interesting post, and well edited compared to most.
The roguelike.dev usenet groups have some good takes if anybody is really interested on stats and statless games.
The real problem is games including stats but then not using them correctly. Including a lockpicking skill, but then when the tank class bashes the door, it happens in one blow AND no monsters come to investigate the noise. Include a wilderness skill and then include no reason why one would need to know which way is north. Including a perception skill, but then not removing the secret door when you fail it. Including intelligence as a stat, but then letting the characte open doors even if they can't figure out how to speak.
In those instances a game should be streamlined. But it doesn't neccessarily mean that they shouldn't be included by default. Should a low intelligence, high strength PC be allowed critical hits? What good is strength if you can't use it effectively? etc...the potential is there...its just really hard to get there.
Edit: What I'd like to see is a Hackmaster game. When?
The roguelike.dev usenet groups have some good takes if anybody is really interested on stats and statless games.
The real problem is games including stats but then not using them correctly. Including a lockpicking skill, but then when the tank class bashes the door, it happens in one blow AND no monsters come to investigate the noise. Include a wilderness skill and then include no reason why one would need to know which way is north. Including a perception skill, but then not removing the secret door when you fail it. Including intelligence as a stat, but then letting the characte open doors even if they can't figure out how to speak.
In those instances a game should be streamlined. But it doesn't neccessarily mean that they shouldn't be included by default. Should a low intelligence, high strength PC be allowed critical hits? What good is strength if you can't use it effectively? etc...the potential is there...its just really hard to get there.
Edit: What I'd like to see is a Hackmaster game. When?
bryce777
Erudite
crufty said:
This is another area where darklands shined. If your artifice failed (which was often) you had a lot of choices - you could bash in the door and probably fight guards, use an expensive aqua regia potion, an explosive potion that could also draw guard, etc. etc.
Section8
Cipher
Lengthy post, and it's good to see some thought and effort put into arguments.
First up the issue of "dumbing down." I wholeheartedly agree with streamlining pointlessly complex, tedious or time consuming elements, but it's a matter of where the line is drawn.
Take for example, the idea of automaps. I remember once upon a time, mapping out Dungeon Master in it's entirety with a friend on grid paper, and the time and effort it took us to do that was barely worth the gain, but hey, we fucking loved that game. An automap feature would have saved us the trouble, and would have improved our gaming experience.
But, the tendency for developers these days, is to push beyond the acceptable streamlining, into the realms of "dumbing down," and so many automaps (Fable's in particular) provide the player with too much information. Plotting every enemy, every NPC, every shop, the most direct route to your current quest, etc. is oversimplification.
If something is oversimplified enough, it becomes an insult to the intelligence of whoever is playing the game. It's like having everything explained to you in a patronising tone of voice. Imagine somebody reading a map for you while you drive.
"Now keep going down this big road, and take the third left. Which hand is your left? Good boy. And let's count to three. One, Two, Three! Now slow down, you use the brake pedal to do that, it's the one next to the one that makes you go faster. Okay, and when we slow down about, turn the big round thing that we call the quote "steering wheel" unquote around to the left, but not too fast! Otherwise we'll crash into that telephone pole, and we don't want to do that, do we?"
Now, I don't think I'm being elitist or intellectual by making the bold claim that getting rid of the "radar" elements and the quest indicators on Fable's automap wouldn't really hinder anyone's gaming experience.
Of course, given the simplicity of Fable, including it isn't much of an issue, either, but in a more complex RPG, it detracts from the notion that your alter ego is experiencing an alternate universe if you point out NPCs as quest givers, and such like, as opposed to being just another person in the game world, albeit one who needs some measure of assistance from you.
To put it more succinctly, streamlining becomes dumbing down when it removes part of the integral challenge the game provides.
Sticking with Fable briefly, yes it does cut away a lot of RPG baggage. In fact a lot of the fluff elements in Fable have a great deal of potential. But, it also cuts away nearly everything that allows RPGs to transcend your "average" game.
I think it's great that your physical appearance reflects the statistical makeup of your character, but unfortunately, physical appearance is about the only distinction the player can make to separate his character from any other player's. The experiences of my shining, virtuous knight are almost identical to the experiences of my housemate's horned demon, with only trivial variations along the way. When the ultimate embodiment of all that is good, and the ultimate embodiment of all that is evil walk the same path, something is terribly broken.
But, RPGness aside, I don't think Fable is particularly interesting for what it is, a well polished, but simplistic action game, with nice fluff elements. I can think of plenty of comparable games that I enjoyed a lot more.
* Magic Carpet (1 & 2) have a lot in common with Fable, and both a far better games in my opinion.
* Freedom Force has a far more interactive world, a greater range of character abilities, and actually benefitted from having a party of characters to control.
* The Soul Reaver games had better combat, puzzles, and a more interesting progression of abilities, not to mention the great parallel physical/spirit world elements.
* Gothic (1 & 2) had far larger and more responsive gameworlds, better NPC interaction, better combat, more depth.
* Pirates!, Sea Dogs, Pirates of the Carribean, all had comparable combat, but much broader range of things for the player to do beyond melee combat.
* Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines had similar combat, but also a broad range of RPing options, and broader implementations of stealth/skill use.
* GTA 3/VC/SA provide a much more freeform experience, a larger game world, more exploration/hidden bonuses, etc.
* Gauntlet Legends/Legacy have similar action gameplay, a bigger gameworld, more action, and most importantly, co-operative multiplayer.
...and that's just off the top of my head. To me, Fable is in the same category as games like Messiah and Fade to Black. Third person action games that have great ideas, and unexplored potential.
--
Now, when it comes to the usefulness of stats, I don't believe merging and condensing basic elements of the system is the best solution to the problem. Instead, effort should be dedicated toward making stats and skills as useful as their counterparts.
But hey, it's good to see some broader discussion of controversial opinions beyond the usual "OMFG FAble r0x!!! u dont even no!!"
First up the issue of "dumbing down." I wholeheartedly agree with streamlining pointlessly complex, tedious or time consuming elements, but it's a matter of where the line is drawn.
Take for example, the idea of automaps. I remember once upon a time, mapping out Dungeon Master in it's entirety with a friend on grid paper, and the time and effort it took us to do that was barely worth the gain, but hey, we fucking loved that game. An automap feature would have saved us the trouble, and would have improved our gaming experience.
But, the tendency for developers these days, is to push beyond the acceptable streamlining, into the realms of "dumbing down," and so many automaps (Fable's in particular) provide the player with too much information. Plotting every enemy, every NPC, every shop, the most direct route to your current quest, etc. is oversimplification.
If something is oversimplified enough, it becomes an insult to the intelligence of whoever is playing the game. It's like having everything explained to you in a patronising tone of voice. Imagine somebody reading a map for you while you drive.
"Now keep going down this big road, and take the third left. Which hand is your left? Good boy. And let's count to three. One, Two, Three! Now slow down, you use the brake pedal to do that, it's the one next to the one that makes you go faster. Okay, and when we slow down about, turn the big round thing that we call the quote "steering wheel" unquote around to the left, but not too fast! Otherwise we'll crash into that telephone pole, and we don't want to do that, do we?"
Now, I don't think I'm being elitist or intellectual by making the bold claim that getting rid of the "radar" elements and the quest indicators on Fable's automap wouldn't really hinder anyone's gaming experience.
Of course, given the simplicity of Fable, including it isn't much of an issue, either, but in a more complex RPG, it detracts from the notion that your alter ego is experiencing an alternate universe if you point out NPCs as quest givers, and such like, as opposed to being just another person in the game world, albeit one who needs some measure of assistance from you.
To put it more succinctly, streamlining becomes dumbing down when it removes part of the integral challenge the game provides.
Sticking with Fable briefly, yes it does cut away a lot of RPG baggage. In fact a lot of the fluff elements in Fable have a great deal of potential. But, it also cuts away nearly everything that allows RPGs to transcend your "average" game.
I think it's great that your physical appearance reflects the statistical makeup of your character, but unfortunately, physical appearance is about the only distinction the player can make to separate his character from any other player's. The experiences of my shining, virtuous knight are almost identical to the experiences of my housemate's horned demon, with only trivial variations along the way. When the ultimate embodiment of all that is good, and the ultimate embodiment of all that is evil walk the same path, something is terribly broken.
But, RPGness aside, I don't think Fable is particularly interesting for what it is, a well polished, but simplistic action game, with nice fluff elements. I can think of plenty of comparable games that I enjoyed a lot more.
* Magic Carpet (1 & 2) have a lot in common with Fable, and both a far better games in my opinion.
* Freedom Force has a far more interactive world, a greater range of character abilities, and actually benefitted from having a party of characters to control.
* The Soul Reaver games had better combat, puzzles, and a more interesting progression of abilities, not to mention the great parallel physical/spirit world elements.
* Gothic (1 & 2) had far larger and more responsive gameworlds, better NPC interaction, better combat, more depth.
* Pirates!, Sea Dogs, Pirates of the Carribean, all had comparable combat, but much broader range of things for the player to do beyond melee combat.
* Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines had similar combat, but also a broad range of RPing options, and broader implementations of stealth/skill use.
* GTA 3/VC/SA provide a much more freeform experience, a larger game world, more exploration/hidden bonuses, etc.
* Gauntlet Legends/Legacy have similar action gameplay, a bigger gameworld, more action, and most importantly, co-operative multiplayer.
...and that's just off the top of my head. To me, Fable is in the same category as games like Messiah and Fade to Black. Third person action games that have great ideas, and unexplored potential.
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Now, when it comes to the usefulness of stats, I don't believe merging and condensing basic elements of the system is the best solution to the problem. Instead, effort should be dedicated toward making stats and skills as useful as their counterparts.
But hey, it's good to see some broader discussion of controversial opinions beyond the usual "OMFG FAble r0x!!! u dont even no!!"
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