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Anime Role-playing vs. avatarism

When I play a CRPG, I

  • role play a specific character

    Votes: 57 38.5%
  • act as if I myself were the player character

    Votes: 47 31.8%
  • what rp are u gay i go for ph4t l00t (kingcomrade)

    Votes: 44 29.7%

  • Total voters
    148

DraQ

Arcane
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Never could get into the whole "immersion" business, it's just a unit on the screen from my point of view:
The unit you build is a tool used to achieve victory in a computer game, nothing more.
Roleplaying this unit would be like roleplaying any other tool, and if I did shout "Bow before the allmighty disk destroyer, sir Maxtor" everytime I cloned a disk, everyone around me would think I was completely insane.
Similar example would be a roleplaying craftsman. Does one think to himself: "This nail shall bend the knee before the King Hammer, or face eternal damnation" while hammering some nails? Is that a sane thing to do by your standards?
Anyway, regardless of the game setting, I just roleplay an armchair general, looking at my pixel army and issuing orders, telling them where to go and that sort of thing.
If my unit dies, it's just a minor inconvenience to me, though IC the developer efforts to immerse me in their world by declaring things like: "YOU have DIED".
Some games often do that, but I never really give a fuck about a dead unit. It will always be "unit lost" as far as I'm concerned, and I will never shed a tear because it's just a pixel on the screen, regardless of developers' take on the matter.
I guess I'd have to be religious to think a character in game is a representation of me in some sort of alternate universe, but fortunately I am not.
Though I realize that some people will always form an emotional bond with their characters, and I can respect that, but I would never support the claim that everyone should.
The fuck is this post doing in GRPGD?

Strategy gaming is that way.
 

MilesBeyond

Cipher
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Immersion is one of the most important parts of an RPG, especially story-driven ones.

Stories are like cons: None of them are foolproof, and they all have some sort of major flaw or hole that, once you find it, makes everything else kind of slowly lose its magic. What this means is that, again like a con, half of a good story is not necessarily in the content, but rather in its ability to suck the player in so that they don't want to find the flaws and plotholes. Aka immersion.
 

Metro

Arcane
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Fuck immersion. I don't play RPGs to be 'immersed' or transport myself into the fantasy. That sounds like why women watch porn. If a setting is good and makes cohesive sense (a la Gothic, etc.) then that's all I require. I play games for the mechanics. I have no idea where this immersion business started. Certainly not with PnP RPGs. I remember the few times I played AD&D with my brothers back before many of you were glints in your daddy's eye -- you had character sheets and usually controlled a whole party on your own versus a bunch of people LARP'ing one character each.
 

Ninjerk

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Fuck immersion. I don't play RPGs to be 'immersed' or transport myself into the fantasy. That sounds like why women watch porn. If a setting is good and makes cohesive sense (a la Gothic, etc.) then that's all I require. I play games for the mechanics. I have no idea where this immersion business started. Certainly not with PnP RPGs. I remember the few times I played AD&D with my brothers back before many of you were glints in your daddy's eye -- you had character sheets and usually controlled a whole party on your own versus a bunch of people LARP'ing one character each.
bethestard.png
 

Brutan

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To those that consider immersion in an RPG useless I ask: why don't you play Diablo or another hack and slash? It saves you the trouble of skipping all the pesky text and dialogue.
 

Mackerel

Augur
Joined
May 17, 2009
Messages
700
I always consider my character(s) to be a puppet(s) I control for my amusement in cRPGs. I don't get a sense of roleplaying in picking from a predetermined list of options, the thing I'd actually do if I was playing PnP is almost never there, so it just becomes what seems fun at the time.
 

Surf Solar

cannot into womynz
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To those that consider immersion in an RPG useless I ask: why don't you play Diablo or another hack and slash? It saves you the trouble of skipping all the pesky text and dialogue.


Just because people want to have good systems in place that allow for deep and varied gameplay it doesn't mean one cannot enjoy a good story as well ALONG with it. I would never play a game I like the story but hate the gameplay. Playing through a shitty story but with nice gameplay is somethung different however.

I always cringe when people use 'immersion' in an actual serious tone.
 

DraQ

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Fuck immersion. I don't play RPGs to be 'immersed' or transport myself into the fantasy. That sounds like why women watch porn. If a setting is good and makes cohesive sense (a la Gothic, etc.) then
...it is immersive by the virtue of not having broken your immersion.
+M

Immersion is one of the most important parts of an RPG, especially story-driven ones.

Stories are like cons: None of them are foolproof, and they all have some sort of major flaw or hole that, once you find it, makes everything else kind of slowly lose its magic. What this means is that, again like a con, half of a good story is not necessarily in the content, but rather in its ability to suck the player in so that they don't want to find the flaws and plotholes. Aka immersion.
Yes, but that's still not an excuse for not trying as hard as possible to root the flaws and plotholes out.
 

Metro

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Fuck immersion. I don't play RPGs to be 'immersed' or transport myself into the fantasy. That sounds like why women watch porn. If a setting is good and makes cohesive sense (a la Gothic, etc.) then that's all I require. I play games for the mechanics. I have no idea where this immersion business started. Certainly not with PnP RPGs. I remember the few times I played AD&D with my brothers back before many of you were glints in your daddy's eye -- you had character sheets and usually controlled a whole party on your own versus a bunch of people LARP'ing one character each.
bethestard.png
I would have preferred the one with Todd and Pete but clearly Codex operates on a shoestring budget.
 

sigma1932

Augur
Joined
Nov 11, 2011
Messages
119
People wanna talk about immersion... I find that it completely breaks my immersion in a game if my character is still an unstoppable harbinger of doom when it comes to straight-up toe-to-toe combat even if I completely neglect basic combat skills and instead build the character to statistically be a diplomatic/stealthy spy/espionage type of character...

On the storyfag side of that same concept, if none of the choices you make matter it completely breaks immersion there too... how the fuck am I supposed to meaningfully "role-play" a set of moral, behavioral, or whatever other thematic bullet-points if what I control my characters to say/do means fuck-all within the context of how the game is actually gonna play out?
 

Trip

Learned
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May 24, 2015
Messages
127
Immersion has come to mean next to nothing, really. I don't think even two people can mention it in a conversation and be sure they mean (approximately) the same thing. To me it's rather simple: mechanics that burrow down as closely to the core of a particular experience as possible. In any case, I expect to be playing a game, working with in-game information, formulating plans, carrying them out.

I don't mind at all working with a fistful of stats in order to interact with a NPC, trying to "game" the situation. People I know think that pondering stats and strategies during a social interaction is "immersion-breaking"; but if the social situation is well-modeled by the stats and the gameplay, I'm more immersed, not less. We do that kind of "game" thinking in real-life, too, if mostly subconsciously, we just take in a different set of variables - posture, tone, facial expressions, third-party gossip about a particular person, our own feelings of insecurity or confidence, etc.

(Subjective preference: in a game, I don't even care about if the text/dialogue/description is extremely meticulously hand-crafted. Reactivity immerses me more than a cool piece of dialogue you can have only once. In the latter case I feel more like an audience, and that's not a good thing in a game. *If* I'm playing for "immersion", I'd gladly accept text that's generated on the fly, marking this or that reaction and state, as long as it's not *completely* generic.)

Combat-oriented gameplay works the same way; it's directly influenced by how well a particular sort of combat is modeled by the systems. It doesn't matter if the model consists of a truckload of stats to tweak, or if it's something like NEO Scavenger. Both can be great if they work towards the intended gameplay.
 

granit

Scholar
Joined
Mar 1, 2013
Messages
128
This thread... :lol:

Because of such stupid questions, too many RPGs are not party-based, or without custom party.

What is stupid is to want to play a roleplaying game when you just care about combat. Go play a strategy game, your fucking retard. I’m sure that is an industry that will feed your simplistic appetites.

I don't know enough crpg larping people, but would't hardcore rp fags also roleplay parties? Is that even possible

If you think about it, games that provide role-play such as BG1&2, DA:O and KOTOR 1&2 already has a inbuilt personality system for the NPCs. They have dialogues of their own and causal talk. In BG2, for instance, they can turn against you depending of your choices and reputation. That way you don’t need to actually role-play the team because they will role-play themselves, the exception being the battles. This thread just made me notice how much admiration I have for BG2. I want to dismiss the teenager writing of Bioware, but the game has a simplicity and a self-indulgent fun that is unbeatable. This made me want to play it again. I think this is the real mark of a classic: you can’t discuss about it without having an itching to revisit them again.

Roleplaying != LARPing. You roleplay in cRPGs if there's character defining choices to make in the game. If the game doesn't give a choice and you pretend like there is, then you're larping. And that's fucking dumb. Dumber than LARPs in real life, 'cause at least in LARPs your actions have reactions by the other larpers.

Look, you can call me a retarded, but I LARP the hell of every game I touch. I throw a fireball and shot “Die, your filth scum!!”. I larp even in race, plataformer and soccer games. Of course, I barely play these games anymore, but I know that I would larp them if I played them. I can’t help myself. I also imagine a lot of additional stuff that my character has in the game world, in every game. I just can’t help myself.
Look, you can call me a retarded, but I LARP the hell of every game I touch. I throw a fireball and shot “Die, your filth scum!!”. I larp even in race, plataformer and soccer games. Of course, I barely play these games anymore, but I know that I would larp them if I played them. I can’t help myself. I also imagine a lot of additional stuff that my character has in the game world, in every game. I just can’t help myself.
I don't see shouting invectives as larping. Otherwise everyone watching sports would be larping. That's just being enthousiastic / cheering for the team.

LARPing in cPRGs is when you make choices that aren't supported by the game. Like pretending you have a relationship with a certain character, and doing things like bringing them presents of whatever dumb shit people do, while there's no indication of it in the game (not saying that kind of shit is cool if supported in game, Dragon Age Origins did all that and was fucking retarded).

Sometimes you perhaps need to LARP to make up for constrictions put in place by developer. Just an example, you agree with needing secure resting to level up in Morrowind. So you do the same in Skyrim, but this time the game doesn't support it so you have to make your own rule and follow it. For the most parts mods can fix this so you don't have to larp it.
 

Ismaul

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Yeah, the Elder Scrolls games. 100% pure LARPing. Because the games offer no roleplaying choices whatsoever.

But really, your example is resting? If you need that to be supported to roleplay, you're too far gone in the LARP zone.
 

Cthulhu_is_love

Guest
Sometimes you perhaps need to LARP to make up for constrictions put in place by developer. Just an example, you agree with needing secure resting to level up in Morrowind. So you do the same in Skyrim, but this time the game doesn't support it so you have to make your own rule and follow it.

Yeah, we just have to IMAGINE playing good games.
 
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Drowed

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I don't even see it as "roleplaying" or "LARPing", I see it as the act of reading/watching a story.

Every game has a story to tell, and good RPGs has several stories. I usually just follow the story seems to be more pleasant to watch/read, based on the choices I can make. CRPGs with (real) multiple choices are like CYOAs - you are choosing what story you want to read based on your decisions. Obviously, without knowing beforehand the game's story, you cannot know how it will react to your choices; but you can choose how the protagonist will react. For me it's like watching a series where you can choose, at certain points in the story, how the protagonist will react.

Coincidentally (or not), I usually like to watch stories where I sympathize or identify with the main character, so I usually end up making choices similar to those that I would do given the same situation: it seem to be the best story to watch. In some cases (as in The Witcher series), I want to follow the story of the character that was presented, then I end up making the choices that consider consistent with what such a character would do.

Doing things differently seems strange because the story won't make sense, it's as strange as watching a movie where one (or more) character has very inconsistent reactions, it seems like a case of incompetence of the writer. It is annoying to see a poorly written story, so likewise, I don't like to play (AKA, watch) a story like that.

In the end, it's just a matter of "what story I want to watch".
 
Self-Ejected

Ulminati

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I usually end up recycling character concepts from old p&p campaigns. Sometimes it requires a little work to for into a game, but usually it doesn't. By now I've a pretty good idea how Halgrimm, Nessa, John Keel, Muriel, Warcupine etc would respond to a given situation and there's enough old p&p characters to choose from to fit most character concepts in crpgs. For games where you roll a full party, only the "main" character gets a personality and the test are faceless mooks. D:OS is a notable exception. My characters bickered incessantly in that game.

When I do a Codexers party, they always pick the greedy douchebag options :obviously:
 

Xi

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The question is black and white. It requires the decider to pick one or the other, when the obvious answer is that everyone on this board has done both. The question even begs at which option is more elitist than the other. Honestly, I don't see either side flawed, depending on what one aims to accomplish.

VR will probably lead to more avatarism because the psyche will struggle to detach.
 
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Aothan

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some interesting ideas to take note of regarding rpgs, perhaps more so modern variants, as it would seem they tend to force a combination of rp and larping unless one unquestioningly accepts their game design (and that way lies cognitive dissonance)
 

Captain Shrek

Guest
The real question here is, what kind of character are you allowed to role play?

Take the Witcher series for example: You can only play the good guy who is either a serial do goodder or a neutral monster hunter for hire with familial ties. You can not role play otherwise even if you tried.

This practically leaves open only broad stroke strategy games like M&B or CK2 where you can actually invent a life goal and actively pursue it willingly while the world reacts to them. CK2 being superior of course.
 

thesheeep

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So... it is less a role playing game if it allows you to play less roles?
Isn't it more important how good it allows you to play the roles that you can play?

There just have to be choices to begin with. Even in a game like Witcher 3 there are quite a few choices (even if most are minor in impact).

Then again, if the choices don't lead to different branches, there is no point in replaying them.
Which is probably the biggest downside to Witcher 3, pretty much no replayability. But one could argue that it matters little if the game still offers 80+ hours of entertainment. ;)
 
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I don't ever really play as "myself" since my characters will do bold/stupid stuff I wouldn't ever consider if it was my butt on the line, such as going after the unknown monster in its cave on the other side of the kingdom even the peasant questgiver can't pay me, because why the fuck not. Actually if I played as myself I'd just tell him to call the guards and waddle away, rejecting the chance at adventure and spend the rest of my days selling healing herbs at the town apothecary. I may go for "character-appropriate" choices on subsequent playthroughs (the nobleman insulted me as he gave me the job instructions, so I'll punch his lights out and fail the quest because Grognok doesn't take shit from nobody)
 

Vikter

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I try to RP as the character, if the gameplay allows me to do so without boring me (if the combat is shit, I will just say "fuck it" and stop caring about it). Often times I like to mumble IRL as if I was talking like the character itself (Baldur's Gate II).
And sometimes I RP as a greedy asshole, at which point I would call it just avataring.

If there's romancing, however, I tend to think of the banger character as close to me as possible: shy and often saying stupid stuff to be funny. Doesn't really work.
 

baturinsky

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I only care about plot as long as it's tied into gameplay. If it's just "fluff" in text form that I'm not going to base any of decisions on, I see it as wortheless.
 

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