Can we all agree that Baldur's Gate is an abomination to the RPG genre...

Can we all agree that Baldur's Gate is an abomination to the RPG genre? Even before Siege of Dragonspear essentially killed the game?

While I agree its a pretty bad game calling it an abomination is pretty far fetched considering how well it implemented the class system from DND

Abomination is a pretty strong word.

bait thread alert

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Eh, Baldur's Gate is ok. It's overrated as fuck but there's far worse out there.

Truth is that if you expected anything (half decent) from BD you've got only yourself to blame. it's not like we didn't try to warn you hypefags

That's mostly BG2. In one they barely speak out and the amazon feminist character is openly mocked.

Also, you're kinda laying it thick.

Sure you're not talking about Fallout: New Vegas there, user?

Why

Can we all agree that video games is an abomination to the RPG genre? Even before Final Fantasy essentially killed the roleplaying?

RPG is a really general term anymore, I can't even say what game has the most RPGness to it.
Everybody seems to say its Baldurs Gate, but then again everybody thinks FFVII was the best game ever.

Baldur's Gate 64 was rad, you faggot, especially if you played it with the rumble pack or linked it to Pokemon Red.

I think you really need to split the term up into 3-4 sub-terms to get any use out of it. For a start you need something to cover shit like STALKER which I'll claim is an RPG until I fucking die but clearly is not an RPG of the same type.

Or you could stop calling video games RPGs and describe them by their gameplay instead.

That sounds like a gameplay description to me. There's always a need for short, simple terms to group things by. That said there are some that make no fucking sense/are defined too widely:

Action (at least it doesn't work by itself)
Action-Adventure
Immersive Simulator
aRPG (applies to both Dialbo-style looting games and actual action-RPGs)

Thanks, I did mock trial lawyer in high school. I didn't go into pre-law because it made me feel sick, though.

End-game is not just story related. I'm going to described two possible end-bosses you can use of roughly approximate power in AD&D, the system Baldurs Gate is based off of:

The first is a Lich with levels in Cleric and Magic-User. He specializes in power word spells. He has the ability to heal himself with negative energy unless that spell is interrupted, powerful instant-kill effects, and a number of spells that go off too fast to be stopped normally. His weakness is that he can be turned, but that requires lasting through his initial assault, plus a bit of luck.

The second is a Shade who is a Fighter with Psionic powers. He cannot be turned, is resistant to lots of magic, and can use shape alteration or growth effects to take on a stronger form. He is vulnerable to other psionic attacks, but also more dangerous against psionics. He cannot use spells and self-healing, but he has magic resistance and is very strong in the shadows. Using a light spell can create an area where he is weak enough to be harmed, but he can always jump back to an area which is safer. If he gets close enough to your caster, he can also drop them in a single round of attacks.

Notice that these two are both very different. One has lots of attacks at range, while the other is devastating up close. One is incredibly resilient from healing magic, but this can be countered; the other has less healing powers, but has a massive armor class, making attacks that hit accurately more useful than ones with massive damage.

The enemy encounter dictates what kind of tactics are required. This is what we call "gameplay". Something with lots of hit points requires different tactics than something with none. The end-boss of Baldurs Gate is a high level fighter with strong melee attacks, but that is the limit of it. It's not like trying to fight a Dragon or a Beholder, or a Magic-User.

The dialogue does have to do with sound design, as your NPC companions speak as you travel. This is a heard noise which has to do with the sound design, and can be considered irritating when you hear the same shitty lines a thousand times over. Unvoiced dialogue this might not be the case with. However, in these games, you need to read the dialogue to know where to go for quests and the like.

Aesthetics are part of visual design, which is part of gameplay. A landscape is meant to convey something about the area. There are some good choices in the game. For example, the Basilisk area has stone statues everywhere, which is your first heads up that petrification is about. I actually disagree with the original user you were arguing with, in that I don't think the Baldurs Gate visual designs were that bad. However, a repeated landscape with no signs indicating what sort of gameplay is present is bad visual design.

I would endorse this in a heart beat. RPGs depend heavily on the role-playing aspect, and no video game has every provided it accurately. Even Planescape Torment, despite all of the praise it gets, is incredibly shallow compared to a real tabletop campaign set in the Planescape world. The amount of limitations imposed by a game are immense.

well yeah you can categorize all day, but the RPG genre has a whole doesn't make any fucking sense. Even CoD is an RPG since you're roleplaying as a soldier.

Not really. TTRPGs aren't really defined by any strict form of gameplay as a medium. The amount of play pretend ranges from near zero to constant depending on the group, conflict resolution methods might or might no be used, there could be character progression or not and so on.

RPG as a medium instead of a genre really is the only meaningful use of the term.

Easily solved by specifying that the main focus (or at least main attraction) of the game has to be the roleplaying for it to be a roleplaying game. For subgenres you add criteria like 'success largely dependent on character skill over player skill' (this neatly puts STALKER and, say, Human Revolution in a different category from BG and Deus Ex). The real problem for me comes in when people start trying to use terminology for something other than the simplification of communication.

The problem with abandoning easy categories is practicality.

That's a very narrow description. The important part about role-playing in a traditional RPG is that the world is responsive to your actions. That's what railroading is considered so poorly within the traditional gaming community, as it takes away that aspect.

There is also a degree of interactivity, with your fellow players and the game master. This is generally impossible outside of MMOs. However, there is an issue with MMOs: because they have to present something to all players, the DM aspect of the game (the game itself) cannot be as responsive to players, which leads to shit like NPCs who cannot be targeted by attacks and so forth, or important characters who refuse to die when they are killed.

Video games by their very nature cannot permit proper role-playing, because they created a closeted space which imposes limitations on actions. Note that this is very different from limitations on ability. While you can have a character unable to use plate armor because of his class, this is based on his own abilities. Saying he cannot hit a guy because that person is tagged as "essential NPC" is a limitation on action.

It's all pointless in the end, because people will just call shit what they call shit. And there's nothing we can do about it, because the retarded don't just stop being retarded.

TTRPG =/= vidya RPG though. Certainly I'd agree the latter cannot compare in freedom even when you take into account games that do let you have DMs.

There's also a fairly clear division between TTRPGs and wargames like 40k, Flames of War. Surely this is one of gameplay?

In terms of vidya RPGs the focus on roleplaying is the defining factor.

Not helpful in terms of video games.

Term "RPG" being used as a marketing gimmick for video game is irrelevant to its meaning.

You can use wargame rulesets for roleplaying games, it's just matter of making it a collaborative storytelling with some sort of a game master and nobody could say you aren't roleplaying. A lot of RPGs can also boil down to being squad combat games if the tactical gameplay takes precedence and players control multiple characters.

Define roleplaying. You don't need stats, character progression or even conflict resolution for that.

So? Use more apt description than nebulous "roleplaying".

If you want some special snowflake faggotry go play some dumb nip shit.

Confirmed for never playing a table-top campaign in his life.

This is where shit gets muddy, but basically shooter games focus on combat, platformer games focus on movement/reflexes, so on and so forth. Roleplaying is that the majority of the elements in the game help you to build your character in some fashion.

It seem using "RPG" as a video game genre is pretty much pointless if it's nothing concrete.

I wouldn't say the usual things of building the player character in video games, like picking a pre-written response or allocating character progression points is any more valid roleplaying than, for example, choosing to help allied NPCs in a generic shooter because you feel that is what your character would do. Determining how your character acts in combat is a common thing in TTRPGs, choosing one from a few canned lines given by the GM is not.

well at least is not an JRPG

At least it's not Final Fantasy 7.

The REAL cancer from that time.

sure combat can be the focus, I can't think of very many rpgs that don't have that. But the difference between, say, a rpg/fps game and a fps/rpg game is the mechanics.
If most of the mechanics involve improving your abilities in combat, then its a fps. If most of the mechanics let you do other things like lockpicking, building factions, or making babies then its a rpg.

I can't say I agree with the notion that activities superfluous to the core gameplay turn a video game into an RPG.

>people using storytelling elements to define games
In pretty much any medium, story is arbitrary and only exists to contextualize the manipulations and depictions of a given work. In games, it gives context to the actions of the player and their outcome with regards to the game state. RPGs (TT and vidya) are games are defined primarily by the player's (players') ability to define and develop their character(s) in order to achieve success - contrast this with action games where reflex and motor-skills are the primary skill, strategy games where it's large-scale strategic planning and decision-making, etc.

The argument that the lack of freedom in video game RPGs prevent them from being "true" RPGs is also flawed. Yes, TTRPGs have can have seemingly limitless options that allow for a great diversity of interactions in the game, but that the scope of options doesn't change the skillset it expects of people. I mean TT strategy games are categorically much less restrictive than their computer counterparts but you don't hear people calling for those games to not be called strategy games - not nearly as much, at least. Hell, pretty much all traditional game forms are less restrictive than any computer game counterparts.

The existence of combat does not determine the genre - combat is just another type of interaction that the game has to offer. How player applies their skills to interactions is what matters. In FPS (and other action games), your reflexes/motor-skill is tested. In RPGs, your management of your character is tested.

d&d maps horribly to vidya, though. It was designed around minimizing effects of player skill and having a lot of RNG to make repeated in-person playthoughs with friends interesting.

I played Icewind Dale first and will play it again from time to time as the years ago on, much more often than the BG saga if I ever replay BG1 at all.

So in your opinion every game without reflex/motor skills are RPGs? Pretty flawed idea. And I don't see how using direct player skill as the conflict resolution would stop roleplaying when the player character abilities are still determined by the game in question.

dice roll is shit in video games

If management is the focus, then the game is a simulator. If you consider a character simulator an RPG, then The Sims is the best RPG ever made.
This is what I mean by roleplaying being a muddy and ultimately nonsense genre, it's a weird combination between depth and diversity of actions.

this. at least 2nd edition did (THAC0 is the worst armour class system ever devised, and the skills system translates really fucking badly to videogames)

you know what I'm honestly surprised we haven't seen in vidya is a Rifts game. Over the top setting, over the top character classes, the potential to be - at level 1! - a cyborg who is so powerful you can literally punch unarmoured enemies once and they'll explode, magic, and literally limitless adventure ideas (rifts are dimensional gateways that can take you anywhere in space or time). nothing

those memes are actually from that game

nigga, a god of death died and everyone wants his throne

and in BG2 you can fuck the evil out of her with your dick
or did you mean one of the new characters from the enhanced edition

fair. They're better in 2

it's fucking Dungeons & Dragons. Frankly it's a world feature

ain't it grand?

actually there's not much brown in either BG game, at least not in the sense that brown is usually bad. There's no muddying of graphics, no dark tones to hide ugly textures. Browns are used in canyons and cliffs, and are always strong colors. There's more green than anything and fucktons of blue

No, because that doesn't specify the skills replacing it.
I don't recall saying that. I said that the player skill involved in RPGs is their management of their characters and how that applies to other interactions in the game.

Simulators have no overarching and defined goals, thus interactions don't test a skill. The Sims doesn't test your ability to manage your characters and their lives - making them successful or ruining their lives are equally valid way to play.

I just want to play a good CRPG.

okay, so what I'm getting here is that a roleplaying game is a game that lets the player manage the character's skills/growth in such a way that it can win.

Why is this thread still alive?
Cucks and plebbitors, cucks and plebbitors…

What

So there are even more characters that have no depth than lusting for riches and power you're saying? How generic

They exist but they usually have an anime art style or are ported from console or hand held games

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Did you even play the game?

I completely agree. Wizardry and M&M were examples of actually good CRPG's, and ToEE/KotC mapped dnd to pc and actually made good games with good gameplay unlike baldurs gate.

I'm expecting a lot of babbies first rpg faggots to be saging angrily against OP in defense of this game.

I think it's been too many years, Badlur's Gate was the first RPG for very few.

ToEE was a shit game precisely because it mapped DnD rules accurately. Because DnD rules are shit. They are only even barely passable in a tabletop setting.

Baldur's Gate at least ATTEMPTED to take advantage of what a video game could do with the system. The RTwP wasn't without flaws but it played far better overall.

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Nice try. Maybe you should go ask /tg/ what they think of 3.x/PF

You can stop now.

FFS, is this what Holla Forums de-evoled to?

You're taking bait this pathetic?

You should all be ashamed of yourself. Get the fuck out!