There are many definition of what constitutes a roleplaying game. The one that sticks out most in my mind is that they are a type of game where your avatar is a representation of you in that world. You are making the decisions, you are the person transported to that place; whether it's yourself or someone you're not. One of the things people desire, a thing that they need to connect themselves with their avatar is ways of describing themselves. Both to other players, and to themselves.

The original roleplaying game was of course Dungeons and Dragons. The creators developed the system they did by thinking about how they were describing themselves, and then using those words to create their own formal set of rules.
"How strong am I/this character that I control? How intelligent?" These are the things they asked themselves. Thus the rules, and consequently the stats such as "strength" were products of them placing themselves in that world. As well they were easy to understand for others. "Oh, I'm strong, so I should be able to hit things harder." It was a system that needed little explanation. Everyone already understood the basic concepts.

I think the way Skryim has gone has undermined this basic understanding, this ease of placing yourself in the world. No one has ever said "I have a perk." in real life; whereas everyone can at least understand the phrase "I am strong" and the implications therein. Rather than seeking to place the player in the world it seems the thought pattern went more along the lines of "what can we do to make this system of interlocking numbers more interesting" rather than "how can we place the player in this world."

This also goes with skills. Players like it when a skill seems to correlate with how they would describe that same skill to someone else in real life. "I'm good at sneaking around" "I'm good with a dagger." E.G. People in the real world would more likely say "I'm skilled with a longsword" or "I'm skilled with a knife." People naturally understand what this means. There was never any need to consolidate "Long Blade" and "Short Blade" into "Blade" because no one was ever confused by that. The perceived removal of complication was entirely unneeded.

This, I believe, is what has resulted in a lot of the complaints. And there are a lot of them, every discussion I have come across, on over a dozen different websites, generally seems confused or unimpressed with the reduction of skills and adding of perks. It's taken away the intuitive understanding of things and replaced it with unnatural rules. Rules that are in some ways simpler true, but a simpler yet more artificial rule set is still harder for people to understand; than a complex ruleset of terms they feel comfortable with. You can describe a perk as "you will now deal more damage by sneak attack" but people will ask the natural question of "How" and "why"? Whereas is you tell them "you are now stronger" they will automatically connect that with "Now I can hit things harder."

E.G. A player wants to get better with the longsword. They use it, they see themselves getting better in the game. They don't have to think about stats, or choices, they're drawn into the game because it's a natural progression from doing something repeatedly to getting better at it. But then we introduce optional perks. This doesn't happen in real life. Suddenly not only is the player forced out of the experience and into "the game" of it all, but now they do have to think about things. They have to think about "if I get this one, then I'll be passing up all these other ones, and how will that affect me overall?"

Please note, this has nothing to do with the new "no classes" thing

Well, the removal of classes made RP a lot better IMO, being restricted to a class was actually really silly.

I do agree on the weaponskills though, I would've loved a large number of weapon skills returning... But I had already figured that wouldn't happen before the info was released

Oh no, I don't care at all that the "classes" were removed. I think most of the people that were concerned didn't really understand how they worked in the first place. You could always become a jack of all trades, the system now just sounds like it will work exactly the same as it did before but without the need to define a class at the very beginning.

Exactly, which will be awesome

Most people have only read the scans and honestly it is still rather vauge on how everything works. Im sure we will be more informed on the finer details in time.

I don't see role-playing as being yourself. I can do that in real life. I see it more as being someone you are not, cant, or would never be. I always made custom classes, but I still like the idea of classes. It gives you certain strengths and weakness. Whether you became a jack-of-all-trades was entirely dependent on the player.

Yeah basically.
Except we don't have class names, which added another distinction between characters.

Personally, I feel this swings in the opposite direction. For a player need only swing their sword to become better with the blade they see in their hand. No math, no pre-concieved notions of what they will become, just pure immersion. One does not sit there deciding what restrictions to place on one's self for this particular go through, one instead just lives the life, in game and that is what that one shall become. Role Playing is not just rolling the dice and dictating these simplistic but tactical stats about who you want to be. Role Playing is BEING. It's playing the role of a terrified Bosmer who picks up a sword and defends himself with it, not because he's fairly certain it's his class of weapon suited to his style, but because if he doesn't the dragon snapping at him will surely end his life.

And the perk to picking your own perks is you still get to pick and choose who you want to be. It was always there... I had to hit 100 acrobatics for my nimble thief to leap off the surface of water... Mayhap this time around I'll choose for myself to take that earlier.

I have a role to play, after all.

sorry dude but your DnD argument is invalid because there was feats in DnD and they were just like Perks.

Removing classes is fine; I never used them.

But, your premise that being restricted to classes being silly..is well..silly? It's a level of structure that forces a role on you that you need to play. It's roleplay :nod: What you're getting at is freedom of choice to create your own class, which is fine as well :nod:

OP, I'm pretty lost in your post about the consolidation of skills solving a problem that didn't need to be there to begin with.

However, in the beging, skills were already lumped together. Basic D&D had Polearm a weapon, and then as a skil instead of by individual kinds or subgroups of polearms. Twilight 2000 group weapons as handgun (I think), light weapons (rifles, light, and heavy MG's), heavy weapons (shoulder rockets, flamethrowers), large caliber guns (turet mounted) etc. Driving skills were also grouped. What I'm getting at is that while you're pulling from PnP (I think) to demonstrate the separation of skills, PnP itself had grouped skills. if that makes sense :shrug:


Erm, I don't think feats arrived until some modifactions to AD&D 2nd ed.? Specialization didn't hit until Unearthed Arcanae if I remember. Perhaps the OP is looking at a different ed. of D&D?

They sure weren't in the lovely pink Basic Rules book, nor do I remember them in the original Players Handbook nor the DM Guide...but that's 30 years ago for me

We don't know for sure if attributes are in or not.

The information we have is vague. No one on these forums has any first hand experience playing the game and therefore anything that any one person says is about a good as the next persons guess. We do not know what any individual perk is going to be yet and I think it is unfair of anyone to begin to judge Skyrim's skill system based on the very little information we have. As far as the blade skill goes I think you're argument is flawed because it ignores the possibility that individual weapon skills (longsword, shortsword, claymore etc) are now the perks! So if I favor a longsword and I've been using it, my blade skill would increase and then when it's time to level up, I grab a perk related to the longsword. By doing things this way Bethesda has removed the clutter of having a ton of skills on screen while simultaneously grouped similar skills into subcategories. Therefore, your precious RP'ing is not at all affected. That is of course, if that is indeed the way Bethesda has chosen to do this. And logically, it makes more sense from a RPG creation point of view to do this, instead of completely removing the different weapon specializations. Call it a Perk or call it being more proficient at longswords but at the end of the day its the same thing with a different name and look.

(EDIT) And as myself and countless others have stated before, no one knows for sure whether or not attributes have been removed or not. And it actually makes no sense to assume that they aren't there just because it wasn't in the article. More likely than not, Bethesda just didn't feel that mentioning them was important at this time.

Well i didnt say that grouped skills wasnt good XD

on the other hand i mostly played DnD 3.5 and this is the one i liked the most (i dont like the 4th) so i was refering to 3.5

I like what I've heard about the new system. You can still decide ahead of time what sort of skills your character will specialize in, but for those who aren't sure, they can experiment a bit before finding what feels right. It takes some of the pressure off character creation, while still allowing you to define who the PC is. Perks, same thing. It's a way to shape the character without having to master stats tables.

I'm not exactly sure how D&D makes a good argument for attributes improving roleplaying.

Wouldn't an ideal roleplaying game hide all on-screen information and simply immerse your character in a living, breathing world? I can't possibly imagine how calculating THAC0 or making saving throws improves roleplaying.

Just trying to get a better grip on the OP. Is the contrast supposed to be something like this?

Suppose the idea is that the game has some way of making you better at using a longsword (and telling you that).

Option 1: Have a longsword (or long blade) skill. Higher values in this skill mean you are better at using the longsword (more likely to hit, do more damage, etc.)

Option 2: Have a more generic blade skill. Higher values in this skill mean you are better at using longswords and daggers (more likely to hit, do more damage, etc.). However, to get better at the longsword specifically, you choose a perk. If you pick the appropriate perk, then you are better at using the longsword, but not necessarily the dagger.

Is that roughly right?

If that's right, then let me have a stab at the next part of the argument. Is it that Option 1 is more intuitive for people approaching the game for the first time? They think: how can I get better at using a longsword? And your claim is that it's more intuitive for them if they can just pick a longsword skill and build up that? Whereas Option 2 they need to both increase a skill and choose the appropriate perk?

The good PnP games that I've been in never bogged down for calculations. They were judiciously modified by common sense and the GM's whim. Or based off your attribures. It doesn't take much time to say "ya, you can do it you roll 2x your dex"

But I understand what you mean, and this gets to the idea that the definition of an RPG is personal. Indeed, your choice of an ideal rpg seems to computer based, where mine is pnp. What is the true RPG? Only a True Scotsman knows (and that's a different thread...)

I'd love to have been a PnPer, however none of my friends were ever interested in trying them out. I would've thought the loftiest goal of a GM (or DM) is to immerse the players in the world, like a great fantasy novel, but in a far more active and interactive manner. The computer RPG has for years tried to emulate the experience of PnP RPGs, though with a somewhat misguided approach. By focusing far too heavily on the nuts and bolts, number-crunching, dice-rolling aspects of PnP RPGs developers have lost sight of how to create a truly immersive experience.

Now I think (and hope) Bethesda is finally beginning to figure it out.

Yep, it takes more brain power, if only slightly, to figure out. "Oh, ok. I need to pick this perk, which... does something." It also takes the player out of the game. In real life you get better at things by doing them, which has always been an easy to understand part of The Elderscrolls. Suddenly you "level up" and for no apparently logical reason must pick a bonus you get instantaneously. This says immediately to the player "I'm playing a game!" and then they have to think about what they want to get better at, where their going, all the perks their passing by choosing the longsword perk, etc.