Exactly, and just because you don't need a long list of numbers and dicerolls and a dungeonmaster doesn't mean that you are limited in role playing. In fact, I think that gives you more freedom. (I am agreeing with you on this point.)
True, the game does get more 'action'y when everything is can be controlled by the player instead of stats and chance. But there is a reason things change. If this was an RPG like FF for the NES then you would still need dice rolls because battles are 2d and turn based. But if you can navigate the world and respond to real-time actions with real-time responses it simply becomes more realistic. There is nothing realistic about a diceroll unless you are playing a game that requires real dice.
Dice rolls reflect impartial chance. Everyone mortal has faults and makes mistakes. Dice rolls with weighted results best reflect a PC's ability in a given place and time. Dice reflect what is not under the player's (or the PC's) control. Dice can indicate a manufacturing flaw in one's lock picks, or indicate to another that the PC is lying (even though he's doing his best to fool them). As for 2D turn base... 2D is not required, but the omission of turn based makes for an alien game that isn't offering all of what I'd want or expect from a Fallout game.
The true beauty of an RPG is right here. Remember when you were seven? And you would spend all day playing outside or in your room or with friends? You weren't in the place where your body physically was, were you? No, you were in space, or the wild west or in pokemon or something else you played when you were a kid. The game had it's own basic rule set like people don't just die because you decide because as no kid want's to play that with you. But from there you put whatever limitations you wanted to make your character fun to play.
No actually :laugh:. I can remember from age two up. I never did any of that. My nickname at age four was the 'little man' because I was serious to a fault. I know what you are saying, but when we all played that game it was usually more combat related. Our "Lets pretend" (us kids aged 7-9) involved a full body illustration of what you were pretending to be and you had to have drawn a weapon to have access to it. Our 'lets pretend" usually played out like a Godzilla/ Gamera deathmatch. :shrug: Still... I know what you are saying, but "fun to play" is very subjective. Our group's RPG characters often included phobias and other insanities brought about by mutation and brain damage to the PC's (as part of the initial character description).
For me, a fun RPG is not wandering around a 3d world looking to shoot something, its affecting the gameworld by means of the PC personality. Its reading all the personnel records records in the sierra army base, or the glow (Fallout 1&2), finding other interesting characters that are just willing to share memories... in Fallout Harold (arguably the best NPCs ~tied with Lou), doesn't ask you for anything but spare change, but recounts the very origins of the main villain in a very personal and believable way. I like an RPG that depicts a believable environment ~whether or not its depicted with realistic visuals. Fallout 3's Citadel was not very believable to me, West-Tek in Fallout 1 was. :shrug: [To an odd extent even Sigil in Planescape was, while Megaton was not].
I'll tell you now, they didn't get worse. they didn't get better either, as both things are subjective. They merely changed, whether they got better or worse is entirely dependent on opinion and anyone who tries to claim it as fact needs to relearn the definition of the word.
I disagree. When something is built there is an intention, with change that intention can be lost entirely. Fallout was originally intended to be the best GURPS crpg ever made; the first change was that they lost GURPS, but they still made the same intended experience... GURPS by another name. :shrug: (They were GURPS fans). Is Fallout 3 GURPS by another name? I would argue that all of the recent changes to format stray away from the series path and venture into more familiar territory for TES fans ~by design; and I call that worse. Not worse because its for made more for them, but that its made less for us ~and we were the ones that liked Fallout. I like Fallout's combat but I play to avoid unnecessary fights... In the wastes I will choose to avoid random attackers if given the option. Oblivion, Fallout 3, and almost assuredly Skyrim are built around the ethos of "go kill stuff in 3D". :shrug:
I...think we're agreeing...right? I mean, its the character's choice if they sneek in and try to take the staff, the numbers only take over in the exicution. A thief is still a thief, be them very bad or very good at what they do. The numbers are just there to show if one is good or bad at something, and the progression from them being bad to being good.
Again...I think we're agreeing. I'm just bad at putting my thoughts into words.
Sorry. We pick a role for our character, and then we play by those self inflicted rules.
I think we agree. :shrug:
» Sat Feb 19, 2011 9:52 am 
bliviongate: 
