Drop your heretic thoughts on CRPGs and RPG systems here

[Janmanden]

I thought Dragon Age was pretty funny and for a moment I was happy in thought that BioWare had finally ditched that completely ridiculous and absurd idea about monogamous relationships and it was just a moment of time before I could finally have that perfectly natural nice three-some, but then the witch who were all about liberal passion of the moment in the beginning was suddenly about twosome non-sharing-ness.. WTF??! And then it was all just work to finish it.. It was really nice that the main character had no voice, but absolutely terrible that it was delivered so quick and anonymous and without history that it felt like I was back in Halflife with a hairy scientist shouting in my ear to push the damn button..The only thing I like about ME3 was the MP in solo on Titanium. Quick and painful.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Perhaps the boobplate refrence obfuscated my point.

 

Stringent realism in fantastical settings is stupid. HP increasing with level, a chest piece protecting the entire body, being able to haul around several pieces of bulky equipment, or however else a game may break with reality is not out of place in settings where those laws are routinely broken.

[aluminiumtrioxid]

 

As my first thread is nearing the end of its life-cycle, I decided most haughtily to start a new one, but this time I've expanded it a bit, since the at the end of that thread, an interesting influx of blasphemous opinion on RPG systems emerged, such as this list of opinions on the Wisdom attribute in D&D:

 

Wisdom is a horrible idea to have as an attribute, and clerics who worship gods whose sole goal is to bring chaos and destruction to the world should not have Wisdom scores of 18 (or above 6-ish, for that matter).

 

Maybe its just me, but if your diety of choice is offering you everlasting life in their realm if you burn your world down, I think it'd be wise from your perspective to do it.

 

 

Except for the fact that the realms of such deities are usually not places where any sane person would want to spend their eternal afterlife

[Orogun01]

 

As my first thread is nearing the end of its life-cycle, I decided most haughtily to start a new one, but this time I've expanded it a bit, since the at the end of that thread, an interesting influx of blasphemous opinion on RPG systems emerged, such as this list of opinions on the Wisdom attribute in D&D:

 

Wisdom is a horrible idea to have as an attribute, and clerics who worship gods whose sole goal is to bring chaos and destruction to the world should not have Wisdom scores of 18 (or above 6-ish, for that matter).

 

Maybe its just me, but if your diety of choice is offering you everlasting life in their realm if you burn your world down, I think it'd be wise from your perspective to do it.

 

That others might find it incredibly unwise lies conflict, but your own faith and understanding of that faith is going to drive you to do bad things.

 

Mind you my experience with D&D, very few of the evil dieties want utter destruction of everything; they want enough destruction to drive the survivors to them.

 

Part of the issue is that wisdom is undefined in most RPGs, so its left to interpretation which is largely colored by the archetype of the wise old man. Largely I find that wisdom in RL comes with a level of introspection that undermines any violent tendencies. I think there is a separation between personal wisdom and personal ethics or beliefs, so I still can contend that a high wis character might not be an adamant supporter of an unwise philosophy.

 

That reminds me, I should do a SJW paladin character that fights for equal rights.

[Amentep]

 

Maybe its just me, but if your diety of choice is offering you everlasting life in their realm if you burn your world down, I think it'd be wise from your perspective to do it.

 

Except for the fact that the realms of such deities are usually not places where any sane person would want to spend their eternal afterlife

 

 

But for the devout, it *is* a place they want to spend their afterlife. I think that's always been one of the hardest things to deal with in fantasy RPGs is the proper addressing of evil faiths. I remember struggling the trying to run a priestess of an evil deity (Talona) and keep hold of such a different ethos from my own. And yet of all the Clerics I've played, the fact that I struggled with the character has made her more memorable than many others (such that I've recreated the character a couple of times).

 

Part of the issue is that wisdom is undefined in most RPGs, so its left to interpretation which is largely colored by the archetype of the wise old man. Largely I find that wisdom in RL comes with a level of introspection that undermines any violent tendencies. I think there is a separation between personal wisdom and personal ethics or beliefs, so I still can contend that a high wis character might not be an adamant supporter of an unwise philosophy.

 

That reminds me, I should do a SJW paladin character that fights for equal rights.

To me, at least in D&D terms, while there were several illustrations used for it (IIRC common sense is mentioned and I think that's where we trip up with clerics of evil dieties a lot) the one that made the most sense to me was "awareness". And in this case I mean awareness of self and the awareness of situation and surroundings. A high wisdom means a high awareness; when tied with faith it means a canny knowledge of their belief system.

 

An irrational zealot would have a high wis but low int score - which seems to go counter to the "common sense" definition - but the way I see it the awareness of belief outweighs the understanding of things outside of belief heavily.

 

A learned monk could have a higher Int score than his Wis score and a mage who is convinced that that he can be a diety if he can discover enough magical power might have a wis to rival her int.

 

A fighter, supremely aware of what they can and cannot achieve with their own power would also have a high wis; one who believes his sword arm to be infallible would be low wis.

 

Or, you know, something like that.

[Orogun01]

Based on your examples you could more adequately change wisdom to belief or willpower and avoid misunderstandings.

[Amentep]

I wouldn't argue that, really. But...

What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;

[Oerwinde]

2e D&D had a supplement book that split the ability scores into two, Intelligence was Knowledge and Intuition, Dex was Speed and Balance, Wisdom was Willpower and Common Sense, etc. So when rolling your character, you would take your dex score apply it to both, but you could take points from one and add them to another, so you could have a high wisdom characer with low common sense, but high willpower, or vice versa.

[Amentep]

Obviously more stats can be more representative, but it can also add a lot of unnecessary complexity.

That said, in the purpose of full disclosure, most of the P&P games I played, we looked at the stats as guidelines and didn't do a lot of roll play.

[Orogun01]

I wouldn't argue that, really. But...

 

What's in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet;

Maybe, but if a woman calls her rose pissflaps there ain't going to be much sweet.

[Monte Carlo]

I skip 80% of dialogue in CRPGs.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I enjoy combat in RPGs.

[Baeus]

Oh, I like this idea. Let's go.

 

 

- AD&D 2nd ed was a crap basis for crpgs, and really held back the IE games.

 

- Jade Empire is the rpg I most want a sequel to.

 

- Alpha Protocol is one of my top games of the past 5 years.

 

- It's ok to make content that 90% of your players won't see.

 

- Fallout NV is better than Fallout 1 or 2.

 

- I don't mind romances in games.

 

 

Don't hurt me.

[Drowsy Emperor]

 

I wouldn't argue that, really. But...

 

What's in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet;

Maybe, but if a woman calls her rose pissflaps there ain't going to be much sweet.

 

[Bryy]

Oh, and - Mass Effect 2 was more fun to play than anything Dragon Age.

 

Yes, DAO was like Baldur's Gate  2 and all, except it wasn't. It was boring and generic, and the combat sucked, I liked neither the characters, nor the story, nor the setting. I'd rather play the infamous ME2 minigame than DAO again

I liked Dragon Age's story, characters, and skill mechanics.

I liked Dragon Age 2's plot, level up mechanics, and combat mechanics.

 

DA3 is going to be interesting.

[TrashMan]

 

1. No, my character is not mute, but I think dialogue in most cases is an element of Adventure, about curiosity and entertainment and advancing the story, not about defining your character except in the rare cases where you sell one of your companions into slavery or you decide to double cross another party or something 'nice' like that. Otherwise it's just filler content and that's not RPG, but entertainment and that can be pretty good too, except when it happens without choice like in the awful ME3.

 

Character is defined trough interactions and reactions. HOW you say something. WHEN you say it. To WHOM you say it. How you react to other people saying things. Those define a character.

Dialogue is the bone on which to build.

 

If your only interaction with others is trough a sword, you cannot define a character at all.

Just stats don't cut it.

 

 

 

2. That's what they want you to believe, those skinny little grey dudes with big heads, big eyes and weird voices, that visit you at night and probe you in weird places that makes it hard to sit down at work the day after at the same time as your underpants feel a bit sticky...

 

No, that's the reality of the situation. Infinite content nor infinite will to generate it for you doesn't exist.

Resources are always limited - regardless if it's money, time, or just the DM's good will to go along with your crap.

 

 

 

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

@ AGX-17

This is the first time in this thread that I was legitimately offended. This is coming from someone with triple-digit playtime in F3 and the Tale of Two Wastelands mod for NV.

The NV game balance is just inexorably superior. Even without F3's superior environment/atmosphere/level design it's just more fun to engage in combat in NV (which is the heart of the game.)

 

 

Balance/perks/items, quests, and world reactivity were much better in F:NV, for sure. The writing in general was better as well. I also liked the survival mode, even if it didn't exactly feel very harsh to me. Like others have have said, it is in most ways to be considered a superior game. However...

 

I liked the open world and setting of the capitol wasteland better. The mood was superior, the exploration was superior, and the quantity of things to do were fantastic. Particularly in that my character was a tech oriented, it felt alot more gritty/difficult. The setup as a vault-dweller, rather than some errand person was also a much better hook. Probably the biggest fault that F:NV had for me, was the map. This really irked me. Large portions of the map were made inaccessible by hordes of killer insects, death claws, super mutants, etc. Having a large mountain range smack-in-the-middle didn't improve my exploration either. I felt very shepareded in F:NV, which I do not care for at all. This is magnified in an open-world adventure setting.

[IndiraLightfoot]

I hesitate to call CRPGs with a fixed character for RPGs. Sorry the Witcher-series, but that's how I feel. I want to create my character, if only by fiddling with some numbers and picking some appearance and background.

[Drowsy Emperor]

So Diablo is an RPG but the WItcher isn't?

[IndiraLightfoot]

Gosh, no! But saying that Diablo ain't a CRPG isn't exactly heretic. It goes by the faulty label of ARPG, but to me it's just an arcade game with lots of lewt.

[Volourn]

They are both RPGs.

[Orogun01]

CRPGs should not advertise freedom of choice unless they allow to be free to commit the most heinous acts, you're not really morally free if your actions are still bound to the moral limits of the developers.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

CRPGs should not advertise freedom of choice unless they allow to be free to commit the most heinous acts, you're not really morally free if your actions are still bound to the moral limits of the developers.

Which is why RPGs shouldn't advertise freedom of choice, because "most heinous acts" is going to go down some really ****ed up paths that the devs never even considered.

[Orogun01]

 

CRPGs should not advertise freedom of choice unless they allow to be free to commit the most heinous acts, you're not really morally free if your actions are still bound to the moral limits of the developers.

Which is why RPGs shouldn't advertise freedom of choice, because "most heinous acts" is going to go down some really ****ed up paths that the devs never even considered.

 

So nobody but me has thought about impaling their enemies and using them as maces? Plus is not like they shy away from adult subject matter, they just shy away from allowing you to do it.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

So nobody but me has thought about impaling their enemies and using them as maces? Plus is not like they shy away from adult subject matter, they just shy away from allowing you to do it.

I don't think most devs think about sodomizing a baby while forcing the parents to watch and be penetrated by horses, then cannibalize the lot and feed the flesh to the other child, who will then be kept in a cage to be raped repeatedly by a fishman and starved to death.

 

The only person who would think of that is Alan Moore.