Operencia: The Stolen Sun - turn-based blobber by Hungarian pinball devs

[Butter]

It's really simple.

"I did not play that otherwise good game because there is no party creation" is certified autists who play games because they like to masturbate to numbers.
"I played this great adventure even though I could not customize my party" is people who actually enjoy a game as a whole and like exploring and adventuring and don't touch themselves over builds and synergies and numbers.

Listen faggot, it's not an RPG if you don't get to build your own character. Next time you DM a PnP session tell your players they have to be characters you've created instead of their own and see how they like it.

 

[Curratum]

It's really simple.

"I did not play that otherwise good game because there is no party creation" is certified autists who play games because they like to masturbate to numbers.
"I played this great adventure even though I could not customize my party" is people who actually enjoy a game as a whole and like exploring and adventuring and don't touch themselves over builds and synergies and numbers.

Listen faggot, it's not an RPG if you don't get to build your own character. Next time you DM a PnP session tell your players they have to be characters you've created instead of their own and see how they like it.

Imagine comparing tabletop with PC games! Then again, I shouldn't have expected any better from some braindead internet tough guy who starts their posts with "Listen faggot" and then just spouts demonstrably incorrect bullshit.

 

[Butter]

It's really simple.

"I did not play that otherwise good game because there is no party creation" is certified autists who play games because they like to masturbate to numbers.
"I played this great adventure even though I could not customize my party" is people who actually enjoy a game as a whole and like exploring and adventuring and don't touch themselves over builds and synergies and numbers.

Listen faggot, it's not an RPG if you don't get to build your own character. Next time you DM a PnP session tell your players they have to be characters you've created instead of their own and see how they like it.

Imagine comparing tabletop with PC games! Then again, I shouldn't have expected any better from some braindead internet tough guy who starts their posts with "Listen faggot" and then just spouts demonstrably incorrect bullshit.

Yeah, imagine comparing CRPGs with PNP RPGs. Fucking madness eh. Any more decline you want to share with the class? Maybe RPGs need more unskippable cutscenes?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I remember that time I was playing a tabletop RPG and instead of just making my character I also made everyone else's character, and played for them too.

 

[CryptRat]

There are no other players, the player creating and controlling multiple characters is exactly what we did when we were children and only two people, the DM controlling party characters is worse.

 

[Ranarama]

Next time you DM a PnP session tell your players they have to be characters you've created instead of their own and see how they like it.

You are aware this is a thing that happens?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

There are no other players, the player creating and controlling multiple characters is exactly what we did when we were children and only two people, the DM controlling party characters is worse.

You realize the other characters in your party are supposed to represent other players, yes?
Exactly what are you roleplaying as when you are the entire party?

 

[Butter]

Next time you DM a PnP session tell your players they have to be characters you've created instead of their own and see how they like it.

You are aware this is a thing that happens?

Sounds pretty fuckin terrible.

 

[CryptRat]

You realize the other characters in your party are supposed to represent other players, yes?

It's more complicated.

First, that's not even true in most cases. There's no way in hell that the characters in Mass Effect or Mars : Wars Log are meant to represent characters played by different players. It's one PC, his quest, his moods, and AI characters which are meant to interact with him. Romanceable companions are the worst, there's a reason why "many" people have problems with Anna and Fall-From-Grace but not with Deinonarra, and relationship interactions are the worst too, but that does not mean other interactions are good representations between the players. The intention of the devs was never to simulate a party of players in those games, not more than in a modern Final Fantasy game. Now, if you'd tell me the approach of Fallout or Arcanum is a bit different, yes it is, something about the party being a little less centered around the only PC in some ways. Only it's some ways, it's hard to deny that the plot is the resolution of the PC's very own problems, you don't gather the party at a tavern in the beginning of the game but rather have to work to get some characters inside the party. Only the player and his character solves quests and take decisions, at most companions help with solving the quests the player chooses to solve and influence the decisions the player's character eventually takes, it is still far from multiple players playing the game.

Secondly, it's fun to chat about decisions with other players, it's fun to play with other players taking their own decisions, and I mean even watching them play while your character is inconscient is fun. There's absolutely no fun to me in watching the computer playing against itself. Once again, I'm the only player, so I want to take all the decisions from the players' side, not relegating decisions to characters not controlled by players.



Note that I don't know how I would feel about playing the mess which would be Divinity : Original Sin 2 with three other characters controlled by an AI instead of three other players. It would be absolutely nothing like solo Baldur's Gate or Fallout, they'd solve quest, take decisions themselves after or not after asking for your opinion, gain some combat alone and join you for others, and, well it's D:OS2 we're talking about which is a bit unique but more generally what I have in mind is really not a competition, I mean the party is working through a same journey and in some way towards a same goal but not always altogether. I'm really not saying it would accurately represents a table of players playing a tabletop RPG either, where the party is generally altogether, take most decisions altogether, but in some way it would represent other players playing the game. Maybe there's some game which's already doing that, by the way, but I am not aware. I probably would not like it much, to me CRPGs is the genre where the player controls a party he creates at the beginning of the game, and my party and AI-controlled competing parties is the best but it could make for a different video game experiment.

Exactly what are you roleplaying as when you are the entire party?

It's an oriented and complex question. I mean when it comes to video game "playing as" is really not particularly a CRPG thing. Now when it comes to tabletop, how important the "playing as" part is depends on the players. For many players the characterization of the character and what comes with it especially in the theatrical part (as opposed to the dice rolling one) is the most important part of tabletop RPGs, and for more than some of them also in CRPGs. There are often some limits, in Live Action RPG I don't know, never did that, but during tabletop my sessions were never about the elf saying some elf thing, the dwarf saying some dwarf thing, etc... whenever something happens. Then, to me, it's not that important. I don't think too much about it, it's more that if I'm playing as the guy who's good at lockpicking then I'll pick lock. Nothing which really requires you to "play as" one character, so clicking the character who's good at lockpicking to pick the lock and clicking on the mage to cast fireballs is all I need when it comes to simulating role playing. Note, finally, that I've not played Storm Of Zehir where it's supposed to originally come from, but I've played The Hearkenwold and I really like reading the dialogs specific to the different characters in my party and pick the coolest one.

 

[Dorateen]

I would also add that Wizardry 8 famously allowed player created characters to have a "personality". But regardless, developer manufactured companions are in no ways a stand in for player generated characters. There is a place for NPCs in the game world who can join the player's party. That is why the distinction exists in the first place: Non-Player Character.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Only it's some ways, it's hard to deny that the plot is the resolution of the PC's very own problems, you don't gather the party at a tavern in the beginning of the game but rather have to work to get some characters inside the party.

So?
If someone joins your tabletop game late how does that change things?

Only the player and his character solves quests and take decisions, at most companions help with solving the quests the player chooses to solve and influence the decisions the player's character eventually takes,

This is false. Plenty of RPGs have quests that change depending on who is traveling with you due to their decisions. Simply because you aren't choosing their decisions does not mean they aren't happening or influencing the story(possibly in ways you aren't yet realizing due to them being their own character.) Avellone's works in particular are good examples of this.

It's so strange that people on a forum about RPGs see characters in a story as a non-entity bag of stats and skills rather than a character just like your in-universe character.

 

[V_K]

characters in a story

And that's were you're wrong. Games aren't stories.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I'm starting to think blobbers belong to a different genre than RPG just like wargaming isn't the same as a pnp RPG.

 

[CryptRat]

What does it have to do with blobbers?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

What does it have to do with blobbers?

There is a direct correlation between people who love blobbers and people who just play these games to see big numbers.

 

[CryptRat]

Most of the best RPGs use small numbers.

 

[Butter]

Let me try to explain my thoughts regarding blobbers, other party-based CRPGs, and PnP RPGs.

Wizardry and Fallout are so far removed from each other, it's a wonder they can both be called RPGs. Wizardry typifies the blobber experience: it's all about dungeon-crawling, exploration, and combat. Fallout typifies the larping experience (and I don't mean that as a pejorative): you're expected to actually create a character and act out the story according to that character's personality. Fallout doesn't have dungeon-crawling, and Wizardry doesn't have dialogue trees, and both games are better for these exclusions.

With that in mind, the way these two games handle party members is naturally very different. You don't get to create your companions in Fallout, and you don't even get to directly control them. It's like being in a PnP group in the sense that you have full control over one character, but you're also at the mercy of whatever your friends are doing with their characters.

You create all the characters in Wizardry, and you have full control over them. One could perhaps argue that party members in this and other blobbers don't really function as separate characters, but rather as aspects of a single character. You can't scout ahead with your thief like in BG, nor can you engage the party members in conversations (beyond the banter of Wizardry 8). I'm stretching a little bit here, but Wizardry is closer to a single-character RPG than Fallout is for this reason. And if that's the case, I want full control over the building of that character.

Naturally CRPGs aren't neatly divided into "full party creation and control" and "recruitable uncontrollable companions". M&M3 and Grimoire both allow you to recruit companions that you meet in the world, but once they're in your party, they're just another part of the blob; you can't isolate them or have conversations with them from that point. Baldur's Gate has recruitable companions that you can full control, but you can also isolate them for tactical reasons and have full conversations with them. Icewind Dale allows you to isolate party members for tactical reasons, but there are no meaningful conversations between party members, and you don't recruit anybody.

Ultimately what I think I'm getting at is that CRPGs fall along a spectrum between "mechanics are the most important thing" and "story is the most important thing". Blobbers almost exclusively reside at the mechanics side of that spectrum, and that's where I want them. Premade characters and story are a very low priority for me compared to dungeon-crawling, combat, exploration, and yes, party creation.

 

[V_K]

Actually, if we're talking about NPCs having agency of their own, two games that do that best are in fact blobbers. In Ishar games, recruited party memebers can do things like rob the rest of the party while they sleep and disappear, assassinate other party members, or outvote the player on inviting or kicking out party members. On the other hand, in Wizardry 7 you fully control all your party members - but there's a number of competing other parties who will go to dungeons and liberate mcguffins for themselves if you're too slow. Both do that in a systemic way without scripted "companion quests" and other storyfag bullshit.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

a blobber is just a jrpg with full party creation

 

[V_K]

Blobbers don't have interminable cutscenes, preset protagonists, linear plots and plot-gated areas, romances and other emoshunal bullshit - unlike both JRPGs and storyfag WRPGs which have all of the above and are defined by all of the above.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Blobbers don't have interminable cutscenes, preset protagonists, linear plots and plot-gated areas, romances and other emoshunal bullshit - unlike both JRPGs and storyfag WRPGs which have all of the above and are defined by all of the above.

have you played any recently made blobbers?

 

[V_K]

Yes, the good/decent ones - Grimrocks, Xulima, MMX, 7 Mages, Sword & Sorcery: Underworld. Not a cutscene in sight.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

a blobber is just a jrpg with full party creation

The JRPG subgenre is characterized by a diminution of RPG characteristics in favor of narrative with pre-generated characters and copious cutscenes.
Blobbers, whether turn-based Wizardry-likes or real-time Dungeon Master-likes, are nearly the polar opposite in generally having characters that are mere ciphers, few if any cutscenes, and no narrative beyond what emerges during the course of gameplay.

 

[newtmonkey]

Anyone have any hints for the spawners in Deva Fortress?
[EDIT] Never mind, I had missed some powerful weapon upgrades.

---

I'm not sure I understand how ability scores work in this game. It seems strength and agility just affect your accuracy with melee/ranged weapons? Does pumping these stats really do anything?

 

[cvv]

I pity people who impose retarded artificial limits on themselves like "not gonna play this gaem if I can't create my own party, no matter how good it is".

It's like me saying "not watching any action movies without car chases, no matter how fun they are".

Just...why.