Are RPGs Evolving or Dying?

[Shemar]

CRPG lost its way and needs to be reinvented, IMO. As a group, folks here seem to have a pretty good handle on the precise moment of its ruin. Myself, I tend to think it happened about a year or two earlier.

To me the beginnig of the end for cRPGs was the games many here celebrate, the Infinity engine games. From the moment a publisher destroyed the traditional core of RPG-dom, the turn based combat system, and replaced it with the RTwP abomination and still got critical acclaim and sales for doing so, the slide towards turning RPGs to action games had started. That does not mean I did not love the games (despite my bitter dissapointment at the combat system) but I also see them as the games who broke RPGs (as major titles) forever. Since that day, every ADD moron and their grnadmother think that turn based combat is 'outdated' and needs to be 'modernized'. Today's "let's get rid of all the numbers and just have awesome 'splosions" route, (what passes today for) RPGs are going towards has its roots at that very first time where a publisher decided they would try to cater to more that just the tactical combat fans and include action junkies.

 

[Shemar]

So you have only glanced at 3.5ed and feel that you are now perfectly capable of arguing that it's shit and that 4ed is better in every aspect? Because that's what you are doing. I don't understand at all what you mean by the part I quoted in bold. I've played and GM'd both 2nd and 3.5 plus trusty old Classic D&D back then, along with quite a few other p&p games and while there assuredly are many better systems than any generation of D&D, I don't really get your point especially as you use such subjective claims.

Try not to twist things when you attempt to make your points. It is not only obvious, it also undermines everything else you say. For exaple "played a few times" which in my case amounts to about 200 hours of play in the space of 5-6 years (whereas I play about 12 hours a week 4E since it came out, for comparison) is not "glanced". Also I never claimed something as ridiculous as "it's shit and that 4ed is better in every aspect". To me if you need to work on the engine of a car in order to make it 'go' the car is broken. Similarly if I have to come up with my own fixes to make a game system 'work' then I consider it broken. Just because it can be fixed it is not any less broken than the car (that can also be fixed). To make some tnings clear because you seem to be mixing up many things into one:

- I like the way characters are generated in 4E far more than I like how 3.5/3/2 did it. I do not subscribe to the notion that similar character building mechanics lead to similar gameplay something not only contrary to my extensive play experience with 4E, but also universally untrue as the success of systems that completely do away with the concept of class, like GURPS, proves.

- I like the combat system of 4E a LOT. To answer to the second part of your post, my tabletop experience is limited to 5-6 systems, but I have also played hundreds of computer RPGs. I should probably qualify my above statement and limit it to medieval/fantasy combat systems. I tend to like firearms based systems (modern/sci-fi) even more (especially on computers) but I don't see them as a fair measure of comparison.

- I have no objection to you (or anyone) not liking 4E and what it brings to the table. I do have an objection where it is presented as a simplified, 'MMO' inspired game, since the core of what I love about it, the deeply tactical and varied combat, would be turned (and I am sure it will be eventually) into utter crap by an attempt to translate it to an MMO (or even a RTwP system).

- I never liked either the vancian magic, which I always saw as a ridiculous and failed way to balance spell casting power, or the skill points system, which did not exist in AD&D. I was even done with AD&D and was ready form something different. 4E just works for me.

all your argument seem to stem from the idea that somehow 4ed is invulnerable to bad GMing or exploit-hungry players while 3.5ed was/is wide open.

No it isn't, see above. Nothing is invulnerable to bad GM-ing. But in 4E I can tell my players "as long as the character is legal, it's fine" and not worry that they will break my encounters. That is not the case by far in 3.5.

 

[felipepepe]

A truer image was never posted. Enough of feeding the attention whores.

 

[GarfunkeL]

- I have no objection to you (or anyone) not liking 4E and what it brings to the table. I do have an objection where it is presented as a simplified, 'MMO' inspired game, since the core of what I love about it, the deeply tactical and varied combat, would be turned (and I am sure it will be eventually) into utter crap by an attempt to translate it to an MMO (or even a RTwP system).

That's a bold claim and I see nothing in the game mechanics to support it. Granted, I haven't played it for hundreds of hours so I could be mistaken but after reading the rules, it definitely seemed simplified from earlier editions.

- I never liked either the vancian magic, which I always saw as a ridiculous and failed way to balance spell casting power, or the skill points system, which did not exist in AD&D. I was even done with AD&D and was ready form something different. 4E just works for me.

Apple-fan detected So would you finally concede that it is only personal taste that makes 4th edition "better" than 3.5th edition?

But in 4E I can tell my players "as long as the character is legal, it's fine" and not worry that they will break my encounters. That is not the case by far in 3.5.

Oh wow. Well, I don't design my encounters without knowing what kind of party the players created so I don't have to worry about that either. And to use your car analogue, the case of "broken engine" doesn't really work. If you use PH1, DMG and MM1, you won't have much, if any, problems. So it's not that the engine is broken, it's just that the manufacturer offers so many additional stuff for your car that if you include them all, your car won't work anymore.