Every time a new change is announced, one of the first responses I see is "Great, now I can't RP the way I want because X is gone".

Disappointment is understandable, especially when it comes to this series because we are all so close to it. Most of us have put hundreds of hours of gameplay into TES and have certain expectations. But please...stop using roleplay as the excuse. I'm starting to turn into Inigo Montoya every time I see this in a thread- "You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means".

Roleplaying is PRETEND. It's the fantasy you create with your character. In that fashion, if you are decent at role playing, you should be able to role play ANYTHING. Remember when you were a kid and the floor in the living room was hot lava? Seriously, just because mom moved the comfy chair doesn't mean that the role play was doomed, it meant you had to find a different pirate ship to get across the lava!

As a fan of role play myself, I am constantly surprised at how limited some of the TES fans are. They took birthsigns out of the game, your roleplay is now broken? You can't roleplay that you are under a certain sign? Really? There is now slow regen of health. You can't role play your character has had a special gift since birth, bestowed upon him/her by a mysterious cleric who visited your mother in a dark winter storm? Come on, I just made that up like, right now.

So, if you want to be disappointed in game mechanics and changes, have at it. But please, stop using pretend as an excuse. Because what it really sounds like is "I'm not that imaginative and can't pretend my way out of this simple scenario".

Thanks

I'm personally not annoyed about role-playing, I'm annoyed that the game is becoming easier.

Yes, some people want the game to role-play for them. The game is just the tool that you use to RP, that's all it is.
While some changes do bother me (Like the current discussion in Armor Degradation) is not like that is what made my RP believable. I made it.

The R in RPG is there for a reason.
The game needs to provide tools that enhance roleplay.
Being able to name your own class, have a birthsign, name your spells, all enhance roleplay.
You cannot always just imagine things when playing a game, that is lets pretend. Not roleplay.
The removal is upsetting to some people.

What you're describing is LARPing, or How To Claim CoD Is A RPG.

Good post OP.

It's just not the same without game induced limitations and features. In Fallout 3 I didn't roleplay eating and drinking. In New Vegas, it was easy. Why do you think there are so many RP mods out there for Oblivion?


The reason Skyrim is a ROLE PLAYING GAME is because it provides tools to allow us to RP. By your definition, Call of Duty is a role playing game because we could pretend that tamriel had a massive industrial and technology movement and that we are mages with guns.

Hey... CoD is not a RPG, but is not impossible to RP with it. The games are tools that you use to RP, with some tools being better than another.

I was making an attempt at something nostalgic and lighthearted to take any sting out of my opinion. Another issue I have with TES fans- some of them are just too grumpy and literal

I didn't read the thread but many things have made me loathe skyrim in a sense. More armor added together, health regen, no more armor/weapon degradation, etc....

I still absolutely love what has been added and I will play the crap out of Skyrim. If you don't have a good gaming PC like me then I would be worried. I'm stuck with 360 gameplay which will be grteat but the PC has such epic things going on with the mod community. I have watched some youtube vids of Oblivion nd I am extremely jealous.

I'm inclined to agree with this. If you are going to pretend everything, why drop 60 bucks on the game? I mean, can't you just pretend you have Skyrim and then you can include anything that Bethesda decided to leave out? Video game RPG's are different from table top RPG's because of the visual and physical interaction. They are not 100% pretending.

Framework is the best way to describe the gameplay details and mechanics. They are what separate the good RPG video games from the average or bad ones.

nice refreshing post :celebration:

Mods are wonderful and definitely add to the immersion, but are not necessary. Every role play is different- if you really *wanted* to RP eating and drinking in Fallout, you could. Here I think is a great example: Xarnac the Conqueror posted in another thread on how he feels spells really work in the game. He said that the person selling you the spell is teaching it to you from a tome and you are learning it by practicing along with them. That doesn't happen in the game, and as far as I'm aware, there are no mods you can download for that visual effect in the game, but that's how he RP's it. I think that's a very cool, immersive idea.

He has no extra tools that give him that, just his imagination of how the event really transpires in his world.

Once people realize that role playing isn't pretend when we are talking about RPGs, discussions like these will be a lot smoother. Role Playing Games, that's the piece you are forgetting. Role playing on it's own is just pretend, but that's because there is no rule system in place. It's pure make believe. Role playing within an RPG hinges on the systems and mechanics present in that game. If the game doesn't allow for a certain course of action, then it does not allow for that role playing option. Is this necessarily bad? No, not every game can offer every role playing option someone might think of.

For a game to be effective in offering role playing potential, it needs t respond to those decisions the player makes. Pretending you are born under a sign that grants you certain powers doesn't matter if the game does not give you those certain powers. Continuing to insist that you do, in fact, have those powers that you actually do not would be silly. Similarly, imposed regenerating health always forces the player to play a character with wolverine style health regeneration. There's no option there, you simply must play that character (and your silly, contrived "RP" explanation doesn't really work either).

Good RPGs account for the decisions players might make in an effort to accommodate and engender various role playing decisions. This is something that TES has never been particularly good at. Your decision have basically amounted to "Do it or don't" which is pretty much the lowest rung on the ladder when it comes to meaningful role playing. When even those kinds of options start being removed, it's natural to voice our concerns.

That's kind of my point though- look at Skyrim and the level of detail. Look at the incredible amount of lore given to us AS TOOLS. The framework IS there, but there are certain pieces now missing and that has everyone in an uproar. I have already given two examples of how to fix this using RP, but for some reason people are still adamant that every single little detail has to be provided by the game instead of by us.

I find it interesting that you separate those two things. As the OP suggested, many people consider them the same thing. You're pretending to be your role.

Like in pen-and-paper games.... there are the "roll" players, who are all about the game rules, dice, tables, abilities, and skills. And then there's the "role" players, who're busily talking in-character and doing improvisational acting - yes, using the rules as a framework, but frequently just stomping over them when they get in the way. Taken to the extremes in LARPing, which has a minimum of "rules" and maximum improv acting. (and, of course, the RollPlayers think the people talking in character/accents are weird, and the RolePlayers think the guys obsessed with dice & rules aren't getting into the spirit of the game.)




...me, I've always been more of a "roll" player in my tabletop RPGs. I'm terrible at improv. :tongue:

Good points, but role-playing was born before computer programs were capable of producing advanced images, let alone interactive scripts. You can do all of those things you mentioned, plus anything else you could do in reality plus anything you could do in your imagination. If you wanted to, you could say that computer gaming has "dumbed down" role-playing by placing limits on our imaginations.

The OP wasn't talking about things being added or removed, (s)he was talking about the imagination having a more active role in role-playing, computers or not.

The addition of smithing, crafting and the like and also relationships I think provide great roleplaying tools.
Its not all removal, some good new things are added too.
But I will still miss being able to name my class, for instance.

I can't remember a TES game that was difficult. And I sure don't see it being easier in any way.


No, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_ekugPKqFw

Don't insult Larper's by associating it with playing a video game.

Down at it's grass roots, whether it's table top rpgs, video rpgs, larping or a play....it's all making believe. Take that away and there goes half the fun. Making decisions for our character or putting oneself into another's shoes in a game. That's roleplaying no matter what you want to call it. We all just connect with it in a slightly different way and none of the ways is wrong if we are enjoying it.

And btw, larping is a bit of fun, have you ever done it?

There's this thing called Imagination.
It's the best RP tool in the world. Use it.
inb4 "but li3k wut NEIN NEIN NEIN NEIN"

Says not insult LARPers right after posting that video...

Sure, but that doesn't mean an RPGs should necessarily be shooting for that kind of experience.

You still can name it, the name will just not be in the screen, that's all. :confused:
While a I do agree that the lack of naming in Spells can break immersion to some [Being forced to use he same "Fire Magic" can be a "medium" deal] I disagree that Class naming is a big deal.
Just my opinion.

Ok, first of all, you don't need to be condescending, which is an unfortunate trend when having any discussion about role playing. You may think my idea of explaining regenerative health is 'silly and contrived', but really, what is so different about adding a piece of fictional history about my character when you can search these forums and find pages and pages of detailed backstory for hundreds of characters by players? Are you saying all those people don't really know how to roleplay either? We're all apparently amateurs that just don't understand how to really play an RPG game.

"For a game to be effective in offering rp potential, it needs to respond to those decisions a player makes". I'm sorry but I don't agree. For a game to have RP potential, it needs to provide rules and guidelines sufficient to create your RP. The PLAYER then responds to the limitations by...roleplaying. It's not the game that provides a satisfactory RP experience, but the knowledge and decisions provided by a person with a vibrant, original idea.

The game is not the fantasy. The RP is. All the game does is provide a canvas, one with rules and guidelines but empty without the player's decisions and playstyle.

If you have ever Larped, then you know it isn't shooting for that sort of experience. The "live" is automatically taken out. And some do and will play their game in such a way and most rpgs make it possible to do so. Are you bothered how others perceive or play their game? It surely won't bother you and how you play.

Label cans, not people.

Its not a big deal, its just a fun little thing that I am going to miss.
If I were a PC player I would probably mod in a simple little cosmetic feature that lets you select your classes name at character creation that would then be displayed somewhere on your stat screen.