It's exact opposite for me. But there is difference.

A "true" RPG gives the ability to choose, not just in my head but in the game itself by responding with its sandbox mechanics.

I find those choices&consequences games as turn-the-page adventure children books. Most RPGs are ancient strategy war games disguised in RPGs. Linear games are everywhere, even CoD has a stat system and progression.

I don't care for what some people think constitutes an RPG, but Skyrim is shaping up to be exactly what I want in my ideal RPGs... which is to say it's a large, open-ended, explorational action RPG that gives me the freedom strongly lacking in much of the rest of the gaming industry.

I thought the concepts everquest had dealing with getting discriminated because of your religion/race/other affiliations really added to rp element.

In a way, all games are RPGs.

Skyrim will have more RPG elements than 95% of the games out there.

I play TES as adventure games and appreciate all the RPG elements they give me.

Personally I find most RPGs to be boring, Action-RPGs have always been my favourite genre and I'm pleased to see Skyrim is taking bold steps in that direction

"RPG" is a label that has become the industry's filthy [censored]. It gets slapped on so many games nowadays that it's pretty much lost all meaning. If a game has numbers that you can make go up, it gets called an RPG even if there is no actual roleplaying going on. And no, making up a story in your head about your character is not really roleplaying in the gaming sense, because it has no effect on how your character can interact with the world.

Stats do not an RPG make. Choice and consequence, however, do. Roleplaying is absolutely meaningless without real, meaningful choices and consequences that follow them. People are all up in arms about attributes being gone, when really that doesn't matter much. Gothic didn't really have attributes per se. Strength, Dexterity, and Intelligence were increased via expenditure of Learning points, of which you got 10 each level. They were raised and functioned exactly like the available skills, and hell, it had much less complexity in its character generation and less equipment variety than we already know Skyrim has, and it's considered a great RPG because what you did affected the way the plot unfolded, and each choice you made had clear consequences associated with it.

C&C already seems to have some presence in the game, given the Radiant Story examples we've been given. You can only get a mage duel if you are good at magic, for instance. NPCs react to you differently based on your actions towards them and your reputation. That's roleplaying. Not a number that says how smart you are.

I still don't know why a clean stale start would mean that all characters will be the same.

Will characters be similar at the beginning? Yes. Will they be similar at the end? Unlikely.
The reason there's a cap on the number of perks you can get is because you won't be able to do everything with the same character.

RPG is a label and unimportant to me.

I think Skyrim will end up being that RPG that will kind of revolutionize the way some new RPGs after it are made, I mean you can only go so long with the same set of attributes.
Skyrim is definitely focusing more on the actual gameplay and visuals that the "behind the scenes" stuff, but that doesn't not make it an RPG. Skyrim is practically another world to live in as whoever you want to be, attributes or not Skyrim will be amazing.

Correct. I don't know why people don't seem to get this. It doesn't matter that every Breton male will be the same at the start of the game, because by the time you hit level 50 they can be completely different in every way that actually matters. Again, I'll point to Gothic as an example (really, Gregrorosrosorsorsus, again?), because in that game your character is always a clean slate. It carried through to the sequels and even to Risen when Piranha Bytes lost the license. Your late game and, hell, mid-game and even early-game character could be very different from others depending on what you chose to develop. It shaped your experience, the plot, and what side quests you could do.

And more to the point, every level one character was always pretty much the same in the sense that they svcked at pretty much everything and became more competent and powerful as time went on.

RPG is an acronym.
It stands for Role-Playing Game.

I hope that clears things up.


In all honesty I will call this an RPG because although it may not be the most traditional, it's what they've involved into.

This is true. I'm really hoping there are a handful of race specific perks. I'd like to have something more than an aesthetic reason to try other races.

For now, I agree with those who say that the new "stat" and perk system doesn't cover everything. For instance, speed and jumping. Those are important to my characters. If, as we've heard, all perks are attached to a skill, what skill(s) would speed and acrobatics attach to? On the other hand, I didn't really like the vertical and speed of my maxed out Oblivion character (even though it was amusing to watch). Regardless, I'm really excited about the perk system. :tes: I think the new system will overshadow whatever we lose from the old system.

Todd Howard has stated that all of the things that attributes governed are still in the game, they're just handled differently. My theory on how: skill synergies. That is, what skills you level in will determine the stats you have. If you level your heavy armor and two-handed weapons skills, you'll become stronger and thus able to carry more. Focus on stealth and light armor? You'll be faster and more agile, able to jump higher and maintain your balance better. Leveling in magic skills? Some will make your magicka regenerate faster or increase your resistance to magic. I really don't think gamesas is stupid enough to make every character run the same speed and carry the same weight.

Ok let me say it again, because apparently quite a few misunderstood my original post.

Again, PUTTING ASIDE WHETHER OR NOT THIS IS AN RPG.

Let's say hypothetically HYPOTHETICALLY as derived from Hypothesis as in a : an assumption or concession made for the sake of argument b : an interpretation of a practical situation or condition taken as the ground for action

Or perhaps Speculative would have better as in involving, based on, or constituting intellectual speculation; also : theoretical rather than demonstrable

So lets say Speculatively that the game isn't classified as an RPG, lets say for the sake of argument by word of god or there's some giant law of time and space that says Skyrim isn't an RPG. It's an action game or its a elaborate dance rhythm game, whatever.

Ok now given what Bethesda is purposing you get to do in this game, will you pick it up, or will you refuse to by it simply because god or the cosmos says it's not an RPG?

Yes. But you owe me an explanation about what you are trying to understand/prove. If you're simply after a YES/NO, you should have made it a poll.

It's a pointless question, though. It obviously is an action RPG, and anyone who refuses to play it because it's "not an RPG" is frankly not a person I'd listen to for game opinions. Really the only way for it to not be an RPG is to remove all the things that make it an RPG, like character builds and choices and consequences and whatnot. If it was Call of Elder Scrolls: Oscar Mike Dovahkiin Do Everything (Stay Frosty Edition) then frankly, no, I wouldn't be interested. But it's not. It's a big open-world game with different factions and character options and a reactive game world.

Now that you mention it a poll would have been a good idea, alas hindsight.



There's some arguement over whether or not this is a pure RPG, just look at some of the replies as to what some folks think a true RPG is.

My point here is even if you don't think of it as a true rpg or whatever, will that stop you from playing it?

Soooo..... let's NOT talk about this whole "RPG" thing?

I can do that too.

You should have phrased it that way, then. TES has never been a pure RPG in any incarnation. Action has always prevailed over stats. So no, I won't let Skyrim's genre influence my decision to buy it.

I'm not positive but I'm pretty sure you can add a poll in.

What exactly is a pure RPG though? Looking at people replies (ie their opinions) sure says what they think it is but there is no definitive answer. "What an RPG is will always be in the eye of the beholder" to quote someones words from the other day and I agree.

I would classify it as an action RPG but because there's an action element doesn't make it not an RPG. I will most definitely buy it and play it.

That conclusion doesn't follow from my definition. When I said that "a computer game is a true RPG if its purpose is to enable you to play a role", I meant that the objective in an RPG is playing a role. A golf game is not a game where the objective is to play a golfer, but is a game where the objective is to play golf. The objective in Modern Warfare is not to play a soldier, but to fight a war. The objective in Mario is not to play Mario, but to successfully navigate an obstacle course.


For me, and I think to the gaming industry in general, the game's objective defines its genre. Adjectives applied to the genre, such as "action" applied to RPG, serve to describe how the objective is pursued. The labeling, or classification, is meant to quickly relate to us a game's most basic objectives and methods.

You right, I probably should have come up with a better title for the thread.

But calling it, "lets discuss a purely hypothetical situation in which the label "RPG" doesn't apply to Skyrim" doesn't quite have the same ring to it. That and it may be to long for a thread title.

A "pure" RPG would be a game where the player's skill and manual dexterity does not come into play at all, and everything you're capable of doing is determined entirely by your character's stats. For examples look to all the old-school stuff: Fallout, Arcanum, Darklands, Ultima, etc.

Yeah I probably should have, alas hindsight. :shrug:

IMHO, a role playing game, is a game in which you play a specific role of your choosing in the provided environment, this role can be a fixed one selected from the few provided, or an open and mold-able one that you develop gradually over time.

Role playing as defined in game series like the Elderscrolls, is gradually developing your role in an open world that let you freely choose your actions as you like, but on the other hand, you should be able to feel and enjoy the development of your character, and have small and large triumphs over previously unbeatable problems and obstacles, and that's how your character should seem developing.

Another aspect of role playing games, is the role that you choose to play, so each character should feel unique and special, so it is better that all your character should seem individually different from the other characters, even until the final stages of the game when your characters have fully grown.

Those are the parameters that I appreciate in a role playing game, and they can be achieved by visible stats to be increased, or by other means, like choosing perks, and so on...

So to sum it up, in an Elderscrolls open world role playing game, I want to role play a specific, unique and distinct type of character, that feels different from when I choose another type of role in the world, and develop it gradually over time, so that in the beginning I should be bound and limited by natural barriers like, insufficient skills or dangerous places and the like which I should be able to overcome as I gradually develop my character.

The new introduction of pick-able skill perk tree is that you would not be able to pick up completely to the end is a sure way to make unique characters with, and is a great game design decision.

If the keep their promise and return to Morrowind standards, and make it hard to join and advance in guilds, and some places would be hard to venture into at the beginning, so that we could feel the sense of progression as we develop our character, then IMHO Skyrim will be a much better RPG because it would provide me with what I value in an RPG game, and more than the previous games.