What makes a great RPG?

[uppi]

There was one problem I had with Skyrim that is fixed by a mod.

Throughout the game, you're told that WIndhelm is a racist city. It's the home of the Stormcloaks and has a strong idea of Nords before everyone else. You're told that the Dunmer have to live in a poor area of the city and Argonians aren't even allowed in the city. I play as an Argonian and when I entered Windhelm, a short scene happens just as in every city that begins a quest, but nothing else. I can go through the city as an Argonian without any problems, no one even noticing that I'm an Argonian. There's a mod called Inconsequential NPCs and among the other random NPCs added to the game, if you play as an Argonian a guard approaches you, telling you "Your kind aren't welcome in this city. You need to leave."

I agree that it this is a problem, but I don't really see a good way to fix this. There would be multiple options:
- Bar off Windhelm to an Argonian player. This would cut a lot off content from the Argonian player, make quests unwinnable and would be very confusing to players ("There needs to be a way in" - "There isn't, not at least not until a certain endgame quest")
- Make a specific Windhelm questline just for Argonian players. This would be good for Argonian players but bad for everyone else, because some of the limited resources are spent on content that only a fraction of the players will ever get to see
- Cut the lore, making it a worse story

This is a general problems for RPGs, especially those centered around a single character. Players want a lot of customization, but the developers don't have time to balance and design content for every single combination. So you either end up in the situation where a lot of the customization is mostly inconsequential - a stat boost here, a throwaway line there. Or you have a million of combinations, but only a few of them are actually good and viable on higher difficulties, which means that most of the customization options are just newbie traps and create an artificially inflated feeling of choice.

 

[AmazonQueen]

I agree that it this is a problem, but I don't really see a good way to fix this. There would be multiple options:
- Bar off Windhelm to an Argonian player. This would cut a lot off content from the Argonian player, make quests unwinnable and would be very confusing to players ("There needs to be a way in" - "There isn't, not at least not until a certain endgame quest")
- Make a specific Windhelm questline just for Argonian players. This would be good for Argonian players but bad for everyone else, because some of the limited resources are spent on content that only a fraction of the players will ever get to see
- Cut the lore, making it a worse story

This is a general problems for RPGs, especially those centered around a single character. Players want a lot of customization, but the developers don't have time to balance and design content for every single combination. So you either end up in the situation where a lot of the customization is mostly inconsequential - a stat boost here, a throwaway line there. Or you have a million of combinations, but only a few of them are actually good and viable on higher difficulties, which means that most of the customization options are just newbie traps and create an artificially inflated feeling of choice.

Which is one of the great advantages of pen and paper RPGs. A referee can tailor things to his players in a way a CRPG can't.
The advantage of the TES blank slate approach is I'm not limited by the designers choices. If I want to play as a stable boy who becomes a dragonslayer or a street urchin who discovers they have great magical talents I can.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Working off of my previous post, the solution to the Argonian player in Windhelm would be just don't go...unless you had appropriate skills or spellcraft to pull it off. If a quest requires you to talk to someone in Windhelm, sneak into the city under cover of invisibility and talk to them. If spotted, flee the city and try again later. Things like that make playing a role. Doing something the lore says you shouldn't and saying that the game mechanics are faulty because they didn't stop you is counterproductive.

 

[Patine]

Which is one of the great advantages of pen and paper RPGs. A referee can tailor things to his players in a way a CRPG can't.
The advantage of the TES blank slate approach is I'm not limited by the designers choices. If I want to play as a stable boy who becomes a dragonslayer or a street urchin who discovers they have great magical talents I can.

I myself have been playing pen-and-paper RPG's since I was 12 years old in about 1988, and I've designed whole custom game campaign worlds/galaxies/other settings for numerous RPG titles of numerous genres by numerous companies, and still have a bunch of such custom settings more or less active and under development. Of course, I'm of those pen-and-paper RPer's who only DM's/GM's/Referees/Judges/Narrates/Storytells/etc., and pretty much always have been.

 

[cardgame]

I thought Runescape was the best RPG I've ever played. Of course, it's an MMORPG, so a bit different.

You aren't railroaded into doing anything, and there's loads of content that ties into everything else. Very few dead-end loops, if you know what I mean. Plenty of lore and loads of cool quests which explored that lore. Big fat open world to explore on your own pace, with an incredible amount of content. Even combat was optional, lots of people just played for non-combat skills and the player interaction. Role playing was definitely a thing too, there were always plenty of people who weren't min-maxing and just chilling, having fun doing all kinds of activities. It probably helps that I also played this game during what I would call its golden age, 2004-2008.

 

[Synobun]

I thought Runescape was the best RPG I've ever played. Of course, it's an MMORPG, so a bit different.

You aren't railroaded into doing anything, and there's loads of content that ties into everything else. Very few dead-end loops, if you know what I mean. Plenty of lore and loads of cool quests which explored that lore. Big fat open world to explore on your own pace, with an incredible amount of content. Even combat was optional, lots of people just played for non-combat skills and the player interaction. Role playing was definitely a thing too, there were always plenty of people who weren't min-maxing and just chilling, having fun doing all kinds of activities. It probably helps that I also played this game during what I would call its golden age, 2004-2008.

All I ever did in Runescape was farm leather. Every time I played, straight to the cow pastures. For three years.

I uh... wasn't good at the game.

 

[Patine]

All I ever did in Runescape was farm leather. Every time I played, straight to the cow pastures. For three years.

I uh... wasn't good at the game.

Did you trampled by the cattle?

 

[Birdjaguar]

I am struggling with this one fundamental question:

Do you pick your class (two specializations in combat, two in crafting) at the beginning of the game and have it be irreversible, or do you get a huge bonus in exp towards your four "major" specializations, but can invest into any spec tree at any point in time, but minor ones will level very slowly?

glad the questions were helpful.

I would allow players to choose at the start whether or not to pick a class. Experienced players may know from the start who they want to be. Less experienced should be given some play time to figure what they like. I would also make the rewards for an early choice versus a later choice different. In POE language something like this: choose a witch at the start and get 20% faster cast speed; choose a witch later and get 2 passive skill points. More choices are usually better. so, in answer to your question, allow both pathways.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Working off of my previous post, the solution to the Argonian player in Windhelm would be just don't go...unless you had appropriate skills or spellcraft to pull it off. If a quest requires you to talk to someone in Windhelm, sneak into the city under cover of invisibility and talk to them. If spotted, flee the city and try again later. Things like that make playing a role. Doing something the lore says you shouldn't and saying that the game mechanics are faulty because they didn't stop you is counterproductive.

I once played a character in Morrowind who was, with one exception, a pacifist. He would kill daedra, that's it. He regarded them as demonic, and in fact it was his duty to kill them. But he wouldn't kill anything else, no, not the most annoying cliff racer. Played him up into the 50s or 60s in level. Highest I ever took a character. Didn't play the main quest, but here was the astonishing thing I discovered: you could complete almost all of the side quests without killing anyone! One Thieves' Guild quest, I couldn't complete (I think; it's been a while). Otherwise, there's a non-violent way you can achieve all of them.

Love that dimension of Elder Scrolls games: that you can just wander around doing pretty much whatever the heck you want. If I ever do pick up Skyrim, I think I'm just going to play as a pickpocket. Do no quests at all; just see how much I can achieve through random petty theft. Keep up a false identity in some city for fencing my goods. Etc.

Bucket list involves playing a p-n-p RPG with some of the people here who have identified as big RPGers. (I actually ran a brief RPG adventure here, once: a quest to find an actual MRA on the site.)

 

[Arakhor]

I've been PnPing for 20 years now and RPGing for almost as long. If you want a (mostly) pacifist run of Oblivion, you can watch Icehair's series.

 

[red_elk]

What games are you playing where these things happen?

Speaking about inconsistency -
In Witcher 3, I defeated a super-tough vampire who was able to genocide entire city - and right after that I was beaten by two drunk guys in a fist fight.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Speaking about inconsistency -
In Witcher 3, I defeated a super-tough vampire who was able to genocide entire city - and right after that I was beaten by two drunk guys in a fist fight.

That's because Geralt didn't use potions and oils for the fistfight and was still exhausted. Happens all the time.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Same thing in Skyrim. Let me guess, someone stole your sweetroll?

You can't just say "same thing in skyrim lol" every time even though it's not true.. It makes replying to you kind of a chore. Almost all the NPCs in Skyrim treat you completely ambivalently, not with disdain nor do they like you especially. And none of that changes after you are declared the dragonborn, except some of the guards murmur something about muh dragonborn.

In Morrowind you start out as scum, slowly climb the ranks, fulfill the prophecy and different factions/NPCs react differently to the fact that you fulfilled the prophecy.. Some outright deny it, some don't give a ****, some embrace you for it, some think it's a plot of Azura to overthrow the tribunal and install you, the Nerevarine, as her faithful servant

There was one problem I had with Skyrim that is fixed by a mod.

Throughout the game, you're told that WIndhelm is a racist city. It's the home of the Stormcloaks and has a strong idea of Nords before everyone else. You're told that the Dunmer have to live in a poor area of the city and Argonians aren't even allowed in the city. I play as an Argonian and when I entered Windhelm, a short scene happens just as in every city that begins a quest, but nothing else. I can go through the city as an Argonian without any problems, no one even noticing that I'm an Argonian. There's a mod called Inconsequential NPCs and among the other random NPCs added to the game, if you play as an Argonian a guard approaches you, telling you "Your kind aren't welcome in this city. You need to leave."

NPCs in Skyrim will almost never be hostile or racist towards you, even though both in the game and the lore they're declared as being racist, especially the Stormcloaks however. In Morrowind every second line of dialogue is "get out, outlander", "we need to purge these lands", something about your race being ugly, or some legitimately scary genocidal dunmer fantasy. Glad you found that mod to immerse you even more

Having pondered this a bit, what makes a great RPG is the player. Back when I was writing Arvil Bren's Journal I had a message taped across the top rim of my monitor. It said "there needs to be a dungeon-master and you are the only one here." So Arvil never stole things off a shop shelf and promptly sold them to the shopkeeper...not because the mechanics of the game wouldn't allow it, but because I wouldn't. A lot of the simple quests became very challenging in the space of "I have to write, in Arvil's voice, how he accomplished this." Made that playthrough unquestionably the best "role-playing game" I've ever experienced...even though Morrowind has immense flaws.

That's really cool.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I agree that it this is a problem, but I don't really see a good way to fix this. There would be multiple options:
- Bar off Windhelm to an Argonian player. This would cut a lot off content from the Argonian player, make quests unwinnable and would be very confusing to players ("There needs to be a way in" - "There isn't, not at least not until a certain endgame quest")
- Make a specific Windhelm questline just for Argonian players. This would be good for Argonian players but bad for everyone else, because some of the limited resources are spent on content that only a fraction of the players will ever get to see
- Cut the lore, making it a worse story

This is a general problems for RPGs, especially those centered around a single character. Players want a lot of customization, but the developers don't have time to balance and design content for every single combination. So you either end up in the situation where a lot of the customization is mostly inconsequential - a stat boost here, a throwaway line there. Or you have a million of combinations, but only a few of them are actually good and viable on higher difficulties, which means that most of the customization options are just newbie traps and create an artificially inflated feeling of choice.

Or have the guard tell you that you cannot get in and then you have several options: Bribe him, ask him about his distant family, visit them and threaten him, convince him to do a deal, scare him away with a huge summoned creature, kill him and march into the city, get immensely popular and well respected regardless of your race, use your influence on a local authority to change the law..

Some of these things were even possible in Oblivion. I agree devoting an entire questline to such a minor thing would be over-the-top, just find smart mechanics that take care of that.

glad the questions were helpful.

I would allow players to choose at the start whether or not to pick a class. Experienced players may know from the start who they want to be. Less experienced should be given some play time to figure what they like. I would also make the rewards for an early choice versus a later choice different. In POE language something like this: choose a witch at the start and get 20% faster cast speed; choose a witch later and get 2 passive skill points. More choices are usually better. so, in answer to your question, allow both pathways.

Ingenious. Holy moly. That solves it all. Instead of either or, why not make it a choice? Thanks, man, that's brilliant.

 

[AmazonQueen]

The great advantage of a CRPG over pen and paper is that they can handle a lot for you.
Stuff in pen and paper that tends to slow a game down like complex rules for encumberance, fatigue, weapons doing different damage depending on the type of armour you wear the pc can do all the number crunching for you. Let the player know the basic principles but keep the mechanics under the hood.

 

[Synobun]

You can't just say "same thing in skyrim lol" every time even though it's not true.. It makes replying to you kind of a chore. Almost all the NPCs in Skyrim treat you completely ambivalently, not with disdain nor do they like you especially. And none of that changes after you are declared the dragonborn, except some of the guards murmur something about muh dragonborn.

In Morrowind you start out as scum, slowly climb the ranks, fulfill the prophecy and different factions/NPCs react differently to the fact that you fulfilled the prophecy.. Some outright deny it, some don't give a ****, some embrace you for it, some think it's a plot of Azura to overthrow the tribunal and install you, the Nerevarine, as her faithful servant

It's super easy to have that when "dialogue" in Morrowind is just copy-pasted paragraphs of text. The NPCs that matter in Skyrim change their language as you grow in power, making it no different than the RPGs that are supposedly so much better. By all means, if replying to me is such a drag on your life, you're certainly welcome to stop at any time.

 

[AmazonQueen]

It's super easy to have that when "dialogue" in Morrowind is just copy-pasted paragraphs of text. The NPCs that matter in Skyrim change their language as you grow in power, making it no different than the RPGs that are supposedly so much better. By all means, if replying to me is such a drag on your life, you're certainly welcome to stop at any time.

They were certainly making an attempt in Skyrim to have dialogue respond to the character but implementation was clumsy. I'd still get guards making remarks about me being the new companion and fetching the drinks even after I'd become Harbinger.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

It's super easy to have that when "dialogue" in Morrowind is just copy-pasted paragraphs of text. The NPCs that matter in Skyrim change their language as you grow in power, making it no different than the RPGs that are supposedly so much better. By all means, if replying to me is such a drag on your life, you're certainly welcome to stop at any time.

well, that's certainly true. makes it much easier. much cheaper, too, since you don't need any paid voice acting for the millions of lines. and also the lines repeat themselves a lot, which kills immersion to some degree. I never noticed anyone in skyrim changing their language as your character grows, can you give me a few examples from your playthroughs? I'm level 40 or something, main quest done, college of winterhold done, that should be enough to get some comments I'm still relatively new to the game trying to figure out how most of its hidden mechanics work.

all I wanted is that instead of saying "no, you're wrong. skyrim does x", maybe just give a single, small example of how skyrim does "x", because otherwise the conversation will go nowhere. I love you and your posting style which is why I haven't (and won't) stopped replying to you

 

[Mouthwash]

Or have the guard tell you that you cannot get in and then you have several options: Bribe him, ask him about his distant family, visit them and threaten him, convince him to do a deal, scare him away with a huge summoned creature, kill him and march into the city, get immensely popular and well respected regardless of your race, use your influence on a local authority to change the law..

Why not just bring back Oblivion's disposition system?

Ingenious. Holy moly. That solves it all. Instead of either or, why not make it a choice? Thanks, man, that's brilliant.

That would be awful. What if I realized how much I wanted the 20% faster cast speed? Just make the class selection come after you're played for a bit, but don't screw with the bonuses.

 

[Synobun]

I never noticed anyone in skyrim changing their language as your character grows, can you give me a few examples from your playthroughs? I'm level 40 or something, main quest done, college of winterhold done, that should be enough to get some comments I'm still relatively new to the game trying to figure out how most of its hidden mechanics work.

all I wanted is that instead of saying "no, you're wrong. skyrim does x", maybe just give a single, small example of how skyrim does "x", because otherwise the conversation will go nowhere. I love you and your posting style which is why I haven't (and won't) stopped replying to you

Well, all of the faction people change how they speak as you advance through the ranks. The mage's college might not have been noticeable since AFAIK you can get through its questline with barely any contact with the others. @AmazonQueen's mention of the Companions in Whiterun is a good one. Their council members can range from excited to disdainful about your presence but by the end they see you with reverence and speak as such.

That's sort of why I specifically said "the NPCs that matter". Guards and random named NPCs are a bit of a tall order when Bethesda seems convinced it needs to hire out its voice acting to a handful of people. They "tried" with snide remarks about your character (calling you a "sneakthief", "Let me guess, someone stole your sweetroll?", begging you not to kill them since they know you're in the Brotherhood, etc) but that's hit-or-miss at best, usually miss. But luckily you spend most of your time with faction NPCs, and those are the ones who change as you go up the ladder. Usually this is self-contained to the faction but there is a little bit of crossover (between the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood).

I'm not going to pretend Skyrim's a masterpiece because it obviously isn't. I'm mostly fine with its dialogue system since I'm not there to hear what Nizar thinks, but in general I believe Bethesda could double their voice acting budget easily and it would only have positive results. It is why I hated that Fallout moved to a voiced protagonist. It really highlighted the weakness of a voiced dialogue system that is on a restricted voice acting budget. I'm sure they pay good money for the voice acting they have but it isn't good enough.

And mostly, I say Skyrim's the same because I didn't encounter very much groundbreaking dialogue in Morrowind. Granted, I didn't get very far because I hated its mechanics, but pretty much every NPC I met had the exact same things to say. That each conversation had 5-10 choices didn't matter because they all said the same copy-pasted thing, and it didn't really seem to be based on my character at all. It was like they were tourism pamphlets with faces.