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One critical component to RPGs that can often be overlooked: the sense of adventure

King Crispy

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Playing D:OS 2 lately (which I am quite enjoying, by the way, despite lacking much of what this thread is about; see below) made me realize (or re-realize) that many RPGs suffer from a distinct lack of adventure.

What I mean by this is that playing them often fails to convey a sense of openness -- they are too confined, too "close in on themselves" -- and thus can become stale or unappealing quite early on in their playthroughs unless nearly every other aspect of them otherwise appeals greatly to the player.

One excellent example of this, a classic, is Gothic. Now, Gothic may not be a small game, per se, but I think it's easy to agree that it's fairly well confined. Once you start to comprehend its general layout and areas and get a feel for its density, you realize you're never going to traveling to distant lands in it and will be restricted to generally the same kind of terrain and "look and feel" for its duration. That's not necessarily a bad thing, seeing as how Gothic is an all-time classic, but imagine if it were larger, had more distinct settings you could visit in it, and conveyed more of a sense of wonder and exploration.

The Divinity: Original Sin games are another prime example. The first one, in particular, feels like you're playing the entire thing in a small apartment. Everything in it is so tightly packed that you begin to develop an actual sense of claustrophobia in it. This ultimately led me to abandoning it, as not only did its setting take on that closed-in feeling, but so also did its gameplay style; it was just the same fights over and over, with nothing new or exciting to look forward to. D:OS 2 is a little better on both fronts, and thus has kept my interest longer so far. It at least stands a chance of me completing it some day.

Is this a plea for more open world RPGs? No. Not necessarily. Is it an observation that most if not all RPGs could benefit from at least the sense of being more open, of offering more freedom, of allowing the character to breathe more? Yes. RPGs should convey a sense of adventure. You can't go on an adventure if you're confined to one relatively small region.

All the greatest RPGs in history gave you room to roam. Fallout had you driving around in the desert and visiting other towns across a large map. Torment had many distinct areas and realities to get lost in. Arcanum seemed huge and wondrous right after crashing in the dirigible. And none of these are even considered to be "open world" RPGs.

I want that openness. I crave that sense of adventure. If I just wanted to stick to one area, to never venture out and discover what I had never expected to see, I'd forget about RPGs and fantasy novels and decent sci-fi movies and lead the life of a wage slave normie boomer instead. RPGs with variety and room to roam set my soul free.
 
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Bethesda games should have you covered, Crispy !
Bethesda games are the exact opposite and exactly what the OP is arguing against.
Most 'open world' games are just one small area you can roam around in, compare this to a game that has many hubs spread out over diverse environments.
 

laclongquan

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It is not that critical if it can be often overlooked, yo~

KOTOR1/2 dont have that sense of open, that adventure feel you rave about~ It smell like it does but it doesnt. Teh designs of the area are spacious, not tight, but it is still a closed design, not open world.

OR BG2 (though not 1) Sure, everything is very open and you can wander on the map. But the sense of open should be less than Fallout 2 which is a one CD game compared to its 5 CD. Strangely enough my feel of Fallout 1 is quite tight and closed, unlike 2.

Planescape Torment is also not an open game in your sense. Its areas are large and spacious designed, yeah, but open? No. The Bird Cage is an approriate name and its design fit that nickname of Sigil.

Deus Ex, too, is not open. Wide and spacious, yeah.
 

Makabb

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Fallout 1/2 and Baldur's Gate do this adventure very well thanks to the overworld map, you feel like you are adventuring in a big world.
 

Reinhardt

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You don't even need big open world for adventure feeling. Japanese can grasp it pretty well sometimes. And sometimes they don't. But westerners lost this art at all. Even if they try all you can get is walled amusement park. If you are lucky.
 

SausageInYourFace

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Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit. Pathfinder: Wrath
I agree about the 'sense of adventure' but I am not sure about your criteria. You seem to equalize sense of adventure with a large open world with different areas and going by that criteria games like Kingdons of Amalur or Two Worlds 1 would have a great sense of adventure to them. A sense of adventure is something that is created by several different elements coming together, not just by offering an open world.
 

SausageInYourFace

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Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit. Pathfinder: Wrath
You don't even need big open world for adventure feeling. Japanese can grasp it pretty well sometimes.

I am not big on JRPGs but games like Dragon Quest 7, Grandia 1 or Skies of Arcadia immediately came to my mind when I read 'sense of adventure', so they are probably doing something right in that department.
 

King Crispy

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I agree about the 'sense of adventure' but I am not sure about your criteria. You seem to equalize sense of adventure with a large open world with different areas and going by that criteria games like Kingdons of Amalur or Two Worlds 1 would have a great sense of adventure to them. A sense of adventure is something that is created by several different elements coming together, not just by offering an open world.

If I over-emphasized physical size of the game world and merely having plenty of open space then I failed to make my point clearly enough. So point taken.

I think it has to be as you said, elements coming together that leave the player both wanting more and not knowing what to expect next. Having to travel large distances, whether via an actual large, open world or by way of an overland map as in BG is only one aspect of that.

Edit: "Openness", as I put it, was more meant to be a concept of not being restricted in movement nor future options/opportunities in the game. Maybe that's where I went sideways with my point.
 

V_K

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I don't think it's about openness or closeness per se, nor about the actual scale of the gameworld, but about the player's agency and content pacing. For example, Quest for Glory has a very small and tight gameworld, but it doesn't hold your hand and provides a well paced loop of finding new mysteries and solving old ones, which gives it a sense of adventure in spades. On the contrary, Serpent in the Staglands, which I'm trying to play for the fourth time now, is vast and open - but so empty and devoid of life that you lose any sense of purpose while going from one end of the map to another. With Gothic and DOS games, the problem is (for me at list) the mistmatching of presentation and underlying structure: they present themselves as being open, but are in fact very on-rails, which quickly makes you feel like you don't have any agency whatsoever.
 

Harthwain

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One excellent example of this, a classic, is Gothic. Now, Gothic may not be a small game, per se, but I think it's easy to agree that it's fairly well confined. Once you start to comprehend its general layout and areas and get a feel for its density, you realize you're never going to traveling to distant lands in it and will be restricted to generally the same kind of terrain and "look and feel" for its duration. That's not necessarily a bad thing, seeing as how Gothic is an all-time classic, but imagine if it were larger, had more distinct settings you could visit in it, and conveyed more of a sense of wonder and exploration.
"Conveyed more of a sense of wonder and exploration"?

G1 does great job at creating a world-within-a-world. The lack of "distant/diverse lands" makes sense from the fictional standpoint, while at the same time the size of the game world itself (what we are allowed to explore within it) is significant enough to not feel too confined. Distances aside, the game is entirely about exploring the world you find yourself in and your place in it. You have to learn a lot while playing the game and you do it empirically, which did add to the sense of wonder, at least in my opinion. While G2 doesn't have this sense of wonder (compared to G1) - as the game world becomes much more mundane, due to the barrier going down - it's still a world that you have to explore and navigate through, so I never really felt like there wasn't enough room for seeing something new/interesting/having an adventure.

Bethesda games should have you covered, Crispy !
Bethesda games are the exact opposite and exactly what the OP is arguing against.
Most 'open world' games are just one small area you can roam around in, compare this to a game that has many hubs spread out over diverse environments.
Morrowind does fit the bill, in my opinion.
 

Reinhardt

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I agree about the 'sense of adventure' but I am not sure about your criteria. You seem to equalize sense of adventure with a large open world with different areas and going by that criteria games like Kingdons of Amalur or Two Worlds 1 would have a great sense of adventure to them. A sense of adventure is something that is created by several different elements coming together, not just by offering an open world.

If I over-emphasized physical size of the game world and merely having plenty of open space then I failed to make my point clearly enough. So point taken.

I think it has to be as you said, elements coming together that leave the player both wanting more and not knowing what to expect next. Having to travel large distances, whether via an actual large, open world or by way of an overland map as in BG is only one aspect of that.
Just look at new bethesda games - it has big open world. but it's filled with same shit so there is never "adventure" feeling. Run draugr dungeon, sell loot, run another draugr dungeon, same as previous, sell loot. You will never experience something new.
 

Reinhardt

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I blame big numbers and fast leveling in modern games. If you run party of lvl 1-2 hobos everything is an adventure. Some mama bear protecting her cubs can end your party for good. That's why BG1>BG2.
 
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Lilura

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I like it when RPGs suddenly shift up a few gears (say, in difficulty or complexity), and the player discovered it through their own adventuring or exploration.
 

Reinhardt

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I think last time i had this "adventure feeling" in western game, at least at the start, was Lords of Xulima.
 

Reinhardt

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You can't even have proper lvl 1-2 party these days - you will always get some level ups during prologue or tutorial just to teach retards how to press +.
 

Harthwain

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You can't even have proper lvl 1-2 party these days - you will always get some level ups during prologue or tutorial just to teach retards how to press +.
If you want low-level character(s) you're better off making a roguelike, where staying alive is in itself a challenge (and you have gameplay to support that kind of playstyle). Otherwise you want to offer more tactical options, not less, and that's done usually by giving people more skills/spells.
 

Trashos

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I blame big numbers and fast leveling in modern games. If you run party of lvl 1-2 hobos everything is an adventure. Some mama bear protecting her cubs can end your party for good. That's why BG1>BG2.

BG2 does not have any problem ending your party in higher levels -it can do that in spades.

Low level tactics are fine as long as they are not RNG fests, which they usually are. If they are RNG fests, they are just taking advantage of your gambling problem, they do not offer anything of real value.
 

Generic-Giant-Spider

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A lot of it comes down to immersion brought on through atmosphere. Even if there's nothing there it's that possibility that you could uncover something that keeps it strong. On one hand you can say that BG1 has a lot of maps that don't have much in them and could probably be cut entirely without losing anything but at the same time you get to experience the sounds and visuals blending together to try and engage the player. The way the world is presented is important to this as well. A lot of "adventuring" these days comes down to finding an overpowered weapon or getting some super awesome item.

I'll say traveling in Kingdom Come: Deliverance both during day and night is one of the best cases for this, especially on a first playthrough. It doesn't have any fantasy elements going down but how convincing the world is and comes together makes you want to explore those forest hills or feel some worry/vulnerability when it is night and you can barely see in front of you.
 
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Lilura

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I blame big numbers and fast leveling in modern games. If you run party of lvl 1-2 hobos everything is an adventure. Some mama bear protecting her cubs can end your party for good. That's why BG1>BG2.

BG2 does not have any problem ending your party in higher levels -it can do that in spades.

Low level tactics are fine as long as they are not RNG fests, which they usually are. If they are RNG fests, they are just taking advantage of your gambling problem, they do not offer anything of real value.

Low level AD&D shits on high level AD&D. And one reason is because low level RNG destroys casuals who don't bother to learn how to increase their chances of success by learning rules and mechanics.
 

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