Jason Liang
Arcane
So I've been thinking about RPGs a lot in the past month, especially the past few days since it's the middle of a snowstorm and I've been snowed in, running out of food and just hibernating when not online. I had a dream-epiphany last night that I'd like to share, but it's a little hard to organize my thoughts right now and I don't know where to start exactly. But the general gist of my epiphany is that what's wrong with computer RPGs is the failure of WotC to correctly implement a skill system when they designed 3E. How did I come to this conclusion?
I'd been looking for a new computer RPG experience for a long time. In recent years I'd played and finnished Dragonfall (all three HBS Shadowruns), Age of Decadence and Pillars of Eternity (since it was so short. I solo'd it with a rogue in about 15 hours). But Pillars of Eternity sort of infected me with a sickness, or more accurately in a Kierkegaard-esque way it made me realize there was a sickness with how RPGs were designed and conceptualized. I'd played and enjoyed games out of genre, like Invisible Inc., KoF XIII, Stellaris (at least the beginning), Path of Exile, Talisman, Legacy of the Duelist, Twilight Struggle, and ATS (American Truck Simulator) but there was also something unsatisfying about those gaming experiences.
But the breaking point was this past year. I failed to really get into three recent RPGs- Underrail, Elminage Gothic, and Wasteland 2, which was the breaking point. Underrail was no surprise since I loathed Fallout/ Arcanum -style combat. Elminage Gothic was a bit of a surprise, since Wizardry was my original rpg love, and it made me realize that I'm done with blobbers. What I want from an RPG wasn't combat and mapping dungeons. But then Wasteland 2 wasn't what I was looking for either, despite having (sort of) the combat experience that I wanted. After that, I thought perhaps I just wasn't into RPGs anymore. I thought about trying NEO Scavenger, but I know that it isn't the experience I was looking for. None of the recent RPGs were. Instead I installed Homeworld: Remastered. That was a huge mistake, since it only served to remind me that I hate playing RTS, but in a way it was instructive since I realized that I wasn't looking for just a game to play. If I want to have fun with a game, I could play Alpha Centauri or MoO or EU III forever. If I wanted to chill I could play ATS or KoF or fucking Diablo 2.
Three days ago I re-installed KOTOR 2, a game that I had never finnished but had promised myself to return to one day. I was no longer a combatfag, but I also couldn't tolerate the retarded pew pew pew pew IN REAL TIME! combat anymore - not after Pillars. But I did realize several things from that experience:
1) I am not a combatfag anymore
2) I am not a storyfag either
3) But I am still looking for a gaming experience that only RPGs can satsify
4) I want a game with a well-developed magic system
5) BG2: EE's greatest feature is it's well-developed magic system
6) Even though NWN shares KOTOR's retarded combat system, it still has the magic system from D&D as a strength
7) And the absolute worst thing about Pillars, why it failed completely to follow BG2: EE, is it botched the magic system
I've realized that I can't fault Pillars for botching rtwp. BG2: EE was lightning in a bottle. Every other game that's tried to capture that system has failed hard, even the Aurora Engine. But Pillars' magic system is a travesty- both by stripping out all of D&D's interesting non-combat spells, but also by giving non-magic classes magic-like combat abilities. I'll come back to this destruction of a class system in a bit.
But it made me realize why I didn't enjoy Wasteland 2, or KOTOR 2, or Fallout or NEO Scavenger. I wanted a game experience with spells and magic - and not one where magic is reduced to a per rest shotgun or grenade, or a pre-combat stat buff. I wanted a game with a developed magic system like BG2: EE, NWN, Arcanum and ToEE.
All of this I already knew. And then last night I had the DREAM.
I dreamt of a story about a man (maybe me?), a rogue, teaching an ingenue, an adopted daughter, how to survive in the world in antebellum Kentucky. He was pretending to be an aristocrat, and he needed her to get his forged identity papers stamped by the magistrate's seal.
I taught a class on Mad Men last semester, and I knew this was a dream about Mad Men. Don Draper, the main character on Mad Men, is at heart a rogue. He is naturally talented at scheming and conning people, and it's how he survives in the world, and he both enjoys it but loaths himself for living off of deceit. So his D&D stats would look like this:
Don Draper
lvl 7 TN Human Rogue
STR 12
DEX 8
CON 10
INT 16
WIS 14
CHA 18
The dream made me realize that an RPG is not about combat, and it's not about an amazing story either. But it's about experiencing a fictional world through a role. But not any role at all, but a role defined by literature and genre. Hence a class system. Soldier, rogue, wizard, priest, ranger, barbarian, and paladin are stereotypical character roles defined by stories in our literature.
Take Don Draper as an example. His story, and how he fits in the world, is defined by his class- thief, rogue. Class is not a job. It's the role you take in the story. He's not a stereotypical stealthy, dextrous rogue. Instead he relies on his attribute strengths- his intelligence and his charisma. Even if he isn't min-maxed for combat, his character is interesting enough to carry the story.
What makes the AD&D system work is having characters primarily defined by classes. Classes are not jobs. They are these basic literary story roles. In the AD&D system, class is primary, and your attributes are secondary. A 14 strength fighter is significantly worse in combat than a 18/94 fighter, but he's still a fighter. A 14 int wizard is worse than an 18 int wizard but he's still a wizard.
The most interesting BG2: EE experience isn't playing the game as a Berserker/ Mage witih SCS. It's playing the game as a plain Thief, solo if you want the challenge. The greatest quality of BG2: EE isn't that you can stomp through the game as a Berserker/ Mage or even a Wizard or Sorcerer. It's that you can also make your way through the story as a Rogue who isn't especially great a combat or even extremely dextrous.
AD&D had a system where dual-classing or multi-classing was difficult. Because allowing a character to have multiple classes isn't about min-maxing for combat. It's about fulfilling a narrative role. One of the first TSR novels that I read, and that made me understand AD&D, was Pool of Radiance. One of the main characters in the story is Ren O' the Blades, a human Ranger/ Thief. He was originally a Ranger but he came aross a horrific Gnoll massacre and became disillusioned. He met a Thief lover, and found a new role as her accomplice on heists. So you have an interesting character who falls from his original class through an alignment change, and then picks up a new role and a new class.
So really Pillars got it completely wrong. By making class not matter, by making every attribute about combat, and by making every spell about combat, Pillars failed to understand what a RPG system is about. The heart of a RPG system isn't tactical combat. It's about defining characters and roles within a world and a story. Whether or not the makers of BG 2: EE understood this or was just lucky that they were using the AD&D system, I can't say. But it's not really the fault of Sawyer or Obsidian. It's the fault of WotC. Pillars is trying to be like 3E D&D, and the 3E D&D class system is deeply flawed. It's deeply flawed not just for making multli-classing too easy, although that's huge. Is being able to customize your character fun? Sure. But eventually it's a cancer, since it destroys the purpose of role-playing. Again, that's the epiphany: role playing is about playing a basic role defined in literature, not a role you've customized and min-maxed.
But 3E's failure isn't simply the failure to understand the basic purpose of class in RPGs. It also failed to address the main deficiency of AD&D- the lack of a developed skill system/ proficiency system. In AD&D, Intelligence determined the number of languages you could speak, but as far as a skill system goes, the basic rule was just - well, your character knows how to do the things you know how to do. If you can drive a car, you character can ride a horse. If you can write well, your character can compose an essay. If you can swim, so can your character. There was a list of skills in the PHB but there weren't any rules defined for them, and they were completely tertiary to your character.
When AD&D was translated into computer games, the skill system got left out. Gold Box games didn't have skills. BG2: EE had weapon poficiencies and Thieving skills, but not really anything else. In fact, BG2 probably should have implemented a system where Thieve skills like stealth, lockpicking, pickpocketing and disarming traps were abilities that succeeded based on level rather than a die roll.
3E and NWN finally defined a skill system with skill points based on the character's Intelligence, but 3E made a fatal mistake. It made skills class-dependent. It made skills classed or cross-classed. So Priests know Persuade and Spellcraft, Fighters know Discipline and Intimidate. But really that's not how skills should work at all.
Skill affinity is based on opportunity and talent. For example, take Midnight from the Avatar trilogy. She's a wizard, but she uses charm and seduction to Persuade people not unlike Don Draper. Yet under 3E she would be gimped in Persuade since it's not a wizard class skill. Skills should be affected by attributes, but they should not be tied to class.
Obviously here Pillars isn't so bad, since in Pillars skills are not class-dependent. But Pillars also sort of makes skills irrelevant. Part of the problem is that you can simply reclass your character to change their skills. If you need to be stealthy, reclass. If you need to cast spells from scrolls, reclass.
Actually here, Fallout's SPECIAL system I think is the ideal system. When you create your character, you can tag three skills to reflect your character's opportunities. And then you can add tags as a feat. That's a good system, and better than Pillars' system, AoD's system or Arcanum's system.
In summary, the sickness of RPGs these days is that they deviated in the wrong direction from the framework established by AD&D. AD&D took a tactical system and gave it the dimension to be a rudimentary yet effective RPG system. Central to that system is class. WotC's 3E failed to correctly address AD&D's biggest flaw, which was the skill system, and additionally they failed to appreciate the purpose of a class system and opened the door to the wrong path that modern RPGs have stumbled down. Worse, it reflects WotC's failure to understand the basic nature of RPGs, a design flaw that has infected modern RPG design. Even when White Wolf designed Vampire, Justin Achilles understood that a vampire's clan was their class. That's why they added the Tremere, so that there would be a "wizard" class- Brujah/ Gangrel (fighter), Nosferatu (rogue), Tremere (wizard), Toreador (talker) and Ventrue (priest) - which is what they tried to get back to when they designed Vampire: the Requiem (Daeva, Mekhet, Nosfereatu, Gangrel and Ventrue).
Part of the problem with modern RPG design is that games like Fallout and Wasteland don't have a developed magic system. Without an advanced magic system, why does it need to be an RPG? Why not Assassin's Creed or GTA then? But the even greater flaw is the lack of a class system in these games. This sickness has a name: it's called GURPS. Modern RPGs are infected with variants of the GURPS system virus. RPG's need to go back to the basic class system established by AD&D and support it with a thoughtful skill system similar to Fallout.
I'd been looking for a new computer RPG experience for a long time. In recent years I'd played and finnished Dragonfall (all three HBS Shadowruns), Age of Decadence and Pillars of Eternity (since it was so short. I solo'd it with a rogue in about 15 hours). But Pillars of Eternity sort of infected me with a sickness, or more accurately in a Kierkegaard-esque way it made me realize there was a sickness with how RPGs were designed and conceptualized. I'd played and enjoyed games out of genre, like Invisible Inc., KoF XIII, Stellaris (at least the beginning), Path of Exile, Talisman, Legacy of the Duelist, Twilight Struggle, and ATS (American Truck Simulator) but there was also something unsatisfying about those gaming experiences.
But the breaking point was this past year. I failed to really get into three recent RPGs- Underrail, Elminage Gothic, and Wasteland 2, which was the breaking point. Underrail was no surprise since I loathed Fallout/ Arcanum -style combat. Elminage Gothic was a bit of a surprise, since Wizardry was my original rpg love, and it made me realize that I'm done with blobbers. What I want from an RPG wasn't combat and mapping dungeons. But then Wasteland 2 wasn't what I was looking for either, despite having (sort of) the combat experience that I wanted. After that, I thought perhaps I just wasn't into RPGs anymore. I thought about trying NEO Scavenger, but I know that it isn't the experience I was looking for. None of the recent RPGs were. Instead I installed Homeworld: Remastered. That was a huge mistake, since it only served to remind me that I hate playing RTS, but in a way it was instructive since I realized that I wasn't looking for just a game to play. If I want to have fun with a game, I could play Alpha Centauri or MoO or EU III forever. If I wanted to chill I could play ATS or KoF or fucking Diablo 2.
Three days ago I re-installed KOTOR 2, a game that I had never finnished but had promised myself to return to one day. I was no longer a combatfag, but I also couldn't tolerate the retarded pew pew pew pew IN REAL TIME! combat anymore - not after Pillars. But I did realize several things from that experience:
1) I am not a combatfag anymore
2) I am not a storyfag either
3) But I am still looking for a gaming experience that only RPGs can satsify
4) I want a game with a well-developed magic system
5) BG2: EE's greatest feature is it's well-developed magic system
6) Even though NWN shares KOTOR's retarded combat system, it still has the magic system from D&D as a strength
7) And the absolute worst thing about Pillars, why it failed completely to follow BG2: EE, is it botched the magic system
I've realized that I can't fault Pillars for botching rtwp. BG2: EE was lightning in a bottle. Every other game that's tried to capture that system has failed hard, even the Aurora Engine. But Pillars' magic system is a travesty- both by stripping out all of D&D's interesting non-combat spells, but also by giving non-magic classes magic-like combat abilities. I'll come back to this destruction of a class system in a bit.
But it made me realize why I didn't enjoy Wasteland 2, or KOTOR 2, or Fallout or NEO Scavenger. I wanted a game experience with spells and magic - and not one where magic is reduced to a per rest shotgun or grenade, or a pre-combat stat buff. I wanted a game with a developed magic system like BG2: EE, NWN, Arcanum and ToEE.
All of this I already knew. And then last night I had the DREAM.
I dreamt of a story about a man (maybe me?), a rogue, teaching an ingenue, an adopted daughter, how to survive in the world in antebellum Kentucky. He was pretending to be an aristocrat, and he needed her to get his forged identity papers stamped by the magistrate's seal.
I taught a class on Mad Men last semester, and I knew this was a dream about Mad Men. Don Draper, the main character on Mad Men, is at heart a rogue. He is naturally talented at scheming and conning people, and it's how he survives in the world, and he both enjoys it but loaths himself for living off of deceit. So his D&D stats would look like this:
Don Draper
lvl 7 TN Human Rogue
STR 12
DEX 8
CON 10
INT 16
WIS 14
CHA 18
The dream made me realize that an RPG is not about combat, and it's not about an amazing story either. But it's about experiencing a fictional world through a role. But not any role at all, but a role defined by literature and genre. Hence a class system. Soldier, rogue, wizard, priest, ranger, barbarian, and paladin are stereotypical character roles defined by stories in our literature.
Take Don Draper as an example. His story, and how he fits in the world, is defined by his class- thief, rogue. Class is not a job. It's the role you take in the story. He's not a stereotypical stealthy, dextrous rogue. Instead he relies on his attribute strengths- his intelligence and his charisma. Even if he isn't min-maxed for combat, his character is interesting enough to carry the story.
What makes the AD&D system work is having characters primarily defined by classes. Classes are not jobs. They are these basic literary story roles. In the AD&D system, class is primary, and your attributes are secondary. A 14 strength fighter is significantly worse in combat than a 18/94 fighter, but he's still a fighter. A 14 int wizard is worse than an 18 int wizard but he's still a wizard.
The most interesting BG2: EE experience isn't playing the game as a Berserker/ Mage witih SCS. It's playing the game as a plain Thief, solo if you want the challenge. The greatest quality of BG2: EE isn't that you can stomp through the game as a Berserker/ Mage or even a Wizard or Sorcerer. It's that you can also make your way through the story as a Rogue who isn't especially great a combat or even extremely dextrous.
AD&D had a system where dual-classing or multi-classing was difficult. Because allowing a character to have multiple classes isn't about min-maxing for combat. It's about fulfilling a narrative role. One of the first TSR novels that I read, and that made me understand AD&D, was Pool of Radiance. One of the main characters in the story is Ren O' the Blades, a human Ranger/ Thief. He was originally a Ranger but he came aross a horrific Gnoll massacre and became disillusioned. He met a Thief lover, and found a new role as her accomplice on heists. So you have an interesting character who falls from his original class through an alignment change, and then picks up a new role and a new class.
So really Pillars got it completely wrong. By making class not matter, by making every attribute about combat, and by making every spell about combat, Pillars failed to understand what a RPG system is about. The heart of a RPG system isn't tactical combat. It's about defining characters and roles within a world and a story. Whether or not the makers of BG 2: EE understood this or was just lucky that they were using the AD&D system, I can't say. But it's not really the fault of Sawyer or Obsidian. It's the fault of WotC. Pillars is trying to be like 3E D&D, and the 3E D&D class system is deeply flawed. It's deeply flawed not just for making multli-classing too easy, although that's huge. Is being able to customize your character fun? Sure. But eventually it's a cancer, since it destroys the purpose of role-playing. Again, that's the epiphany: role playing is about playing a basic role defined in literature, not a role you've customized and min-maxed.
But 3E's failure isn't simply the failure to understand the basic purpose of class in RPGs. It also failed to address the main deficiency of AD&D- the lack of a developed skill system/ proficiency system. In AD&D, Intelligence determined the number of languages you could speak, but as far as a skill system goes, the basic rule was just - well, your character knows how to do the things you know how to do. If you can drive a car, you character can ride a horse. If you can write well, your character can compose an essay. If you can swim, so can your character. There was a list of skills in the PHB but there weren't any rules defined for them, and they were completely tertiary to your character.
When AD&D was translated into computer games, the skill system got left out. Gold Box games didn't have skills. BG2: EE had weapon poficiencies and Thieving skills, but not really anything else. In fact, BG2 probably should have implemented a system where Thieve skills like stealth, lockpicking, pickpocketing and disarming traps were abilities that succeeded based on level rather than a die roll.
3E and NWN finally defined a skill system with skill points based on the character's Intelligence, but 3E made a fatal mistake. It made skills class-dependent. It made skills classed or cross-classed. So Priests know Persuade and Spellcraft, Fighters know Discipline and Intimidate. But really that's not how skills should work at all.
Skill affinity is based on opportunity and talent. For example, take Midnight from the Avatar trilogy. She's a wizard, but she uses charm and seduction to Persuade people not unlike Don Draper. Yet under 3E she would be gimped in Persuade since it's not a wizard class skill. Skills should be affected by attributes, but they should not be tied to class.
Obviously here Pillars isn't so bad, since in Pillars skills are not class-dependent. But Pillars also sort of makes skills irrelevant. Part of the problem is that you can simply reclass your character to change their skills. If you need to be stealthy, reclass. If you need to cast spells from scrolls, reclass.
Actually here, Fallout's SPECIAL system I think is the ideal system. When you create your character, you can tag three skills to reflect your character's opportunities. And then you can add tags as a feat. That's a good system, and better than Pillars' system, AoD's system or Arcanum's system.
In summary, the sickness of RPGs these days is that they deviated in the wrong direction from the framework established by AD&D. AD&D took a tactical system and gave it the dimension to be a rudimentary yet effective RPG system. Central to that system is class. WotC's 3E failed to correctly address AD&D's biggest flaw, which was the skill system, and additionally they failed to appreciate the purpose of a class system and opened the door to the wrong path that modern RPGs have stumbled down. Worse, it reflects WotC's failure to understand the basic nature of RPGs, a design flaw that has infected modern RPG design. Even when White Wolf designed Vampire, Justin Achilles understood that a vampire's clan was their class. That's why they added the Tremere, so that there would be a "wizard" class- Brujah/ Gangrel (fighter), Nosferatu (rogue), Tremere (wizard), Toreador (talker) and Ventrue (priest) - which is what they tried to get back to when they designed Vampire: the Requiem (Daeva, Mekhet, Nosfereatu, Gangrel and Ventrue).
Part of the problem with modern RPG design is that games like Fallout and Wasteland don't have a developed magic system. Without an advanced magic system, why does it need to be an RPG? Why not Assassin's Creed or GTA then? But the even greater flaw is the lack of a class system in these games. This sickness has a name: it's called GURPS. Modern RPGs are infected with variants of the GURPS system virus. RPG's need to go back to the basic class system established by AD&D and support it with a thoughtful skill system similar to Fallout.
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