Skyrim does have an enjoyable system. I don't see it that way.

From another point of view, a computer game is a true RPG if its purpose is to enable you to play a role. It needn't be perfect to have a defined function. True doesn't mean perfect. A dull knife is still a true knife.

IMO, you don't have to have visible stats to make it an RPG. If you want to break it down to it's basic wording... Role Playing Game. When you create a character, you are taking on the persona of that particular individual. In all likelihood, IRL you've not run through an entire village cleaving heads off and outrunning the guards because of the bounty on your head. IRL, you're likely to also not be an infamous thief who casually strolls into ladies bedrooms at 2 am searching for heirloom gold necklaces. Of course I'm saying that in all probability that you are not the character you've chosen to create via (ex.) Bethesda's builder. A RPG gives you more latitude for individual creation. You can play the game again and again; and still manage to have the game show up differently each time. Granted all games pretty much have static "quests". Yes, this includes things like Madden football, Super Bustamove and Grand Theft Auto. All games have goals. So the mark of a RPG isn't goal orientation or even really stats for that matter. It's living the game through the eyes of the character you've created. A RPG tells a story and how it plays out, is how you choose to play it out. RPG's have choices. By my own criteria (and I'll probably get shot for this at some point), I don't consider the Final Fantasy series to be a RPG. It's a turn based strategy game. If the fighting goes real time, it becomes more of a hack and slash. Don't get me wrong here; I like many of the FF games. I like great sweeping storylines. I like seeing a story written so well in a game that it moves me emotionally. I think I side track myself from my original point. A RPG should in theory be about personal choices that effect the game. Ex. Dungeons and Dragons (the boardgame): 1.)a story is created 2)people go through it with personally created characters 3)Their descisions effect what will happen (Bob the Sylvan Elf chooses not to search the room, the whole part is subject to sleep spores yada-yada-yada) The stats are obviously there in the game. It's descisions based on a characters individual response that make it a RPG. You become the character, you decide for the character. In Oblivion you can choose to kill all the homeless people on their bedrolls at night (which I have.) Or... you can choose to play it nicely and not have murders to your credit. You can become your own alchemist and ignore every single quest in the game- just because you feel like it. Your actions create reactions from the other characters in the game. No two characters get the same treatment. See what I'm getting at here?

Before this topic goes way out of control, as it did countless times before, I'd like to briefly remind everyone of my old table labeled "A guide to the politics of the Skyrim General Discussion forum" (http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1166901-a-little-something-i-put-together). Yeah, it was a half-joke, but it was dead-serious about the fact that some "camps" are very passionate about their position and are irreconcileable. DO NOT ask purist roleplayers to consider that Skyrim's lack of elements they deem essential in an RPG makes it any less an RPG. That is always guaranteed to start a bitter argument. Full stop.
That's just the way it is. People have different opinions and you have to respect them, not try to convert them.

Im not a big fan of action RPG's. I like RPG's with action, but not quite action RPG's (yes it sounds absurd, but its not the same)
I like the action, but I don't see a need for RPG elements unless there are enough to make it feel like an RPG to me. Fable has RPG elements, but are they enough? For me, no.
I like how the game is getting actiony, but I don't like how its becoming a hollow RPG. I already played fable, you play it once and your done.

I think its sad to see the last stat heavy "true RPGs" to disappear, but I will find another. And today thats Dwarf Fortress. Its sad for me to lose taste in TES, but its their desired path not mine.

It is a real RPG, and I will refuse to refuse to pick it up.

Isn't Dwarf Fortress a strategy / city management game?


...hmm, yeah, Wikipedia has it classed as City Building / Roguelike. And roguelikes are barely "roleplaying" games to start with - combat, piles o' loot, and character classes/races, but no real roles or decisions beyond the tactical.

:shrug:

In that case most games are RPG's. You can roleplay a soldier when playing Modern Warfare. You can even roleplay a plumber when playing Mario.

I think that the RPG genre on computers is vaguely defined by previous classic RPG's. There isn't really a set boundry or certain prerequisites but there are some essentials. Things like levelling and attributes could be considered vital for an RPG. The thing is though that Bethesda probably doesn't want to make a great RPG; they want to make a great game. And games are something that keep evolving. Catagorizing games is, for me, just a means to relate them to other, similar games. If you would actually hold on to some set limits as a developer, then you would limit yourself. Or in other words: the game defines the genre it is in, not vice versa.

Stats are overrated. You can RP all you want without them.

Stats don't make an RPG. Stats are present in RPGs to facilitate the performing of various actions. As you move into a 3d game, some of those stats become superfluous, like chance to hit. You time your swing, you can see it connect. Calculating whether or not you actually hit it (even though you see the blow connect) just becomes aggravating. The removal of other stats for Skyrim is because they're a victim of how TES handled stats and calculations. They were redundant. Their removal makes for one less step in those calculations now. It doesn't make it any less of an RPG. It makes it a more efficient system. If the relationship between stats and other attributes/activities had been different in TES, their fate may have been different. But they had their system and apparently didn't see a reason to swap it out for a different one when they could just streamline the one they had.

Without stats you have no RPG videogame. You dont even have an RPG.

Good thing there's health, magicka and stamina stats then.

Theres a whole lot more stats than just that.

In Skyrim, or in general?

In Skyrim and in general.

Well, the system is more complex than the system used in Fable 2 and 3, so as long as it's above those, I'm still going to say it's an RPG stat wise.

As for gameplay, that has yet to be seen. If the stats end up barely effecting anything, as was sort of the case in Oblivion, then I'll determine it as being dangerously close to being an action adventure game with RPG elements instead of a full on RPG.

Of course, that'll be my opinion. Some may think that Skyrim will be an even more in depth RPG because of that, and some will go to the extremes saying it's basically Fable with more skills.

But it is a true RPG! It's the truest RPG I've ever found for consoles, especially, outside of Everquest.

An RPG (role-playing game) is just that. You play, write, script (whatever) your own role. You play as you wish. You create your own character, and then explore the world with that character. Period. That's what a role-playing game is.

The actual rules of the game can vary. That's all Bethesda is trying to do by getting rid of the attributes system, they're trying some new rules out.

In this new millenium, Dungeons & Dragons officially changed a number of things with their game, compared to the original D&D of the '70s. Like in the newest iteration of D&D, one can play a paladin without it being Lawful Good (in the past, paladins were always LG). Does this mean D&D is no longer an RPG? No, it means they've changed the rules to their latest version of the game.

The way many Action/Adventure games differ from RPGs is in an A/A, you do NOT have the choice of making your own character. You play as Lara Croft, for instance, and only Lara Croft if you're involved in Tomb Raider. Action Adventures also often do not have a sandbox world to explore. You must accomplish part A if you want to get to part B. You cannot make your own game.

HTH, Renee

made me rofl

On topic, i think the op said hypothetically consider it an action oriented game with rpg elements? I personally would love a game heavy with both but id say TES series is far more rpg because bethesda in general seems like they dont focus that much on the actual action game mechanics, which appears to be changing with skyrim, whichhh im very excited about.

Also, i dont think it takes much to consider a game an RPG technically since you can roleplay in almost anything, TES series just adds to that effect exponentially with everything theyve added with their open worldness and choices you have to make helping you to be a unique player.

Again i agree with the quote above, i had never thought about it but, increase in techonology does seem to cause the stats and number crunching to naturally dissapear as the game becomes more immersive and things ingame start to become directly affected by every tiny thing you do.

EDIT: thinking on it, numerical stats seems to be more of a nostalgic idea when talking about RPGs id say. Like how when i think of rpg's i love i immediately think of ocarina of time(as pointed out above i guess it would be considered an adventure game but you do get to name your char so that makes it a bit more RPish heh) probably just because of the nostalgia factor, while many other newer games have done RPG far better.
Everquest being one of my favorites followed by TES series and Age of Conan(<-- actiony gameplay mechanic-wise)

EDIT 2: @Rahu X above, talking about how if the stats barely affect anything it will be considered more an action game. It seems you still have all the stats and they still have a huge affect on everything you are just putting less emphasis or importance i guess on the actual number as opposed to the actions you do to get to those numbers. But they have the same scale of effect id say, like someone else stated i think its just becoming more behind the scenes. Seems to allow for more time RPing out imo.

Yeah it is, but the adventure mode is a roguelike RPG. You're right about the fortress mode.
You have to play it to see what I mean, its sense of progression and every NPC is more defined than any character in TES. It isn't an RPG, but it has RPG features.
Besides, I like stats...

And at least part of an RPG, or at least RPG's to me, are management. But thats also why I like RTS games, I like management. I find RPG's to be more about role's you could fill and managing your character than to be about decisions and such. If RPG's were all about decisions I'd count fable as one. But of course this leads to the very difficult job of defining an RPG.

An RPG has pretty much everything in it, management, decisions, stats, progression and Im sure i've neglected something. The question is what features are important, and how deep should they be? Dwarf fortress has management and progression deeper than anything, but its not a wildly popular game. Diablo 2 had attributes, but only a rather small skill tree (IMO). Fable has probably some of the most shallow RPG features. The question is how much, and which features are important.
Personally I find the changes saddening, some people still think its deep enough, and Im sure several people will think its finally light enough for them to enjoy TES. An RPG is too wide to easily explain, and it means different things for different people, and thats what makes making a new TES difficult. TES means different things for different people.

Heh. I think people have been arguing over the definition of what an RPG is since about two minutes after the phrase Role Playing Game was coined.

I dont understand this post at all, why argue ? what does and does not constitute an RPG is up to the player not the game designer, they give us a game they call an RPG or an action/RPG, then its up to you to decide to play it, stats in the earliest RPG's known (to me anyway) dungeons and dragons books, the stats were always rolled so you had no real control over them, (besides doing the rolling yourself), so unless you are arguing over the fact you want to place stats like in fallout, what they (bethesda) are doing are presets, designed as appropriate to a starter character, and they (bethesda) always seem to get it right (in my mind at least), and everything in their games is a choice also, if you choose to play nothing but the main quest then do so, if you want to explore the whole of skyrim without killing anything then you can do that also too, in my mind that makes the RPG experience, but not the role I play, the role I play is the character I build to start the experience, but again in this, that will just happen, as I start to play by swinging my first sword at the first head to stick up in the wrong way, the only thing I need set up to start will be what race, and how do they look , and this makes me happy. IMO

RPG means different things to different people, some feel you play a game and you fill in the cracks with your own thoughts, Others feel you should have a thought of who you want to play and the game reflects and recognizes as best as it can what your trying to do and who you are trying to be within its rules.

no Stats probably don't define an RPG but they are the guidelines to what your -character- not you or your thoughts can do within the game, I can think all i want that my character is a daedric prince in disguise and can exhibit super divine strenght at a whim as well as teleport too and from his dominion, but I can't do that in the game....and my Stats detailing my level 1 character (which is still a stat so I don't see why people are all yippiy :celebrate: about, there are dozens of more numbers for you to look at aside from character stats) say otherwise.

To me, TES games aren't "true" RPGs. To me, a "true" RPG is something like KotOR, for example; a "true" RPG gives the ability to choose, not just in your head but in the game itself, who and what your character is using things like alignment systems and a very good variety of responses to choose from in any situation.

That's my opinion - take from it what you will.

I agree, but I think Daggerfall and to an extent Morrowind were more RPG than oblivion, no not because they had dicerolls or were text base or any of that garbage people like to stir up when comparing previous titles to Oblivion, but because of some of the choices, to name a few

The end of the Mainquest....in Daggerfall

helping the spriggans or killing them


Keeping Fargoths ring or giving it to him for discounts at Arielle.


In Oblivion you weren't given any choices nor concequences

You will always be a holy crusader of the mages guild dispite whatever you personally think about your character, the Necromancers will always be the badguys and you will never be able to side with them.


the Fighters guild are always holier than thou and do no wrong,

Thieves guild will always be some offset of steal from the rich, and justification fo doing wrong.

the Darkbrotherhood quests mostly end in someone dying(shadow scale doesnt count its a personal matter), not that you failed a mission and now have to live with that consequence.

you can never join the Mythic dawn, your always the good guy.\

etc etc etc I can go on really, atleast in Daggerfall you could help the badguys to some extent and that still reflects in titles prior....albiet indirectly.

First, just because there were entirely too many of these to ignore, I continue to find myself baffled by the recurring complaints about somehow being "forced to" pay attention to numbers and how the elimination of those numbers will somehow "free you" from "having to" pay attention to them

I already don't pay attention to them, or at least not beyond the basic impact of them - this character is smart, this character is strong, this character is fast.... And the reason I'm troubled by the removal of numbers certainly isn't that I have some fascination with them - again - I don't even really keep track of them. I'm troubled by their removal because, without them, I don't see how this character is going to be fast or this character is going to be smart or this character is going to be strong. All I can see as possibilities is that this character will have a bigger stamina tank, this character will have a bigger magicka pool and this charcter will have a bigger health bar. Contrary to the recurring propaganda, those just aren't the same thing.

Now - to the main topic - will it still be an RPG? I'd answer that by saying that I've seen people argue that Pokemon is an RPG. And I've seen people argue that Final Fantasy is not. With a range like that, there's obviously no objective answer.

Is it going to be what I personally consider to be an RPG? Mostly. Probably. Sort of. I'm disappointed by the removal of yet more complexity and its replacement with yet more gimmicks, and the game is definitely veering ever further from what I'd consider an RPG, but it appears it'll still be enough of one to more or less qualify. I'd prefer that I be able to do the things that I consider fundamental to true roleplaying - create a character with a particular set of abilities and attributes and inclinations and values and then loose him on the world and see how he does - and it's apparent that my ability to do that is at least going to be greatly diminished by the all-consuming quest for an entirely blank slate of a character who will be able to do any thing at any time with no restrictions. To me, the restrictions imposed by race and gender and heritage and background and interests and values and so on aren't an onerous burden - they're what makes playing an RPG more than once worth it. Without those differences, I can't see any reason I'd want to make the dozens of characters I've made in Oblivion. If any one character can do anything as well as any other character, then there's no entertainment to be gained from trying an Orc mage or a Bosmer tank or a Nord thief. I might just as well pick one character, run him through the game a few times to try out some different perk combinations, then..... go back to playing Oblivion.

Will I still buy the game? Sure. What other options do I have? It's not as if Beth is going to put out an alternate TES for those who want more RPG meat in the game, so I'll make do with whatever they put out.

And to that last - I absolutely guarantee that Beth is counting on just that.