I like oblivion and skyrim as much as I like baldur's gate!
Japanese rpg are still RPG, just because they don't fit someone's preconceived notion of what a RPG should be, doesn't make it not a rpg or a bad rpg.
Technically every game that has a story with a classical 3 act structure is a rpg, you're taking and playing the role of that character no different than how a actor is playing the role of a character or a larper becomes another character.
Compared to BG1 and BG2, Siege of Dragonspear has stronger writing, better characterization, more interesting questlines, higher-quality sound and music, more complex and balanced gameplay, a more immersive environment, and better dungeon and game design.
Beamdog has improved on the original games, both in the Enhanced Edition versions as well as its own title.
Japanese rpg are still RPG, just because they don't fit someone's preconceived notion of what a RPG should be, doesn't make it not a rpg or a bad rpg.
Technically every game that has a story with a classical 3 act structure is a rpg, you're taking and playing the role of that character no different than how a actor is playing the role of a character or a larper becomes another character.
JRPGs are RPGs, gameplay-wise but there's no roleplaying involved. You're basically following the story with premade characters that have premade choices and outcomes.
Not sure if I understood you correctly but just because taking and playing the role of that character doesn't make that game an RPG.
In LARPing, if you are given a specific character, with a specific personality, with specific dialogue that you have no choice to change, that's not LARPing, that's acting. That's the definition of acting.
For something to be called RPG it needs to involve player choice. You choose your role, you choose your lines, you choose your character's personality and you choose their actions.
Following a premade script to the letter is not roleplaying, it's acting. And roleplaying, as we know it today, has been defined by DnD in the 70s. And since then, it has been all about making choices from the beginning, to the end.
An FPS where you control a soldier is just playing, not roleplaying. You're following the game's character and script.
In roleplaying, the person adapts the character as they wish. In acting, the person adapts to the character as the script wishes.
Actors aren't called "roleplayers" also just because they play a scripted role.
@Archaos That definition has expanded these days. Experience, and level progression gets labelled as rpg. I would counter your Larp argument, as roleplaying is basically freeform acting. Even if you are given a role, you choose how to act in that role, as you play. roleplay, if you will.
Japanese rpg are still RPG, just because they don't fit someone's preconceived notion of what a RPG should be, doesn't make it not a rpg or a bad rpg.
Technically every game that has a story with a classical 3 act structure is a rpg, you're taking and playing the role of that character no different than how a actor is playing the role of a character or a larper becomes another character.
JRPGs are RPGs, gameplay-wise but there's no roleplaying involved. You're basically following the story with premade characters that have premade choices and outcomes.
It's borderline. You at least can customise stats and which class you focus on, and you have a lot of options to express personality in dialogue. So you can play it through multiple times with very different experiences for the main character.
Baldur's Gate is pretty borderline too. You have no choice over your parentage, over the fact Imoen is your beloved sister-figure, over the fact you've been living in Candlekeep for 20 years, and over most plot progression from there. You could write a pretty lengthy summary of charname's actions that would sound like a book synopsis and does not include a single event that can be changed by charname's actions in-game. Even the things you can change are often fairly minor (either you kill X and are arrested for it, or someone else kills X and you are arrested for it).
Much of the freedom (aside from dialogue choices) is freedom of NPC association and sidequests, when it comes right down to it. And then you run into the tricky fact that all of those elements are present in, say, FFVII. To a lesser degree, sure, but then the difference starts looking like degree rather than kind.
Baldur's Gate is not an RPG. It's an adventure game with tactical combat. Some MUDs and MMORPGs can be called RPGs, but as far as I know, there are no single-player computer games that support actual role-playing. AI is still not advanced enough to improvise when the player does something unexpected.
The real world can be understood as an RPG where we play ourselves in our actual surroundings. We didn't choose our characters, but we can definitely make choices that affect our future. Role-playing simply means playing as somebody else and/or in another setting.
There is no clear difference between improvisational theatre and certain forms of role-playing. We could try to draw a line based on player/actor intent. If you're playing primarily for an audience, you're probably acting. If you're playing for the other participants, you're probably in an RPG.
Baldur's Gate is not an RPG. It's an adventure game with tactical combat. Some MUDs and MMORPGs can be called RPGs, but as far as I know, there are no single-player computer games that support actual role-playing.
Such words have broken my heart to the point of no return. I think I'll devote nyself to Shar from now on...
Just because it's not completely open to every single choice, doesn't mean that it's not an RPG. There are RPGs with more choices out there, but no video game can be truly free like a PnP session, when you have unlimited choices (unless the DM railroads you).
Baldur's Gate is not an adventure game by any means. It has RPG gameplay, it has choices on how you play your character, you're free to make the character you want and you have relatively freedom to go where you want most of the time, kill/steal/help anyone you want and interact with your companions in any way you want.
Just because you were raised in Candlekeep 20 years ago, doesn't mean that you don't get to choose who you are and raised to be, how you were raised and what you did those 20 years.
If there's a genre that can be called an adventure game with RPG mechanics, those are JRPGs. You're following the story, you have minimal choices to do anything usually and you're usually the noble hero, instead of having the personality you want.
In most JRPGs, you're on railroads. The character's personality, appearance and abilities have been usually chosen for you and you get no say in what the characters say. Very rarely would you have a real choice in a JRPG.
In short, you're not roleplaying the character you want. You're using RPG mechanics for the premade heroes and choices to unfold with you having no choice in the matter.
As for your definition of roleplaying, playing as someone else is also acting as well as roleplaying. The difference between the two is how you do that. If you follow a script that has a premade character with premade lines in premade places, that's acting. If you get to choose the character you play and you get to choose what he says and where he wants to be, that's roleplaying.
And yes, improvisational theatre could be considered roleplaying. If you get to choose who your character is, instead of just using your own lines, for a premade character.
And still, even if your general background has been chosen for you, you still get to make your character with their own personality, their own skills, name, choices, who to take, who to kill, who to help.
Consequences for your actions are a bonus to good roleplaying design but it's not necessary. Even if all the paths lead to the same destination, you still have choices on how to get there and who your character is when getting there.
Just because a villain might escape anyway, doesn't mean that how you confront them, what you tell them and what path you took to get there is irrelevant. You were still given choices and you roleplayed based on those choices and who your character is. Instead of always being the same "warrior" hero with the same personality that always said the same thing each time they confronted them.
TL;DR: Getting to choose who your character is, what they say and what they do, is crucial and the classic definition of roleplaying. Otherwise, you're just along for the ride, not to roleplay.
I've heard that open sandbox games don't do very well in Japan specifically because Japanese players prefer more structure in their games. They want to have some idea of what they're supposed to be doing, what the game is actually about. Hence the railroading in JRPGs.
Western gamers prefer more freedom of movement and dislike being railroaded. Hence Western RPGs' relative nonlinearity. They want to make their own adventure, even if it's just running around catching butterflies and collecting flowers in Skyrim.
Personally, I like JRPGs. Despite their almost universal lack of choices, I like them for the reasons you described. JRPGs usually have unique characters, with unique creatures, with unique settings and unique plots.
While you're basically railroaded and it's like reading a book when it comes to roleplaying choices, there's some originally and uniqueness in it.
This is most likely the fault of DnD itself, since it paved the way and established what a classic RPG looks like (medieval-like with elves, dwarves and dragons) with classes that you see everywhere now (Druids, Paladins, Thieves/Rogues, Monks) and familiar stats (Strength, Dexterity/Agility, Constitution/Stamina, magic stats).
Personally, I can appreciate JRPGs for what they are. I don't expect to have choices with consequences, but the experience will most likely be unique and original with unique and memorable characters and scripted events that have impact on the story.
I play western RPGs for the choices I can make and characters I can create. I play JRPGs for the story and characters (like reading a book) and enjoying the railroaded ride.
Just because it's not completely open to every single choice, doesn't mean that it's not an RPG. There are RPGs with more choices out there, but no video game can be truly free like a PnP session, when you have unlimited choices (unless the DM railroads you).
Scripted encounters are the main reason I call CRPGs adventure games. As long as you stay within the simulational part of the game, you can try whatever is allowed by the game mechanics, and the environment reacts to the choices you make. Once you start interacting with other characters, the game can no longer sustain the simulation, and it has to resort to scripted behavior. Because you're following a predetermined narrative, the game is closer to adventure games than role-playing.
In general, the less emphasis a CRPG places on scripted encounters, predetermined plot, and complex character interactions, the better it can support actual role-playing. Open-world games such as Skyrim are already quite close to being "real" RPGs, as long as the player is willing to play within the constraints of the system.
Baldur's Gate is not an adventure game by any means. It has RPG gameplay, it has choices on how you play your character, you're free to make the character you want and you have relatively freedom to go where you want most of the time, kill/steal/help anyone you want and interact with your companions in any way you want.
The gameplay you call RPG gameplay is neither specific to RPGs nor necessary for them. It originally came from miniature wargaming, and these days similar gameplay elements are used in all kinds of games.
And yes, improvisational theatre could be considered roleplaying. If you get to choose who your character is, instead of just using your own lines, for a premade character.
Role-playing is about playing a role. It doesn't matter whether you chose the role yourself or somebody else chose it for you.
Consider the Nordic-style larps, for example. The GMs give you a prewritten character, game mechanics are minimal or non-existent, and the emphasis is usually on character immersion, but the games are definitely role-playing games.
And why "definitely"? Because the Nordic larp community has a habit of bringing RPG designers from all around the world together to share ideas and to try different playstyles. As the designers share ideas, they also shape the definition of role-playing to encompass the vastly different playstyles from around the world.
Okay, here's another attempt at a few unpopular opinions. Some of these can't miss
The IWD2 3E game engine is better than the BG2EE game engine . In fact Beamdog should immediately starting porting the BG1EE, SoD and BG2EE games over to the IWD2 game engine.
ToEE D&D 3.5E with the CO8 game pack is one of the best D&D crpg games around. The ToEE game engine has a great implementation of D&D turn-based game play. After porting all the Infinity games to the IWD2 game engine, Beamdog should then immediately port all Infinity games over to the ToEE game engine.
Oblivion is better than Skyrim. Once the BG1EE, SoD and BG2EE ports to the IWD2 and ToEE engines are complete, Beamdog should then immediately port the whole trilogy to the Oblivion game engine.
Oh yeah, and to repeat some other unpopular opinions: BG1 EE or otherwise is really boring. BG2 ToB is almost as boring. The Underdark is loathsome until you are in the Underdark, then things start to pick up again.
It's fun to suck down potions of pick pocketing and sell Rogue Stones over and over again until you have well over 200K gold and can by any item in the game. It's fun to buy or steal every useful potion and scroll in the game and all of those powerful items from the bonus merchants. It's fun... that is until it's not.
The shield of Balduran is a perfectly valid item to use if you don't feel like a long drawn out battle against Beholders.
Wasn't sure if joking or serious (pretty late) since some people seriously suggested that BG should be remade in Skyrim's engine and other similar ones.
I'm going to assume this is a joke. For the sake of my sanity.
Oblivion was awesome! It's just that Skyrim was awesomer.
Skyrim was a piss poor game, the writing was mediocre at best, they didn't have nearly enough voice actors, it was a huge broken bugfest, when the vanilla pc version was released the textures the game used were downright unacceptably poor in both quality and resolution.
The main characters of the game were unmemorable and the boss battles were trash. Fighting Alduin with a fully build character was a joke.
Also don't forget that fighting a dragon in that game was less a actual fighting a giant fire breathing serpent and more like putting a retarded, three legged poodle out of it's misery. The A.I was just so so bad.
It only became a worthwhile game to play because of it's amazing modding community. They fixed bugs, textures, gave us weapons, armour and quests. They gave me reasons to play that game.
One of main gripes with the game is it was suppose have choices right but that's not really that true. If there are three factions shouldn't I be able to pick any or non of them to help out? This problem is most prevalent in any dealings with the Aldmeri Dominion, why could I never take their side? I'm suppose to help the stormcloaks or that failing human empire? Why would my elven character do either? Help a bunch of bigoted Nords or fake Romans, yeah I think I'll pass.
@Archaos - I'm half joking. Wes Weimer of Weidu fame tried to automagically port BG2 to the IWD2 engine (Icewind Gate II: http://weidu.org/iwg2/) but he ran into a lot of fundamental problems some of which had to do with joinable NPCs.
Based on this work I tried porting IWD1 to the IWD2 engine (IWD2Tutu) thinking this would be a less ambitious task. I was wrong - it was too hard. But I still really like the IWD2 engine - but maybe I like the ToEE engine better...
@SmilingSword Why plays TES games for their story? I figured most people were like me and loved the series because they let us just break the -beep- out of it!
TES particularly Oblivion and Skyrim are flawed, yes, but I enjoy them for the freedom their world allows - the fact that you play a character with little predetermined background or identity makes it a role playing gem in my opinion, while still having some semblance of a narrative. Admittedly I actually enjoyed Oblivion more than Skyrim, and slightly more than Morrowind as well for reasons unrelated to storyline but I think they are great for that aspect alone.
I agree with you on principle but unfortunately Skyrim is a bit light on the whole "freedom" thing. You can explore whatever you want but unless it's part of a quest (and therefore inaccessible outside of said quest thanks to changing landscape and unpickable doors) there's little point in doing so. You can tackle whatever quest you want, but you rarely have more than one way to solve them and even if you refuse the quest, the game pretends you accepted.
More importantly, the gameplay itself has been quite sanizited. The complete freedom given with the old spellmaking, alchemy and enchanting is gone in the name of balance, and at the same time the game introduces smithing, which breaks the game even more easily than before, as it replaces inventiveness with grinding.
More importantly, the gameplay itself has been quite sanizited. The complete freedom given with the old spellmaking, alchemy and enchanting is gone in the name of balance, and at the same time the game introduces smithing, which breaks the game even more easily than before, as it replaces inventiveness with grinding.
Love the series, but this is my biggest gripe. Making irresponsibly broken spells was half the fun of Morrowind, and if they're imbalanced, who cares? It's a single player game. Let us mess around.
Bringing things back to BG, I guess my unpopular opinion goes the other way: I would much rather have a nerfed character than an obsessively planned, "ideal" one. The constant obsession over stat distributions, shorty saves, and dual class levels is weird to me; it's a single player, non-competitive game, and I'd much rather have an interesting, weak character than a statistically perfect one.
I have never dual wielded FoA with anything, not have I given a UAI thief Carsomyr - it just feels silly to me. People who go that route are probably having a blast, and that's awesome. But we see a lot of threads where people act like that's the only way to play, and I don't see much of a difference between meticulously metagaming one's character build and just EEKeepering for perfect stats.
Comments
Hey, I just want to be able to play an authentic bard, mkay?
Japanese rpg are still RPG, just because they don't fit someone's preconceived notion of what a RPG should be, doesn't make it not a rpg or a bad rpg.
Technically every game that has a story with a classical 3 act structure is a rpg, you're taking and playing the role of that character no different than how a actor is playing the role of a character or a larper becomes another character.
You can hate me now.
Beamdog has improved on the original games, both in the Enhanced Edition versions as well as its own title.
Not sure if I understood you correctly but just because taking and playing the role of that character doesn't make that game an RPG.
In LARPing, if you are given a specific character, with a specific personality, with specific dialogue that you have no choice to change, that's not LARPing, that's acting. That's the definition of acting.
For something to be called RPG it needs to involve player choice. You choose your role, you choose your lines, you choose your character's personality and you choose their actions.
Following a premade script to the letter is not roleplaying, it's acting.
And roleplaying, as we know it today, has been defined by DnD in the 70s. And since then, it has been all about making choices from the beginning, to the end.
An FPS where you control a soldier is just playing, not roleplaying. You're following the game's character and script.
In roleplaying, the person adapts the character as they wish.
In acting, the person adapts to the character as the script wishes.
Actors aren't called "roleplayers" also just because they play a scripted role.
I would counter your Larp argument, as roleplaying is basically freeform acting. Even if you are given a role, you choose how to act in that role, as you play. roleplay, if you will.
The real world can be understood as an RPG where we play ourselves in our actual surroundings. We didn't choose our characters, but we can definitely make choices that affect our future. Role-playing simply means playing as somebody else and/or in another setting.
There is no clear difference between improvisational theatre and certain forms of role-playing. We could try to draw a line based on player/actor intent. If you're playing primarily for an audience, you're probably acting. If you're playing for the other participants, you're probably in an RPG.
Just because it's not completely open to every single choice, doesn't mean that it's not an RPG.
There are RPGs with more choices out there, but no video game can be truly free like a PnP session, when you have unlimited choices (unless the DM railroads you).
Baldur's Gate is not an adventure game by any means.
It has RPG gameplay, it has choices on how you play your character, you're free to make the character you want and you have relatively freedom to go where you want most of the time, kill/steal/help anyone you want and interact with your companions in any way you want.
Just because you were raised in Candlekeep 20 years ago, doesn't mean that you don't get to choose who you are and raised to be, how you were raised and what you did those 20 years.
If there's a genre that can be called an adventure game with RPG mechanics, those are JRPGs.
You're following the story, you have minimal choices to do anything usually and you're usually the noble hero, instead of having the personality you want.
In most JRPGs, you're on railroads. The character's personality, appearance and abilities have been usually chosen for you and you get no say in what the characters say. Very rarely would you have a real choice in a JRPG.
In short, you're not roleplaying the character you want. You're using RPG mechanics for the premade heroes and choices to unfold with you having no choice in the matter.
As for your definition of roleplaying, playing as someone else is also acting as well as roleplaying.
The difference between the two is how you do that.
If you follow a script that has a premade character with premade lines in premade places, that's acting.
If you get to choose the character you play and you get to choose what he says and where he wants to be, that's roleplaying.
And yes, improvisational theatre could be considered roleplaying. If you get to choose who your character is, instead of just using your own lines, for a premade character.
@Ayiekie
And still, even if your general background has been chosen for you, you still get to make your character with their own personality, their own skills, name, choices, who to take, who to kill, who to help.
Consequences for your actions are a bonus to good roleplaying design but it's not necessary.
Even if all the paths lead to the same destination, you still have choices on how to get there and who your character is when getting there.
Just because a villain might escape anyway, doesn't mean that how you confront them, what you tell them and what path you took to get there is irrelevant.
You were still given choices and you roleplayed based on those choices and who your character is.
Instead of always being the same "warrior" hero with the same personality that always said the same thing each time they confronted them.
TL;DR: Getting to choose who your character is, what they say and what they do, is crucial and the classic definition of roleplaying.
Otherwise, you're just along for the ride, not to roleplay.
Western gamers prefer more freedom of movement and dislike being railroaded. Hence Western RPGs' relative nonlinearity. They want to make their own adventure, even if it's just running around catching butterflies and collecting flowers in Skyrim.
Personally, I like JRPGs. Despite their almost universal lack of choices, I like them for the reasons you described.
JRPGs usually have unique characters, with unique creatures, with unique settings and unique plots.
While you're basically railroaded and it's like reading a book when it comes to roleplaying choices, there's some originally and uniqueness in it.
This is most likely the fault of DnD itself, since it paved the way and established what a classic RPG looks like (medieval-like with elves, dwarves and dragons) with classes that you see everywhere now (Druids, Paladins, Thieves/Rogues, Monks) and familiar stats (Strength, Dexterity/Agility, Constitution/Stamina, magic stats).
Personally, I can appreciate JRPGs for what they are. I don't expect to have choices with consequences, but the experience will most likely be unique and original with unique and memorable characters and scripted events that have impact on the story.
I play western RPGs for the choices I can make and characters I can create.
I play JRPGs for the story and characters (like reading a book) and enjoying the railroaded ride.
In general, the less emphasis a CRPG places on scripted encounters, predetermined plot, and complex character interactions, the better it can support actual role-playing. Open-world games such as Skyrim are already quite close to being "real" RPGs, as long as the player is willing to play within the constraints of the system. The gameplay you call RPG gameplay is neither specific to RPGs nor necessary for them. It originally came from miniature wargaming, and these days similar gameplay elements are used in all kinds of games. Role-playing is about playing a role. It doesn't matter whether you chose the role yourself or somebody else chose it for you.
Consider the Nordic-style larps, for example. The GMs give you a prewritten character, game mechanics are minimal or non-existent, and the emphasis is usually on character immersion, but the games are definitely role-playing games.
And why "definitely"? Because the Nordic larp community has a habit of bringing RPG designers from all around the world together to share ideas and to try different playstyles. As the designers share ideas, they also shape the definition of role-playing to encompass the vastly different playstyles from around the world.
The IWD2 3E game engine is better than the BG2EE game engine . In fact Beamdog should immediately starting porting the BG1EE, SoD and BG2EE games over to the IWD2 game engine.
ToEE D&D 3.5E with the CO8 game pack is one of the best D&D crpg games around. The ToEE game engine has a great implementation of D&D turn-based game play. After porting all the Infinity games to the IWD2 game engine, Beamdog should then immediately port all Infinity games over to the ToEE game engine.
Oblivion is better than Skyrim. Once the BG1EE, SoD and BG2EE ports to the IWD2 and ToEE engines are complete, Beamdog should then immediately port the whole trilogy to the Oblivion game engine.
Oh yeah, and to repeat some other unpopular opinions: BG1 EE or otherwise is really boring. BG2 ToB is almost as boring. The Underdark is loathsome until you are in the Underdark, then things start to pick up again.
It's fun to suck down potions of pick pocketing and sell Rogue Stones over and over again until you have well over 200K gold and can by any item in the game. It's fun to buy or steal every useful potion and scroll in the game and all of those powerful items from the bonus merchants. It's fun... that is until it's not.
The shield of Balduran is a perfectly valid item to use if you don't feel like a long drawn out battle against Beholders.
Wasn't sure if joking or serious (pretty late) since some people seriously suggested that BG should be remade in Skyrim's engine and other similar ones.
I'm going to assume this is a joke. For the sake of my sanity.
The main characters of the game were unmemorable and the boss battles were trash. Fighting Alduin with a fully build character was a joke.
Also don't forget that fighting a dragon in that game was less a actual fighting a giant fire breathing serpent and more like putting a retarded, three legged poodle out of it's misery. The A.I was just so so bad.
It only became a worthwhile game to play because of it's amazing modding community. They fixed bugs, textures, gave us weapons, armour and quests. They gave me reasons to play that game.
One of main gripes with the game is it was suppose have choices right but that's not really that true. If there are three factions shouldn't I be able to pick any or non of them to help out? This problem is most prevalent in any dealings with the Aldmeri Dominion, why could I never take their side? I'm suppose to help the stormcloaks or that failing human empire? Why would my elven character do either? Help a bunch of bigoted Nords or fake Romans, yeah I think I'll pass.
Come at me, fetcher.
Based on this work I tried porting IWD1 to the IWD2 engine (IWD2Tutu) thinking this would be a less ambitious task. I was wrong - it was too hard. But I still really like the IWD2 engine - but maybe I like the ToEE engine better...
DK needs to stop starting arguments!
@FinneousPJ
See, that is why we get along.
@SmilingSword
Why plays TES games for their story? I figured most people were like me and loved the series because they let us just break the -beep- out of it!
I agree with you on principle but unfortunately Skyrim is a bit light on the whole "freedom" thing. You can explore whatever you want but unless it's part of a quest (and therefore inaccessible outside of said quest thanks to changing landscape and unpickable doors) there's little point in doing so. You can tackle whatever quest you want, but you rarely have more than one way to solve them and even if you refuse the quest, the game pretends you accepted.
More importantly, the gameplay itself has been quite sanizited. The complete freedom given with the old spellmaking, alchemy and enchanting is gone in the name of balance, and at the same time the game introduces smithing, which breaks the game even more easily than before, as it replaces inventiveness with grinding.
Bringing things back to BG, I guess my unpopular opinion goes the other way: I would much rather have a nerfed character than an obsessively planned, "ideal" one. The constant obsession over stat distributions, shorty saves, and dual class levels is weird to me; it's a single player, non-competitive game, and I'd much rather have an interesting, weak character than a statistically perfect one.
I have never dual wielded FoA with anything, not have I given a UAI thief Carsomyr - it just feels silly to me. People who go that route are probably having a blast, and that's awesome. But we see a lot of threads where people act like that's the only way to play, and I don't see much of a difference between meticulously metagaming one's character build and just EEKeepering for perfect stats.