Richard "General British" Garriott leaves NCsoft

[mondblut]

As I said before, Oblivion and PST are two sides of a same coin, games which forfeit the RPG cake in pursue of fancy icings.

LARPing means bringing forth the nonexistant "roleplaying" into a well-established genre and then gradually screwing it up because "roleplaying isn't about this" and "roleplaying isn't about that". Yeah, "roleplaying" isn't about numbers and tactics, it isn't about combat and exploration...that's why the RPGs had nothing to do with "roleplaying" and I would very much like them to stay that way.

As for sandbox games, I am perfectly fine with them. Wizardry 7, both Fallouts, all Might&Magic games and many others were highly sandboxy. Just put a party, turn-based combat and a slew of numbers in character sheet in there, instead of superficious "roleplaying" bullshit which aims for 1 character, realtime, 3 stats.

 

[dagorkan]

So I guess you are one of those dumbfucks who think a non-combat, non-leveling RPG is a contradiction in terms.

 

[mondblut]

There are many perfectly acceptable alternatives to leveling. Like skills increase by use, or direct xp-to-skills exchange.

A non-combat RPG makes as much sense as a non-combat wargame.

 

[dagorkan]

Except an RPG isn't a wargame, otherwise we'd call it that?

I do agree with you generally about Planescape, I think you're being over dramatic for the sake of argument.

 

[mondblut]

Except an RPG isn't a wargame, otherwise we'd call it that?

Yeah, RPGs got stat advancement and some exploration and puzzles in their squad-level tactics.

I do agree with you generally about Planescape, I think you're being over dramatic for the sake of argument.

We must take over the Codex. Enough crying over Fallout 3, let's have our Wizardries back!

 

[dagorkan]

Were dnd and Akalabeth proper RPGs by your definition?

 

[Mor]

Moonblood: there's a subset of P&P players with Kult, Wraith and Call of Cthulhu books who think the "narrativist" style is purer and "more RPG" because it made the other half step away from the wargame to come to its own identity. I'm curious what you think about it as a pro who can lucidly put aside nostalgia and who realizes computer RPGs must mimic the P&P. If you have a broader philosophy on evolutionary transitions, feel free.

 

[mondblut]

Were dnd and Akalabeth proper RPGs by your definition?

dnd was single-character But still (any traditional roguelike, for that matter) it certainly is more an RPG than any ARPG, or any book of (great) dialogues with a sloppy gameplay slapped on top of it as an afterthought. And I don't even like roguelikes. Haven't played Akalabeth (first two Ultimas were too unwieldy to try their prequel), but I assume it's similar enough.

Moonblood: there's a subset of P&P players with Kult, Wraith and Call of Cthulhu books who think the "narrativist" style is purer and "more RPG" because it made the other half step away from the wargame to come to its own identity. I'm curious what you think about it as a pro who can lucidly put aside nostalgia and who realizes computer RPGs must mimic the P&P. If you have a broader philosophy on evolutionary transitions, feel free.

I do not believe in "evolution" (as is, something which is assumed to be natural and positive), just in "change". Therefore, when I look for a definition of things, I look at their roots. 1st ed D&D is a game which started and defined "the roleplaying game". Every half step away from it is a half step *away from an RPG*, not to some "more and purer RPG".

See, in the days of yore an RPG session meant people went exploring a dungeon, combatting monsters, avoiding traps, solving puzzles, getting loot, rolling dice, calculating maths and occasionally chatting "in character" for lulz. Then, at some point, those people invited some actor school dropout who couldn't do maths, but loved to chat "in character" a little too much. And at some point further in time, such actor school dropouts realized they don't need any dungeons, monsters, dice and maths to chat "in character" at all. Thus the "storytelling RPG" were born, and the genuine RPGs were looked down upon as something which was, well, about gaming, not playing make-believe improvised theatre.

Unfortunately, a PC is a bad partner to chat "in character" with. And so it went to emulate the original RPG style, and the theatre fans would be better staying in their online RP chatrooms instead of trying to pervert the computer version of RPG as they did with the tabletop one, but with no real positive output other than breaking the thing. For despite their success in dismantling the computer RPG and taking every trace of an original RPG out of it in favor of "immersion" and "playing a role", a computer still refuses to chat back.

 

[Wyrmlord]

See, in the days of yore an RPG session meant people went exploring a dungeon, combatting monsters, avoiding traps, solving puzzles, getting loot, rolling dice, calculating maths and occasionally chatting "in character" for lulz.

You know, Ultima Underworld fits that description quite well, even though it is a first-person action RPG. I suppose it goes to show that even as a first-person action RPG, it's more of a RPG than alot of other RPGs out there.

And I think Ultima Underworld goes to show that it is possible to deviate and change from basic mechanics of RPGs and still be very true to them. Because there are hard stats involved in its real-time combat, and it is not merely a whack a mole sort of fighting.

 

[Destroid]

I can't help but think a combat focused PnP RPG would be boring as hell. Combat has never taken center stage in any PnP RPG I have taken part in.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

I daresay that your dm doesn't know how to create very good encounters then. Why don't you give me an example of your tabletop experience destroid? How does it work? What sort of things do you do?

 

[mondblut]

UUW was just a beginning of the trend. If it was made today, it would be probably a twin of Bioshock.

 

[Wyrmlord]

I don't know, it was still an insanely fun game.

I mean, like finding that wizard who kidnapped the princess. After descending down several tortuous and large levels, you just can't find him anywhere. And then you find out that his lair is behind a chasm of fire, which can only be unlocked by a special item. It's a truly incredible feeling to play a game which poses such bizzare and uncompromisingly difficult situations to you. Because you feel like you have achieved the impossible when you figure things out in the game.

Even if it isn't quite a RPG, it has the kind of content which can really add to a great experience in a RPG. And RPGs aside, UUW also did so much for the first-person shooter genre, because games like Doom borrowed and worked on the kind of large complex indoor levels with hidden and secret areas that UUW had.

If Garriott was directly involved in it, then he deserves kudos for making one of the most awe-inspiring games I have seen.

 

[Destroid]

Mostly our games are driven by dialogue. The game is SLA Industries, and our characters are all essentially bounty hunters in an infinite cyberpunk metropolis. Most of our play time is spent investigating whatever our current case is, which involves talking to various characters, as well as a fair amount of internal discussion between the players as to what the best course of action might be. Most of our investigations have been regarding serial killers, cults or subversive elements. These typically result in one or more combats before they are resolved (including 'boss' fights), however some of them are quite long or result in no combat at all. Fortunately, our GM is very experienced and brilliant at his job.

Other things that take up some play time are small of recreation or other downtime activities (don't really enjoy this) and elements from various characters backgrounds, that only that character knows about. Essentially the game is about mystery and intrigue rather than fightan. Oh and horror, although I think this is extremely difficult to pull off in a pnp RPG, our GM does an ok job of it.

So I guess a typical play session (or series, depending on the mission) will be us conducting an investigation on some happening, either mundane or bizarre. Usually we will discover things are not as they seem, interview a bunch of people, decide which ones were lying, maybe break into their houses or crack a few skulls. Eventually we will get to the bottom of what we *think* is going on, boss encounter ensues (maybe combat or not) maybe something goes horribly wrong (paranormal) and we all get the men in black treatment or maybe we collect our paychecks and go home. We do get the occasional combat heavy mission or battles with mooks, but they are pretty uncommon.

I highly recommend the fiction of this setting, its quite good. Would definately like to see a CRPG (or even action game) in this setting, it has great art.

 

[MisterStone]

Nooooo! Buncha larpers! If you are not constantly maximizing combat effectiveness and tweaking shit on your character's spreadsheet page you are just a bunch of LARPer dorks who fail at math and refuse to deal with statistics!