Ariella wrote...
My point is they already did so (BG 1-2, PST, IWD) and those games had NONE of the features you mentioned but were hailed (well the first three anyway) as revolutionary. Skills are nice, but unless they add to the story, not an absolute. Hell, skills didn't come along in AD&D (or Non weapon proficiencies) didn't come around until Unearthed Arcana for 1st Ed.
You misunderstand again. I never said they were necessary, just expanded roleplaying opportunities. There's really no way to argue that point. Why do you think the presented story is all important? You do realize that much of the story happens in your head, right? Otherwise, it can't be called roleplaying. Skills can work in the imagination every bit as much as on the screen. If you played tabletop I would think you'd understand that.
It's very relevant as old style games like Ultima or BG didn't have or need those kind of things to be fun or an RPG. As an adventurer, you're spending most of your time in the field, not in a smithy or a still room somewhere. In the TT games I played, most of this stuff was handled downtime, and not during regular sessions.
Crafting is not really needed, especially with the way DA2 handles the issue. It gives you the exploring factor
(finding reagents et al) while someone else does the work and you don't have to worry about having the skill to create the thing, just the recipe.
Again, I never said crafting was necessary, and I never said you should spend a large part of the game time crafting. You're really assuming things I didn't say. But having a crafting proficiency (say blacksmithing) can lead to adventures aplenty. Say you need to reforge a sword, or fix a horseshoe. You need to use a little imagination. A good DM already knows all this. Most importantly, the when the "story" includes details from the life of your character, it makes for better and more satisfying roleplaying, and such details increase the interaction of player and world. No reason not to include them-they can play as large or as small a role as the developer wants.
They also serve nas indicators for certain non-combat functions like open locks and disarm/detect traps, which was something you commented about earlier. And why should stats contribute to roleplay? It's one of the reasons I hated the concept of charisma in AD&D. Stats are specifically a mechanic that should stay behind the scenes and not be upfront.
Charisma was one of six attributes. They all serve to quantify the consequences of the PC's actions and to define the PC's relationship to the world around them. If you don't understand why that is important in a roleplaying game, then I don't know if I can teach you. Stats were invented to enable roleplay. You understand that strength did not always equate to DPS, right? Damage was determined by weapon. Strength was a way of determining what happens in a situation in which strength is a factor. In other words, it defined the PC's relationship to the outside world. This has combat AND non-combat applications, from chopping wood to swimming to holding on to the edge of a cliff. All other stats should ideally do the same thing. That's what roleplaying is about: the interaction of the PC with the fantasy world. Story isn't always necessary. Or to be more precise, a predetermined story isn't the sine qua non of roleplaying.
And you can't do this in DA2, why? Buying and selling are useful for two things: getting money one needs and getting items one needs. That's it. I don't find anything at all about economics all that fun. And see above about my comment on crafting.
Because the economy in a fantasy world could be used for so much more. Raising armies and building castles. You don't think that is fun? Your problem is a lack of imagination in how it could be used, not that economics is boring. Awakening had a small version of this when you can upgrade Vigil's Keep. A lot of players found that to be a lot of fun. Why not build on that? Why not increase the means by which you can obtain resources. Why not give resources you find while adventuring (immovable ones like ore caches) a monetary trade value? These things can quite easily be tied into the story, as it was in Awakening. Isn't that fun?
All this assumes that the story REQUIRES those elements. I find conversation with npcs and companions more engaging than crafting a sword, and I find exploring old roads more fun that worrying about my stats.
I never assumed the story required anything. Herein lies your fundamental misunderstanding of what a roleplaying game is: It doesn't have to be shown on the screen to have an effect in roleplaying. That which occurs in your mind and isn't directly contradicted by the story is every bit as valid as that which is shown. You shouldn't be worrying about your stats. They should simply exist like your hair colour, eye colour, height, weight, race, sex, creed, etc. Don't you see, they all serve the same function: to define your relationship to the world around you. Whether the story acknowledges that you're female doesn't determine whether you are. The story is as much in your head.
Assuming a role is becoming the character and making choices for that character, bringing him or her to life.
Right, and I never disagreed with that. But wouldn't you agree that opportunities exist outside of what was included in DA2 which can enhance the player's ability to roleplay, to interact with the world? Wouldn't the inclusion of those things by definition make it a better roleplaying game? Not a better video game necessarily, depending on how it was implemented, but a broader roleplaying experience.
You think it's a failure, but that's not fact. Fact is, if it doesn't contribute to the story, it doesn't belong in game. DAO suffered from this: skills that really didn't factor into the story at all, side quests that were detatched from the main story. It gave the game, at points, a sluggishness that was out of character for what the story required.
Right, they have to build the game with skill in it for skills to matter. That much is self-evident. I never said I thought DA2 was a failure. I said if Bioware can't make skills fun it's their fault, not because skills are inherently not fun. I know because I and many others have mentioned before how much fun skills can be.
You think anything that doesn't contribute directly to the story doesn't belong in the game? If you think about that for a while you'll realize how foolish it is. Hair colour? Clothes styles and colours? Pretty much any PC customization feature? What about side-quests which don't contribute to the story? In fact, most of the choices you make in games don't change much or anything about the story. They are more or less illusions. Should we do away with the illusions? OR should we expand them to make them as rich, engaging, and believable as possible?
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But, maybe, Im a bit more pesimistic, and I end giving some negative judgements that you try to see in a positive manner.
