Greatest RPG's of all time?

[Dachs]

TSLRCM is the Restored Content Mod. They basically went through the game files and added back in all of the stuff that wasn't included. The battle for Telos is much longer and more involved, as is the battle for Khoonda; there are more side quests; the HK factory is back in the game; dialogue options cut from the game were restored; several videos were reintegrated into the game itself. The best part is that the improvements are basically seamless.

The whole point was to give the game that "complete" feeling that virtually everybody agreed was lacking in the second half of the vanilla version.

 

[Polycrates]

#1) Planescape: Torment by a country mile. Just spectacular, my favourite game of all time.

#2) Fallout 2 - not sure there's much that needs to be said here, right?

#3) Morrowind - I've never seen anything close to such a fully-realised world in a game before. The epitome of Bethesda's whole thing of making locations that feel real, and worlds that tell their own stories without dialogue. The island had so much character and everywhere really felt like a real place full of history. Stands in stark, stark comparison to Oblivion with its lazy, half-arsed world of infinite cut-n-paste. Main storyline was quite good too.

#4) Vampire: Bloodlines - Great story, cool world, lots of options, and probably the best voice acting in any game (Bethesda take note)

#5) Barkley, Shut Up And Jam: Gaiden - this is the sort of thing that should by all rights be terrible and cringeworthy, a joke over a few beers at a pub that ended up being taken way too far. And yet it's an actual real game with quite a few hours of game time, and throughout the whole thing it's consistently the most engaging, hilarious thing. Probably because it's all done with an entirely straight face. Most surprisingly of all, the combat is actually really good, too.

 

[PhroX]

Well, if we're going to call ME2 an RPG - some people get butthurt about that - then I'd vote for it slightly above KotOR II (with TSLRCM 1.7).

Juuuuuust slightly.

Never really understood the "ME isn't an RPG!!!" people. Hell, IMO, there's more roleplaying than in, say, Oblivion...

#4) Vampire: Bloodlines - Great story, cool world, lots of options, and probably the best voice acting in any game (Bethesda take note)

Damn...completely forgot about Bloodlines. Brilliant game

 

[Luckymoose]

4e ain't PnP, it's a WoW-based miniatures game

Every edition of DnD uses representative figures on a grid for combat. How does is it anymore WOW based than any other edition?

 

[Rub'Rum]

Every edition of DnD uses representative figures on a grid for combat. How does is it anymore WOW based than any other edition?

Eh no, I didn't start using minis until 4e. I like it mind you, once the people are able to play quickly enough. While previous editions either suggested minis (or didn't at all, I don't remember 1st and 2nd (AD&D) talking about minis?), they weren't mandatory. In 4e it's getting quite hard to play without them.

 

[Luckymoose]

Eh no, I didn't start using minis until 4e. I like it mind you, once the people are able to play quickly enough. While previous editions either suggested minis (or didn't at all, I don't remember 1st and 2nd (AD&D) talking about minis?), they weren't mandatory. In 4e it's getting quite hard to play without them.

Every edition I've played required a battle map of sorts to organize the combat. Minis aren't required, my group uses risk pieces on grid paper.

 

[Dachs]

Never really understood the "ME isn't an RPG!!!" people. Hell, IMO, there's more roleplaying than in, say, Oblivion...

I suppose I've spent entirely too much time on the BioWare forums, where it seems like eighty percent of the discussion is centered around the idiots claiming that the game is Gears of War with dialogue and the few remaining sane people who care enough to post to the contrary.

 

[Rub'Rum]

Every edition I've played required a battle map of sorts to organize the combat. Minis aren't required, my group uses risk pieces on grid paper.

Anything before 3rd edition was really abstract with distance and all. You could use it but a vast majority of people I knew didn't bother. With 4e, it's really hard not to use any visual support. It was entirely possible before as many people have done so. I'm pretty sure most people who played 1st and 2nd edition, or played RPGs before the 2000s, have spent a large amount of time playing them without visual representation. Sometimes we'd use some pieces of paper and all when a situation sort of called for it, but I never pulled out the rulers and everything to measure the width of fireballs and all that. We just sort of winged it, and I am pretty much convinced this is how it worked for most people. So if that's not how it worked for you that's fine, but saying it was "required" is false, as proven by thousands of people who wouldn't even have thought of using them. Even the 4e books have a paragraph going "You don't reaaaaaally need minis but it's really very much recommended" just to cater to old schoolers.

 

[PhroX]

Every edition of DnD uses representative figures on a grid for combat. How does is it anymore WOW based than any other edition?

I really don't know. But that's the most common complaint I've heard about 4e, so I felt like making a lighthearted tounge-in-cheek comment about it

 

[Maniacal]

I suppose I've spent entirely too much time on the BioWare forums, where it seems like eighty percent of the discussion is centered around the idiots claiming that the game is Gears of War with dialogue and the few remaining sane people who care enough to post to the contrary.

From my definition it is an action-adventure RPG. Action for obvious reasons since a significant portion of the game is a cover-based 3rd person shooter, adventure because you are playing a specific character (and also going on one hell of an adventure!), and RPG from the dialogue and action choices.

But anyway its not a big deal and all this talk about miniatures makes me wish I had room for my Warhammer Fantasy minis so that I could actually finish painting them :/ Friggin' love miniatures.

 

[Luckymoose]

Anything before 3rd edition was really abstract with distance and all. You could use it but a vast majority of people I knew didn't bother. With 4e, it's really hard not to use any visual support. It was entirely possible before as many people have done so. I'm pretty sure most people who played 1st and 2nd edition, or played RPGs before the 2000s, have spent a large amount of time playing them without visual representation. Sometimes we'd use some pieces of paper and all when a situation sort of called for it, but I never pulled out the rulers and everything to measure the width of fireballs and all that. We just sort of winged it, and I am pretty much convinced this is how it worked for most people. So if that's not how it worked for you that's fine, but saying it was "required" is false, as proven by thousands of people who wouldn't even have thought of using them. Even the 4e books have a paragraph going "You don't reaaaaaally need minis but it's really very much recommended" just to cater to old schoolers.

When you have to use grid paper it really makes the experience more tense. Seeing the terrain drawn out and exploring it really helps the imagination. Also I don't see how combat would work without a grid. Since movement is measured in feet and grids are always considered 5x5ft and you have ranges and area effects and flanking and etc etc.

 

[Rub'Rum]

When you have to use grid paper it really makes the experience more tense. Seeing the terrain drawn out and exploring it really helps the imagination. Also I don't see how combat would work without a grid. Since movement is measured in feet and grids are always considered 5x5ft and you have ranges and area effects and flanking and etc etc.

We used maps to visualize the dungeon. Combat in the earlier editions could be a lot like in Final Fantasy in that anyone could hit anyone really. If you've played Final Fantasy. Area effect was winged for most people, you'd guess some people were clumped, the warrior could be hit if he was fighting a particular monster, it wasn't too hard because there weren't as many monsters as there are nowadays.

 

[Maniacal]

Yeah the only two D&D sessions I've played had nothing more than character sheets, everything else was in our heads and words yet I can still visualize the world pretty well, especially the part where my character snapped off a branch out of boredom and but rolled a 1 and was knocked unconscious :/

 

[Luckymoose]

We used maps to visualize the dungeon. Combat in the earlier editions could be a lot like in Final Fantasy in that anyone could hit anyone really. If you've played Final Fantasy. Area effect was winged for most people, you'd guess some people were clumped, the warrior could be hit if he was fighting a particular monster, it wasn't too hard because there weren't as many monsters as there are nowadays.

Sounds infinitely boring. Combat in DND is meant to give you a strategy portion of the game, where team work is key and false moves can spell doom. Thats why there are move and attack actions. No map makes a move action moot.

 

[Maniacal]

Depends on how you want to play it, either way sounds fine to me. The great thing about PnP games is you can use as little physical material as possible or as much as you want.

 

[Rub'Rum]

Sounds infinitely boring. Combat in DND is meant to give you a strategy portion of the game, where team work is key and false moves can spell doom. Thats why there are move and attack actions. No map makes a move action moot.

That's your opinion, and frankly, combat is less than 50% of a DnD session anyway, for old timers as far as I know. They used to be short and sweet.

 

[Luckymoose]

That's your opinion, and frankly, combat is less than 50% of a DnD session anyway, for old timers as far as I know. They used to be short and sweet.

Combat is only half the experience, but the more abstract RPing doesn't require organization. A combat situation with set numbers of enemies, varying stats and roles for the party members and terrain with initiative orders. It makes combat more than just an afterthought and makes you really think about what you do and how your character fights. Combat is going to happen and I'd rather experience the gritty strategy of being down to 1 hp and being surrounded than just have it described as "you win, lets go talk more". Earning the xp and the loot is worth the time.

 

[Maniacal]

Even though my brief experience of D&D was pretty informal or whatever the word is, combat was certainly not just "you win".

 

[Yeekim]

Noone has mentioned The Witcher?
Also, Drakensang: River of Time was pretty good.

 

[Rub'Rum]

Combat is only half the experience, but the more abstract RPing doesn't require organization. A combat situation with set numbers of enemies, varying stats and roles for the party members and terrain with initiative orders. It makes combat more than just an afterthought and makes you really think about what you do and how your character fights. Combat is going to happen and I'd rather experience the gritty strategy of being down to 1 hp and being surrounded than just have it described as "you win, lets go talk more". Earning the xp and the loot is worth the time.

Well, what can I say, you describe a horribly boring situation that I didn't see happening with or without minis. You'd just have to try it, or one of the hundreds of different Pen and Paper RPGs on the shelves of a local geek store that don't use visual representations either. It's okay if you really put a lot of focus on visual representation of combat, and I do like that style of game too, but keep in mind that the original argument was about whether or not most games (particularly previous editions of D&D) pretty much all use visual representations, and they don't, unless you like that style of gaming in which case you can use them. It's not a bad thing to use them. Just saying that an overwhelming majority of long time players have played without visual support for decades before the latest editions, and that a majority of PnP games available on the shelves don't use them either. I think if visual representations were necessary to cater to most pen and paper fans, most games would turn towards them, but they don't. You really like the style with minis and an emphasis on tactical combat like the D&D minis game, well more power to you and have fun. Personally, I like both types of gaming.