General RPG discussions Options

[SubRosa]

OMG, a Werebear Rampage!

Lol, that’s hilarious! I guess mine is a bit screwed up because of the crowfolk influence, because he tries to fight everybody in the party every time he turns.

Shouldn't he do very forceful mimes? Or impressions of the other party members?

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

OMG, a Werebear Rampage!

Lol, that’s hilarious! I guess mine is a bit screwed up because of the crowfolk influence, because he tries to fight everybody in the party every time he turns.

Shouldn't he do very forceful mimes? Or impressions of the other party members?

Lol, probably! The DM controls him when he turns until such time I’m able to pass a check to maintain control.

[SubRosa]

Kobolds!

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

Kobolds!

They’re super cute. I sometimes feel bad for slaughtering them.

[SubRosa]

Kobolds!

They’re super cute. I sometimes feel bad for slaughtering them.

Michael Shea did an anthology of his Cthulhu stories called the Demiurge. One of the stories is Nemo Me Impune Lacessit. It is a tongue in cheek homage to Cask of Amontidillo, with a lot of Mythos thrown in. The butler of the big bad guy is named Koboldus.

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

Kobolds!

They’re super cute. I sometimes feel bad for slaughtering them.

Michael Shea did an anthology of his Cthulhu stories called the Demiurge. One of the stories is Nemo Me Impune Lacessit. It is a tongue in cheek homage to Cask of Amontidillo, with a lot of Mythos thrown in. The butler of the big bad guy is named Koboldus.

Neat! I should read more.

[SubRosa]

D&D memes

[mirocu]

I wonder if Bioshock 1 and 2 qualifies as semi-RPG? They do have elements of it I think, like Deus Ex.


This is stuff I sometimes ponder over.

[Renee]

I never played any of those, mirocu. In general terms, they are all considered RPGs, although if I'm correct, we can't create our own characters, correct?

Kobolds!

They’re super cute. I sometimes feel bad for slaughtering them.

They are super-mean, though!

Did anybody else get involved with The Fantasy Trip? This was a table-game similar to Dungeons & Dragons, but its rule system was a lot more down-to-earth. Humanoid characters were more fragile and fallible. No humanoids with hundreds of hit-points, for instance. We used DnD to enhance TFT, because DnD had hundreds more characters and additional rules. But for our base game (the actual dice-rolls) we used Fantasy Trip.

We even made our own rules! I added Feudalism to our game after learning about it in high school. IN a way, this was the very first version of modding our game.

This post has been edited by Renee: Apr 2 2020, 07:07 PM

[mirocu]

I never played any of those, mirocu. In general terms, they are all considered RPGs, although if I'm correct, we can't create or own characters, correct?

No, that's where it fails to qualify. But one can develop the character we get in terms of what powers/abilities we want to focus on and thereby "create" a unique character, albeit in very limited ways.

[Renee]

Okay, so in those games there is character development, at least. Makes sense. I get it. There are also more profound consequences, as I understand. Every decision must be weighed. The endgame is always going to be different.

I have sometimes struggled with that very question though: what is an RPG? What constitutes the decision for some to say "well this game is not an RPG, but this one is?" And for me, it all started back in the old forums. Some people were saying "Oblivion is not a role-playing game", which sort of hurt my feelings because I'd put so much love into that game! I certainly thought I was playing some roles with my myriad assortment of characters. How dare they!

But it also made me think. Why would they come to this conclusion?

For a lot of Morrowinders especially, the answer is "there is more of a separation between player and character skill." A lot of features (such as repairing items, unlocking stuff, and even casting spells) are based on character skill, not the player's ability to be quick enough with those joysticks, or that mouse. To them, the definition seems to lie somewhere in this greater separation of toon versus player.

Well my definition is simpler: an RPG is a game in which the focus is playing a role in a game. Not the action. Not the quests. Not the adventures. Not even the dice-rolls. Or the classes. Or any of the numbers. All of those are incidental. Although I do consider all of those features to be essential toward making a good RPG, what exactly does this term boil down to?

It is game which allows us to play a role, in which the focus is playing a role (rather than THE role).

In other words, let's say the only thing we could do in any Elder Scrolls game (or Fallout) are the Main Quests. We can't explore. We can't make potions. No side quests. No guilds. No factions. Only the good guy or gal (which we play), the enemies, and occasional NPCs who help us further the Main Quests. We can't gaze at awesome sunsets. We can't strip our characters down and go for a swim. If this is all Bethesda allowed, without even the character progression noted in Bioshock or Dragon Age (I assume), well that to me would make Bethesda's games into Action/Adventures.

"Well, Tomb Raider does that. We play a role when we are with Lara Croft. Therefore by your definition, Tomb Raider is an RPG."

And to this I say, no, Tomb Raider is not an RPG. Not to me, anyway. And not to its devs, who mostly classify these games as action-adventures.

In any Elder Scrolls game, any table-game, and in some of the MMOs I've played, I was able to create my own character, but I was also able to do whatever I want with this character. Because doing what I want (or better yet, doing what the character wants) is the actual focus of the game. See? Not the quests, not the adventures.

I can make a character who goes picking flowers for instance (and I have!). All she does is pick flowers all day, that is what she wants to do, and best of all, the game supports this. Picking flowers, in this case, IS playing the game. Playing the game means playing a role. Role Playing Game. This character might someday do quests, but then again, she might not. She might get into fights and go on adventures, or she might not. Because to play the game does not mean to go an adventures, or b34t the g4m3. All of that is merely there, just in case somebody gets interested in doing them.

With Tomb Raider, sure, Lara Croft can go around looking at flowers and maybe go for a swim, however this is not what playing the game is really about. To play the game means to do the adventures. Solve the puzzles. Find the secrets. Otherwise, all there is left is standing around, crouching, shooting into thin air. Doing flips in mid-air.

But then there are JRPGs, in which most of them are considered roleplaying games by the general gaming public, yet their stories are very fixated and often linear. Though there are also some which offer lots of choices along the way, too. But I can't remember playing a JRPG in which I was allowed to create whomever I wanted. I really don't know. I will leave that one open. I've played some Final Fantasy, some Legends of Dragoon, etc. but I haven't really thought much about why they'd be considered RPGs, or not.


------

Gosh, I apologize for writing that novel. You all are talking about memes and quick-posting. I had to get that out of my system, I guess.

[SubRosa]

Did anybody else get involved with The Fantasy Trip? This was a table-game similar to Dungeons & Dragons, but its rule system was a lot more down-to-earth. Humanoid characters were more fragile and fallible. No humanoids with hundreds of hit-points, for instance. We used DnD to enhance TFT, because DnD had hundreds more characters and additional rules. But for our base game (the actual dice-rolls) we used Fantasy Trip.

We even made our own rules! I added Feudalism to our game after learning about it in high school. IN a way, this was the very first version of modding our game.

I vaguely remember The Fantasy Trip. I never played it though. I did have the Melee microgame it started from however.

Back in the day when I started gaming we did D&D, but like you guys, a heavily customized version. The entire magic system was overhauled into a mana point one, where you had a total mana or karma (for cleric spells), that was your level x Int (or Wis for Clerics). Each spell cost mana, and only when you were out of mana could you no longer cast spells. Pretty standard stuff in video games these days. But way beyond standard D&D.

I can see where you are going with your definition of an RPG. I agree with most of it. I think it is a murky subject at best though, and something subjective to every gamer.

I think a lot of people consider an RPG to be a game where you have skills or talents or powers, or whatever, that you have to choose from as you level up. Typically there are too many for one character to take them all. Where pure action games like Doom never bother with any of that. You just have stuff like guns or armor or powerups you pick up. A lot of times when people say a game has "RPG Elements" they mean it has a level system and multiple ways of building a character. A lot of action games tend to add in RPG-lite stuff like this. And a lot of RPG games tend to go more for the action, and a first person viewpoint. So the line between the two can be really blurry. I remember the old school RPG games were typically 3rd person isometric, often with an entire party, like the Baldur's Gate games. Or Kotor.

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

I would love to try a World of Darkness tabletop game. It’s not really my current social circle’s “thing” though, as they are nuts for D&D.

This post has been edited by TheCheshireKhajiit: Apr 2 2020, 07:48 PM

[Renee]

I really do apologize for that lengthy set of opinions yesterday. I had some time to kill. And it really did feel good to share that.

[RaderOfTheLostArk]

I really do apologize for that lengthy set of opinions yesterday. I had some time to kill. And it really did feel good to share that.

I've lambasted the "ObLiViOn/SkYrIm Is NoT aN rPg DURR!" people plenty in the past, and you all have probably heard my spiel before, so I won't go hard into it this time (or at least, I'll try not to). But I find that most people--at least the really vocal ones--that go out of their way to declare something as a "true" or "not a real" RPG just have dumb, absurdly arbitrary definitions of what an RPG is. It's their way of denigrating a game that somehow offends their existence because their identity is solely wrapped up in their video game tastes. And we should remember that (in the case of TES), their supposed golden standard of what a "true" RPG is, Morrowind, was also trashed as a "fake" RPG by some Daggerfall fans. It's just a bunch of nonsense.

Now, if you want to say, "This game does RPG mechanics poorly," or "This is not what I want in an RPG," or something along those lines, there's an actual discussion to be had there. But they are RPGs. Granted, sometimes things do get a bit murky, but pretty much every single time that cabal of people come out of the woodwork to declare something as "not a real RPG"...it actually is an RPG.

[SubRosa]

Khajiit Character Dump

[SubRosa]

Orcs and Half Orcs

[mirocu]

~sniperoo~

Very well written.

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

Orcs and Half Orcs

I’m not a huge fan of Orcs and Orckin, but these are really cool!

This post has been edited by TheCheshireKhajiit: Apr 5 2020, 02:24 PM

[SubRosa]

I think WoW really made Orcs mainstream. Though Warhammer certainly had a hand in it as well. I have liked Orcs since Shadowrun. I had an Ork rigger named Butch. His dog was Sundance.