Adventure vs Abstractions and Buildfaggotry

[Element]

One camp (in which I, @rusty_shackleford and @Emphyrio seem to belong) defines RPGs as simulators where choices and consequences matter. A game in which your character's archery depends on the actual player's aim can still be an RPG - the point is to play a role in a story and have choices.

I don't really care what the definition of rpg is. The most rpg-ish games (the ones nobody would disagree are "real rpgs" like Pathfinder and Pillows) are the ones I like the least.

"Choices and consquences" is a loaded term usually associated with storyfagging and I am not a storyfag. I just want to have adventures and not get bogged down having to plan out a character build instead of doing the adventure.

What are the ones you like the most?

[Norfleet]

Every action you take in my example is controlled though. That is, movement speed, reach, times you can attack per round, etc... they can not be gimmicked as you are forced to make decisions within the constraints of the rule set. Action components can often result in being able to circumvent such due to limitations of syncing that play with the rule system. The only way you can win in that system is if it was intended as a means to win.

I mean, all of those things are similarly defined in Oblivious or Dork Souls, too. When you fight in an action combat, all of those rules are similarly rigidly defined. You simply have much more granular control over how things are applied, where, yes, you COULD just stand and exchange hits and produce the naive, expected outcome you'd get if this were a simple tabletop game's combat system, but you can also actively apply yourself to the ruleset in greater detail.

That makes no sense at all. A game is a contest set to rules by its very definition. The entire point of it is being constrained by rules.

And coming up with a way to thus game the system is the point of, well, a game. The thing is that there's a large gap between what the rules actually ARE, and what people think the rules MEAN. The rules SAY that I can attack once per second and deal 5 points of damage per attack. People think the rules MEAN that this means I have no chance of defeating an opponent that has far more hitpoints and damage-dealing ability than I do. This, however, is not what the rules actually SAY. When someone beats the Dork Souls boss at level 1 or bludgeons an enemy to death slowly with weapon they didn't put any points into, the rules did not say they cannot do that. People BELIEVE the rules MEAN that, but obviously, the rules of the game are what is actually coded into the game, and there ain't no such rule. And the more interesting your rules actually are, the more likely interesting outcomes result from those rules that may run counter to what people believe and expect. The rules SAY that I can turn my battleship about a piddly 5 degrees a second. People BELIEVE the rules mean that I therefore cannot possibly bring my assault cannons to bear on them before they can escape. But they are wrong, as the rules also say that tractoring something with my forward tractor beam will exert an extreme torque on my ship due to it being on the front of my ship, and thus result in clubhauling the ship. Surprise! ACTIVATE SUPER BEAM CANNON! FIRE!

Similarly, a game says that guns do so much damage to an enemy. Therefore, I need a bigger gun if I want to killthis bigger enemy, right? Well, not necessarily. The rules also say that anything crushed by a collapsing overhead mountain gets obliterated from existence. Enter the Mighty Dwarven Atom Smasher.

What the rules of a vidya game SAY, what the rules of the game actually ARE, and what they actually MEAN, are three entirely different things that often do not overlap.

An RPG has to bind you to a role. It has to have attributes, and those must dictate how you interact with the world.

Yes to the first, no to the second. If you have no role in the world, it's not really an RPG, and you're probably playing SimCity. Attributes? Optional. If anything that you could do at all is simply part of the role, and the things you wouldn't be able to do are simply not options to do, that removes the need for attributes. You don't need a lockpicking skill if your intended role simply doesn't include lockpicking at all, and you also don't need one if your intended role CAN pick locks, and the game just lets you do it. If only the thief can pick locks, the option to do so can simply not be presented to the warrior. No other attribute is needed.

If the player is the one aiming the bow, then at least the archery skill should dictate how long he fumbles when nocking an arrow, how steady his aim remains with the bow drawn etc.

Alternatively, we could just not have an archery skill. Either the player is an archer and can shoot arrows, or he is not.

[Emphyrio]

One camp (in which I, @rusty_shackleford and @Emphyrio seem to belong) defines RPGs as simulators where choices and consequences matter. A game in which your character's archery depends on the actual player's aim can still be an RPG - the point is to play a role in a story and have choices.

I don't really care what the definition of rpg is. The most rpg-ish games (the ones nobody would disagree are "real rpgs" like Pathfinder and Pillows) are the ones I like the least.

"Choices and consquences" is a loaded term usually associated with storyfagging and I am not a storyfag. I just want to have adventures and not get bogged down having to plan out a character build instead of doing the adventure.

What are the ones you like the most?

bethshit, enderal

[Metalhead33]

One camp (in which I, @rusty_shackleford and @Emphyrio seem to belong) defines RPGs as simulators where choices and consequences matter. A game in which your character's archery depends on the actual player's aim can still be an RPG - the point is to play a role in a story and have choices.

The other camp consists of @aweigh, who defines RPGs as numbers and dice rolls. Whether your arrow hits must be determined by a dice roll - if it depends on the player's aim, then not an RPG. The more numbers and more RNG, the more RPG it is.

I would argue that you can have it both ways, but mixing the two together is an atrocity. If you have archery being handled by the player's ability to shoot things, don't ALSO throw in the extra, pointless layer of having a skill that effectively just exists to cripple what the player has already done.

Methinks Deus Ex does it right: if your skill with a given gun is high, it the bullet will land exactly where your crosshair is pointing at (low-no-nonexistent bullet spread), and will have extra range and damage - wheras low skill with the given gun increases bullet spread (but given a close enough range - or a big enough target - you are sitll pretty much guaranteed to hit the target). Whether the bullet landed or not, however, ultimately depends on any dice roll or RNG, but on the engine's collision detection or whatever code is used for hitscan and proiectile weapons.
Similarly, I think the Elder Scrolls games do lockpicking right: it partly depends on the character's skill attribute, but still relies on player input on top of that.

[Norfleet]

Methinks Deus Ex does it right:

I would argue that Deus Ex did it exactly wrong, because you have what is supposed to be a trained government agent, who therefore had to pass basic pistol marksmanship tests, who, even if you don't unbuy the pistol skill, starts off shooting worse than a literal 6 year old with a flintlock pistol. How do I know this? Because I literally tested this. By giving an actual 6 year old an actual pirate pistol. It makes the weapon comically useless until you max out the skill.

Meanwhile, whacking somebody with a stick works fine even without buying any melee perks.

Ultimately, the game would have played just fine WITHOUT a shooting skill, just using baseline shooter guy mechanics, because you're already making the player do his own shooting. If you want to have a firearms-handling skill, make it about the guy's ability to reload instead. Because unlike shooting, where the player is already doing all the lifting (target acquisition, aiming, pulling the trigger), the player does NOT actually do his own reloading, he simply pushes the reload button to order the character to reload.