Does anyone else agree RPGs should move into the modern era?

[Who Dares Wins]

Making an RPG in modern time is pretty hard, we have middle ages because there are no megalopolises, they can't make an interactive city with a population of 5 million and in middle ages they make little towns and stuff so the population of the whole world is somewhere near 100-200. This is also the reason you have a very good post apocalyptic RPG(Fallout), because almost everyone and everything is dead and/or destroyed. Also a possible reason could be that modern time RPGs could be very easy with all the guns, cars and stuff so there wouldn't be any gear leveling and something along those lines. I guess.

 

[Manicotti]

Did we miss Bloodlines, Fallout, Mass Effect, Borderlands, Shadowrun, Deus Ex, KotOR, and others?

While wishing more games were set when you wanted them to be is fine, why the hell would you want a rule (whose rule? Enforced how?) dictating what else could be published, rather than allowing the market to determine what should be made? I'd love to see a gritty, no magic, historically accurate RPG set around 165 aD in Rome, a CRPG adaptation of Mage: the Ascension, and God help me, Black Isle reformed to make a follow-on to Torment, but I would certainly not want my views forced on others. I also recognize my opinions are not those of all others and I'm not the only one whose voice should be heard.

WRPGs have been made in dozens of settings and timelines besides medieval fantasy. Nor do most such games use the typical "bad Ren Faire" music, as most use a contemporary classical music set, barring the nigh obligatory tavern scene. Dragon Age was an obvious example; the entire score is pretty much standard contemporary classical, appropriate for nearly any adventure movie regardless of genre with a similar dark and gritty tone.

Come to think of it, dark and edgy stories are quite common in fantasy RPGs, including PlaneScape: Torment, Dragon Age, the old BG series, etc, etc. Pulpy stories are less common, mostly because RPGs of all stripes avoid going for a pulp feel, preferring to (adeptly or no) try to play up the tone of an epic.

I'm really not sure what you mean by this, since there are plenty of WRPGs set in later periods, the music is not commonly as you described it, the art of the middle ages has little to do with how fantasy is portrayed, and so on. One may have preferences, but having them and expecting everyone else to share them are two very different things.

Thank you for beating me to it. I also wanted to point out the flawed reasoning in wanting RPGs collectively to move out of the Tolkienian context when they've been doing that for pretty much as long as they've been around. The OP seems to have forgotten the difference between a game's content and a game's mechanics. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/the-game-stash/7777-The-Game-Stash-A-Question-of-Genre]

 

[Vault101]

I would like to see a cyper-punk or steam punk rpg

 

[bobtail123]

Actually I think that one of the charms of a modern day RPG would be the level of realism. People could try to live from an entirely different perspective from what they are used to, and thats probably a good thing.

Despite the age we live in being kind of boring I still think the appeal of being able to play a game set in this world, where you can do things that you all the things you would never be able to do in real life, would more than make up for that.

 

[Evilsanta]

There are some already out there. Search for Vampire: The Masqurade:Bloodlines.

Or check out Funcoms new MMO The Secret World. It plays out in the modern world and it doesn't look to bad...Then again it's a MMO.

 

[TheAmazingHobo]

Yup, like everyone's already said, plenty of modern RPGs. Most of them, in fact, are much better than the traditional fantasy/sci-fi RPGs such as Vampire: The Masquerade and Alpha Protocol (Which I will defend until my last breath as a flawed masterpiece).

I´m right there with you. It was a good game and I enjoyed the hell out of it.


On-topic:

How about this: We do not make any rules about what kind of setting WRPGs should or should not utilize. Instead, we just all agree that it would be pretty sweet, if more WRPGs explored unusual settings (such as all the different ""-punks, for example).
Which I think is a current trend anyway.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

My main problem with the middle ages is the godawful flute and string music. And basically all the arts and aesthetics sucked before the renaissance revitalized European societies. Really, I'd be happy with a simple 'renaissance onward only' rule.

Everything that I don't like sucks, is that it?

So, without checking, you've already decided that Vampire, Fallout, Wasteland, Matrix Online, Requiem, Syndicate and many other modern RPGs are actually just medieval. You've also ruled out Shadowrun, despite it having everything you've asked for.

What you want is only RPGs that are like COD. And FPSs that are like COD. And everything else sucks because you don't like the music.

It's not the most unbiased outlook, is it?

 

[Danzaivar]

Shenmue and Parasite Eve called. They was wondering why you're ignoring them.

 

[Amnestic]

There's a lot of hate on Alpha Protocol here I gotta say. I thought it was okay for the most part. I played a Stealth character too, and I only really had trouble with the one boss (Dude in the museum). I was doing the 'Recruit' playthrough so I had even fewer skillpoints than normal.

But yeah, OP seems to be willfully ignorant of a whole plethora of RPGs.

 

[Smooth Operator]

It's my humble assertion that modern RPGs would benefit in much the same way as Call of Duty did by going over to more contempary settings. JRPGs really started doing this after FFVII, mixing sci-fi elements in alongside the fantasy, though I'm yet to see something truly contempary besides Earthbound (though that game wasn't exactly realistic). I'd like to see the western mature RPGs ditch the middle ages in favour of the modern mega societies of today, edgy stories more inspired by films like Pulp Fiction (or anything Tarantino really) or No Country for Old Men.

I'd love to see Bethesda move the Elder Scrolls to a circa 2020 setting one day, using their experience with Fallout 3 to give us guns, cars AND magic. My main problem with the middle ages is the godawful flute and string music. And basically all the arts and aesthetics sucked before the renaissance revitalized European societies. Really, I'd be happy with a simple 'renaissance onward only' rule.

What are you proposing, a dictatorship?
You got RPG's all over the map, some even in the middle ages, so how about you look at those that aren't?
The only good game still working with the middle ages formula is Dragon Age, all the others are way out there, surely everyone can find something they like.
You may not see it from your point of view, but suggesting we ditch anything you don't like is rather silly.

 

[Snarky Username]

Mass Effect, also, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.
You are WAY behind the times.

Technically, Star Wars was set "In a time long, long ago" so that would hardly be modern.

OT: I don't think so. I prefer it to be either in the distant past or the distant future. I've kind of gotten used to the present just by living in it. Besides, there already are a few modern RPGs that you seem to be forgetting...

 

[Twuk]

Asking JRPGs to adopt a more 'modern' and western setting kind of kills the whole idea of Japanese Role Playing don't you think?

As stated above, they're are tons of RPGs out there that fit the criteria that you're asking for. Unfortunately, it seems that you won't give them the time of day because of your COD business.

 

[DracoSuave]

JRPGs need to be more modern?

I suppose I missed all those zippers and fetish gear and laser sword beam blasters at my local trip to the renfaire.

 

[vgmaster831]

I suggest Arcanum. It's not modern, but it's not quite fantasy either. It has fantastic role-playing elements that really help with immersion. Despite being old with crap graphics, it is a great RPG that is still enjoyable today.

 

[Bellvedere]

I like past era RPGs and I like future era RPGs. So long as the time period fits well with the story and the game has good mechanics I can get into it. I don't think I have ever ever looked at a game and thought this would be amazing if only it was set in a different time...

Also I don't know why Bethesda would move Oblivion into the future. They already have a consumer base that loves the games and are probably perfectly fine with the era. If Bethesda wanted a game set in the future they'd probably just do that with a different IP you know like that one they acquired like.. 6? years ago now.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I don't exactly agree. The problem is the modern world is precisely where we all live. A developer has a fairly obscene amount of leeway when determining game mechanics if you use an unfamiliar setting. How many people here have any legitimate idea of how one might win a sword battle or how far one one could sling a bolt from a 14th century crossbow with lethal results? How many of us really know how well any given suit of armor protects? Precisely because it is unfamiliar, a developer is free to simply assert something is true or not and we are generally willing to accept it as fact.

The same goes when you set something in the far future. While many people (thanks to movies) believe the human body is quite a bit more resistant to damage than it really is, most will accept that a single bullet from even the most pitiful firearm in existence can kill a person but have little idea how protective personal ballistic armor might be. The more high technology one's story integrates the more a developer is simply free to set arbitrary rules for how things work and explain it away with pseudo science (take the element zero in mass effect, which is responsible for magic, armor, FTL travel, firearm technology and countless other lesser plot/reality problem resolution scenarios).

But when you set something in the modern era that we all live in, that leeway flies right out the window. You might be able to heal exponentially faster than a real person in Modern Warfare, but you are also killed by a sum of bullets that wouldn't even worry the flimsiest shield in Mass Effect. Because of our familiarity with the modern world, we have certain expectations on how things work and you simply can't expect the audience to ignore obvious violations of the real world. Take GTA IV as an example. While far from realistic the game at least remains bound by the our perception of the modern world. If a car takes a corner too fast it loses control. If you fall from a tall building you die upon landing. When you get shot just a few times you die. Here, the rules of reality are bent but they are never broken entirely.

As an example, consider Alpha Protocol, an RPG set in the modern era. One of the skill trees helped the player sneak about undetected. At a certain point in the tree, if the player was detected, they became completely invisible for a short duration in order to give them a second chance to sneak up on a target. Reviewer after reviewer chose this very mechanic that was both minor and optional as an example of a flawed design because there was no reasonable excuse provided by the game for how it worked. If set in a standard fantasy setting, the existance of magic is enough as magic can be used to explain anything. In a far future setting, high technology serves the same role as magic. But in the modern era, people are unwilling to accept such a nonsensical explanation for a mechanic.

 

[Vault101]

Fantasy isn't bad but to a non-fantasy fan like me it somtimes feels all a bit "been there done that tolken-esque type thing) sci fi is probably the same but its jsut personel taste

though I do love Dragon age (Yeah I know its REALLY REALLY tolken-esque)

back on topic heres an idea, an RPG set in the universe of Bladerunner ( think somthign similar was done before)