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xSamhainx
Paws of Doom
Joined: 11 Sep 2002
Posts: 2192
Location: San Diego |
quote:
Originally posted by Roqua
Am I crazy or am I doing it right?
**calls the giant squirrels in the white coats**
No really, youre playing in the same way essentially as someone such as myself, in my head "filling in the blanks" and having convo and such that isnt in the game itself, and dealing with conflict within the hearts and minds of my characters. This is roleplaying, plain and simple.
This is how I get roleplaying fun out of the less RPG-faithful titles, and even strategy games. I find that games are more or less what I make of them, and seldom do they satisfy me taken at face value alone.
I dont want to involve myself in this thread in anything but a short, cursory type of cameo appearance. My days of short story length diatribes is in the distant, foggy past. Great jumpin Jehosaphat, I got tired halfway thru just reading this thread! Consider a bumper sticker on my avatar which reads "I'd Rather Be Gaming" 
Carry on, Professor Roqua 
_________________
“Then away out in the woods I heard that kind of a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to tell about something that's on its mind and can't make itself understood, and so can't rest easy in its grave, and has to go about that way every night grieving.”-Mark Twain |
Sat Apr 29, 2006 8:05 pm |
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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
quote:
Originally posted by Roqua
Am I crazy or am I doing it right?
We all know know you are crazy...
Seriously, you are doing your best to roleplay. But the game is an RPG because it did...nothing? I don't see how this advances your point. Other than letting you kill non-hostiles, what did the game do to engender roleplaying?
Check your PMs, by the way.
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Editor @ RPGDot |
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Sat Apr 29, 2006 10:58 pm |
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Priest4hire
Head Merchant
Joined: 08 May 2002
Posts: 52
Location: Slocan, BC |
Remember Crusader: No Remorse? Well, while playing I decided that the main character would avoid civilian causalities at all costs. That proved to be a real pain in the ass after a while but I stuck with it. So I imagined a characteristic of my character and using the range of options in the game implemented it. Seeing how the game would allow you to kill civilians deliberately, ignore them, or try and not kill them one could argue this is a 'role playing tool'. Don't laugh, I actually ran across someone who believed killing everyone in Morrowind was a full and rich expression of character in the role playing sense. I kill thus I am role playing.
To skip a track here let me mention that there is a spot on the ceiling above my bed. Yes, I'm sure that's more information than you needed. Still, it was that spot that inspired my 'spot on the ceiling' test. As I lay upon my bed I can gaze up at that spot and imagine anything about it I so desire. Sure, it doesn't do anything back but that means I have even greater flexibility. Perhaps that spot is really a colony of hyper-intelligent nanobots. Perhaps it's an artifact as a higher dimensional being is forcing himself into this world. Or perhaps it's a weakening of spacetime and thus a potential portal into the elsewhere.
My point in all this rambling is that I can attribute any quality I so desire to the spot. In theory because the spot does nothing at all I have the greatest freedom of all. I can imagine anything at all including, but not requiring, any drama, obstacle, test, choice, outcome, character, and setting. So then surely I must have, there on my ceiling, the ultimate RPG.
Yeah, I don't buy it either. It's a friggin spot on my ceiling. It's a symbol of my laziness not an RPG of all things. See, I hold that in order to qualify as role playing within the context of an RPG is has to be more than just the spot on the ceiling. In other words it's not enough that I can imagine anything I like in my head but the game itself has to role play back. Otherwise it might as well be that spot. Hell, the spot is more flexible since boneheaded game mechanics will never interfere with the perfect mental role playing.
So we are back to this concept that by offering one a choice (fight, use a social skill, beg for mercy) and another choice (the ability to kill non-hostiles) you have a role playing tool. You can role play a character so long as the character in question behaves within the guidelines of the game and expresses only those characteristics. But then could this not be said of any game that has any choice whatsoever? In Panzer Dragoon Orta could I not create a reason for favoring a particular form for the dragon? In Defender could I not give attributes to the various humans and then alter my behavior towards them by how quickly I rescue them and how closely I guard them?
So then we come full circle. Sure, you can take a limited choice in game and flesh it out in your head. But what influence does that have on the game and how does the game act or react? Sure, you can take the pre-scripted elements of a game and imagine characteristics that happen to fall into those elements. But how is that creating anything within the game? Would selecting a line from a list of 2 or 3 or even 20 - without any choice of performance whatsoever - qualify as improv acting or even regular acting?
My personal thought is no. Without the freedom to actually create a performance within the game itself you are not role playing in that game. As I said before the choices in a CRPG are like an elaborate Choose Your Own Adventure book. Ever read one of those? They even had multiple endings and all. And indeed you could imagine a character and use that to make the decisions in the book. But the book, the game, isn't dynamic and doesn't act back. You aren't really creating a performance at all but at best choosing paths that most closely correspond to the character you would like to play. But without the freedom to create that performance you aren't really role playing. More like role picking.
That said no, you aren't doing anything wrong. It is, after all, just a game. If fleshing the characters make the game a richer experience then it's the right thing to do.
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Watch your back. Shoot straight. Conserve ammo. And never, ever, cut a deal with a dragon.
Grammaton Dragon
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Sun Apr 30, 2006 9:36 am |
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Roqua
High Emperor
Joined: 02 Sep 2003
Posts: 897
Location: rump |
Sam, nice cameo. Almost as good as Arnold in “The Run Down.”
Dhruin and P4H,
Two parts, first the game allowed me to make a choice that facilitated role-playing. Second, what I am advocating is that games provide more choices to facilitate role-playing. My experience would of never happened in BaK, since I would have never been presented with that choice in the first place. And my experience could have been richer in role-playing if ToEE implemented more choices and supported more role-playing.
The going back and cheating to facilitate where I wanted my story to go is a side effect of not being able to do more with an opportunity the game presented.
The question is this, am I writing a book, or am I reading a book?
Yes, in their current state, crpgs are going to be like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. I am saying the genre should advance more and more to the blank book option, and not more towards the regular book option.
To me, role-playing is imagination. If you play a pen and paper game you create ad hock, but the creation stimulates creation from others. Or, as you say, is a dynamic process with responses back to you that stimulate more creation, which stimulate more creation, etc. And that is how the story is written. I cannot be so crazy as to think that this is possible on a crpg. But, you will have to admit, that this dynamic process can happen, because it is still imagination based. If I can come up with my own motivation for my characters whose roles I am playing to enter the Temple in ToEE will always be more conductive than the game coming up with my motivation for me, or even a list of a couple prefabed motivations that I can choose from.
You are saying this motivation must be in the game, and I am saying no it doesn’t. I do not need to act out my conversations in the game. The core reason for that role-playing is the same if it is voiced or not. In a pen and paper game, the story is voiced so every one playing can share in it and know what is happening. If it happens in my head, and I am the only one playing, I know what is happening. Goal achieved.
If you can have it acted out in the game, without forcing the player to confirm to a role you choice for his character, it definitely should be implemented. The “what” should always be in the game, and the “why” when it can be without interfering with how the player play’s his role. It’s not like a spot.
In a p&p game the GM gives you the what (as in what is happening), the why (as in why your character responds this way) is always imagined then voiced. A crpg always gives you the what, but then they give you more whats and leave little to no room for you to imagine and voice the why. The why is the most important part. It is the act, the creation. It can only happen by creating with your imagination. It is controlled creation in both forms. Your goal is to fill the book, not partake in an already written book.
And yes, a crpg, for the most part, has to be already written. But the core parts, the essence of role-playing, the “why” doesn’t have to. The inventiveness, the imagination, the creation doesn’t have to be removed. But for the most part, a module or campaign for the p&p game is already written. The what is written down. The why, of course, isn’t.
See this for proof.
http://www.drivethrurpg.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=139&products_id=1459
http://www.columbiagames.com/cgi-bin/query/cfg/zoom.cfg?product_id=5051
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Vegitarian is the Indian word for lousey hunter. |
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Sun Apr 30, 2006 3:16 pm |
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GothicGothicness
Keeper of the Gates
Joined: 04 Oct 2003
Posts: 110
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I want to start by congratulating you Dhruin, because this is a most excellent subject!
My answer would be "NO", with the exception of the Gothic Series, and Wizardry 8, all my favourite RPGS are from the 90's.
I don't feel that any new games come close to the quality of Ultima 7 or Betrayel at Krondor. When I played these games I would be stuck for hours on end. There was even this day when I started playing Ultima 7 in the morning, and before I knew it the day was over. New games does not pull me in like that.
I think one reason is acctually technical limitations in new games. It's no secret I don't like Oblivion at all. But even if I did, how would I get immersed in it, when it has frequent slow-downs, loading times, bugs etc etc that prevents me from getting immersed into the game? In Ultima 7 I just kept playing and playing and playing, I never had to wait for loading, I never even got any problems with bugs. ( Granted I did get the game after a lot of patches had already been released ). |
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Mon May 01, 2006 11:14 am |
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