What makes Kingdom Come: Deliverance an RPG?

[Roguey]

I consider RPGs any game that explicitly supports role-playing through scripting and systems, so yes.

Role-playing can be weak or strong, in KCD's case it's a bit on the weaker side given the constraints of what kind of character you can role-play.

[Xenich]

I started this game last night and rage quit when I couldn't beat the thieving **** in a fist fight.

You have to develop skills to excel at them. In this way, it is closer to what an RPG actually is (my definition) rather than an arcade game where you simply best every obstacle with reflex skills.

You can beat him, getting some stats up will help in this (practice), also on top of that understand the limits of your skills and how they effect your timing, stamina, etc...

That is one of the things I really liked about the game, that you had to develop over time to be able to do well. Some things you can get by with some tedious arcading, but others you literally have to improve your skills to be able to succeed.

[Finarfin]

Who the **** cares about roads? Is this a truck driver simulator or something? Its 15th century and this ******* game doesnt have crossbows! Polearms? Spears? Not allowed. Firearms? Go back to ******* China you filthy *****. Its high Europe here.

Thats the problem with this game. It allegedly cares so much about historical accuracy but the gameplay issues are ignored.

>Go back to ******* China you filthy *****.

[TKVNC]

I'm fairly sure we had an autistic debate about what makes an RPG a thing before.

But I'd hedge my bets and say, since you're just 'Henry' and nothing you do actually makes a difference, since the game is heavily scripted - it's an Action Adventure.

[rusty_shackleford]

The consensus is that Ultima, Final Fantasy, Diablo, Warcraft, Elder Scrolls, STALKER, etc, are RPGs

I do not consider diablo, warcraft, or STALKER to be RPGs btw

[Nooneatall]

The consensus is that Ultima, Final Fantasy, Diablo, Warcraft, Elder Scrolls, STALKER, etc, are RPGs

I do not consider diablo, warcraft, or STALKER to be RPGs btw

If final fantasy isn't an RPG what genre is it? Pronounced janree.

[Big Red Dog]

we were having some DEEPTHINKS in chat, and i wanted to move it to the forum.

the part where you try to roleplay and then it makes you character go on a WACKY DRUNKEN EPICK ADVENTURE JUST LIEK IN SKYRIM and then you have to revisit all the WACKY COOL DRUNK ADVENTURE locations i dropped the game there and will never play it again, i don't see how im supposed to take anything in the game seriously at that point

[Roguey]

I'm fairly sure we had an autistic debate about what makes an RPG a thing before.

But I'd hedge my bets and say, since you're just 'Henry' and nothing you do actually makes a difference, since the game is heavily scripted - it's an Action Adventure.

All RPGs are scripted, what matters is if there's enough scripts to support handling things in different ways, and I believe there are.

I thought it was funny how when you're doing the stables investigation early on, I followed a lead that sent me to quite a few places, and when I went back to the stables to report my findings, the Captain was ****** off at me because I just went off on my own without telling him where I was going and what I was doing. They didn't have to script that reactivity, but they did.

[A Chinese opium den]

Who the **** cares about roads? Is this a truck driver simulator or something? Its 15th century and this ******* game doesnt have crossbows! Polearms? Spears? Not allowed. Firearms? Go back to ******* China you filthy *****. Its high Europe here.

Thats the problem with this game. It allegedly cares so much about historical accuracy but the gameplay issues are ignored.

Firearms were incredibly rare in this area before the Hussite wars, which is the next game.
Crossbows were originally intended but cut.

Keep coping. Its just an example and this game is full of it. Its a bad video game, not much else to add here.

Ankther point - every 'settlement' in this game is as dwad as a graveyard. The towns in Gothic 1 and 2 looked and felt livelier than this desert. Im not even talking about cities from Withcer 3. Hell even cities in a ******* black desert MMO are masterpiece compared to this drying paint on the wall. And dont give me that **** 'MAH realism'. This is a ******* videogame first not a simulator.

一个不能容忍小不幸的人永远不会取得伟大的成就 Calling black desert online a masterpiece is a bad way to end your argument

[Cipher]

The consensus is that Ultima, Final Fantasy, Diablo, Warcraft, Elder Scrolls, STALKER, etc, are RPGs

I do not consider diablo, warcraft, or STALKER to be RPGs btw

If final fantasy isn't an RPG what genre is it? Pronounced janree.

First of all, I like JRPGs and FInal Fantasy.

Now, I would say that JRPGs are not really RPGs and are more of a fantasy/sci-fi anime game with D&D mechanics duct taped into it. Specially the more traditional ones like Dragon Quest. In JRPGs you rarely have any say on what happens, no "role playing" if you will. You as the Player are a passive audience member for everything that goes on except combat and mini-games, if available. That is the only time that you become an active participant.

Nothing wrong with that, but "lots character builds" and "itemization makes my numbers go up!" is not roleplaying. Even if its the "illusion of choice", having choices that stick for a given playthrough is roleplaying. Something like Fallout 1, where you can tackle tasks in many different ways, when having low Int forces the player into dumb dialogue options, where you can play the game with a different character and have a vastly different experience. Even if there is a "plot" or a "set goal", the journey can be very different and through that your journey there is a lot of roleplaying opportunities.

For all the faults of Tyranny, gating out options after the Player makes choices is an excellent way to roleplay. But we can't have any of that because Zoomers can't survive the FOMO and they only have a month or less to 100% a game, get their Platinum trophies and then move on to the next slop that their favorite Youtube personality/Streamer tells them is the game to play at the moment.

[Nooneatall]

I do not consider diablo, warcraft, or STALKER to be RPGs btw

If final fantasy isn't an RPG what genre is it? Pronounced janree.

First of all, I like JRPGs and FInal Fantasy.

Now, I would say that JRPGs are not really RPGs and are more of a fantasy/sci-fi anime game with D&D mechanics duct taped into it. Specially the more traditional ones like Dragon Quest. In JRPGs you rarely have any say on what happens, no "role playing" if you will. You as the Player are a passive audience member for everything that goes on except combat and mini-games, if available. That is the only time that you become an active participant.

Nothing wrong with that, but "lots character builds" and "itemization makes my numbers go up!" is not roleplaying. Even if its the "illusion of choice", having choices that stick for a given playthrough is roleplaying. Something like Fallout 1, where you can tackle tasks in many different ways, when having low Int forces the player into dumb dialogue options, where you can play the game with a different character and have a vastly different experience. Even if there is a "plot" or a "set goal", the journey can be very different and through that your journey there is a lot of roleplaying opportunities.

For all the faults of Tyranny, gating out options after the Player makes choices is an excellent way to roleplay. But we can't have any of that because Zoomers can't survive the FOMO and they only have a month or less to 100% a game, get their Platinum trophies and then move on to the next slop that their favorite Youtube personality/Streamer tells them is the game to play at the moment.

Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest are basically just clones of the original versions of Wizardry though. They play very similarly except you aren't in a dungeon the whole time. Would you say Wizardry isn't an RPG? Or is it more of an RPG compared to FF because you get to choose the race and stats of your characters to make a class instead of just picking one?
You don't really get to make choices in the OG Wizardry either except which floor to go on, if I remember correctly.

[Cipher]

If final fantasy isn't an RPG what genre is it? Pronounced janree.

First of all, I like JRPGs and FInal Fantasy.

Now, I would say that JRPGs are not really RPGs and are more of a fantasy/sci-fi anime game with D&D mechanics duct taped into it. Specially the more traditional ones like Dragon Quest. In JRPGs you rarely have any say on what happens, no "role playing" if you will. You as the Player are a passive audience member for everything that goes on except combat and mini-games, if available. That is the only time that you become an active participant.

Nothing wrong with that, but "lots character builds" and "itemization makes my numbers go up!" is not roleplaying. Even if its the "illusion of choice", having choices that stick for a given playthrough is roleplaying. Something like Fallout 1, where you can tackle tasks in many different ways, when having low Int forces the player into dumb dialogue options, where you can play the game with a different character and have a vastly different experience. Even if there is a "plot" or a "set goal", the journey can be very different and through that your journey there is a lot of roleplaying opportunities.

For all the faults of Tyranny, gating out options after the Player makes choices is an excellent way to roleplay. But we can't have any of that because Zoomers can't survive the FOMO and they only have a month or less to 100% a game, get their Platinum trophies and then move on to the next slop that their favorite Youtube personality/Streamer tells them is the game to play at the moment.

Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest are basically just clones of the original versions of Wizardry though. They play very similarly except you aren't in a dungeon the whole time. Would you say Wizardry isn't an RPG? Or is it more of an RPG compared to FF because you get to choose the race and stats of your characters to make a class instead of just picking one?
You don't really get to make choices in the OG Wizardry either except which floor to go on, if I remember correctly.

Wizardry would be what we now call a "Dungeon Crawler". As you said, the only choice is which floor to go on. It is a very simple game, and that's what makes it fun. Like Mario. Just run towards the right and jump to avoid enemies, traps and pitfalls. Simple =/= bad.

[Xenich]

I do not consider diablo, warcraft, or STALKER to be RPGs btw

If final fantasy isn't an RPG what genre is it? Pronounced janree.

First of all, I like JRPGs and FInal Fantasy.

Now, I would say that JRPGs are not really RPGs and are more of a fantasy/sci-fi anime game with D&D mechanics duct taped into it. Specially the more traditional ones like Dragon Quest. In JRPGs you rarely have any say on what happens, no "role playing" if you will. You as the Player are a passive audience member for everything that goes on except combat and mini-games, if available. That is the only time that you become an active participant.

Nothing wrong with that, but "lots character builds" and "itemization makes my numbers go up!" is not roleplaying. Even if its the "illusion of choice", having choices that stick for a given playthrough is roleplaying. Something like Fallout 1, where you can tackle tasks in many different ways, when having low Int forces the player into dumb dialogue options, where you can play the game with a different character and have a vastly different experience. Even if there is a "plot" or a "set goal", the journey can be very different and through that your journey there is a lot of roleplaying opportunities.

For all the faults of Tyranny, gating out options after the Player makes choices is an excellent way to roleplay. But we can't have any of that because Zoomers can't survive the FOMO and they only have a month or less to 100% a game, get their Platinum trophies and then move on to the next slop that their favorite Youtube personality/Streamer tells them is the game to play at the moment.

So if you have a game where the character has no development and just goes around the game looking for clues, making choices throughout and those choices change the story direction outcomes, that is an RPG?

Used to call those Adventure games.

So what defines an adventure game as not being an RPG?

[Nooneatall]

First of all, I like JRPGs and FInal Fantasy.

Now, I would say that JRPGs are not really RPGs and are more of a fantasy/sci-fi anime game with D&D mechanics duct taped into it. Specially the more traditional ones like Dragon Quest. In JRPGs you rarely have any say on what happens, no "role playing" if you will. You as the Player are a passive audience member for everything that goes on except combat and mini-games, if available. That is the only time that you become an active participant.

Nothing wrong with that, but "lots character builds" and "itemization makes my numbers go up!" is not roleplaying. Even if its the "illusion of choice", having choices that stick for a given playthrough is roleplaying. Something like Fallout 1, where you can tackle tasks in many different ways, when having low Int forces the player into dumb dialogue options, where you can play the game with a different character and have a vastly different experience. Even if there is a "plot" or a "set goal", the journey can be very different and through that your journey there is a lot of roleplaying opportunities.

For all the faults of Tyranny, gating out options after the Player makes choices is an excellent way to roleplay. But we can't have any of that because Zoomers can't survive the FOMO and they only have a month or less to 100% a game, get their Platinum trophies and then move on to the next slop that their favorite Youtube personality/Streamer tells them is the game to play at the moment.

Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest are basically just clones of the original versions of Wizardry though. They play very similarly except you aren't in a dungeon the whole time. Would you say Wizardry isn't an RPG? Or is it more of an RPG compared to FF because you get to choose the race and stats of your characters to make a class instead of just picking one?
You don't really get to make choices in the OG Wizardry either except which floor to go on, if I remember correctly.

Wizardry would be what we now call a "Dungeon Crawler". As you said, the only choice is which floor to go on. It is a very simple game, and that's what makes it fun. Like Mario. Just run towards the right and jump to avoid enemies, traps and pitfalls. Simple =/= bad.

So for you Final Fantasy is more of a dungeon crawler with a large over world instead of a true RPG. I think I get what you are saying, that does narrow down RPGs to mean what we would traditionally call "CPRG", things like Baldur's gate and Fallout.

[Xenich]

I think if anyone is going to honestly "define" an RPG to any real result, they have to define all other genres in the process.

Then you can look at each one and see if they are properly isolated from each other.


Also, I see "Dungeon Crawler" more as a style than a genre (ie you can have an action, adventure, or RPG dungeon crawler).

[Nooneatall]

I think if anyone is going to honestly "define" an RPG to any real result, they have to define all other genres in the process.

Then you can look at each one and see if they are properly isolated from each other.


Also, I see "Dungeon Crawler" more as a style than a genre.

It's really tough to even define RPG at all and everyone has their own definition. For instance, Etrian Odyssey is just a clone of Wizardry which many would say is an RPG. However, there's a case to be made that Wizardry isn't an RPG and those old text adventure games are more of an RPG than it. Or the D&D gold box games.

I think RPG is more of a "I know it when I see it" kind of thing. I might concede that Ocarina of Time isn't really an RPG but it's considered by many to be one. Castelvania SOTN might qualify as an RPG under some definitions.

I don't really care if people think I'm a dumb pleb who can only play baby games like Elmo's Letter Adventure on the N64 so it's fine with me if people say CRPGs are the only true RPGs. I've seen this kind of argument go on for pages about what constitutes a "Roguelike" too.

[Acrux]

there's a case to be made that Wizardry isn't an RPG

What is that case?

[Nooneatall]

there's a case to be made that Wizardry isn't an RPG

What is that case?

The one that @Cipher just made.

[rusty_shackleford]

I just happened to have this on hand from when I read the entire Space Gamer magazine series two years or so ago (Spacer Gamer, #46)

[Cipher]

If final fantasy isn't an RPG what genre is it? Pronounced janree.

First of all, I like JRPGs and FInal Fantasy.

Now, I would say that JRPGs are not really RPGs and are more of a fantasy/sci-fi anime game with D&D mechanics duct taped into it. Specially the more traditional ones like Dragon Quest. In JRPGs you rarely have any say on what happens, no "role playing" if you will. You as the Player are a passive audience member for everything that goes on except combat and mini-games, if available. That is the only time that you become an active participant.

Nothing wrong with that, but "lots character builds" and "itemization makes my numbers go up!" is not roleplaying. Even if its the "illusion of choice", having choices that stick for a given playthrough is roleplaying. Something like Fallout 1, where you can tackle tasks in many different ways, when having low Int forces the player into dumb dialogue options, where you can play the game with a different character and have a vastly different experience. Even if there is a "plot" or a "set goal", the journey can be very different and through that your journey there is a lot of roleplaying opportunities.

For all the faults of Tyranny, gating out options after the Player makes choices is an excellent way to roleplay. But we can't have any of that because Zoomers can't survive the FOMO and they only have a month or less to 100% a game, get their Platinum trophies and then move on to the next slop that their favorite Youtube personality/Streamer tells them is the game to play at the moment.

So if you have a game where the character has no development and just goes around the game looking for clues, making choices throughout and those choices change the story direction outcomes, that is an RPG?

Used to call those Adventure games.

So what defines an adventure game as not being an RPG?

It depends. Are you actually playing a role? See my example with Fallout. You are always the Vault Dweller of Vault 13 but outside of that, you are free to play that character as you see fit. Yes, the Master will always be the end game encounter, but one thing that game has that many so called RPGs don't is that you can actually fail. There is ticking clock, you can fail in your quest if you waste too much time. You can defeat the Master or you can use logic and medicine knowledge to show that its plan is futile.

Making choices that stick is an element of RPGs, just like character creation. But just because a game has character creation it doesn't mean is an RPG.

Would you say Street Fighter 6 is an RPG just because you can create your own character and add the moves you want? No. It's still a fighting game. Additionally, "genres" are, at the end of the day, meaningless. No piece of media fits neatly into any box. We use them for short hand. If you say "Horror Movie" you have a vague idea of what will be about. So, its not going to be Adam Sandler chasing after a woman who wouldn't give him the time of day IRL, its going to be about trying to scare you.

In that same way, and RPG is not about "levels and classes", its about playing as a character in a game. Fallout and Underail let you do that. You are barred from certain outcomes or approaches to a task depending on choices made during character creation and also during your actual time playing the game.

Age of Decadence is another example of a great RPG. You can play that game as a different character and approach it differently and you will get a vastly different experience. And not to be to anal about it, but I don't know which Adventure games you are talking about, since I don't really play them, but the ones that I remember where basically "click on everything until the one true answer pops up" so that would be the opposite of making choices through gameplay.

RPG means Roleplaying Game, as everyone here knows. If there is no roleplay, there can be no RPG. Roleplaying can only exist if you actually get to play a character. In Wizardry there are no characters, you have classes. You are not playing an Elven Wizard, you are playing a bot that casts magic. Again, not ******** on the game, but just picking a group of 4 units is not roleplaying anymore than deciding which units to field in Starcraft is roleplaying. The problem is that 90% of people think "Roleplaying" = "D&D". So, an RPG has to have levels and classes, because D&D has levels and classes, but even in the TTRPG space, that is not true. Runequest doesn't have classes, GURPs doesn't have classes or levels and those are OG TTRPGs, none of this "narrative Powered by the Apocalypse" woke ********.

[Cipher]

Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest are basically just clones of the original versions of Wizardry though. They play very similarly except you aren't in a dungeon the whole time. Would you say Wizardry isn't an RPG? Or is it more of an RPG compared to FF because you get to choose the race and stats of your characters to make a class instead of just picking one?
You don't really get to make choices in the OG Wizardry either except which floor to go on, if I remember correctly.

Wizardry would be what we now call a "Dungeon Crawler". As you said, the only choice is which floor to go on. It is a very simple game, and that's what makes it fun. Like Mario. Just run towards the right and jump to avoid enemies, traps and pitfalls. Simple =/= bad.

So for you Final Fantasy is more of a dungeon crawler with a large over world instead of a true RPG. I think I get what you are saying, that does narrow down RPGs to mean what we would traditionally call "CPRG", things like Baldur's gate and Fallout.

Yes, as I said. In my opinion, JRPGs, like FF, are not really roleplaying games. They are anime games, that is, playing the story of an anime with turn based combat very similar to D&D, with classes and levels and gear that makes numbers go up. All those games have cutscenes with heavy amounts of dialogue and melodramatic stories of friendship and love and killing God, very much like many anime for 13 year old boys. And once again, I am saying all this as someone that likes those games, I am not ******** on them.

cRPGs would be closer to a roleplaying game to varying degrees. To me, Fallout 1 is one of the better examples due to the way its designed but I still consider BG1 and 2 RPGs because even though they do not reach what Fallout 1 did, they are more similar to it than not.

[rusty_shackleford]

If it were up to me, any game that has you control multiple characters would be classified as tactical-RPG hybrids.

[Cipher]

The thing about starting to fork what a roleplaying game is with "strategic RPG", "Action RPG", "Dungeon Crawler RPG", "JRPG" and such is that then the label becomes meaningless. The idea of the label is to be shorthand but if everything is just a flavor of RPG, then the label has lost its meaning and now we should use a new label.

So, Symphony of the Night is not a "metroidvania RPG", is just a Metroid game with a Castlevania coat of pain on it. And it is an excellent game. The only metric that people could point to SotN to claim is an RPG is because you have an inventory, the gear has numbers that go up and Alucard has stats that go up with levels.

But like I said, that would make anything that has gear with numbers that go up and character levels an RPG. And that means stuff like Borderlands or even stuff like the Gundam Breaker games, are you really OK with that? What made New Vegas good is not that it has Perks, Skills that go up with levels and levels, Fallout 3 has all of that as well. What separates and elevates New Vegas above FO3 and 4 is that you can actually roleplay a character in ways you cannot in FO3 and 4.


EDIT: And once again, I am discussing this in good faith. I am not trying to claim to be an authority on what is or is not an RPG. I have my opinion about it, based on the origins and applications of the term in psychology and then on TTRPGs, a hobby I've enjoyed for decades, and then making my case about what I think is and isn't an RPG.

[Acrux]

there's a case to be made that Wizardry isn't an RPG

What is that case?

The one that @Cipher just made.

The only argument I've seen is that it's a "dungeon crawler", but a dungeon crawler is a sub-genre of RPG.

"metroidvania RPG",

metroidvanias aren't RPGs anyway

[Cipher]

What is that case?

The one that @Cipher just made.

The only argument I've seen is that it's a "dungeon crawler", but a dungeon crawler is a sub-genre of RPG.

"metroidvania RPG",

metroidvanias aren't RPGs anyway

Then, is symphony of the night an RPG? It has levels, stats that go up with levels, Exp gained that raises your level after you kill a monster, gear that has numbers that go up. What makes Wizardry and RPG and not Symphony of the Night?

[rusty_shackleford]

The problem is that 90% of people think "Roleplaying" = "D&D".

The problem is the 10% then, because D&D coined the term. I'm not referring to modern 5E larp.
People tend to dismiss the "game" part of "roleplaying game", but it's as equally important as the "roleplaying" part. Roleplaying already existed for ages before D&D.

[rusty_shackleford]

But like I said, that would make anything that has gear with numbers that go up and character levels an RPG. And that means stuff like Borderlands or even stuff like the Gundam Breaker games, are you really OK with that? What made New Vegas good is not that it has Perks, Skills that go up with levels and levels, Fallout 3 has all of that as well. What separates and elevates New Vegas above FO3 and 4 is that you can actually roleplay a character in ways you cannot in FO3 and 4.

But it's both.
There are games where you can 'roleplay' a character, and they aren't RPGs. See e.g., The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante

[Acrux]

The one that @Cipher just made.

The only argument I've seen is that it's a "dungeon crawler", but a dungeon crawler is a sub-genre of RPG.

"metroidvania RPG",

metroidvanias aren't RPGs anyway

Then, is symphony of the night an RPG? It has levels, stats that go up with levels, Exp gained that raises your level after you kill a monster, gear that has numbers that go up. What makes Wizardry and RPG and not Symphony of the Night?

I've never played Symphony of the Night. Does it have choices in how you build the character? Does it have an inventory for various weapons/gear/items?

[rusty_shackleford]

The only argument I've seen is that it's a "dungeon crawler", but a dungeon crawler is a sub-genre of RPG.




metroidvanias aren't RPGs anyway

Then, is symphony of the night an RPG? It has levels, stats that go up with levels, Exp gained that raises your level after you kill a monster, gear that has numbers that go up. What makes Wizardry and RPG and not Symphony of the Night?

I've never played Symphony of the Night. Does it have choices in how you build the character? Does it have an inventory for various weapons/gear/items?

To the best of my knowledge, Symphony of the Night is considered a true (action) 'JRPG' and spawned the term 'metroidvania'. Most games termed 'metroidvania' are actually just metroid-likes.
I assume @WhiteShark would know more.

[Cipher]

The only argument I've seen is that it's a "dungeon crawler", but a dungeon crawler is a sub-genre of RPG.




metroidvanias aren't RPGs anyway

Then, is symphony of the night an RPG? It has levels, stats that go up with levels, Exp gained that raises your level after you kill a monster, gear that has numbers that go up. What makes Wizardry and RPG and not Symphony of the Night?

I've never played Symphony of the Night. Does it have choices in how you build the character? Does it have an inventory for various weapons/gear/items?

It has an inventory filled with gear that has numbers. Swords cut when slashing, knives do stabby stabby, unarmed does punches. Two handed swords have more reach and deal more damage but are slower, rapier stabs instead of cutting even though its a sword. You can also learn and cast spells that cost MP.

It doesn't have any choice outside of being an open map, which means you can tackle any challenge at your leisure but some parts of the map are gated by abilities that you have to find first so it is not entirely open, more like non-linear with certain gates that require abilities/relics to unlock.