that is a no-no in an RPG.

See, I think this is a common misconception about turn-based gaming. And one that is not at all true in the least. However, most gamers aren't generally going to have thought about turn-based gaming enough to have considered what it could be capable of, versus what the system was confined to 10, 20 years ago or so. (It's kind of like if I were to base my impressions of the limitations of first person shooters based on what Quake 1 was capable of.)

The truth is that most of the table-top strategy games I play don't utilize a grid at all. If you really dig into the genre, start painting miniatures, etc - chances are you're not playing a grid map at all, but instead using measuring tape. The old Steve Jackson game Car Wars, even - though it is generally played on a map with a grid overlay - isn't confined to moving within that grid, at all. So no, there's no reason that a turn-based Fallout game would inherently have to make use of a grid at all. Perhaps back in the day, there was a bit of a technological limitation with having to make the necessary sort of calculations and animations necessary to go "off the grid," so to speak. But with where videogames are today? Absolutely not. There's just no reason if would have to be confined in such a way.

Ditto with the false impression that turn-based games would have to be 2D. I've played plenty of 3-dimensional turn-based strategy table-top games. And if you can accomplish that with plastic models and wooden dowels, etc - it could only easier to accomplish via a computer.

I think there tends to be a false concensus that when a Fallout fan talks about turn-based, that automatically what they want is a bird's-eye 2D game that makes use of sprites instead of modern 3D graphics. I say that's not at all the case. What I would like to see is a 3D game with a freely-moveable camera (a la Dragon Age,) and modern procedural animation that allows the characters to move over an effectively infinite variety of terrain. Occasionally the argument goes to this place where people are intimating that they don't want to see an archaic form of gaming that's not relevant to today's modern gaming - when what I envision when I think of a turn-based game making use of modern graphics and technology would be something a lot more cinematic, even, than - say - Fallout 3's combat, for instance.



No, that's a no-no in the sort of RPG's you like (and I generally agree with you, there.) That's not an innate property of videogame RPGs, however.

No, it's a no-no in some RPGs, or in what constitutes your view of an RPG. Please keep that in mind.

If not a hex map, how would movement be regulated? I'm an avid 40k player myself, and it works for a tabletop game with a tape measure, but a game still requires some basis of measurement; even if the entire map is measured by "feet" instead of arbitrary squares or hexes, you still need to put that over the entire map. Whether or not it's visible, it's still there.

All the modern turn-based games I've seen and played still rely on some basis of measurement, whether it be squares, hexes, or whatever.

Fallout 3, itself, measures distances already. And does well enough with that. I don't see how that would need to change in a turn-based game. All you need to worry about is relative distance, to begin with. You don't need a separate grid (beyond the mesh of the level itself, at least) to measure any calculations required for a turn-based game. Not inherently, at least. You don't need a grid to be overlaid in order to calculate how far a character can run in a turn, or exactly the amount of time any specific action would take.

A (rather poor, admittedly,) example would be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigade_E5:_New_Jagged_Union. That game got many things wrong, but one thing it did accomplish was tactical turn-based gaming without the use of any sort of grid. It measured movement (on the player's end, at least) in terms of time.

I don't think it's an incomprehensible leap to envision a game where movement and actions in a turn are calculated by the time you have to accomplish these things. Combined with procedural animations, I don't see any innate problem with things like jumping, climbing over rubble, etc. A computer is very, very good at simulation calculations. If I can accomplish all of this in a table-top game of 40k with a tape measurement (and on occasion a bit of sticky putty,) I don't see how it wouldn't be even easier for a computer to be able to figure it out...

Then it stops being an RPG.

I disagree to an extent. Realtime offers more fluid movement and higher emphasis on playerskill, but not necessarily more control as in real time your character is also limited by the playerskill and controls, whereas in TB you are allowed to surpass your own (player) abilities, and are offered possibilities to use skills and tactics you'd have no chance to use in real time. A well made TB offers far greater scope of possibilities than RT, and imo, also greater control over your character.

Not lazy, they just don't make TB RPG's because they like the style they currently use.
Most RPG players today don't like TB combat. Since developers are also players in a way, most developers also don't like TB RPG's and thus won't make them. The few who may like it won't find it financially worth it.

Thats how the WRPG genre evolved. No matter what curse it took, there would have been people who would not like it.

This kind of statement is what I take issue with.

A Role Playing Game is game in which players assume the role of a character or group of characters and experience a storyline in which they exert an impact over the way events unfold in the fictional world, creating the story as they go along.

Mechanics are a means to an end, not the game itself, and some posters need to remember that. People seem intent on saying "If it's not TB it's not an RPG"; this is patently false.
A role-playing game is about the story you create for yourself and the actions you take within the fictional world your character inhabits, not whether it's turn-based or real-time.

So Dark Forces II is an RPG? Hell by this logic Starcraft II is an RPG. Branching storylines cannot define a role playing game. There are RPGs that are nothing more than long-winded dungeon crawls yet these games are RPGs. There are FPS and RTS games with branching storylines. They are not RPGs.



Game mechanics define every game genre. The difference between an RTS and an FPS aren't the settings or branching storylines. The differences are the mechanics of the game.

No, with Fallout 3's style of combat it stops being a RPG, because of the fact that it stops becoming the character's abilities and becomes the player's abilities.

(Now there i got to stop you. Normally i would stay quiet, but in this case i got to speak up. While I am inclined to agree with you about the player's abilities, yes, the lock picking, the hacking, and the selection and such, is the player's choice as you got to act to try to do it and succeed, and i will fight to agree with you on that one. HOWEVER, that is only half the story, as there is the characters abilities, and for example, if you do not have a lock picking of 50, you Cannot pick that lock, or without the high enough speech ability, you cannot have that option to save your [censored] easier than you would. Now if it is an RPG, that is up to the individual to decide if it is or not, in your case, it is not, in mine, it is. I'm not trying to be a nitpicker or anything here Shdow, or trying to prove you wrong, but sometimes, it is the perspective of what is being said that could be interpreted as being wrong, if i did so, i apologize, but your comment left little room for choice, and i only wanted to clarify things.)

No, because in games like Starcraft II you're still controlling an army, not characters.

Mechanics clearly do not define what constitutes an RPG as they may other genres, as both real-time and turn-based RPGs exist. Unless you'd consider something like Dragon Age not an RPG?

Because if it isn't, what is it?

In DA:O, the outcome of the action is based solely on characterskill, not playerskill. That makes it an RPG (the quality of which is debatable, but an RPG nonetheless) - as the character, the "role", is the one doing the action and his/her skill is the determining factor of success/failure.

Debatable. You're controlling the character of Jim Raynor who in turn gets to control an army. Even an army can be considered just a larger "group of characters." In fact one mission involves you controlling just a handful of hero units with distinct abilities and personalities. Is that mission an RPG? Regardless that still leaves my Dark Forces example though. You only control the character of Kyle Katarn and can alter the storyline depending on your actions. Yet Dark Forces II is clearly not an RPG.



Mechanics do define an RPG as they define every game genre in existence. You're just arbitrarily limiting mechanics to turn-based or real-time combat. Game mechanics are for more extensive than that and go far beyond combat even. Dragon Age Origins is clearly an RPG because its' combat system, even though it is not turn based, is reliant wholly on the abilities of the character. The primacy of character skill is the overriding feature of an RPG as far as I'm concerned. You can achieve that with both real-time and turn-based combat systems and I have never claimed otherwise.

Can we please stay on subject guys. We're off into what does and doesn't contitute an RPG now, back to the turn based discussion please.

(So speaks the thread spinner, and it will be done.)

Good grief no.

I'm into as real a role-play life-like reality that can be managed.

I want my Role-Playing-Game (RPG) to be as close to it's description as possible.

TB is just a dragged out play of what you would do in real time, the same thought considerations are applied in real-time and with the proper true to life reactions.

.... above all, when you are moving your 10 paces or whatever ... if "something" happens at 5 paces you CANNOT react to that "something" as you would do in real-time play.

You CANNOT make ANY reactions AT ALL if it's not your turn.

TB is a poor role-play version of real-time play ... it's Board-game play, but they don't fit at all well with role-play, you get less a life-like role-play.

It's not suitable for very large maps stuffed full of enemies as Fallout3 is, I would get bored out of my mind moving my ten paces and waiting for every other enemy who could see me to move their paces ...........

But, I felt so immersed in FO1, even more than FNV and FO3. For a time, I even forgot that it was turn based!

And what "Curtis" forgets is that there is supposed to be a seperation from the character and the player.

NO, the character's abilities and the player's intellectual abilities are very much intertwined in a RPG.

To say or imply that a character's abilities has no effect on combat role-play

is about the same as saying that character's abilities has no effect on speech

... or anything else in an RPG the character abilities that have been built up.

Your abilities will count for nothing if the character's abilities cannot do it or doesn't do it ... in an RPG

Er yes, back on topic, I'll take my leave now.

wow so in games like Xcom, Jagged alliance, and even Tactics, when I get interrupts to shoot back on the enemies turn I was just imagining it? Looks like your wrong again.

Laughter. An interrupt!! .... to shoot back .... on the enemies turn !!!

Oh dear ... you are almost in danger of playing real-time, and you wouldn't want that kind of flowing reality.

There you go.

You just got done saying ti was imposible to do in TB games. I just pointed out your wrong.

At first for a while, a short while, TB is immersive as any puzzle is .... but I soon became adept at the turns .... and that's when the puzzle interest and TB interest is lost, after all I wanted to play a kinda more realistic role-play game.

FO1 IS realistic. The world felt so...real. I could imagine myself in it.