WHERE DID RPING GO, AND WHY?

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Looking at most RPG's, regardless of their origin by region (JRPG/WRPG), it's very difficult to see any RPing actually involved. The core to a successful Roleplaying game, back in the days of tabletop, was the ability to make decisions and have them influence the outcome of the entire game. These weren't just equipment choices - these were choices such as which route to take, how you gathered information, whethered you worked cohesively or frequently bickered with your team. All of these added flavour to the story, depth to your characters, and immersion to the whole experience.
I tried to find a few games with RPing in them, and so far, only Persona 4 and Vampires: The Masquerade came out on top. Oblivion and Fallout do try, but... eh, it doesn't quite cut it for my standards. Fable, too, takes a stab at it, but it trivializes a lot of aspects of RP and gives you very limited choice. Outside of that, the only choices I could find in recent RPG's were equipment choices and the occasional dialogue option, that had absolutely no impact on the game itself.

So I ask you this. Where did Roleplaying go, and Why?
Furthermore, seeing as this is the Design/Theory thread, I'll put a question to the RPG designers:
Supposing that time, money, and any other limiting factors were not constraining you or your team, would you try to incorporate elements of Roleplaying into your RPG's?
Versalia
must be all that rtp in your diet
1405
My next project's MC is the type who says absolutely nothing you don't choose to make him say, as well as alternate event branches where you can date party members or set them up with each other, etc.

RPing is alive and well, y'all! Just because you aren't making decisions, doesn't mean you aren't playing a role. You're viewing the world as someone else. It's just a question of game linearity, for the most part.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
author=Chaosbahamut123
Supposing that time, money, and any other limiting factors were not constraining you or your team, would you try to incorporate elements of Roleplaying into your RPG's?


Hell no. I can't stand the stuff.

RPG video games didn't "lose" the RPing aspect. They never had it to begin with. The very first RPGs lacked it, and only later did western designers who didn't understand why the name RPG was used for the genre ever try to add RPing in to their games.

The things that tabletop RPGs and video game RPGs have in common are their battle system and their progression system. Video games are grouped into genres based on certain core elements of gameplay. The RPG genre refers to two things: games that have slow, tactical combat where players can simple choose skills rather than relying on reflexes; and games where players can increase their character's power by fighting enemies or performing other tasks, so that stronger foes can be beaten even when the player himself does not become any more skilled. (Ideally gamers would be able to settle on one of these two elements as the definition, but no such luck.)

Lots of games do have heavy RPing though, you just need to play more western RPGs. Try the Ultima series, or anything by Bioware.
Nyergh, Bioware. My experiences with that company have not been pleasant.
As I stated in the starting thread, Persona 4 - a JRPG - does a damn good job of including RP aspects. I played for about two hours without fighting any monsters whatsoever, doing only the Social Link stuff - which is purely RP. So if the comparatively small Atlus can do it, why can't the bigger companies like Square Enix or ZeniMax (via Bethesda) do a decent job of it?

I guess it's the whole Indie/AAA argument when it comes to that sort of thing.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
If you find Dragon Age: Origins or Knights of the Old Republic unpleasant you are a soulless demon. I don't even like western RPGs and I still feel the need to defend their honor.
Versalia
must be all that rtp in your diet
1405
author=LockeZ
author=Chaosbahamut123
Lots of games do have heavy RPing though, you just need to play more western RPGs.

Arcanum
author=LockeZ
If you find Dragon Age: Origins or Knights of the Old Republic unpleasant you are a soulless demon. I don't even like western RPGs and I still feel the need to defend their honor.

I'm not a 360 owner, so I don't bother with Dragon Age. I found Knights of the Old Republic to be... mediocre, at best, but that's largely because I'm not a huge fan of the Star Wars games. When it came to RP, I wasn't impressed.

Edit: Remembered that DA isn't a 360-exclusive, but that still doesn't change my standpoint on it.
author=LockeZ
If you find Dragon Age: Origins or Knights of the Old Republic unpleasant you are a soulless demon. I don't even like western RPGs and I still feel the need to defend their honor.
Pretty much this.
author=kentona
author=LockeZ
If you find Dragon Age: Origins or Knights of the Old Republic unpleasant you are a soulless demon. I don't even like western RPGs and I still feel the need to defend their honor.
Pretty much this.


I guess that makes me a soulless demon, then. But I can't say I found the latter unpleasant. It just wasn't as good as some other RP experiences I've had, like with V: TM-B.
Versalia
must be all that rtp in your diet
1405
Get Arcanum, it is an amazing game with a ridiculous amount of replay value. Like Oblivion, you can pickpocket, kill, etc anybody you wish. You can break into homes, steal the clothes off sleeping people, pick shopkeepers' chests...

Almost every quest has multiple ways of completion. (Investing a lot into Charisma and the Persuasion skill will make you able to talk your way out of 90% of situations. Of course you might cheat yourself out of EXP by taking 'the easy way out.' Later in the game you also need higher INT to be able to talk your way in circles.) If you have really low INT, you get "dumb" and retarded dialogue options... etc. Really well done.

Oh yeah and you can earn reputations. (Master Pick Pocket quest involves running around Tarant town naked. You get "The Pervert of Tarant" reputation)
author=Versalia
Get Arcanum, it is an amazing game with a ridiculous amount of replay value. Like Oblivion, you can pickpocket, kill, etc anybody you wish. You can break into homes, steal the clothes off sleeping people, pick shopkeepers' chests...

Almost every quest has multiple ways of completion. (Investing a lot into Charisma and the Persuasion skill will make you able to talk your way out of 90% of situations. Of course you might cheat yourself out of EXP by taking 'the easy way out.' Later in the game you also need higher INT to be able to talk your way in circles.) If you have really low INT, you get "dumb" and retarded dialogue options... etc. Really well done.

Oh yeah and you can earn reputations. (Master Pick Pocket quest involves running around Tarant town naked. You get "The Pervert of Tarant" reputation)


Arcanum... Sounds like where I need to be. *has a search*
author=Versalia
author=LockeZ
author=Chaosbahamut123
Lots of games do have heavy RPing though, you just need to play more western RPGs.
Arcanum

Fuck yes Arcanum.

(It's by the same developers who did Bloodlines, their first game (where Bloodlines was their last).

But... On the topic at hand. I guess Lockez really is right in saying that RPing hardly ever existed in RPGs to begin with. Most early games were dungeon crawls and they are about as RPless in tabletop as they are on the computer.

Personally I've found that in games that try in the slightest with the RP (like, for example Mass Effect) but also fail miserably (like, for example Mass Effect). I instead choose to put words into my character's mouth. And... you know...

When RPing you should also RP and not game so much. Say you have a game where you would like to RP. Now RP is not really something you can do properly in-game in-game because people will have different ideas of things. So if you have a good-evil scale then what someone thinks is good ("Yes of course I demand a reward for helping you are you daft". In Planescape Torment that would have got you evil points) mightn't actually be and whatnot.

But by not gaming the system. Let's say you play as (what you, as an RPer) a thief hunter. A person who despises theft in all its forms. This means as a player that although the game will offer you plenty of opportunity to empty people's lockers you probably shouldn't. And even if there is a bunch of quests you can get by joining the thieves' guild (most of which probably don't even involve stealing). You probably shouldn't.

Of course games can close these options for you (and many do. Many more don't) but to get to that hardcore RP you need to close some options voluntarily too.
I think that RPing by itself isn't much of a game, and that truly sandbox game where you just 'play pretend' wouldn't be very fun or successful.

Your best bet would be to pick up an MMO and instead of following the min/max optimal path for a class, just RP and fool around.
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
Persona 4 is... not RPing. You build dating sim stats and eat shitty food cooked by animu girls.

Dragon Age is good. Never play it on 360. You have to play it on the PC so that you can get a no-helmet mod.

What you are saying in this topic is:
-"I don't know what actual role-playing is"
-"I don't like games by the company that makes games with actual roleplaying"
-"I'd rather have a fake social life than be with people" (stretching on this one)

just play The Sims 3 + expansions. you get vampires and randomly generated dungeons and curses and stuff in one of the very few absolutely non-linear games ever
Versalia
must be all that rtp in your diet
1405
author=Craze
Persona 4 is... not RPing. You build dating sim stats and eat shitty food cooked by animu girls.

in what way are you not RPing as an eight-timing douchebag with bad taste in women? I can totally be a dick, or a smooth charmer, or... you know, whatever responses I decide best fit the role I'd like to play as

edit: although the game does encourage you to be a sociopath and just say what people want to hear
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
What you say has absolutely no significance except that sometimes completely unimportant people get pissed off for a short while. Dating eight women is the same as dating none. P4 has no deviations from the path except whether the girls cry or not when you say goodbye. You do not even get the "Eight-timer" achievement!

RPing is more than "I ate steak, so I built stats" and saying "you're pretty" instead of "you're cool." Your choices have consequences. There are no meaningful consequences in P4. Dating Yukiko and then hitting on Chie does not ruin their battle performance together any more than watching fifteen minutes of kids pretending to be drunk is entertaining.

EDIT: What I am saying is that every time I think about P4 I hate it a little more.
Versalia
must be all that rtp in your diet
1405
author=Craze
sometimes completely unimportant people get pissed off for a short while.

Reverse a link with a party member you'd like to use and tell me that's not important. I guess my chosen party member will just never evolve her Persona, but who cares? I guess Rise won't learn some of her cooler abilities, but I'll suffer the loss of potential mini-map functionality because she doesn't matter. (Stop getting pissed off girls. There's enough Souji to go around. Harem party!)

Dating eight women is the same as dating none.

Except that it changes details during the end of the game. Okay. (This is a nitpick. But it does change... SOMETHING ;-;)

P4 has no deviations from the path except whether the girls cry or not when you say goodbye. You do not even get the "Eight-timer" achievement!

I will agree with this, though. You're still playing a role and deciding what actions to take, it just has very little effect on the progression of the game. I don't think this means you aren't RPing, just not in a way that is more significant to your ultimate experience.
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
I just starting googling "can you reverse party member link persona 4" but got to "can you" and one of the FAQs in the list was

(big P3 spoiler)

"can you not kill shinjiro"


HOW WAS IT READING MY MIND FOR "PERSONA"
Versalia
must be all that rtp in your diet
1405
You know, I could be talking out of my ass, because I'M A LADIES' MAN and I never got anyone pissed at me the entire game. (Happened a lot in P3 though.)
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
I honestly don't think that you can reverse PC s.links, and I only ever reversed Ai even though I was pretty harsh to Yosuke and Naoto.
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