No, I'm not happy with the RPG elements in Skyrim. I should say I'm not happy with the LACK OF RPG elements in Skyrim.

The votes so far really don't surprise me either.

I have a character in Oblivion - a petite custom race elf - who has 20 strength. That means that she was at a disadvantage as far as anything physical went from the very beginning of the game. She can't carry as much, she has less stamina, she can't do any melee weapon damage to speak of....

She's been a fascinating character to play, since I had to come to terms with her physical weakness right from the beginning. That was an unavoidable aspect of who and what she was, and everything that she grew into was in part hinged on the simple fact, related in-game by actual elements of the game - of her physical weakness.

I won't be able to play that character in Skyrim. Sure... I could make a character who has the same default encumbrance and stamina and melee damage as everybody else, and sort of try to build up a simulation of her being physically weak by avoiding choosing whichever perks might imply physical strength, but it can only be a hollow shell. She will not be - cannot be - genuinely physically weak, with all that that entails. The game will no longer provide me with the in-game consequences of that weakness, so the best I can do is sort of build something that sort of resembles it and make believe the rest.

I count that as a loss, and an unnecessary one.

Nah no problem, I tend to write in an unintentionally vague way, it's my bad if my posts aren't clear on the first read.

Sorry about that haha

In terms of the psychological need to elevant one's opinion of "the core of RPGs": human nature, I guess.

Either way, I think your conclusion (and the conclusion that many other people have come to) is important: Skyrim doesn't necessarily fit in to the traditional definition of an RPG.

It fits in way, way better than Mass Effect 2 did though, and that's still qualifies as an RPG.

It seems to be that organizations like Bethesda (and to an even greater extent, for better or worse...) BioWare are redefining what makes an RPG a good RPG.

With Dragon Age, I think it made for better story-telling and gameplay, but a much shallower game. With Mass Effect, I think it made for vastly better gameplay and better interaction with NPCs, but weakened exploration and skill customization.

Skyrim...we'll see. I'm confident that it's moving in a good, and (as we've said) balanced direction.

I know the term predates the games. Back in 1979, I took on the role of a magic user in basic D and D, a set of rules which defined how successful my character's actions were, the choices that character made being my choices. That's what role playing is. I choose for my character to do something, the mechanics determine whether or not the chosen actions were successful. I know there are differences between pen and paper and crpgs, but whether or not you play a role is not one of them. And you do realise interaction with the world includes combat, spellcasting, buying and selling, everything your character can do that the game recognises? That's what stats are for, to decide how well those interactions go for your character, nothing more.

As an old dice RPG'er it has always been about stats and skills for me. It's hard to imagine a gaming system without it. But will it work? Maybe, but only time will tell. I've always considered ES to be the slightly more mature role playing game, compared to FO who gets most of the hilariousness (which I enjoy greatly too).

If perks are to work well with me, they will have to be mature perks. More serious than those found in FO. If I get a Mysterious Stranger perk in an ES game, all hope is lost.

Is this an entirely fair comparison, though? A character with starting strength 20 is only available via mods. You might think that by modding Skyrim, you could have a starting character with low encumbrance, stamina, health, and melee damage, and that would make a substantial difference to how you play from the beginning.

Now, sure, maybe that's not quite the same thing as starting out with only 20 strength.

Furthermore, you might also point out that if one were to compare vanilla to vanilla, then in Oblivion one's character could start out with strength as low as 30, and as high as 65. It sounds like we won't get that amount of variation in Skyrim with respect to encumbrance, stamina, health, and melee damage, since only race matters to starting characters now. (Or does gender matter too? I forget.)

Anyway, I take the point you're making - but it does seem that criticising vanilla Skyrim based on features in modded Oblivion is a little unfair.

You were playing a custom race. In other words, you had modded Oblivion to be able to play as a character with such low strength. You could not have done that in Vanilla Oblivion, which makes your argument invalid. You can just as easily mod your encumbrance to be lower in game as you can mod it, never developing 1H or 2H will mean you can't do much damage with melee weapons.

Further more, there is no evidence that we all start on the same level of encumbrance. It has been confirmed we all run the same speed, something I am a little disappointed about, but surely Redguards have more stamina (which encumbrance is based off) than a wood elf? An Orc more than an Argonian? Races start on different skills, and we have not seen how much the skills/perks effect how much damage they do.

I would agree with you, had you been using a default race. The fact is, you weren't, and changing something in game is as simple as downloading a save game editor. It takes little to no time to do it, and skills can more than make up for the lack of prowess in melee weapons.

As I said - I would agree with you. But we could not customize what our player started on - our race defined that, and we had very little say in what points went where. This was the same in Morrowind, and in all other TES titles. If there is a fault, it is a fault in TES, not Skyrim.

The modern definition of RPG emphasis choice in terms of in terms of stats in skills over story-based ones. A game with a completely linear story, or even none at all, would still be considered an RPG if it had things like loot, stats, and skills.

I can't think of any other way to say this, but if a role playing game, whether it is open world or completely linear, is not about role playing, then the definition is wrong. It's a rpg because you play the role of someone else. No role play, it needs to be called something else.

This is probably true. But it's probably also true that a game with no loot, stats, or skills could still be considered an RPG provided that you were required to play the role of a certain character, and make choices that affected the story, the way NPCs react, future options your character will have, and so on.

"RPG" is a pretty imprecise and flexible notion. We're more or less willing to apply it to less paradigmatic cases depending on the conversational context.

Now you're getting it.

Not really. Games with tons of story choices are still considered to be adventure games or interactive movies, Heavy Rain or Ace Attorney for example.

My definition is as follows:
If i call it a mission, or objective- not RPG

If i say quest- RPG

(i even called them quests in Fo3)

Sure. I considered the fact that she's a modded character when I wrote that out, but the point still holds. If she had been, say, a Breton, with a default starting strength of 30 (and I have one of those too, and in hindsight maybe that would've made a better example), the point would still hold. By simply setting one number at the beginning of the game, I created a character with a distinct trait that has a range of real, measureable, in-game "factual" consequences. I will no longer be able to do that. Instead, I'll have to rig those consequences, each one separately, in order to convey the illusion of lesser strength.


No - there are no gender differences. That's already been confirmed. There are also no encumbrance differences and, by extension, no stamina differences - "We kept all the racial movement speeds the same, that’s now a factor of what you’re wearing and have equipped. And starting max encumbrance is the same and is based on your Stamina attribute."



Again - "We kept all the racial movement speeds the same, that’s now a factor of what you’re wearing and have equipped. And starting max encumbrance is the same and is based on your Stamina attribute."

It's clearly stated that starting encumbrance is the same. Since it's based on stamina, that has to mean that starting stamina is the same too.


Would you now? Well then - I have another character - just briefly mentioned above - a Breton named Lydia. I actually intended to play her as a fighter, but as it turned out, she didn't have enough strength to do enough melee damage to survive, so I had to shift her to a sort of battlemage. Again, that character worked out as she did at least in part because of the attributes she possesses, and that character is entirely vanilla. And again, I won't be able to play that character in Skyrim. Instead, the closest I can get is to create a character who has all the same default traits as every other character, then forego whichever perks might imply physical strength in order to foster the illusion of physical weakness.

The difference between creating a character with low physical strength (for instance) and playing that out, with all the attendent consequences, and creating a character who's just default everything, then conjuring the illusion of physical weakness through specific perk choices is the difference between planting a seed and growing a flower, and gathering a stem, a bud and some petals and gluing them all together to make a flower.

Maybe my usage is a bit more permissive than is usual, but my bet is that most people, if confronted with a game that had: (i) some character choice at the beginning - which didn't involve choosing between skills/attributes, just for cosmetic or story purposes; (ii) exploration; (iii) quests that could be completed in multiple ways, and how you complete them make a difference to future quests you get (iv) various non-hostile NPCs that you could interact with to gain information or get quests from, and how you interact with them makes a difference to how they respond to you; (v) items that you can use to solve puzzles or in combat (these aren't so much "stat" based as just having qualitatively different effects that are useful in different circumstances); (vi) being able to take on new members of your party, or getting rid of some members --- they would not be averse to calling it an RPG.

Of course, it may be that if you showed them that game, and then showed them a game that all of those things + skills/attributes, and asked "Which one is the RPG?" then they might point to the one with the stats. But, again, what's going on here is the way conversational context affects the use of "RPG". Depending on what the comparison class is, depending on what's at stake in calling something an "RPG", and so on, we could use the word differently.

Or, at least, this is my armchair speculation on an empirical matter. Unfortunately, I don't expect empirical linguists to be testing this anytime soon.

I would also count that as a loss, certainly, we are losing one of the layers to the game in this transition from Oblivion to Skyrim, even a layer that enhances the player's ability to role-play a certain type of character.

What if the shoe were on the other foot? What if Skyrim were the old game and we were to consider what changes Oblivion brings? (taking into consideration, of course, our very limited knowledge of Skyrim's details)

I might have had a lot of fun playing a particular Dunmer mage character in Skyrim who for various reasons is utterly despised in Solitude and beloved in Windhelm.

I wouldn't be able to play that character in Oblivion. Sure...I could make a character who pisses off some guards in Anvil and then pays the bounty in Bravil and sort of try to simulate that aspect of the character, but it would essentially be make-believe because the game will not be able to provide me with the in-game consequences of having a specific reputation stat in each major region of Cyrodiil, as I was formerly able to do in Skyrim. That stat would be gone from the game.

I believe I understand your perspective, and I fully agree that in losing attributes, we are losing one of the important layers of game mechanics that can be very conducive to roleplaying a character who is strong, for example.

At the same time, there are 1000s of stats that Oblivion tracked relating to the PC and 1000s of stats that Skyrim will track, and I get the sense that out of all of these, some believe getting rid of only STR, INT, DEX, etc., is a sort of sacrilege, while getting rid of some of the other stats is not.