Face it people. Skyrim isn't cRPG at all.

[JesterRaiin]

Yes, lets make every game exactly the same as real life.

Not fond of reading earlier posts, aren't we ?

 

[Creepybard]

That was very uninteresting and I feel like whoever wrote this was extremely proud of how sassy he was with us... "Good I got your attention" Yes because I was curious, you didnt trick me into giving you the location of the fucking lost city of atlantis.

You know the location of the lost city of atlantis?! I MUST HAVE IT!

 

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

Yes, lets make every game exactly the same as real life.

Not fond of reading earlier posts, aren't we ?

How about you learn how to make your original post [YOU KNOW, THE POST THAT MATTERS MOST?] make SENSE?

 

[Thk13421]

I feel like the idea has merit, to a point: I try to avoid fast traveling, I try to eat something every day, and I sleep during the night. Little things like that actually do a lot to make the game a bit more immersive for me.

That does not mean that I want the fantastic elements taken out: they're the reason why I'm playing in the first place. But just doing these little things invests me a little more in the world, so I get more enjoyment out of being there.

Of course, if you don't want to play like that, don't. That's your decision.

 

[Eggbert]

OT : About realism.
Guys... You're posting on "Escapist" forum. You play video games. Please don't give me that bullsh*t about realism. None os us (with the exception of you, Bear Grylls, i know you're here) would survive one hour in the wilderness of Skyrim. It's not about that. It's about possibilities, alternative ways to use product you've bought for your hard earned money.

But...

So. There may be no rules for that, but have you ever tried to cross the river in iron armor weighing more than a few pounds ? Think, how long could you run in arctic environment, possibily wearing only bikini and 20 variations of Orcish Greatsword ? Skipped a few meals ? Know that feeling of overwhelming hunger ? How about your relationships, were you ever involved in real male to female, ahem, union ?

Can you make up your damn mind on where your arbitrary trollstance is going to be before you waste my time, please? Further, what in the however-many hells do you mean when you say cRPG? You're using the term which expands to 'computer Role Playing Game,' but then you compare it to tabletop role playing games. Which are, as is apparent to anyone with even a modicum of knowledge about the two, as you seem to be, entirely different genres. I don't even care about whether your argument works. I'm too caught up in this incomprehensible mess of contradictory stances and misused terminology.

 

[mike1921]

Try to recreate living person. Just for the sake of fun ? Isn't that why you're playing it in the first place ?

.....To recreate a living person? no . I never thought I would play skyrim with the intention of doing things that I could and have to easily do in real life

Skipped a few meals ? Know that feeling of overwhelming hunger ?

Yes but WHO WANTS TO DEAL WITH THAT IN A GAME? It's one thing if it's fallout new vegas and survival is supposed to be an integral part of the game, and it legitimately is a problem of sorts at times, but in skyrim there is no reason for food ever to be a problem for you.

 

[freaper]

I've tried RP on source games, but without the right people, or mindset, it's boring. Truth is, no one I know IRL plays D&D or other tabletop RPG games.
Sure, I'll check out a "survival mod" for Skyrim when it comes out, but I'm also pretty confident that not everyone's waiting for a true RPG experience.

 

[Micalas]

How do you play RPGs with a PAN and paper?

Meet my buddy PAN.

http://www.moviemobsters.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/pan-2.jpg

Fair enough. But you do know that Pan is this one, right?

That may be YOUR buddy Pan. But that other guy is HIS buddy Pan.

 

[Scow2]

Hmm... I find Skyrim to be the closest to the PnP experience I've recieved... and could probably write it up as a PnP game if it weren't for a lack of knowledge about what to do with the shuffling of companions. The "Radiant Story" makes a pretty talented GM actually.

Fast Travel, not Eating (Or at least not declaring eating, nor remembering to remove rations from your inventory over time), Waiting for Stupid Amounts of Time, running through Linear Dungeons, and choosing whether or not to do one-way quests or go find some other quest are all staples of the tabletop experience. Do any tabletop groups actually pay attention to what people are wearing (Beyond the number it offers), or the weather anyway? My GM usually has too much to deal with to bother checking the effect of inclement weather on travel.

In fact, Skyrim's "Game Master" can even get realistically aggravated at the PC's options.

PC: "Okay, I put a bucket over this guy's head so he can't see me"
DM: "..." *bursts out laughing* "Okay, it works. He can't see or hear you."

DM: "Alright, Arwen tells you his sword is in the dungeon of... no, been there, hmm, been there too... Aha! Bleak Falls.. Ack, that was the first dungeon... Aha! Hidden Moons Camp!"

DM: "Okay, after traveling for days from Winterhold, you finally arrive at the Labyrinthian, where..."
PC: "Ack! I meant to swap Lydia out for that cat-dude who set me on fire. I tell Lydia to go home, and rush back to Winterhold!"
DM: "... Fine. Okay, after another two days of journeying, this time with the RIGHT companion, you arrive at Labyrinthian..."

DM: "Hey, how many rations do you have left?"
PC: "Umm... I was supposed to be tracking them?"

DM: "The Greybeards call you to High Hrothgar."
PC: "Okay, we head off to the mountain"
DM: "Along the way..." *numerous sidequests ensue*
PC: "So... why were we walking around this mountain again?"
DM: "Erm... it's in my notes here somewhere"

And other silliness.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

There actually is a way for computer based roleplaying to equal the freedom of pencil and paper games; the only problem is it takes a human DM. What I'm referring to is computer assisted role playing, which has programs ranging from full blown videogames (Neverwinter Nights being the prime example) to specialized chat programs that include built in mapping and dice rolling tools. Basically, they let you tabletop game without needing an actual table, which is useful if all of your friends have recently gone off to half a dozen different colleges.

Oh, also, kudos for using the term "cRPG." That's one I haven't seen since about 2001, mainly I think because of the same cultural shift that took "gamer" from meaning "one who plays tabletop games" to "one who plays video games" around that time.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I got your attention ? Good. Sorry for this little manipulation, i hope you're forgiving one.

Skyrim grants the player significant agency in how they play the game and, as a result, what sort of character that they have. Given that the RPG in the video game sense is a nebulous term defined by the presence of player agency over narrative/character (and the more agency they have the more universally it will be recognized as an RPG), I'd say that there is a pretty damn compelling argument to be made that Skyrim is an RPG.

And the argument that CRPG's do not properly encapsulate the pen and paper experience is, in a word, bullshit because it implies that the role playing game is defined exclusively by two separate criteria. The first is adherence to a mechanical system (i.e. the rules, tables and dice rules that govern play and mediate success and failure). Different gaming groups will place variable weight on how strictly one must follow such mechanical systems and even different games within the genre. Dungeons and Dragons loves to offer rules to sort out how a fistfight between a polar bear and a dwarf might play out but other systems (World of Darkness) might only cover such an event in abstract detail. The computer RPG follows a mechanical system rather strictly and acts in the role of impartial (or slightly biased towards the player) mediator of their application.

The second aspect is the social dynamics of the group and sure, there is something to be said about this point. If one is going to play a role it certainly helps to have a participatory audience but in many of the better RPG's this is provided by the characters in the world. One does not require an audience in order to play a role - just the willingness to do so.

The other things commonly pointed to, from dynamic story generation to creative problem solving we find are so variable they can hardly be said to be wholly a part of the pen and paper game. Plenty of people approach D&D as a tactical combat game where story is largely irrelevant. Plenty of games are run by DM's who would assert that there are only a handful of solutions to a given problem.

Do pen and paper games provide a different experience? Without question. But that does not mean that experience is superior and when the crpg space is itself so varied it makes it impossible to make the argument that just because a computer version doesn't match some particular interpretation of the crpg experience it doesn't deserve to be called an RPG.

 

[Mahmoud Itani]

Nothing in the original poster's mess of thesis statements and elaboration was there a consistent point, or idea, for which or against which to argue.
My thesis:
Sucka be trollin'

Also, if I may make a point on the side: When characters in the game clearly have to eat, sleep, etc., it makes sense to give the same limitations on the player, in order to create more immersion. Immersion in this context means that you feel more like a person in the universe, rather than a humanoid embodiment of awesomeness and murder that doesn't follow the biological rules that the NPC's follow (eating and sleeping are required, etc.). This means of achieving immersion isn't always fun, seeing as it's just another task to slow you down, but saying that something isn't fun because it causes difficulty is like saying you'd rather play skyrim in "god mode" (no, you can't live with akatosh). On the other hand, there is the argument that eating is tedious and gives no sense of accomplishment when done, which is quite valid. To this, I say that maybe there should just be perks to having a full belly, just like when you sleep in a bed. That, or just make it so you don't get hungry until after three days, or however long makes more sense. This eating thing is just an example, of course. I guess I'm done here; my post-script is longer than expected.

 

[Something Amyss]

I never really understood the concept of immersion.

Why would I ever want a game to simulate real-life? Would that mean I'd have to stay in 2-hour long car-queues in GTA? That, in TES, I'd spend most of my time walking around my town talking to my neighbours? Or perhaps in Fallout, that'd I'd settle down and find a nice place to live out the apocalypse?

That sounds very immersive, but incredibly boring.

Solution: That's not immersion. There is nothing in settling down that's inherently more immersive than adventuring.

Realism=/=immersion.

 

[Hisshiss]

Oblivion mods are better than vanilla Skyrim.

Skyrim mods will be better than the next Vanilla game Bethesda drop.

madkids?

What about people who can't use mods? You people make skyrim mods sound like its just some feature on the disc that is gradually unlocking itself, and thus base the quality of the actual game experience on ways you can cheat it to do what you want. You just can't gauge the quality of the game by how its tech savvy fans are going to manipulate it post launch.

 

[Furioso]

Oblivion mods are better than vanilla Skyrim.

Skyrim mods will be better than the next Vanilla game Bethesda drop.

madkids?

I agree with that, Bethesda games are good, but modded they're so much better.Bethesda knows that too, they give out one of the most extensive modkits with every game they make...

It makes sense, you have the entire modding community vs the comparably super small dev team that has to work within limits, as opposed to each individual modders imagination

 

[zehydra]

Oblivion mods are better than vanilla Skyrim.

Skyrim mods will be better than the next Vanilla game Bethesda drop.

madkids?

I've never seen an actual decent looking Oblivion mod.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

OT : People, i'm shocked. http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/ has 1470 Core Books in its database. Let's say it's full 1000 of different rpg systems and all you can say regarding tabletop RPGs is D&D ? What about Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu, Star Wars, Warhammer/Warhammer 40k, Shadowrun, Gurps, Fading Suns, World of Darkness ?

That is because D&D is, by far, the most well known. What's more, the mechanical systems defined by D&D has found it's way into a host of memorable titles:

Baldur's Gate Saga
Icewind Dale
Neverwinter Nights
Planescape Torment

Three of the above four are pretty regularly recognized as being some of the best Pc games made. By contrast, Warhammer is best known as a tabletop wargame and virtually every ounce of what is regularly available implies that only the most legendary of heroes are going to change the outcome of even a relatively small batter without tremendous backup. I mean, sure the imperial guard has notable heroes but short of the last chancers, how many of them worked regularly in small groups rather than in divisions of countless millions? Gurps is forever cursed by the fact that it is simply the mechanical basis for a bunch of homebrew games and a bunch of titles no one has ever heard of. World of Darkness suffers under the yoke of the current backlash against vampires and a setting that, let's face it, caters to a very specific type of audience. Hell, if it were not for one very good PC game in 2004, I'd say the odds of it being known by even a fraction of the people here that might think of it would be slim. And Shadowrun suffers the twin curses of only being used for crappy video games and being based in an area of fiction that almost exclusively appeals to young males (Cyberpunk in general). Most of the rest (Silhouette for example) tend to use some sort of absurd system for mediating conflict or can be easily described as "Like D&D but. . . " (Pathfinder is like D&D but the DM needs to really hate his players).