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You don't need level 2 to have a tiefling orgy. 5E ruleset is great.
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What's more important for an RPG: Char creation/customization or leveling up?
- Thread starter JarlFrank
- Start date
V_K
Arcane
You've shown an example where sticking to a certain gameplay style (e.g. fighting) would lock you out of other playstyles (e.g. diplomacy) down the line. Fundamentally, it would be the same as if your character had two skills, combat and diplomacy, that would increase through practice, and eventually diplomacy checks would become too high for a combat-focused character to pass. Your build locks you out of one option or another ("my reputations won't let me do this"), it just happens a bit later than at character creation. This is not what is being asked here; the choice is only between "customization without leveling" and "leveling without customization". Both are fringe cases, but that's the point - we are talking about fringe cases.
samuraigaiden
Arcane
How many games have customization without leveling? Seriously? MegaTraveller and...?
Morpheus Kitami
Liturgist
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They might be a minority, but they definitely exist. I can also think of Twilight 2000 Space: 1899 and Midwinter 2. Maybe someone should make a list...?
North Gibraltarian Dog
Savant
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First option it's more defining if replaced by specialization, so no simple diversity of options but also restrictions and advantages linked with those options and including also specialization during playthrough not only during character creation (wich I prefer anyway). Without specialization there is no crpg. This specialization has been implemented trough specific skills and attributes mostly and while some restrictions/advantages linked with characters background, "class", different actions, paths, factions, permanent changes in character condition as disease, curse, etc, can equally enrich the experience, those hardly replace skills. I always though in progression as totally linked with crpgs but actually it's in a secondary position. Probably even agency and exploration are more relevant than progression.
That definition and limitation level in crpgs to act in a virtual world trough characters specific contexts is what makes them include truly meaningful "role-playing" in a much more consistent and defining way than modern p&p (with their "imaginative" problem solving, creating the world with every action, dm rail-roading, narrative take over, etc) and of course the dramatic, professional acting/psychology sense of "role-playing" (loose definition of the character, pure vagueness and imagination, pretending). Crgps are the only offering some relevant and consequential role-playing.
Ps. Also crpgaddict is a larper.
That definition and limitation level in crpgs to act in a virtual world trough characters specific contexts is what makes them include truly meaningful "role-playing" in a much more consistent and defining way than modern p&p (with their "imaginative" problem solving, creating the world with every action, dm rail-roading, narrative take over, etc) and of course the dramatic, professional acting/psychology sense of "role-playing" (loose definition of the character, pure vagueness and imagination, pretending). Crgps are the only offering some relevant and consequential role-playing.
Ps. Also crpgaddict is a larper.
Last edited:
Darkzone
Arcane
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The only RPG that i don't know off is Midwinter 2 (do you mean perhaps Midgard ?), but all the other RPGs have a skill increasing system by XPs or something else.
MegaTraveller (Player Manual 1987) S.41 Chapter "Character Improvement" via ATs.
Twilight:2000 (1990) - S.138 "Skill Improvement via trade against XPs.
Space: 1889 (Backer Version 2014) - S.201-202 Skill increase by spending XPs.
Space: 1889 (Core Rulebook 1988) - S.49 "Rewards and Experience" with XPs spending to increase skill level.
Ontopoly
Disco Hitler
I guess it would depend on what you're actually doing on level up. If you're actually making a choice or impact on your character rather than random numbers going up like almost every jrpg. If you're telling me that uncontrolled level ups with random stat boosts is any more of an rpg than me choosing which stick to throw to my dog in my backyard then you're out of your mind.
Jigby
Augur
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I suspect he's talking about the CRPGs, not the pnp games.
samuraigaiden
Arcane
Sounds to me like none of the games mentioned have truly static characters as described in OP when presenting game A.
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Morpheus Kitami
Liturgist
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As Jigby pointed out, I am talking about the CRPGs. These 3/4 games have no character improvement, or at least so little character improvement that it might as well not exist.
Midwinter 2 might be better known as Midwinter: Flames of Freedom. Midwinter being a post-apocalyptic take on Lords of Midnight. Flames of Freedom, in contrast to its predecessors, has you create a character, quite in-depth for a 1990 action game. The game also alleges it has character improvement, but I never saw any and I played it for hours.
Bruma Hobo
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NEO Scavenger.
laclongquan
Arcane
They are two separate process, two different part of a game.
Char creation is more important because it's the very first part a gamer can play, with its length totally depend on dev to meddle. Some game this can be as long as two hours (IWD/BG series etc...) some game can be instant (UFO Afterlight etc...)
Levelup however relate to control pacing of the game, manipulating gamer's feeling, balance the power between character and their environmental hostility. Thus require much more indepth and tiny meddling, as illustrate by the patches from devs.
Char creation is more important because it's the very first part a gamer can play, with its length totally depend on dev to meddle. Some game this can be as long as two hours (IWD/BG series etc...) some game can be instant (UFO Afterlight etc...)
Levelup however relate to control pacing of the game, manipulating gamer's feeling, balance the power between character and their environmental hostility. Thus require much more indepth and tiny meddling, as illustrate by the patches from devs.
rusty_shackleford
Arcane
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No idea how you guys are drawing such a blank on this. Going by the strict definition in the OP and off the top of my head:
Outward
Age of Decadence
Terraria
Starbound
Harvest Moon and its derivatives(e.g., Stardew Valley)
Leveling is a holdover from tabletop RPGs where it made bookkeeping easier. Any game that shirks this in favor of continuous advancement is an example of a game without leveling by the OP definition.
And many older tabletop RPGs didn't have levels either e.g., Traveller, which is obviously why the MegaTraveller cRPG doesn't.
fantadomat
Arcane
Clearly both of those things lol. You can't have a good levelling without a good core customization. You need frequent and meaningful level ups,so the player could feel as achieving something and progressing. That is why old school D&D levelling was shit,you just pressed next and rolled dice for HP,pure shit.
What even is a concrete example of Game B? Even the most retarded JRPGs have at least a minuscule form of customization. I mean, even in Pokémon you can at least choose different moves for your characters.
V_K
Arcane
I've already posted one: Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse.
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- 3,517
If I had to choose, as per the given examples, I could do away with character creation.
The long term experience is more important for the overall fun factor than an initial choice, and character progression enhances that a great deal.
I don’t really care what the character looks like, so customization is also a non-issue whether or not it exists in the game.
The long term experience is more important for the overall fun factor than an initial choice, and character progression enhances that a great deal.
I don’t really care what the character looks like, so customization is also a non-issue whether or not it exists in the game.
Goldschmidt
Savant
You really are confused on the matter though. Path of Exile is an excellent example of the second type and there is a lot of customization when it comes to building your character.
Then... Path of Exile is not an excellent example of the second type. A game that doesn't have character creation but still lets you customize your character through level ups has nothing to do with what the OP describes as Game B.
What?
Path of Exile doesn't give you fixed level-up bonuses with no choice.
It gives you a point you can invest in a huge sprawling skilltree and you can even branch out into the skills of other classes rather than sticking to your own. This is absolutely NOT what I was talking about with Game B.
There's also Defender of Boston, which CRPG Addict covered recently. It's a game I like quite a lot for its cool concept but I never played through it entirely due to the cumbersome interface.
The Addict did play through it entirely and confirmed that your stats never go up. But the game does have a very in-depth character creation.
Is this post satire? I honestly can't tell anymore. Doesn't want to think about build or read any information about builds, but wants to play on hardest difficulty? I bet you loved PF: Kingmaker. I have more fun planning and creating characters in that than actually playing the game.
You can have games where you need no previous knowledge on how stats and builds work without sacrificing complexity. The trick is exactly what Zibniyat said: make it simple at the start and then progressively more complex and difficult. This way you can learn how mechanics work while actually playing the game. I think a great recent example is Troubleshooter: you can skip all the tutorials and simply learn everything by playing. It will take a bit of time, but at least you will have fun while doing it.
With (pre-5E) D&D videogames it's not that easy, but you can probably still do it through clear informative combat logs and respeccing options. But maybe with D&D videogames it's probably not that important, since in 2021 you can reasonably expect players to already know how most of the game mechanics work (unless you are throwing at them truly esoteric stuff like... I'm almost scared of saying it... spider swarms).
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