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There are a lot of quality videogame RPGs.
You cannot make a VG RPG that will be exacly like a tabletop game. Computers are far far more restricted then humans. Especially in one way. They absolutely lack imagination. They can only do what they are programmed for. If the developers didn't put something in, a computer cannot just come up with it.
The main point of a good computer RPG is the story. That is what is important. The rest is just the means to get to the whole story.
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Hi there!
I'm new to this forum.
Welcome!
I believe roleplaying videogames seem to be very restrict in a lot of ways comparing to what they should be.I've played Skyrim, and thought that it should be called more an adventure game than a RPG. It's good, but never fulfilled my needs. What does define RPG? The chance to create a character?
Anyway, about somedays ago I was watching a video on Gopher's youtube channel, saying that there are some people from the modding comunity that are making a new concept around RPG's.
I'll put here the site's url if you wish to watch it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_NMJSI0mxU
Could this be perhaps a chance to finally have some quality videogame RPG?
I think we've seen considerable progress over the years. In the early computer RPGs, something that detailed so much deviation from the "main game" as Skyrim would have been impossible. The sheer number of side quests, being able to marry, adopt children, get a home.
I have seen a lot of games called RPGs that I felt didn't deserve it though. Usually games that offered very little in the way of storyline divergence (one was a 2D platformer!) and had no indication of being related to an RPG other than having a few character stats (it seems for a lot of people, unfortunately, that's the only prerequisite to apply the "RPG" label)
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I think video games get better because of RPGs. If you are hinting at video games sparking innovation and imagination in TTRPG, then I agree and think they have for sometime.
I believe roleplaying videogames seem to be very restrict in a lot of ways comparing to what they should be.
Could this be perhaps a chance to finally have some quality videogame RPG?
Can you expand on these quotes?
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Video games have always been hampered by a lack of reactivity: you do something the game designers did not account for, and it has no real impact. SKYRIM avoids this (as did FALLOUT 3) by making its key NPCs immortal: ambush the Stormcloak leader and he'll fall over, but you cannot kill him, because the game won't let you 'break it' in that fashion. This in itself breaks immersion. A DM, of course, can react to what the players are doing far more quickly and plausibly.
Something that Black Isle/Obsidian were and are very good at it is the illusion of reactivity. They go much deeper in making the game adjust itself to what you want to do. So in FALLOUT: NEW VEGAS you can wander into the main bad guy's camp at any time, Level 1 or 50 or anywhere inbetween, and try to kill him. If you succeed, great, he's dead and the enemy retreats. The game cheats a little bit: when the enemies return for the final battle they are led by a pretty similar new general, but it's the fact that you CAN kill the bad guy at will and the game acknowledges it (dialogue has characters reacting to you doing it with awe) that is impressive.
You can do this to any NPC in the game (aside from one robot vendor in a bullet-and-bomb-proof booth). There's consequences - quests are shut down, their faction turns on you - but the game does allow you to do exactly what you want, even to your own detriment.
More game should do that. DEUS EX (the original) did and it was great. MASS EFFECT made a good fist of it, but then spoiled it by collapsing the myriad different choices into just one of three slightly differently-flavoured endings (as did DEUS EX: HUMAN REVOLUTION). WASTELAND 2 is promising to take it to even more extremes.
The reason such freedom is not usually given is because of franchiseitis: having wildly-differing endings means that the next game has to pick a single ending as canon and run with that, rendering the whole point of the choice in the previous game pointless. The alternative is to craft a sequel that acknowledges all of the previous variables, which is possible if you design the series with that in mind from the start (MASS EFFECT, to a lesser extent DRAGON AGE) but otherwise would be prohibitively expensive.
You could also do like Bethesda did with the second(?) Elder Scrolls game and handwave the multiple endings as being some convoluted mess of reality warping nonsense so that both all and none of the endings are true simultaneously. =)
Yeah, the Warp in the West after DAGGERFALL. Not one of their better ideas.
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I get what some folks are saying here. However, there is no possible way for the video game medium to provide you with complete freedom. Skyrim is equally disqualified because I cant just be a beet farmer or an accountant. I understand the limits. Can you help me understand what a game has to be to be considered a real RPG?
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Complete freedom would mean, essentially, no story. Games like that feel like a huge map, with no specific place meaning much more than any other. I know many feel differently, but I never got into them. Story is a necessity to me. Planescape: Torment ftw!
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I get what some folks are saying here. However, there is no possible way for the video game medium to provide you with complete freedom. Skyrim is equally disqualified because I cant just be a beet farmer or an accountant. I understand the limits. Can you help me understand what a game has to be to be considered a real RPG?
Well, Skyrim does let you pick crops for the farmers and get paid for it... just not beet ;)
I do feel there's a disturbing trend (especially on Steam) to label anything with character stats as an RPG.
To feel like an RPG to me, a game needs:
- Non-linear Play (an overall linear storyline is okay, but it needs the option to branch off it and do other things)
- A means of customizing and improving character abilities (even if the actual numbers are hidden from the player)
- Branching conversations with NPCs, not just monsters to kill or "NPCs" that just repeat static dialogue, with varying reactions from them depending on what you say/do. I'm willing to overlook this one for some early DOS games though simply due to the difficulty of getting that much data onto a floppy disc.
- At least an attempt at having the faintest glimmer of a story.
(I'm fond of Diablo, but it's disqualified from being an RPG by my above criteria, it's more an action-adventure)
Nice additions (but not necessary) are:
- Some form of "non-adventurer" play, even if it's just the little things like Skyrim's farming/mining/smithing.
- An open world
- Side quests
- Multiple endings
- Combat skill is determined by the character's ability, not the player's.
- A decent story (and yeah, this is what turns it from an RPG into a *good* RPG)
So, RPGs:
- The Ultima series (Eight being debatable)
- Bard's Tale series (the original three, I haven't played that new thing)
- Elder Scrolls series (at least III, IV, V, never played the first two)
- The Fallout series
- The Dragon Age games
- The Mass Effect series (I'll accept an argument it doesn't necessarily feel like one, but it fits the criteria)
- Neverwinter Nights I and II, of course!
- The Witcher series
- Baldur's Gate / Icewind Dale series
- Planescape: Torment
Not RPGs (which does not mean I'm saying they're bad games! They just don't fit my RPG category)
- Diablo (any version) - better classified as "Action-Adventure Game"
- (Ooooh, I'm going to catch flak for this, I know) World of Warcraft, due to not having any true means of interacting with the NPCs. They're just automated dispenser machines and you can't "fail" their quests and get different reactions. It's closer to "Multiplayer Adventure Game".
- The Dungeon Siege series - again more of a Diablo "action adventure" feel. It's been a while since I played but I don't recall any branching conversations or choices to make, just a scripted train ride through the story.
- Torchlight - because Diablo.
Questionable:
- The Fable series. On the one side, it runs on tracks, but it does feel like an RPG to me from the immersion side of things, being able to explore the world to a decent degree, and the "alignment effects" you see in-game.
Nice list.
I'd add also Mount&Blade series on RPG's
I've had that for ages on Steam ever since I saw it on sale, but I haven't even downloaded it yet... will have to find the time!
Video games have always been hampered by a lack of reactivity: you do something the game designers did not account for, and it has no real impact. SKYRIM avoids this (as did FALLOUT 3) by making its key NPCs immortal: ambush the Stormcloak leader and he'll fall over, but you cannot kill him, because the game won't let you 'break it' in that fashion. This in itself breaks immersion. A DM, of course, can react to what the players are doing far more quickly and plausibly.
That is one thing that drives me crazy about Skyrim and Elder Scrolls in general--the Elder Scrolls are often praised for being "sandboxy" and giving you massive freedom to do what you want but this never seems to hold up against close scrutiny. "Freedom" in Elder Scrolls seems to mean "you can kill unimportant NPCs if you feel like it and suffer no consequences if you pay a fine," which isn't freedom, it's just silly.
And I cannot tell you how very much I wanted to kill my father in Fallout 3 and the game wouldn't let me. And then the game told me that I wanted to avenge my father's death when he did die, when, no, I really, really was glad the abandoning, egotistical, stubborn idiot was dead. I didn't really give a damn about the water purifier either.
For all that Bethesda touts freedom in its games, it's clear they are not good at writing dynamic interactive stories, and feel far too protective of the linear stories they do write and don't want you to mess with them. Imagine how much better Skyrim could be if you could assassinate Ulfric or Tullius or both, start your own faction to take over the realm, even.
The thing is those games have the POTENTIAL to offer the freedom they claim to give, but the developers prefer to design HUGE but SHALLOW rather than smaller yet DEEP. But with that very engine you could create a game that really did have reactivity and consequences and freedom to do as you like--something Obsidian largely proved with Fallout New Vegas (although many of the DLCs were more railroady, there were still some decent choices in there), which Werthead touched upon.
Something that Black Isle/Obsidian were and are very good at it is the illusion of reactivity. They go much deeper in making the game adjust itself to what you want to do. So in FALLOUT: NEW VEGAS you can wander into the main bad guy's camp at any time, Level 1 or 50 or anywhere inbetween, and try to kill him. If you succeed, great, he's dead and the enemy retreats. The game cheats a little bit: when the enemies return for the final battle they are led by a pretty similar new general, but it's the fact that you CAN kill the bad guy at will and the game acknowledges it (dialogue has characters reacting to you doing it with awe) that is impressive.
You can do this to any NPC in the game (aside from one robot vendor in a bullet-and-bomb-proof booth). There's consequences - quests are shut down, their faction turns on you - but the game does allow you to do exactly what you want, even to your own detriment.
It's also notable that the one indestructable NPC (the Gun Runners' Robot Vendor) is indestructable so that random NPCs don't accidentally kill him as much as keeping the PC from killing him---so no matter what happens in the story, there's at least one vendor that the PC has access to for trade. It's especially notable that the reason for his preservation is to assist gameplay for the PC, and is not because he is "plot important."
I will note in Dead Money there is an NPC who IS invulnerable for a certain period of time. For some reason they didn't want you to kill him until a certain point triggered---but I will note that it is also one of the clumsiest moments of the game, and illustrates exactly why that kind of game design is bad---its existence highlights why it's refreshing that largely doesn't happen elsewhere in the game.
The reason such freedom is not usually given is because of franchiseitis: having wildly-differing endings means that the next game has to pick a single ending as canon and run with that, rendering the whole point of the choice in the previous game pointless. The alternative is to craft a sequel that acknowledges all of the previous variables, which is possible if you design the series with that in mind from the start (MASS EFFECT, to a lesser extent DRAGON AGE) but otherwise would be prohibitively expensive.
Well, it's one of the reasons. It's also harder and takes more time to code. It's easier to program a linear story. If you're writing a massive game with loads of stuff, it's very tempting (or even necessary depending on deadlines) to make an NPC immortal instead of take considerable time to write alternative quest lines and consequences if the PC decides to kill said NPC. It's also about again, I think, a writer's sometime unwillingness to alter a story they want to tell--which means they should be writing stories and books, not interactive games, in my opinion.
But I personally would rather see an RPG that takes place in one city but there is true freedom of choice and consequences to actions, than one that takes place on an entire continent but only gives a thinly veiled illusion of freedom over very hard-coded railroad quests.
Now that I'm done rambling, back to the OP's question:
What does define RPG? The chance to create a character?
Technically, I believe any video RPG is simply defined by the fact that it runs on *mechanics* akin to a tabletop RPG. Whether you're talking about the first video game RPG "DnD" made in the 1970s (a simple game coded with D&D's mechanics) or Mass Effect, there are rules that track attributes, health, and a skill+randomness system that determines outcomes in combat (as opposed to player skill entirely determining outcome in combat, as in a First Person Shooter). The character's skills also advance after advancing the story and accomplishing goals (as opposed to say, a platformer, where usually the PC is as good at jumping and running at the start of the game as he is at the finish).
So the actual role playing part isn't technically necessary to label a video game an "RPG."
But I would think most of us here agree that the deeper story and better characterization you get, the better RPG it is.
And I would say, no, the chance to create a character does not define an RPG. That would preclude games like Planescape: Torment from being RPGs, which doesn't make sense. Or for that matter, many JRPGs where you are thrust into the role of some spiky haired doofus who needs to save the world. But even though you are handed an established character, the games still run on RPG-like mechanics--and both in fact are well known for good characterization and storytelling.
Video Games have had no discernible effects on RPGs..at least from my perspective. If anything I feel as if video games have improved BECAUSE of TTRPGs while having a negative impact on TTRPGs...super detailed rules explaining everything to the Nth degree, elimnation of things like Save or Die, mechanics designed to reward system mastery, and much more. Mind you this is my own perspective and by no means indicative of anyone else.
Video Games have had no discernible effects on RPGs..at least from my perspective. If anything I feel as if video games have improved BECAUSE of TTRPGs while having a negative impact on TTRPGs...super detailed rules explaining everything to the Nth degree, elimnation of things like Save or Die, mechanics designed to reward system mastery, and much more. Mind you this is my own perspective and by no means indicative of anyone else.
I would tend to agree on a good bit of this. In particular, the field has turned to a somewhat more "casual play" style (one of the gripes I've been hearing with some CRPGs these days). While this isn't all bad (it does allow me a weekly chance to play some PF), it does force a certain level of structure onto an otherwise free play system.
I would also say that some of the older (D&D) video games have been particularly strong for story reasons (as Sissyl).
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Complete freedom would mean, essentially, no story. Games like that feel like a huge map, with no specific place meaning much more than any other. I know many feel differently, but I never got into them. Story is a necessity to me. Planescape: Torment ftw!
QFT! The narrative and character development are paramount. Games without a good narrative I find very boring.
However, I do like games that have a good character design system with tradeoffs as well. Systems that allow you to become great in all aspects feel boring to me as well.
I do think that CRPGs have exposed more people to the concept of RPGs but have not necessarily made for better RPGs thou.
Yes video games have had a beneficial effect on RPGs.
People used to play RPGs for the leveling feeling and for combat. These aspects are done much better in a video game than an RPG. For leveling this makes RPGS streamline and yet have more options than a video game. In combat, RPGs should allow for non-trivial or creative solutions to be used.
Magic items are still done better in RPGs, although the art in video games for some items is very desirable.
Some video games strive for balance between classes, and once gamers get a taste of that they want it also in their RPG.
Lastly, there have been some quality stories produced in video games. You may or may not have been around, but a lot of the stories sucked in the 1980s for RPGs. The bar is set much higher now, RPGs in general still tell better stories than video games, but this wasn't always the case.
Could this be perhaps a chance to finally have some quality videogame RPG?
Every time I hear someone say this (or the word sandbox comes out with regards to a video game), it's always a failure. People want it all but there is no such thing. Those people should be playing a table top RPG where the GM can give you exactly what you want.
I should note 'complete freedom' isn't what I was talking about. I was talking about 'reactivity', where players have agency and the stuff they do in the game is reflected in later events.
PLANESCAPE: TORMENT - made by several of the same team as FALLOUT: NEW VEGAS - is an excellent example of that. Though it's more linear than VEGAS, it has a similar thing in that the ending changes quite a lot based on what you did during the game. Whilst in SKYRIM and FALLOUT 3 you can't change anything substantial at all, apart from the order you do things in and maybe a couple of side-decisions that feel big at the time (Tenpenny Tower vs. Megaton) but ultimately don't change the game's overall plot at all.
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And I cannot tell you how very much I wanted to kill my father in Fallout 3 and the game wouldn't let me. And then the game told me that I wanted to avenge my father's death when he did die, when, no, I really, really was glad the abandoning, egotistical, stubborn idiot was dead. I didn't really give a damn about the water purifier either.
To be fair, Fallout 3 (at least the core game) probably has the most anti-climatic plot ever made. First time I uncovered it, was like "wait... that is the deep dark secret everyone has been ever so 'ooh mysterious!' about??"
I mean, I get why water purification would be a really big deal in a post apocalyptic wasteland, it's just really boring. It's like they asked "Mr. Snooze", my college science professor, to design the plot. :p
For all that Bethesda touts freedom in its games, it's clear they are not good at writing dynamic interactive stories, and feel far too protective of the linear stories they do write and don't want you to mess with them. Imagine how much better Skyrim could be if you could assassinate Ulfric or Tullius or both, start your own faction to take over the realm, even.
Hah. I remember my first character in Skyrim. He was this viciously ambitious Norn warlord, so when Ulfric gives me the mission to find that helmet that supposedly marks you as the rightful king of Skyrim I was like "oooh yeah!" So I went along with it, get the helmet, then set about the murder everyone in my group because there's no friggin way I'm handing this thing over to Ulfric. Except, of course, some of your companions are invulnerable. And Bethesda's idea of stepping outside the plot is "ignore the quest in your quest log."
I mean, I don't expect the game to let me replace Ulfric or anything, it's just that you literally can't say "no way" to anyone. Like later in the game when, uhm, someone asks you to kill a person who's been helping you out (trying to avoid spoilers here :p). And if you don't want to be the kind of person who randomly kills people for helping you, your only option is, again, to ignore the rest of that quest line. Which I think is actually a pretty important part of the main plot. Sorry if I'm not enough of a jerk to finish your main plot!
PLANESCAPE: TORMENT - made by several of the same team as FALLOUT: NEW VEGAS - is an excellent example of that. Though it's more linear than VEGAS, it has a similar thing in that the ending changes quite a lot based on what you did during the game.
One of the most most revolutionary things, to me at the time, that Planescape: Torment did was that in the end, you could talk the main badguy into destroying himself, bypassing the trite-but-usually-inevitable "final boss fight." That alone was fantastic.
Since the plot was build around the power of belief, there was also a lot of minor little things that would pop up depending on your choices throughout the game. Most of them weren't important to the plot, but it was just cool little extras that made the overarching story feel more significant.
For instance, when you talk to people, you're usually given several options to introduce yourself. Usually they go something like "I don't remember my name.", "Who I am isn't important." or "My name is... Aidan, uh, yes, Aidan. That's me."
By the end of the game, if enough people believed that there was an Aidan walking around out there, he would actually exist and show up to talk to you.
That was the kind of eye for detail that made Planescape: Torment great. IMHO.
(PS. Don't trust the skull.)
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Tehcnially it's an Adahn but that's beside the point.
Arcanum and Vampire: Bloodlines!
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The Adahn part is topped off by a final piece of the mystery, too, which takes the plot from brilliant to sublime.
In the past it was table top RPG's that seemingly inspired the video game industry. Now it is the video game industry that is inspiring the table top industry.
Abilities like taunts and ranged healing seen in MMO's are creaping into table top games. Also the need for developers to have equal parity in combat is something that seems to stem from video games. Players now even use terms like tanking, DPS identify various roles around the table.
Just an observation.
-MD
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Players now even use terms like tanking, DPS identify various roles around the table.I forbid this kind of vernacular at my table. No MMO terms in my tabletop thank you very much.
They're universal terms. Unwad your panties.
I'd rather have someone say "i draw their attention on me" then "i tank".
Take a look at your table. Examine the vernacular they use on a regular basis. Note how much of that vernacular comes from other sources that are not MMOs. Now observe how you don't object to those terms.
It's time to admit that you don't like the word "tank" because "tank" evokes MMOs in your mind, and MMOs are dirty, dirty things that threaten the sanctity of your gaming table.
In the past it was table top RPG's that seemingly inspired the video game industry. Now it is the video game industry that is inspiring the table top industry.
Abilities like taunts and ranged healing seen in MMO's are creaping into table top games. Also the need for developers to have equal parity in combat is something that seems to stem from video games. Players now even use terms like tanking, DPS identify various roles around the table.
Just an observation.
-MD
This is actually kind of tricky. What you're seeing as artifacts of video game design aren't often aren't actually artifacts of video game design, but rather the result of the fact that video game design is responsible for way more aggressive innovation, mechanically, than every other form of game media, combined. There are so many video games with so many different mechanics and so many players that video game design and game design are now all but interchangeable. Game design, as a field, is incredibly new, and we're still learning things at a breakneck pace as we discover what players do and do not respond to.
So something like equal combat parity isn't something that is unique to video game design that is being ported over to tabletop RPGs. It's actually solid game design, that we just happen to notice first in video game design because video game design is where we learn these things.
Eeeyup.
Game Design courses teach you design principles as a universal deal, before you even get to any of the programming. They're just as applicable to TRPGs, Board Games, video Games, and any other type of game you could care to imagine.
The language mostly comes from the payers, but that's because they're recognized as pretty general things.
Given the choice between saying the phrase "Guy who can take the heavy hits and keep the attention of enemies by presenting himself as the most visible threat" and "tank" I'll take the latter every time. Bit less of a mouthful.
The problem I have with the current state of MMO’s and RPG’s in not so much in the terminology as in the mathematics.
We have endless threads about optimal builds, feat stacking, stat dumping ect. No question munchkin behavior happened in the past but I’ve never seen it such a common thing as I do now. I am reminded me in many ways of when I played WoW and they had entire sites dedicated to calculating builds, DPS, and gear scores. I do not think Pathfinder fans are that far off from this.
That's fine for MMO's but IMO this behavior deviates from the spirit of table top role playing. So when people say terms like Tank or DPS, it makes me cringe ever so slightly. It reminds me of a game that is passing me by, not necessarily in design but in application. To a seemingly majority this is a game of mathematics, optimal builds, and organized completion and this seems to trump creativity and character.
For all my complaints in this post it must be said that PF is a fantastic game and it can be played however one wishes and that’s the beauty of table top RPGs. And this is why IMO computer games will never be a replacement for the tabletop experience.
-MD
You've never seen it as commonly in the past because in the past you likely weren't browsing a forum with a high number of other people with easy access to the internet.
Coupled with the fact that coming up with a character is something you do for yourself, and nobody can really help you with, but BUILDING that character is a learned skill, you're obviously going to get more "Help me make this build good!" than "Help me make a personality I'll find fun".
The game has always been mathematics, and math is something someone can help you understand much easier than "finding your creative voice" or something similar.
You've never seen it as commonly in the past because in the past you likely weren't browsing a forum with a high number of other people with easy access to the internet.
This is exactly it. There is perhaps some small amount of "cross-talk" between MMOs and Pathfinder that might cause a few players to change how they approach the game, but by and large this is just the same phenomenon that led laypeople over the past 50 years to assume that more natural disasters were taking place merely because they were hearing of more natural disasters taking place.
It reminds me of a game that is passing me by, not necessarily in design but in application. To a seemingly majority this is a game of mathematics, optimal builds, and organized completion and this seems to trump creativity and character.
This is going to be a persistent nagging feeling that you will have to fight. You will know, intellectually, that the game is largely staying the same and that you continue to be the target audience (or one of the target audience) but things will occasionally appear to change (usually in superficial ways) that will reinforce the idea that you're being passed by. It isn't happening, it's almost entirely illusory, and it happens to everyone and nearly every aspect of media.
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I'd rather have someone say "i draw their attention on me" then "i tank".
I was using tank in RPGs long before I ever heard it in video game context.
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This is going to be a persistent nagging feeling that you will have to fight. You will know, intellectually, that the game is largely staying the same and that you continue to be the target audience (or one of the target audience) but things will occasionally appear to change (usually in superficial ways) that will reinforce the idea that you're being passed by. It isn't happening, it's almost entirely illusory, and it happens to everyone and nearly every aspect of media.
I do not agree that RPG's are "largely staying the same". The people who still play 1st and 2nd edition D&D have totally been passed by and I do not think that is an illusion.
The RPG product has evolved to reach a larger base of customers and to sell more product. For instance figurines and maps are a common place at the table and the core books have detailed rules of how to use them. This is just good business, something that TSR lacked.
Now I'm not some old guy on the porch talking about how great it was in my day. I was not that great. Games often ground to a halt as players and GM's debated rules that were unclear and/or contradictory. You drink a few beers and all of a sudden THACO became mind numbing challenge. I could go on but really when it comes down to it it was just different, not better or worse but just different.
The industry moves on. In its wake are more than enough books that any player can endlessly create games that they like.
-MD
This is going to be a persistent nagging feeling that you will have to fight. You will know, intellectually, that the game is largely staying the same and that you continue to be the target audience (or one of the target audience) but things will occasionally appear to change (usually in superficial ways) that will reinforce the idea that you're being passed by. It isn't happening, it's almost entirely illusory, and it happens to everyone and nearly every aspect of media.I do not agree that RPG's are "largely staying the same". The people who still play 1st and 2nd edition D&D have totally been passed by and I do not think that is an illusion.
The RPG product has evolved to reach a larger base of customers and to sell more product. For instance figurines and maps are a common place at the table and the core books have detailed rules of how to use them. This is just good business, something that TSR lacked.
Now I'm not some old guy on the porch talking about how great it was in my day. I was not that great. Games often ground to a halt as players and GM's debated rules that were unclear and/or contradictory. You drink a few beers and all of a sudden THACO became mind numbing challenge. I could go on but really when it comes down to it it was just different, not better or worse but just different.
The industry moves on. In its wake are more than enough books that any player can endlessly create games that they like.
-MD
When I started playing in 2nd ed, figurines were sold with the core boxes and battle mats came with all of the introductory dungeons. These aren't some new thing. Those were not new products 20 years ago when I started. Reaper started in the 80s, and I still have some 1st ed dungeon maps. In my experience, games designed around not having them are a newer form of RPG, which seem to stress the mechanics less.
No, it's true. There was a slump in the nineties for minis, and 2nd edition didn't really have many rules that specifically required minis. Earlier than that, sure. After that, it came back. The alternatives to dungeon crawling still remained without minis, of course.
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I do not agree that RPG's are "largely staying the same". The people who still play 1st and 2nd edition D&D have totally been passed by and I do not think that is an illusion.
"Been passed by"? As someone who started out playing 2nd Edition AD&D (and whose first D&D product was the "black box" Basic D&D set), I find it difficult to believe that there is something inherent in later editions that leaves those who played previous editions in the dust. I think it's far more likely that, as with literally every other evolving media phenomenon, it's quite easy for people to become "stuck" in the past, due to comfort with what they're used to, or discomfort with what they're not used to. That doesn't mean the game passed them by. It's silly to believe that they couldn't enjoy playing the game in more recent editions, as though they wouldn't lose themselves in Pathfinder if it was their first exposure to tabletop RPGs.
The RPG product has evolved to reach a larger base of customers and to sell more product.
Literally the opposite has occurred. D&D's days of truly phenomenal popularity took place decades ago. The game has evolved, certainly, but largely to become a better game, not to feel more "mainstream" or whatever.
For instance figurines and maps are a common place at the table and the core books have detailed rules of how to use them. This is just good business, something that TSR lacked.
TSR marketed minis. Hell, D&D evolved out of miniature wargaming, where mini representation was required.
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Ladies and gentlmen, Mr. Devil's advocate himself...Scott Betts.
Ladies and gentlmen, Mr. Devil's advocate himself...Scott Betts.
Fun fact: the original context for the Devil's Advocate was as the Catholic Church's official advocate against the canonization of a saint. Their job was essentially to argue that the candidate did not meet the requirements, which usually meant debunking miracles or exposing fraud - a professional skeptic and critical examiner, as much as could be managed in the 16th century. Historical evidence points to this being quite an effective office, as its dissolution in the 1980s allowed Pope John Paul II to kick off a wave of incredibly prolific elevation.
I am sure you could also tell us what "the exception that confirms the rule" means as well, Scott?
I am sure you could also tell us what "the exception that confirms the rule" means as well, Scott?
Nothing meaningful.
On the contrary, Scott. Most people think it means that you have to have exceptions to every rule, otherwise the rule isn't valid. As you say, that's bloody useless. What it does mean is that if specifying an exception is relevant, a larger rule exists. The quote comes from an immigration case in Rome. The laws stated that people from X, Y and Z were NOT allowed to become citizens. This was taken to mean that all others were allowed.
On the contrary, Scott. Most people think it means that you have to have exceptions to every rule, otherwise the rule isn't valid. As you say, that's bloody useless. What it does mean is that if specifying an exception is relevant, a larger rule exists. The quote comes from an immigration case in Rome. The laws stated that people from X, Y and Z were NOT allowed to become citizens. This was taken to mean that all others were allowed.
Objection!
Relevance?
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Objection!Relevance?
Overruled. Fun facts are always relevant.