#1 Player Skill vs Character Skill

In Fallout New Vegas your character is limited to what he or she can do, by his or her skills and SPECIAL. In Skyrim a character with level 15 lockpicking, can pick a master lockpick even without the perk. Fallout New Vegas not only has a skill requirement for weapons, but also a strength check. If your character doesn't have the skill requirement, you wont be as accurate. While if you dont have the strength requirement, you swing slower or again not as accurate. In Skyrim a Khajjt with the weight slider at 0 and 15 Two Handed skill can swing a warhammer exactly the same as an Orc, with the weight slider at the max and 100 Two Handed skill.

#2 Perks

Most of Skyrim's perks revolve around a meager plus % X. The few perks that don't have an arbitrary % are useless, like Longknife mentioned the sword, mace, and axe perks are useless. You don't need the master perk to cast master spells nor do you need the master perk for lock picking to pick master locks. However, Fallout New Vegas a obviously superior game has perks, that unlock dialog and game features. Without Stay Back you can't knock people back with shotguns, without Cannibal you cant eat people, cant paralyze people without paralyzing palm, and etc.

#3 Motherbleeping Choices (?)

I'll be frank either you're Dragonborn or you're Dragonborn in denial. Right out the gate you know dragons are back and granted you don't know you're role in the prophecy, yet at the same time where are dragons? Sure you see the main baddie in a anti climatic fashion, but until you start the MQ you don't see any dragons only hear they are back. Oblivion while you witness the death of the emperor, you dont know or hear about the oblivion gates opening and Dagon coming back. Though in New Vegas you're forced to get shot in the head, you don't have to go after Benny. Sure you confront him, but you don't have to kill him and you can even help him escape. Skyrim lacks such choices.

#4 DLC

Dawnguard is pretty much the civil war with vampires, Hearthfire adds the only RP elements to Skyrim, and Dragonborn is a homeless man on fire's Lonesome Road.

I agree with all of your other points, but have you even played Dragonborn?

There's more content in Dragonborn than Lonesome Road and while DB's main quest doesn't provide any choice (not like the rest of the game did, but I still liked it) Miraak doesn't really have any beef with the Last Dragonborn more so Miraak has a beef with Hermaous Mora (Demon god of knowledge) and the Last Dragonborn is just in Miraak's way.

That being said I believe that while Skyrim is pretty damn fun, New Vegas is a vastly better and better written RPG.

Yes I've played Dragonborn, but I didn't need to play Lonesome Road to know Dragonborn is inferior.

My point being is that the two DLC's aren't really anything alike and comparing them doesn't make much sense. Why haven't you played Lonesome Road? I think you should play both DLC's and formulate your opinion on what you see instead of using other people's opinions in place of your own.

While I 100% agree with Dragonborn not even comparing to Lonesome Road, you have to actually play both to know them. I plain didn't like Dragonborn. The thought of having a continuation of the Imperial v. Stormcloak civil war in a DLC is what kept me on Skyrim, and this is how Bethesda finishes? Gahhhhh.....

Well, in Dragonborn, like in the main game too, the story was there to have an excuse to explore interesting locations with lot of detail put into them, and the bad guy because there has to be bad guy you beat up. Atleast they put some effort into that fight, unlike the fight with Al.

So, it did nothing to convince me that Skyrim is not a dungeon crawler

And in Lonesome Road, like in the main game, story and dialogue came first, though they did make the environment quite cool this time too.

New Vegas is the better RPG because it actually gives you a role to play supported by the gameplay. As in, it makes an attempt at reacting to what you do in a tangible way and doesn't leave it all up to imagination (choices and consequences). Skyrim is just a first person roguelike by comparison - which is a bit sad, because, like all other recent or semirecent Bethesda games, it has a boatload of potential which is all for some reason left unloaded in the said proverbial boat.

New Vegas is by no means a perfect game, it has a ton of issues, but when it comes to attempting to be a cRPG it blows everything Bethesda has done out of the water.

Skyrim was built around exploring and on the idea that the charecter can do everything in one time around.
Fonv was built around story and c&c and on the idea that the layer would have to make multiple charecters to experience everything.

Ill be quite honest. If skyrim had the quality of writing and quest design its lore had, I believe fonv wouldnt be so far ahead in the story department and I believe alot of "our" complaints wouldnt be here. Now rpg mechanics, yes fonv woukd still be wayyyy ahead but the overall writing skyrim has when u take away its established lore in the background is very badly written.

I no I will be shot down and burned for saying this, but rpgs dont have to be nonlinear for it to be considered an rpg. Nonlinear just makes it better but doesnt actually qualify it as a rpg. Take the olf final fantasys and dragon warrior games and secret of mana back from the nes and super nes days. No one can tell me those were not rpgs and those were VERY linear games in terms of story.

oh no! Stop trying to lure Mr. 'I'll comprehensively teach you through endless padded out flannel, why skyrim is the better game' man into the thread. Poor misguided soul that he is.

Ehhhhhhh. The whole point of an RPG being realistic is so you can act like you're roleplaying that character; if you can't make your own choices, you aren't roleplaying your own character.

If a linear "rpg" had a really good story, then maybe I'd buy into it. But you don't see those too often.

New Vegas is the RPG.

It gives me options to Roleplay.

In Skyrim, it gives me a fantastic amount of options to pretend everything, because there's so much gaps I can fill in with my mind.

Depends on how you define "RPG", I suppose. I don't really consider NV to be that great of a roleplaying platform, and most of the arguments against Skyrim (and, more generally, the ES series) aren't roleplaying flaws as much as they are setting continuity flaws. Anything involving game mechanics, character builds, etc. have nothing to do with a game's viability as a roleplaying platform. Both NV and TES essentially dictate the role you're supposed to play (one with an immutable backstory, one with an effectively unavoidable main quest), with the option of selectively ignoring that in favor of playing your own character. That's not roleplaying, that's Choose Your Own Adventure.

The best roleplaying platform I've ever seen in a video game context was the first Way of the Samurai. The only things that were dictated to you was that your character began the game with a katana and you walked into the town the game was set in. Everything else (including whether you got involved in the story at all) was up to the player. I doubt you could get the same level of freedom in a larger-scale game like NV or Skyrim, but you could still do a hell of a lot better than either game did.

Elaborate on the immutable backstory. Are you talking about the Divide?

Skyrim and New Vegas aren't true RPGs, at least not in the sense my tabletop gaming background has taught me what an RPG is.

For Example

A kid just got New Vegas after reading that it is a great RPG game

Boy-"Oh boy I can't wait to play!"

*Pops in New Vegas*

Boy-"Alright I want to be a chef! And cook for the Strip families."

NV-"No your a courier, now go find Benny"

Boy-"But I don't want to, I want to be a cook"

NV-"Tough [censored] kid you're a delivery boy now go change the fate of the Mojave"

Boy-"I already got shot once, my character would quit now before he dies"

NV-"Well you have to be either a hero or a villain now choose!"

------------------------------------------

Same boy buys Skyrim

*Pops in Skyrim*

Boy-"I want to-"

Skyrim-"You're the Dragonborn, now go kill dragons."

--------------------------------------------------

So you see neither game truly lets you actively RP your own story. Sure you can pretend, but that kinda svcks. New Vegas and Skyrim are not RPGs their sandbox games with linear story paths.

Not necessarily. Even in tabletop gaming, dms can and will sometimes ban certain classes. So in same sense, ur charecter couldnt be a cheif fonv isnt a true rpg (which actually u can be) , whereas in a game BC a dm might not allow a summoner class BC he believes it will break his game is no different.
Theres the underlining oppertunitu in both games to be what u want within tbeir rulesets, but if the game doesnt allow a certain class (cheif) its the same scenario if a dm bans or tells a layer that they cant be/use a certain class.


Imho though, both are rpgs. Ones confined and limited by the dms/layers imagination and the other is confined by the same but also with hardware limitations thus with less options. But options dont make it a rpg, options just make a rpg better.

No. You've got it all wrong. You must've missed the point of the main storyline.

You cant compare a bowl of Icecream you ate to the mushrooms out in the yard. Maybe the mushrooms taste like [censored] maybe you should eat [censored], AND the mushrooms.

Well, I wouldn't say mushrooms. Most mushrooms are pretty damn repulsive, so that's a bad metaphor for LR.

More like, you're eating a bruised red delicious, and there's a fuji apple on the shelf. But you don't know if you like fuji apples, so you can't make an assumption.

The maybe I said could be anything.

They could even be the most delectable mushrooms in the world.

But then the dog down the street eats it and says it tastes good

Its not a fuji apple, but a tangerine.
Apples and oranges....

But I don't like tangerines, and I love Lonesome Road.

Heres another example

A Man offers you a Red pill, or a Blue pill.

You have already expirenced one, but do you know if the other one is good, when you feel like it will be better?

There seems to be two definitions of what Role-Playing is.

One is you should be able to be anything you want, and do anything you want, and make choices and decisions. In other words, you create the role.

The other one is that you are playing a role. Any role. The role may or may not be written out for you. It can be linear or non-linear. I tend to agree with this definition.

The problem with the first definition is that video game RPGs that are completely non-linear tend to offer a very watered down, generic experience. Linear RPGs have the ability to tell very specific, tight, compelling stories. I am a fan of JRPGs. I like the Tales series. I like Earthbound and Mother 3. I like Persona. So personally, I can't stand it when people complain about linearity like it is inherently a bad thing. It's not.

The reason I love New Vegas so much is because it balances the best of both worlds.

Also, another distinction to make is that tabletop RPGs and video game RPGs are not the same. It is literally impossible to create the amount of freedom of a tabletop game in a video game, so why are you holding video games to those standards?

That's a large part of it, but not all. The main quest dictates a lot of background for you, as well.

That's some funny stuff.

Yeah, that's part of it. Personally I feel that "role playing" involves some amount of player input on the role they're playing (and the more the better), but strictly speaking it doesn't have to. Actors play roles where everything they do and say is dictated to them, but they're still playing that role. In a game setting, though (whether tabletop or video game), the more you dictate the character to the player the more the game becomes rolewatching rather than roleplaying. That's why, to me, "roleplaying game" carries expectations of being able to create, at least for the most part, my own character.

The other thing is a lot of people hear the "role" in roleplaying and think "roll". They focus on the combat mechanics, the character advancement system, how awesome the available items are, pretty much anything but the actual character. I blame D&D, but I've been told I'm biased and unfair...

...

No, I'm pretty sure it's still D&D's fault.