sawyer wants rpg to evolve

[Glaucon]

If you want to take this subject seriously you should acknowledge that the conventions of the first PnP Rpgs are not some platonic ideal that will forever determine the direction of the entire genre. They haven't even determined the direction of PnP RPGs.

In other words, cRPGs are whatever people decide to call cRPGs and PnP RPGs is whatever people decide to call RPGs. This is not a discussion. This is just you assuming a subjectivist mindset to defend your prejudices. There is no point arguing about this.

A CRPG is not an arbitrary set of mechanics you've decided belong to CRPGs based on a "subjective" reading of the history of CRPGs, or of the origins of CRPGs.

 

[Glaucon]

I just mean to say stats are an easy way to represent human capacities that would more properly be expressed in terms actual gameplay but can't be because of the the huge cost of implement. A "stealth skill" or "blacksmithing skill" is easier to implement than actual (fun) gameplay attempting to reproduce some version of those activities--and reciprocity in terms of interaction with other skills, level design, etc. The amount choices RPGs want to offer you (the width of simulation) means those choices have to be abstract and mathematical--but for economic and logistical reasons. Not because this is really intrinsic to the RPG experience.

Newsflash, kid: VR hasn't gotten to the point where you can forge a sword yet, and even if it did, who the hell is going to want to go through the motions of actually forging a sword? Just roll the damned dice.

I'm not talking about what I would like to happen tomorrow to my favorite franchise. I'm describing what RPGs are, what they've already attempted to do and in what direction they're going (actually, all video games point to ever deeper and wider simulation, ie, an RPG). By "virtual reality" (did I use this phrase?) or simulation, I didn't specifically mean VR technology, though I should have pointed out the blockades are not just logistical and economical, but technological as well. I simply meant: to produce the illusion of experiencing something, in a convincing way to one degree or another.

Also, I'm not a game designer. They're the ones that have to figure out how to make blacksmithing fun.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

A CRPG is not an arbitrary set of mechanics you've decided belong to CRPGs based on a "subjective" reading of the history of CRPGs, or of the origins of CRPGs.

There is nothing subjective about it. Historically, RPGs allow the players to assume characters with a system that attempts to model their atributes and abilities (stats, skills), and cRPGs tried to implement this mindset into another medium. Just because you don't like having your options restricted by stats and skills, it doesn't mean that the genre would be better without those things, or that action games without those can be genuine cRPGs. Of course, you can argue that a developer can implement stats and skills in the background, but that's not good enough because building your own character is also an integral element of RPGs and should be of cRPGs.

 

[Glaucon]

A CRPG is not an arbitrary set of mechanics you've decided belong to CRPGs based on a "subjective" reading of the history of CRPGs, or of the origins of CRPGs.

There is nothing subjective about it. Historically, RPGs allow the players to assume characters with a system that attempts to model their atributes and abilities (stats, skills), and cRPGs tried to implement this mindset into another medium. Just because you don't like having your options restricted by stats and skills, it doesn't mean that the genre would be better without those things, or that action games without those can be genuine cRPGs. Of course, you can argue that a developer can implement stats and skills in the background, but that's not good enough because building your own character is also an integral element of RPGs and should be of cRPGs.

History isn't something that's behind us. We're in the midst of it and many, many RPG designers both in the video games and tabletop are (and have been) moving in a different direction. That's what I mean by "arbitrary", that you've decided certain mechanics are central to RPGs based on a narrow selection of earlier RPGs, without bothering to explain why that should the case, while ignoring the actual development of the genre and the views of actual designers, many of whom were involved in the making of those older classics.

And again, this isn't an issue of what I like. This is the direction all video games will go.

(Also, I didn't say action games are RPGs, I said they better simulate one aspect of what RPGs try to simulate.)

 

[Viata]

The goal of this quest is rather open: find blackmail material and/or scare the merchant into ceasing his crooked ways.

What about becoming the merchant's partner? That is not so open to me.

 

[Cael]

I'm not talking about what I would like to happen tomorrow to my favorite franchise. I'm describing what RPGs are, what they've already attempted to do and in what direction they're going (actually, all video games point to ever deeper and wider simulation, ie, an RPG). By "virtual reality" (did I use this phrase?) or simulation, I didn't specifically mean VR technology, though I should have pointed out the blockades are not just logistical and economical, but technological as well. I simply meant: to produce the illusion of experiencing something, in a convincing way to one degree or another.

Also, I'm not a game designer. They're the ones that have to figure out how to make blacksmithing fun.

Rank bullshit. If you don't have stats and everything has to be done by the player in a show of player skill, you will end up with a game that REQUIRES VR to work. How is clicking on a hammer show the player's skill in forming a blade?

As you are not a game designer, you are not concerned about how fun your product is and therefore how appealing it is to the target audience, which is why you come up with your vomitous shit.

 

[Glaucon]

I'm not talking about what I would like to happen tomorrow to my favorite franchise. I'm describing what RPGs are, what they've already attempted to do and in what direction they're going (actually, all video games point to ever deeper and wider simulation, ie, an RPG). By "virtual reality" (did I use this phrase?) or simulation, I didn't specifically mean VR technology, though I should have pointed out the blockades are not just logistical and economical, but technological as well. I simply meant: to produce the illusion of experiencing something, in a convincing way to one degree or another.

Also, I'm not a game designer. They're the ones that have to figure out how to make blacksmithing fun.

Rank bullshit. If you don't have stats and everything has to be done by the player in a show of player skill, you will end up with a game that REQUIRES VR to work. How is clicking on a hammer show the player's skill in forming a blade?

As you are not a game designer, you are not concerned about how fun your product is and therefore how appealing it is to the target audience, which is why you come up with your vomitous shit.

Nah, it's possible to create blacksmithing gameplay that wouldn't require VR and also isn't simply abstract object-creation through menus and skill checks, though it would probably be enhanced by VR. Also, you're getting very hung up on this detail. Blacksmithing was only an example.

Edit: Btw, who says an implementation of blacksmithing needs to challenge the player, in the sense of testing the player's reflex or motor skills?

 

[Cael]

I'm not talking about what I would like to happen tomorrow to my favorite franchise. I'm describing what RPGs are, what they've already attempted to do and in what direction they're going (actually, all video games point to ever deeper and wider simulation, ie, an RPG). By "virtual reality" (did I use this phrase?) or simulation, I didn't specifically mean VR technology, though I should have pointed out the blockades are not just logistical and economical, but technological as well. I simply meant: to produce the illusion of experiencing something, in a convincing way to one degree or another.

Also, I'm not a game designer. They're the ones that have to figure out how to make blacksmithing fun.

Rank bullshit. If you don't have stats and everything has to be done by the player in a show of player skill, you will end up with a game that REQUIRES VR to work. How is clicking on a hammer show the player's skill in forming a blade?

As you are not a game designer, you are not concerned about how fun your product is and therefore how appealing it is to the target audience, which is why you come up with your vomitous shit.

Nah, it's possible to create blacksmithing gameplay that wouldn't require VR and also isn't simply abstract object-creation through menus and skill checks, though it would probably be enhanced by VR. Also, you're getting very hung up on this detail. Blacksmithing was only an example.

Edit: Btw, who says an implementation of blacksmithing needs to challenge the player, in the sense of testing the player's reflex or motor skills?

If you are not challenging the guy behind the toon and you flatly reject using anything close to numbers to model how good the toon will be at blacksmithing, what are you doing, exactly, to calculate the pass/fail criteria of whether the attempt is successful?

 

[Glaucon]

I'm not talking about what I would like to happen tomorrow to my favorite franchise. I'm describing what RPGs are, what they've already attempted to do and in what direction they're going (actually, all video games point to ever deeper and wider simulation, ie, an RPG). By "virtual reality" (did I use this phrase?) or simulation, I didn't specifically mean VR technology, though I should have pointed out the blockades are not just logistical and economical, but technological as well. I simply meant: to produce the illusion of experiencing something, in a convincing way to one degree or another.

Also, I'm not a game designer. They're the ones that have to figure out how to make blacksmithing fun.

Rank bullshit. If you don't have stats and everything has to be done by the player in a show of player skill, you will end up with a game that REQUIRES VR to work. How is clicking on a hammer show the player's skill in forming a blade?

As you are not a game designer, you are not concerned about how fun your product is and therefore how appealing it is to the target audience, which is why you come up with your vomitous shit.

Nah, it's possible to create blacksmithing gameplay that wouldn't require VR and also isn't simply abstract object-creation through menus and skill checks, though it would probably be enhanced by VR. Also, you're getting very hung up on this detail. Blacksmithing was only an example.

Edit: Btw, who says an implementation of blacksmithing needs to challenge the player, in the sense of testing the player's reflex or motor skills?

If you are not challenging the guy behind the toon and you flatly reject using anything close to numbers to model how good the toon will be at blacksmithing, what are you doing, exactly, to calculate the pass/fail criteria of whether the attempt is successful?

I wonder how often blacksmiths rly "fail" at making whatever they're making? Maybe a interesting simulation of being a blacksmith wouldn't rly revolve around determining whether a specific object is successfully crafted? Anyways game are not about perfect simulation and, like you've said, I'm not a game designer. I'll just say that it doesn't seem relevant to me to make blacksmithing gameplay revolve around skill. In a way you already agree with this--stats exist (partially) for the purpose of abstracting from skill. But unfortunately stats also distract from the illusion of the game, and feel completely artificial and nonsensical. I should also say that I'm not against numerically quantifying characters. We're talking about software after all. But the centrality of numbers to role-playing is a convention that RPGs will inevitably move beyond (ie, it's possible to make numbers "invisible").

To make a more general point, not mechanic in a game needs be a game itself, meaning, challenging and "failable". To give an obvious example, no game i know of calculates a "trip check" against the "walking skill" whenever the player character walks to determine if they're going to trip and neither is walking implemented as kind of "challenging" minigame (except in that one flash game, I forget it's name).

 

[Sigourn]

Yeah, keep yapping retarded shit.

Not my problem you refuse to listen to the single element that makes my argument a sensical one. Yes, scale makes a difference: are you going to deny it? Are you going to say Obsidian letting you act like a retard in a handful of skill checks is remotely THE SAME as Fallout and Fallout 2 letting you play a retard for the entire duration of the game?

Do you honestly believe "innovation" only comes from ideas and not execution?

Particularly in AoD, amirite?

Why limit it to Age of Decadence when it is something that affects any videogame? What, you think killing an NPC in Junktown and have the entire city guard moronically hunt you down (so much for reactivity, bro) is on par with a developer scripting specific behavior and reactions towards the death of certain specific NPCs?

And I never said anything about scripted gameplay (which is most definitely NOT the same as scripted quests, as in "the developer expects you to tackle the quest in a very specific way without any choice"), but that wouldn't be the first time you put words I didn't say into my mouth.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Cael]

I'm not talking about what I would like to happen tomorrow to my favorite franchise. I'm describing what RPGs are, what they've already attempted to do and in what direction they're going (actually, all video games point to ever deeper and wider simulation, ie, an RPG). By "virtual reality" (did I use this phrase?) or simulation, I didn't specifically mean VR technology, though I should have pointed out the blockades are not just logistical and economical, but technological as well. I simply meant: to produce the illusion of experiencing something, in a convincing way to one degree or another.

Also, I'm not a game designer. They're the ones that have to figure out how to make blacksmithing fun.

Rank bullshit. If you don't have stats and everything has to be done by the player in a show of player skill, you will end up with a game that REQUIRES VR to work. How is clicking on a hammer show the player's skill in forming a blade?

As you are not a game designer, you are not concerned about how fun your product is and therefore how appealing it is to the target audience, which is why you come up with your vomitous shit.

Nah, it's possible to create blacksmithing gameplay that wouldn't require VR and also isn't simply abstract object-creation through menus and skill checks, though it would probably be enhanced by VR. Also, you're getting very hung up on this detail. Blacksmithing was only an example.

Edit: Btw, who says an implementation of blacksmithing needs to challenge the player, in the sense of testing the player's reflex or motor skills?

If you are not challenging the guy behind the toon and you flatly reject using anything close to numbers to model how good the toon will be at blacksmithing, what are you doing, exactly, to calculate the pass/fail criteria of whether the attempt is successful?

I wonder how often blacksmiths rly "fail" at making whatever they're making? Maybe a interesting simulation of being a blacksmith wouldn't rly revolve around determining whether a specific object is successfully crafted? Anyways game are not about perfect simulation and, like you've said, I'm not a game designer. I'll just say that it doesn't seem relevant to me to make blacksmithing gameplay revolve around skill. In a way you already agree with this--stats exist (partially) for the purpose of abstracting from skill. But unfortunately stats also distract from the illusion of the game, and feel completely artificial and nonsensical. I should also say that I'm not against numerically quantifying characters. We're talking about software after all. But the centrality of numbers to role-playing is a convention that RPGs will inevitably move beyond (ie, it's possible to make numbers "invisible").

To make a more general point, not mechanic in a game needs be a game itself, meaning, challenging and "failable". To give an obvious example, no game i know of calculates a "trip check" against the "walking skill" whenever the player character walks to determine if they're going to trip and neither is walking implemented as kind of "challenging" minigame (except in that one flash game, I forget it's name).

So, in other words, you want things to automatically succeed. No rolls, just the attempt is good enough and whatever it is you want happens.

Son, in real life, we call that "reading a novel". Now, if you are done spewing shit wherein people will automatically succeed in everything they attempt, please leave the thread to people who want to discuss gaming.

 

[Glaucon]

So, in other words, you want things to automatically succeed. No rolls, just the attempt is good enough and whatever it is you want happens.

Son, in real life, we call that "reading a novel". Now, if you are done spewing shit wherein people will automatically succeed in everything they attempt, please leave the thread to people who want to discuss gaming.

That's rly where this line of questioning was heading? lol.

 

[Cael]

So, in other words, you want things to automatically succeed. No rolls, just the attempt is good enough and whatever it is you want happens.

Son, in real life, we call that "reading a novel". Now, if you are done spewing shit wherein people will automatically succeed in everything they attempt, please leave the thread to people who want to discuss gaming.

That's rly where this line of questioning was heading? lol.

I had to make sure you are an utter imbecile and not just some troll. Turns out that you are.

 

[Glaucon]

So, in other words, you want things to automatically succeed. No rolls, just the attempt is good enough and whatever it is you want happens.

Son, in real life, we call that "reading a novel". Now, if you are done spewing shit wherein people will automatically succeed in everything they attempt, please leave the thread to people who want to discuss gaming.

That's rly where this line of questioning was heading? lol.

I had to make sure you are an utter imbecile and not just some troll. Turns out that you are.

A great deal of what exists in any game isn't gamefied, ie, exists for the sake of simulation (usually in addition to being useful to what is the central challenge of a game). This is obvious and noncontroversial.

 

[agentorange]

Can you fucktards consider just quoting the last fragment of your conversation, rather than the entire chain.

 

[Cael]

Can you fucktards consider just quoting the last fragment of your conversation, rather than the entire chain.

No.

Spoiler

Let's start another one.

 

[Elex]

Based on what Sawyer talked, and where he did that talk, I see that he made overture to potential investors

1. Bethesda mention is just an overture to the kind of return that investors want to get. Whatever else, their sale number is impressive and any businessman need that kind of hook to lure investors.

2. Innovation talk is just pure marketing room bullshit. Any fucking marketing dialog got innovation in as intro and epilogue. I put absolutely no strength in that kind of shit.

So conclusion: pure marketing pr tactic. You guys just get baited and hooked in. No idea about investor though.

Pretty much, but I got the impression that to get on the doorstep of big publishers is harder than ever. There is a strcuture in place, a well oiled machine that simply ignores traditional cRPGs. Obsidian got their chance early on but they blew it, either by releasing buggy games or simply because it is to damm hard to make connections in this business. Their sales are pocket change compared to the likes of Bethesda and that's all they care about.

it’s easy: just thell them you are devolping a battle royale game, nobody really know what a battle royale is but they know they bring money.

 

[Black Angel]

Probably gonna be tagged as old if this has been said before, but I just came to realize why Sawyer's talk about how RPGs shouldn't be defined by stats and system, and also Cain's talk about removing/replacing numbers from months ago, just came out as really odd.

Cain's work in Fallout 1 was definitely a stepping stone for bigger, better RPG, and it spawns Fallout 2. Yes, there are some few things wrong with Fallout 2, starting from disjointed and rather short development, to all the bugs they can't fix in time. But Fallout 1&2 came out during the days where its audience can appreciate it for what it is, and despite of coming out during the decline of PC gaming and the rise of console gaming, it still sells pretty well to attract the attention of Bethesda. And despite Arcanum coming out years later during the long fall of PC gaming, it and Fallout 1&2 came with a manual (!) so that means there's absolutely no complain about character creation being 'too/ridiculously complex' whatsoever at the time. Hence why I question from where Cain's thinking that Fallout's and Arcanum's character creation as being too complex came to be.
And then, we have Sawyer commenting on how 'RPGs shouldn't be defined by stats and system', and that 'RPG traditionalists are resistant to change', when the truth is RPGs has ALWAYS been defined by stats and system, and what he didn't seem to notice is that it's the stats and system that CAN be improved and expanded upon. That part about RPG traditionalists being resistant to change is also obnoxious, because
1. He made Pillars of Eternity and its DLCs. And if he really, REALLY think that traditionalists are being resistant to change, then why is he developing Pillars of Eternity 2 Deadfire?
2. If he only paid attention to how industry is going on the indie scene, he would know these 'traditionalists' he's referring to are looking forward to upcoming stuff like Disco Elysium, Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones, Copper Dreams etc etc, PRECISELY BECAUSE THOSE GAMES IN-DEVELOPMENT ARE TRYING COMPLETELY NEW THINGS!.
3. Instead, he referred to how the genre can evolve by pointing out to what Bethesda's done with The Elder Scrolls and Fallout series, when in truth it's actually how NOT to make RPGs.

So, yeah. I think that's why Cain's and Sawyer's talk came out as really, really strange. One can always analyze it in context to how the industry's been faring in the last 20 years, but that's not the case with all these indie-projects showing us what they're really doing all this time.

 

[Infinitron]

The word "traditionalists" is being used here with multiple definitions.

Traditionalists can mean Codexian neo-reactionary elites who are open to RPG innovation (but only the right kind of innovation of course, none of this popamole stuff!)

Traditionalists can also mean the masses of "normie" RPG players who more-or-less think "RPG=high fantasy tropes" and won't buy anything else.

 

[Roguey]

Don't need stats to role play as LARPing has shown us.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

Glaucon

The problem is that you are treating one central elements of role-playing as a pragmatic device instead of an integral aspect of gameplay. The use of skills and attributes to create your characters is not just one of the many uses, it’s essential to the type of experience involved. The creation of your character is already gameplay. You think it isn’t because you are relying too much in the literal meaning of the words at the expanse of the real thing. You can interpret a character without stats and call this a role-playing experience, but that’s a completely different thing, for the same reason that acting has nothing to do with RPGs. Your concession that stats and skills are “logistically and economically unavoidable” to “deep, meaningful gameplay” seems like a cop-out you had to resort with some discomfort because it can’t barely conceal the fact that they are essential to the genre.

You mention that we are in the middle of history, but that’s irrelevant to the issue because whatever it is the type of game that a RPG is, it won't change with time by the arbitrary decisions of PnP designers, in the same way that the nature of art or journalism can’t change with time by the arbitrary decisions of artists and journalists. The thing has an essence of its own. If you think any different is because you are assuming a corrosive institutionalism in which the nature of something is whatever its practitioners conventioned to be. When you think that way it’s obvious that it seems so natural to say that PnP RPGs are changing because you are packing a bunch of stuff that has the same label on it and throwing in the discussion, but that’s the wrong way of looking at things. cRPGs were conceived as attempts to implement one type of PnP experience, where stats and skills are essential to gameplay. Thinking that cRPGs mean something else because there are different PnP games that don’t follow this routine is shallow reasoning obsessed by etymology instead of paying attention to the realities of the gameplay you want to implement.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

Don't need stats to role play as LARPing has shown us.

Sure, because that's the meaning of role playing, right? I guess that Calculus course will have many small pebbles used on an abacus because that's what Calculus mean. It's such a great idea to rely on entymology to define concepts about RPGs even if we never to do this in any segment of our lives.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

Sigourn, no one, including you, describes the activity or nature of something based on the entymology of the words used to describe it. This is a basic and uncontroversial fact. I'm sorry that it goes against your prejudices about cRPGs, but you need to think a litle bit more before you rate other people's posts because the prosper in this discussion is you, not me.

 

[Sigourn]

Sigourn, no one, including you, describes the activity or nature of something based on the entymology of the words used to describe it. This is a basic and uncontroversial fact. I'm sorry that it goes against your prejudices about cRPGs, but you need to think a litle bit more before you rate other people's posts because the prosper in this discussion is you, not me.

I rated you "prosper" because of your lack of a sarcasm detector. It's obvious Roguey is just joking, and thinks otherwise (just like I do).