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I've been thinking a lot about RPGs recently. Over the past year or so I've come to realise that they are definitely my go-to form of game; I can dip into FPS games, have a blast with 3rd-person action stuff and tend to avoid racing and sports games like the plague (except Rocket League, because that game is genius), but whenever go looking for a new game to really get into, RPGs are always my first port of call.

A curious side effect of this is that I've played several major RPG series backwards. I started with Mass Effect 3 before going back to 1 and 2, I played Dragon Age Inquisition then Origins and DA2, Fallout 4 then (attempted) New Vegas. In doing this, and reading around the games, I've seen a strong sentiment that RPGs are by and large worse now than wen these franchises started, and to be honest I find myself disagreeing with this pretty fundamentally; I'd say the latest generation of major RPGs (let's say ME3 or Andromeda, DA: Inquisition, Fallout 4 and Skyrim) by and large stand head and shoulders above their predecessors, and while I see where some elements have got lost or changed dramatically, I don't necessarily see this as a bad thing.

Combat is one that comes up a lot; FO4 gets heavy criticism for its heavy emphasis on shooting mechanics over other elements, but ultimately that's preferable to the horrifically clunky combat that rendered New Vegas unplayable for me. Likewise, while I concede that Dragon Age Origins has more tactical depth to its combat that its sucessors, mechanically and visually it lags so far behind DA2 and DAI that I find the game a bit of a chore to play.

In an RPG, the story comes first for me, and the combat is what I have to do to get through it, so personally I'll take simplified, but far more enjoyable and user-friendly, systems over one that has more depth but slowed the game down. I see no problem with RPG devs layering their narrative elements over typical shooter/action game mechanics if that's conducive to keeping the story elements moving forward.

I also see some of these games (typically DAI and FO4) taking flak for 'forcing' the player into certain roles, basically boiling down to 'the good guy'. While I understand the appeal of games letting you create a villainous character, the fact is that narrative that won't always work; if the story of a game ultimately leads you towards saving the world, it's hard to reconcile that with a genuinely evil character. To me, the role playing part of the name doesn't necessarily mean I get to create my own role and play it however I like, but rather that I will be inhabiting a character within the game; I don't need this character to be 'me' as such, and I'll take some restrictions within a good narrative over total freedom with a weaker story behind it (take Skyrim for example; yes, The Dragonborn can go round and murder 90% of the population, but that is pretty at odds with being the fabled hero destined to save the world and to allow the two to coexist, Skyrim's main story is inherently weaker)



So to sum up, to me, an RPG just means a narrative-driven game in which the player has input on how that narrative develops; I can happily do without the complexity of 'classic' RPGs if the end result is something smoother, more enjoyable and more engaging to play through (though I do love a good fiddly crafting system! ). But ultimately, this is a discussion thread, not just me ranting about What I Reckon, so I'm very interested to hear what the assembled Dakkanauts have to say on the matter. Do you miss complexity in modern RPGs? Does limited freedom within a game detract from the experience? What do and don't you look for in a game of this type?

I'm an rpg fan as well though I have a very peculiar problem. I love text based games like PoE, Tyrrany, Sunless sea, shadowrun, a house of many doors, banner saga... However, I'm dyslectic so I play very slowly and can not sit for vast ammounts of time or I'll get to tired to read. Still the exploration and plot developments keep me playing through the reading difficulty. I love making moralic choices, discoverieng and changing new worlds.

I was slightly to old for the ps1 era of rpgs, but I made an effort of playing many old one. Chrono trigger still stands as one of my top games of all time. FF7 was great to experience despite its old graphics and the really old school stuff, like breath of fire, often had story elements and game mechanics that'd make them be enjoyable even to someone with modern game choices available.

Guess what I'm saying is... RPG HYPE!

I like Skyrim combat and leveling, I always thought the older leveling system was silly and I had to work around it to level properly instead of playing how I wanted but the leveled rewards bug me. I like to get weapons at their strongest so I often avoid quests if I know the item would be stronger at a higher level. I like it more when I can go into any dungeon at any time and get the best reward. Of course, this leads to things becoming imbalanced fast. Morrowind is terrible for balance.

I also feel something is lost when most of the quests involve a fight or dungeon. Most quests in Skyrim require an item that's at the end of a dungeon. While in Morrowind you have things like the damn puzzle box that's in the first room of a dungeon. The caves and tombs in Morrowind also don't feel so... gamey. In Skyrim they're better made but I always have this feeling that they were made with a check list for "how to make a proper dungeon" instead of the small or large messy dungeons of Morrowind. Many Morrowind quests didn't involve dungeons but were instead about doing someone's dirty work or helping someone, depending on the faction.

Though one thing I can certainly say Skyrim does better is giving the merchants a use beyond level 5, as they sell ingots and ingredients, even if I still end up with more gold than I spend.

Having fast travel built into the world through Silt Striders and teleportation also really helps with immersion. It's too bad Skyrim only has the carriages at major cities. Plus the roads in Skyrim are way too dangerous with bears, bandits, cultists and sabretooths on the road there is a less than 1% chance any NPC could make a trip between cities on foot without being killed. It's ridiculous.

I think a lot of what I don't like about Skyrim's design comes down to how it feels like the world was built for the player. Which, y'know, a lot of people like but it just involves me going through the motions instead of putting any thought into what I do. Of course the game is always built for the player, it just varies on how clear that is.

Skyrim is the ultimate example of freedom over choice in RPGs, I think. I love it as big, beautiful sandbox to explore and delve into, and have hundreds if not thousands of hours over the various editions with dozens of different playstyles and approaches. However, to achieve that, the game lacks a lot of genuine choice; there are very few actual decisions to be made over how you actually complete a quest, and even fewer instances where those decisions have a noticeable effect on the game world and characters (the Civil War being the only thing that really transforms the game, and even then that just swaps a few Jarls and guards around).

You can be whoever you want and do whatever you want, but to allow for that, you really have to 'forge a narrative' (GW, don't sue me!) for yourself. I have had some truly memorable characters in Skyrim, but all because of the backstory and history I composed in my head over the hours and days of game time; none of that characterisation is actually in the game itself, it's all superimposed via the imagination (not that this is inherently bad, it's still a creative outlet of sorts).

On the other hand, Fallout 4 funnels you towards a more specific character, but by virtue of that allows NPCs and the world in general to treat you as an actual person rather than a faceless character whose only motivations and personality traits are the ones you force them to have. In Skyrim you have the freedom to lead The Companions, the Thieves Guild, the Mages and the Dark Brotherhood all at once and the only reason not to do that is found in your own personal narrative, whereas in Fallout, picking one faction automatically makes you the enemy of another that's fundamentally opposed to it so there's actual choice involved, not just in terms of what perks/items/services that gets you access to but also how the story (of both the game itself and your character) develop.

Skyrim is still brilliant for what it is, an unparalleled sandbox into which you can insert any story you like, but a move towards more choice and less freedom in the next Elder Scrolls is definitely needed, I think.

I generally 'forge a narrative' in basically any RPG. A voiced protagonist makes it harder though. But a lot of my characters tend to devolve into yes-men who are really good at fighting instead of evolving through the choices made.

I guess competing factions are a good way to give a player choice. New Vegas did this well since 2 of the major factions can be found all over the map, especially the NCR. So many quests have you deciding if you want to support one faction or the other and deciding if helping them is what you really want to do, like deciding if you want the NCR's corrupt authority to tame the wasteland frontier. It's a good way to have your game wide choices feel connected, which the faction rating helps with as some characters treat you differently if you're a friend of the faction.

True, it's hard to play an RPG without projecting various characteristics, traits and values onto your character. The difference is that with Skyrim, that's all internal whereas a lot of games that handle it better actually reflect it in the game itself. If you watched someone else's Skyrim run with no commentary it'd be hard to work out what sort of character was actually being played (narratively rather than mechanically) whereas you could watch a Mass Effect run also without commentary and get a much clearer idea of this version of Shepard's character based on in-game interactions.

Not that this is a bad thing! Skyrim remains (and probably always will remain) the superlative 'blank canvas' RPG onto which you can paint whatever story you like, the difference between that and a lot of other games is simply that there you're making your own fiction whereas in a more structured game like DAI or The Witcher 3 it's more akin to reading someone else's work and interpreting it in your own way. It's almost the closest a game can get to the freedom you get with a classic pen and paper RPG.

Factions always make a good basis for choice. I'd love to see a fantasy RPG where you could engage in actual politicking and such between factions and groups (rather than the go-to of 'who do you back as leader?' or 'which of these two opposite factions gets your support?'). Think Skyrim, but where rather than just picking a side to basically auto-win the Civil War there were mechanics in place to attempt to broker a peace, or bring various major players round to your way of thinking rather than just taking over a fort and having their guardsmen replaced.

From what I've seen of it on Youtube and such, New Vegas does this really well, I just couldn't get on with the actual gameplay. I'd buy a version of NV remade with FO4's slicker combat mechanics in a heartbeat!

Awwwwww yeeeeah, a thread I can get behind! *cracks knuckles*

I played the franchises you mentioned as their titles came out so I certainly see what you're talking about regarding their various evolutions. I certainly saw it with Fallout; going from FO3 and it's myriad of DLC to FO: NV and it's content as well and then to FO4 you can see that while the story elements were still heavily player driven, the clunkier RPG feel of the previous games were replaced with something far less frustrating to play.

As to your questions:

Do I miss complexity in modern RPGs?

Eh. I suppose that's relative to the franchise I'm playing. I find that I enjoy the complexity that a RPG can offer if it's one of the Baldur's Gate-esque types, probably because of the 'macro' level of gameplay already inherent. When it comes to something like Elder Scrolls or Fallout I find that complexity is less enjoyable, probably because of how poorly the games handle said 'depth' - I'm less a fan of Morrowind and more one of Oblivion and Skyrim if that's any indication.


Does limited freedom within a game detract from the experience?

I'm not sure if this is a fair question, or one that can really be answered in any definitive way. The only way I can say 'yes' would be if you took a game like Fallout and put it on a set of rails like Call of Duty. And, in my opinion, it's far easier to say 'no' when you have games that limit player choice in favor of a truly epic story, like Mass Effect (and before anyone dropkicks me for saying this, recognize that no choices you make in that series really effect the outcome).


What do and don't you look for in a game of this type?

I assume you meant RPGs as a whole? I tend to look at several different things:

-I avoid reviews. Generally speaking unless the Steam rating is horrible, I steer clear. With gaming journalism being the trash it is now, it's simply not worth it.
-It's probably obvious, but franchises as a whole - if I played Game 1 I'm probably going to play Game 2 and 3 and so on, even if it gets steadily worse.
-Story. I live for epic tales of heroism and 'against the odds' sort of experiences. Fantasy or Sci-Fi, it doesn't matter.
-Great characters. I'll still replay Mass Effect 1-3 because of how well each character is done, Dragon Age, Baldurs Gate, Elder Scrolls, the list goes on. Some of the titles might be less than OK gameplay-wise, but man, I love me a crazy, murder-face jester.
-Gameplay. This is hard to quantify I think. While it's easy to ruin a game with tedious nonsense (stares at Andromeda), it's also just as easy to make it underwhelming (again, stares at Andromeda). It's hard to find that perfect balance, but when I do I'll keep coming back for more.

Do you miss complexity in modern RPGs?
If the story is done well than I'm fine with how un-complex a game is. But If a game is notes as having a function that stands out to me but isn't executed well its a turn off.

Does limited freedom within a game detract from the experience?
Yes and no, if its limited in its universe that ok. but a limited freedom story, it matters.

What do and don't you look for in a game of this type?
If it fits my interests, which is pretty broad.

Side notes, one huge key thing about FO4 that makes it such a let down is Bethesda... They've had many many years to fix the combat in the Fallout Series. A good portion of the story is being missed and previous lore not being explored. The side quests are a joke, seriously go find my cat. I've been a fan of Fallout since the beginnings, I've played Fallout Game made, while Fallout was fun, it just didn't fit. I played a Alcoholic/Druggy for the first time and was saddened by the flat unaltered dialog between characters. But its Fallout and I'll still play it no matter what.

I've played 4 different characters on Skyrim and still havn't finished the story... LOL

@Frankenberry: Yeah, the questions were admittedly a bit loaded and unfair, more a starting point for discussion than a search for definitive answers.

What you say about Mass Effect brings up an interesting point; while as you say your choices throughout the series don't impact the ending as such, does that inherently devalue them? I often find with side quests and smaller plot points that even if I know their impact will be minimal on the story, so long as the self-contained narrative is decent then I don't really mind.

Take Ilium on ME2; there's a quest there to help a Quarian engineer get taken on board by a tech firm as a voluntary 'slave'. At first it appears she's just being sold into slavery but a chat with her will reveal that it's helping her start a career and escape unemployment. You can then (if I remember correctly) talk the company into hiring her, refuse, or buy her contract yourself on behalf of the company... Ultimately, this choice is one of dozens that has absolutely no impact beyond the 3 NPCs it relates to, but can still be indicative of the character you're trying to build, a snapshot of Shepard's outlook and approach to the people around him.

In that respect, I'd say the feeling of making a difference, even on a tiny scale, is perhaps more important than that choice having a tangible consequence down the line beyond gaining some Paragon/Renegade points and EXP. In general, I like it when games give you the chance to do totally optional little things that build into a larger picture of your character, even if those mean nothing.

Of course, that can't be said for all side quests... In general, I'm against quests that consist of 2-3 lines of text or dialogue and a shiny bit of loot, the kind you complete by accident just by searching the right container. Sometimes, they'll lead to more interesting stuff, but there's nothing worse that a quest log filled with 'someone dropped a thing, go and pick it up for literally no reason' stuff.


@Maddok_Death: I can certainly see where you're coming from regarding FO4 sacrificing flavour for technical improvements; it's not really noticeable to me as it remains the only FO game I've played beyond the first few hours, but I can definitely understand how it'd be a let-down for someone who's stuck with the series from the start. Regarding its quests and how generic a lot of them are, I think FO4 is really best played by just wandering aimlessly; while a lot of the quest storylines are bland, I think Bethesda did some great work with environmental storytelling via notes/terminals/layouts and simply how areas are put together. Often, the history of the building you're in is more interesting that the quest you're there to complete!

I dont mind if an RPG is 3rd or 1st Person, i just love a Well Structured game that gives me plenty to do, and allows me to make a Character the way I Want to.

For example, im running through the Mass Effect Trilogy Currently (Sadly my ME2 save Corrupted so i have to play the Entire Game Again). And the Shepard im Building is "Ultimate Badass" who only cares about his crew, and Innocents in the Line of fire (I.E the only time ill choose Paragon Options)

My goal is to save EVERYONE and get the "Perfect" ME3 Ending (Destroy, Max War Assets).

However, im a Sucker For good RPG Combat (I.E Stuff to do while inbetween Quests) which is one of the Only Reasons i Dislike the ME Trilogy (The Fact that Combat only exists during missions) and why i LOVE ME:A's Open World Combat (as i can go "Im going to use the Cyclone Assault Rifle Today" and then proceed to kill some Random Mooks with it).

Granted, ME:As Open world felt Empty (Too many Tasks and not enough Actual Quests) but if more Planets were like Kadara (Where you cannot go "Everywhere" as there are Mountains in the Way, So you have to go around, and Outlaw camps Scattered All over the Place)

Oooh, boy, RPGs. I've been playing since 1980s (first one I bought myself was Legacy of the Ancients for my Dad's 286, but I had played a few older than thought on our C64). I've played and enjoyed a few JRPGs (on console and PC), but my perspective is 95% built on Western PC RPGs.

I would say the biggest evolutionary change I've noticed in RPGs is the rise of first-person perspectives and the effect they have on RPG mechanics, in regards to character skill and player skill. In the early days, an RPG was very much still a computer version of a tabletop PnP (Pencil and Paper) RPG. Fallout 1 and 2 are great examples of this, with a special system (get it? "S.P.E.C.I.A.L."? ) specifically designed as a PnP system. This was because character skills were necessary to determine the outcome of an action. The player chose the action, but the character's skill levels and checks determined the success or failure. But first person RPGs evolved to remove character skill from several aspects. Shooting, for example, became more a matter of player skill (using your own ability to aim with the mouse) to determine the success of a shot than the character's skill. A character's firearms skill could still be used to affect things like the size of the target reticle (and the shot spread), the amount of potential damage, and to artificially lock out more powerful weapons until you had the skill to use them. This is why I wasn't bothered with the removal of the skill system in Fallout 4, because so much of it had become irrelevant in the face of using player skill to accomplish the same tasks (combat, lockpicking and hacking minigames, etc.).

It's also interesting to see how storytelliing in RPGs has evolved. Initially, it all had to be text based, and even some had to use a physical booklet to save precious floppy space. And, as storage media improved, we got audio and video.

And we had different styles. Skyrim exemplified the voiceless blank slate protagonist with the Dragonborn, allowing you to project all the traits you wanted on to the character, but few of them really existed ingame. A world in which you were the most important thing, but to cater to that blank slate of a character, it ultimately became a bit too dependent on the player to fill in the blanks in their mind. You can be the leader of every single faction, all in opposition to each other, the bringer of world-shattering events, and nobody seems to know it or even bat an eye at you when you walk into the tavern, because to properly account for all such variables within the storytelling would probably require a game script ten times the size, and we would be ten years between Elder Scrolls games as a result.

The Witcher 3 gives a specific protagonist, with a specific story. We get some choice in how and when Geralt approaches various problems, but it's still ultimately the story of a specific person, Geralt of Rivia, with most of his traits defined.

Mass Effect is something in between. You have a named, and even voiced, protagonist, but there is more freedom than with Geralt, but less freedom than with the Dragonborn. The tradeoff there is that the ending of the story is more-or-less written in stone, but how you get there is up to you.

Anyway, there's that bit of rambling done. Regarding a few questions raised:
1. Do you miss complexity in modern RPGs? Not particularly (insert the "depth vs. complexity" video here). I'm doing another run through Baldur's Gate 2 right now. I'm doing my best to not use ingame cheats (primarily the insta-heal shortcut), but I still use it on the chump fights, while saving the work of planning and buffing for the "real" fights. I enjoy the options I'm given in the game, but, damn, prefight buffing with half the party spending a minute or two casting about a dozen buffing spells is gonna get old.
2. Does limited freedom within a game detract from the experience? The story can make up for a lot here. I'm not too enamored with JRPGs mainly because of the strong "on-rails" feel I get from them. You're largely going from point A to B to C, with X amount of grinding in between. But, the story can make up for that, as a really good story can keep you going. For example, I just can't make myself pick up FFVII again, because, honestly, the story just wasn't that good for me. But I like The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky. Really need to get back into playing the second game. Anyway, I'm not bothered by games that give me a more defined protagonist compared to games that give me a blank slate. Any fanwank I come up with in my head for my Dragonborn is still, ultimately, fanwank and I'm old enough to recognize that it's probably about as trite and cliche of a fanwank as any. So, more and more I find myself liking protagonists that have a bit more defined responses to situations, rather than just clicking on selection of questions in a dialogue box.

That's about all I got for the moment with banging my head on my keyboard to try to get a few ideas out.

That's a fascinating post, I'd not really looked at it in terms of more modern mechanics allowing more involvement of player skill but it definitely makes sense, and perhaps helps explain why I prefer the newer titles; I'm someone who likes as much of the maths in an RPG to be done off-screen as possible (I always have damage numbers and markers and such turned off) so more real-time, kinetic and skill-based combat makes me feel like I'm playing a game, rather than just arranging for the computer to work through a series of calculation and deduct some health from the target.

It's the big difference between DA:Origins and DA:2 and Inquisition for me; In the former, casting a Fireball spell will only ever hit the people under the AOE template, even if they're moving fast enough to be yards away from the blast by the time the animation actually plays, in the latter you actually have to hit that enemy with the fireball itself to do anything, and if it misses it's not because of some off-screen 'evade' saving throw but because you didn't aim properly. That feels far more satisfying than knowing that if you lay a template over an enemy it'll take damage unless a bunch of maths says no. Same goes for Fallout 4; the shooting there is good enough that I know that regardless of any skills or stats, if I point a scoped rifle at the target and fire it, it'll hit. Much more satisfying.

@commander dante: You definitely can't beat a game that lets you just explore without forcing you to keep progressing. I can happily play big open world games for hours at a time without doing a single quest, and so long as the world is full enough and well-designed, that's pretty much my favourite part of that type of game.

I don't really consider the modern Fallouts (no, not even New Vegas) or Elder Scrolls games to be RPGs at all.

They're exploration/combat games, with a very (very) thin story layered on top that runs out quickly, and is usually shallow and nonsensical. Sadly fallout 4 was the best in terms of story, even if it's linear, limiting in terms of backstory and short (if you singlemindedly pursue the story as if you were a concerned parent or something, it's a 10 hour game, max).


As far as Bioware games go, I find myself as an oddity compared to popular opinion- the originals are the worst, being extremely clunky and pretty shallow in terms of character are story. The second ones are the best, followed by the third. Andromeda probably beats out ME2 a bit, but it's close- the story is clearly unfinished and sadly won't be, and there is a lot of very silly filler (and profoundly stupid and uninteresting enemy). If you judge heroes based on the qualities of their antagonists, Bioware needs a lot of work.

They've at least gotten slightly better at the quality of their fetch quests, which is why I so dislike DA 1 and ME 1. They're 20+ hours of fetch quests obscuring a few hours of plot, also with uninteresting enemies.

But honestly I'd rather go back to Baldur's Gate (or BG2) than any of them. But Pillars of Eternity just annoys me, despite being designed to ape BG/IWD (and sadly leans more toward Icewind Dale), both mechanically and the terrible railroad of the story and nonsensical special powers foisted on the PC.


The interesting thing is the Witcher 3- I can't get very far in it. The game looks good, and the setting is interesting, but Geralt (and his motivations) are an incomprehensible turn off for me. I'd love to play around in the setting as a random witcher or sorceress trying to make a living, but Geralt feels like an anchor around the neck of the franchise.

Though part of it too is the 'Urgent Quest But Faff About Looting Everything First' style of game.

I like complexity.

Pillars is great. Most isometric style games tend to have what I prefer.

BG is overrated trash...it really isn't complex more so that it's clunky.

Mass Effect Andromeda is...not good. I didn't like the change from ME1 into 2 and 3. Though the inventory crap was a pain in 1 and needed to be fixed.

KOTOR 1 is ok but 2 is better. New Vegas is amazingly better than 3 and 4.

I was bored to tears with Witcher 1 so never followed through with the series.

Dragon Age 1 was fun but mediocre. Inquisition I thought was better or that it kept me distracted more as I found the supporting cast much more interesting.

But ultimately TC. I'll play simple paint by numbers RPGs (BG series) or overly complex (Arcanum). Third or first...but I do prefer more mechanically deep games. Atmosphere of course is also a big piece of the pie as much as I enjoy fantasy stuff it's nice to play something that isn't.

NWN2 was...mediocre and typical. I still played it as I enjoy that genre of RPG. But Mask of the Betrayer I loved because the story, mechanic depth and gameplay (though similar to NWN2 it improved a lot).

So I guess I'll play the RPGs for different things. One I might play for the story (Chrono Trigger or Torment/Numenera) other for gameplay (Tyranny/Arcanum/Fallout 1,2,NV) or because it has both (Kotor2, MotB).