124 réponses à ce sujet

[Seraphim24]

That was one of the reeasons but it was quirky for some stats. But, I also liked the save system better. Yeah a handful of saves like vs wands made it weird but I preferred the easy saves once you got medium to high level. It made save or die/else spells a real gamble, the magic resistance system, the absolute curb stomping damage fighters did, the monster manual and its ecology, the huge range of bizarre magic items, etc. it had issues like single class thieves being weak in a standard game but all its quirks blended together into a awesome whole.

 

Yeah there was more to it than that, 3rd edition seemed like kind of casual mode D&D, 2nd edition was like hardcore, but not cheap or something, just, everything had consequences.

[Zekka]

I just want to reduce the whole hallway of shooting of enemies that ME2 & ME3 had.

Sometimes it's nice to play a game that doesn't take 20 minutes of your life selling useless crap to a phony merchant for every hour spent actually playing it. >.<

who does this? seriously, who does this?

 

I agree we were both talking down the same but but I hated the ME1 system which is basically the same as FO3/4 system where your skills allow you to try and do something. My character might be able to hack or unlock something but if good ol' Sid can't actually DO the task then failure ensues - and yes you can get skills that make it automatic and widen the sweet spot but even in the latter you can fail based on your skill not your characters. I am, for example, unaccountably awful at FO/Skyrim lock picking. Consequently no matter how much I might like to be a master thief since Sid can't do it my character can't do it. That is just wrong to me in an RPG.

I didn't remember hacking being difficult in ME1

[Il Divo]

I get people who like the emergent narrative and I can see narrative emerging in a table top game....but in computer games I can emerge all sorts of narratives but if the world doesn't interact with that who cares?. Is that even a narrative at that point and if it is then you can emerge anything. I can pretend my Shep likes to free style rap, while doing extreme sports and shot gunning cheap beer...that's nice but so what?

 

This tends to be one of the points that I always find contentious. A lot the features which are emphasized in cRPG's tend to have little basis in tabletop. That's not to say tabletop is the only metric we should use in terms of defining how RPG a game is, but it is something for us to consider. 

 

From my own pen and paper experiences, loot-heavy systems tend to have decreased emphasis; characters are rarely left to simply explore the world at complete random in the style of a sand-box, and even the kind of emergent narrative described in video games takes on a very different meaning for tabletop. 

[Il Divo]

Everything your character does, whether onscreen or off, is part of the overall narrative, as are your character's thoughts, feelings, motives, ideas, etc. A friend of mine who is quite a talented writer keeps detailed journals about some of the characters she plays.

Sometimes when my character is out driving the Mako, she thinks about her past and how she got where she is. She'll think about old friends and colleagues, about what she knows or doesn't know about planetary geology, dictate mission reports, consider how she might be a more effective leader to those currently in her command, try to anticipate the enemy's next move, and wonder whether they'll be back to the Normandy in time to hit a fresh meal. Things that are part and parcel of being the Commander of a military starship, a Spectre, a human being.

She's also always on the alert for anything that might provide clues about the Conduit - what it is, where it is, what it does - and look for information about geth capabilities, the reason and nature of their alliance with Saren, etc. There are quite a few encounters with geth out there.

Just because the game's story presents thwarting Saren as the primary goal does not mean it has to be my character's only goal or motivation.

Also - I think it's the agency in exploration that most appeals to me. It allows me to put a character in the world and see what she decides to do there.
 

I don't think so, no. RPGs are generally designed in a way to be more conducive to it, though.

 

Still, I'm not sure this makes Mass Effect's attempt at emergent narrative any more interesting. Sometimes I enjoy taking the headcanon approach to my games. But Mass Effect's "sand-boxes" are too narrow in scope to accomplish even what, say, Skyrim or Fallout are capable of even in the context of an emergent narrative. Emergent narrative for example thrives on diversity and randomness. 

 

It's true that everything my character does could be considered a role-playing concept. That doesn't necessarily mean all role-playing concepts are of equal interest/fun to explore. Basically, if we're going to take emergent narrative as an approach, it's probably better to populate each world with more than just element zero resources, a single base filled with enemies, and the occasional thresher maw. 

[Ahglock]

This tends to be one of the points that I always find contentious. A lot the features which are emphasized in cRPG's tend to have little basis in tabletop. That's not to say tabletop is the only metric we should use in terms of defining how RPG a game is, but it is something for us to consider.

From my own pen and paper experiences, loot-heavy systems tend to have decreased emphasis; characters are rarely left to simply explore the world at complete random in the style of a sand-box, and even the kind of emergent narrative described in video games takes on a very different meaning for tabletop.

Loot is very game dependent in table top. Not just table to table but by game system and genre.

Sandbox. Most remain and are very sandbox. It's nice if the players follow your plot threads but it's not unusual for them to go off book into something you had not prepared and you then need to improvise.

It's usually not sandbox in the sense that the GM gives no direction and the players come up with what they want to do, but I can't think of a CRPG that does that either.

The sand box is as big and deep as the players want and as filled with toys as the GM can spin up. I don't think I have ever seen a GM outside a con game say no to an action outside physical possibility. No you can't fly you don't have that power sure. No you can't go west, I've never seen.

[Giantdeathrobot]

For combat gameplay elements, ME3 is a good base. The leveling system had you make some choices, and wasn't boringly incremental like ME1's. The huge variety of guns and mods made that aspect interesting. The multiplayer in particular succeeded in using that system to add numerous fun abilities and sub-classes.

 

What they could add is non-combat skills, but I would like those to be open to every class. I don't want it to be like ME1 where you had to lug around a tech-focused class to act as a skill monkey. They could have a secondary skill tree for Not!Shepard, where you choose between, I dunno, persuasion, intimidation, hacking, lockpick, and anciliary stuff like historical knowledge or somesuch. Kind of like the Inquisition perks of DA:I, expanded a bit.

[Pasquale1234]

Still, I'm not sure this makes Mass Effect's attempt at emergent narrative any more interesting. Sometimes I enjoy taking the headcanon approach to my games. But Mass Effect's "sand-boxes" are too narrow in scope to accomplish even what, say, Skyrim or Fallout are capable of even in the context of an emergent narrative. Emergent narrative for example thrives on diversity and randomness. 
 
It's true that everything my character does could be considered a role-playing concept. That doesn't necessarily mean all role-playing concepts are of equal interest/fun to explore. Basically, if we're going to take emergent narrative as an approach, it's probably better to populate each world with more than just element zero resources, a single base filled with enemies, and the occasional thresher maw.

Well - if it wasn't enough to capture your interest, then I guess that's that.

To me, it was all fresh and exciting. Space: The Final Frontier. Just the ambiance of such different worlds - seeing the stars, the different kinds of suns, moons, soils, terrains, weather, atmospheric conditions - really sparked my imagination.

That's not to say it couldn't be improved, and ME:A just might do that. A wider variety of flora and fauna, different kinds of structures, having some worlds uninhabited and others with populations of various sizes would be very welcome.

[Il Divo]

Loot is very game dependent in table top. Not just table to table but by game system and genre.
 

 

Game-dependent sure. But even your most action-packed table-top adventure is going to be hard-pressed to collect as much loot in the span of an hour as Diablo or Mass Effect gives you in a matter of minutes. Your DM also in most cases is not going to force you to waste time creating inventory for old loot/garbage weapons, which many cRPG's go out of their way to encourage.  

 

 

It's usually not sandbox in the sense that the GM gives no direction and the players come up with what they want to do, but I can't think of a CRPG that does that either.

 

 

Quite a few cRPG's are designed with that style: Baldur's Gate, Fallout, Elder Scrolls. The "no direction, do whatever you want" has quite often been a selling point for many of these games.  

 

he sand box is as big and deep as the players want and as filled with toys as the GM can spin up. I don't think I have ever seen a GM outside a con game say no to an action outside physical possibility. No you can't fly you don't have that power sure. No you can't go west, I've never seen. 

 

 

Your DM is not going to stop you going West (except when he does, which feasibly speaking he can do since he's the DM, but ideally he'll get creative about it), but your DM is also going to be trying to give you relevant motives for why you should be dealing with the adventure, based on your character concept. And in many cases, unless the players are going out of their way to be difficult, they'll latch on to some aspect of the DM's plot threads. 

 

At the end of the day, many of the concepts which you're pointing out are technically-speaking possible. They're just not prevalent enough in tabletop to be regarded as "the point" of the experience. Sure, you can design a more inventory-oriented pen and paper experience (I've played in one or two). But it's a pretty huge stretch to go from that to "This is supposed to be an RPG, where's all the loot?"

[Il Divo]

Well - if it wasn't enough to capture your interest, then I guess that's that.

To me, it was all fresh and exciting. Space: The Final Frontier. Just the ambiance of such different worlds - seeing the stars, the different kinds of suns, moons, soils, terrains, weather, atmospheric conditions - really sparked my imagination.

That's not to say it couldn't be improved, and ME:A just might do that. A wider variety of flora and fauna, different kinds of structures, having some worlds uninhabited and others with populations of various sizes would be very welcome.

 

There's nothing wrong with liking ME1's sand-boxes, though I would prefer Bioware stay far away from them. 

 

My point was rather than someone who likes emergent narrative gameplay isn't necessarily going to latch on to Mass Effect for those previous reasons. That's why I was saying that games like Fallout, TES, etc, where emergent narrative are also quite common would probably win over more interest. Randomness/diversity tend to also be desirable in terms of emergent narrative, which Mass Effect is more restrictive towards. 

[RoboticWater]

Well - if it wasn't enough to capture your interest, then I guess that's that.

To me, it was all fresh and exciting. Space: The Final Frontier. Just the ambiance of such different worlds - seeing the stars, the different kinds of suns, moons, soils, terrains, weather, atmospheric conditions - really sparked my imagination.

That's not to say it couldn't be improved, and ME:A just might do that. A wider variety of flora and fauna, different kinds of structures, having some worlds uninhabited and others with populations of various sizes would be very welcome.

The difference is: what can I do in ME1's sandboxes that I can't do anywhere else? What about those empty environments facilitates rollplaying any more than down time on the ship or walking around a hub world?

 

Because all of these:

• "She thinks about her past and how she got where she is"
• "She'll think about old friends and colleagues"
• "Dictate mission reports"
• "Consider how she might be a more effective leader to those currently in her command"
• "Try to anticipate the enemy's next move"

Can be done anywhere at any time (including combat if you want to roll that way). These are all very generic tasks (and mostly inner monologues) that can be accomplished sitting in the captain's cabin or at Omega's bar. Unless of course, your character specifically needs to be in a car to do all this, in which case BioWare would need to have submarines too, because Porpoise Shepard just can't get any of his thinking done outside of a metal tube in the ocean.

 

As for others:

• "About what she knows or doesn't know about planetary geology," can be done in the galaxy map or while perusing the Codex
• "Wonder whether they'll be back to the Normandy in time to hit a fresh meal," can be done literally anywhere that isn't the Normandy

But then we come to this: "She's also always on the alert for anything that might provide clues about the Conduit - what it is, where it is, what it does - and look for information about geth capabilities, the reason and nature of their alliance with Saren, etc. There are quite a few encounters with geth out there." And I ask: what's the point of looking for all this, when the game doesn't actually give any answers? Turian insignia and Asari writings aren't much to work with; the most you can say is that Shepard cares about their respective cultures or something else that could just as easily be achieved through dialog or other more engaging activities. As for motivation for these quests: you could just as easily say that Shepard cared about cleaning up crime or getting a pay check or investigating for potential Collector incursions in ME2. You could argue that those missions didn't tie in well enough to the main plot for good roleplaying to happen, but that doesn't have anything to do with being more linear.

 

I don't argue against more open design for no reason. I really do enjoy it, but only when it's applied in such a way that it enhances the game. For instance: I think Freedom's Progress would have been a much more interesting mission had it involved investigating a small hub, progressing non-linearly while picking up clues because that sort of design would enhance the feeling of mystery. However, I do not think that driving around a barren rock to the same prefab building is effective at enhancing anything.

 

There needs to be something, and like Il Divo said, TES and Fallout have a fairly good template for emergent/roleplaying design. They're not just empty landscapes dotted with collectibles and a singular mission site; they're areas designed with plenty of vignettes, dungeons, and tiny engagements that constantly prompt the player with various specific roleplaying opportunities that are both internal and external. You could just wander around and contemplate old friends or you could reflect on this interesting shrine or investigate these dead bodies or check out yet another dungeon 10 paces away. Bethesda games don't discourage roleplaying, but they make sure to jam their worlds with content so that those who don't roleplay are still engaged and those who do have myriad prompts to work with.

 

Open worlds are fine, but ME1 is not a good template.

[Pasquale1234]

There's nothing wrong with liking ME1's sand-boxes, though I would prefer Bioware stay far away from them.

It's charitable of you to let me like what I like. Thanks.

I really regret posting that now. Having others cast judgements on my experiences invariably diminishes them. I'll learn...

[In Exile]

To me, it was all fresh and exciting. Space: The Final Frontier. Just the ambiance of such different worlds - seeing the stars, the different kinds of suns, moons, soils, terrains, weather, atmospheric conditions - really sparked my imagination.

 

But they're all identical. That's what confuses me about liking ME1. The emergent narrative point we've debated in the past and I think we know where we stand. But this I struggle with, because while in the abstract I could agree on at least an aesthetic level (I would love to explore truly alien worlds), ME1 just had 50 variants of "barren rock". 

[Il Divo]

It's charitable of you to let me like what I like. Thanks.

I really regret posting that now. Having others cast judgements on my experiences invariably diminishes them. I'll learn...

 

I was actually trying to make sure that I wasn't conveying that I think that anything like that. Guess I kinda messed that up. 

[FKA_Servo]

Well - if it wasn't enough to capture your interest, then I guess that's that.

To me, it was all fresh and exciting. Space: The Final Frontier. Just the ambiance of such different worlds - seeing the stars, the different kinds of suns, moons, soils, terrains, weather, atmospheric conditions - really sparked my imagination.

That's not to say it couldn't be improved, and ME:A just might do that. A wider variety of flora and fauna, different kinds of structures, having some worlds uninhabited and others with populations of various sizes would be very welcome.

I'm sad that I can't like posts more than once.

[Il Divo]

But they're all identical. That's what confuses me about liking ME1. The emergent narrative point we've debated in the past and I think we know where we stand. But this I struggle with, because while in the abstract I could agree on at least an aesthetic level (I would love to explore truly alien worlds), ME1 just had 50 variants of "barren rock". 

 

This was what I meant to get at. A lot of sand-boxes try to encourage emergent narrative by trying to provide the player with a billion different things to do, where the narrative often occurs through some amalgamation of these activities. 

 

Engaging in exploration in ME1 focuses on: minerals/resources, thresher maws (on a rare occasion), or that single merc base identified on your map. That's very limited in scope even for an emergent narrative to take hold. 

[GDICanuck]

They could add in some class specific options to spice things up instead of just funneling you through shooting galleries.

Ex, you're on a mission where you're fighting mercs with a bunch of LOKIs. At one point, you find a control room for them. An infiltrator, sentinel, or engineer could use their tech training to corrupt the IFF systems on the mechs, causing them to attack everyone. A soldier, vanguard or adept would not have this option since they don't have tech training.

On the other hand, a soldier could even the odds in that same mission by "Breach, frag and clearing!" his way into rooms full of those same bad guys, Rainbow Six style. We already have the cover shooting mechanics in place, so it would just be a canned animation to blow a charge and lob a nade. Five seconds of bullet time after the charge blows should be enough to aim the grenade.

Or the vanguard does a "Breach, CHARGE and clear!"

[Ahglock]

I so want breaching charges in the game now.

[Giantdeathrobot]

But they're all identical. That's what confuses me about liking ME1. The emergent narrative point we've debated in the past and I think we know where we stand. But this I struggle with, because while in the abstract I could agree on at least an aesthetic level (I would love to explore truly alien worlds), ME1 just had 50 variants of "barren rock". 

 

I would be completely for exploration if they team managed to create truly alien worlds. With vibrant skyboxes, crazy weather, doodads like floating rocks, jagged glaciers or massive volcanos, varied wildlife (like those huge space-whale thing you glimpsed in the trailer flying lazily overhead), all that good stuff. Take the concept of the varied zones in Inquisition and crank it up to 11, with a dozen large and highly varied planets that don't look like Earth or barren rocks.

 

It's space. Better than space, it's a new galaxy. Go nuts. Amaze us. The Unreal engine was limited, but Frostbite is more than solid enough to provide the sort of visual that makes planetary exploration worth it.

[Ahglock]

Meh to floating rocks. It's too fantasy. Maybe they will pull off a decent pseudo science explanation.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Game-dependent sure. But even your most action-packed table-top adventure is going to be hard-pressed to collect as much loot in the span of an hour as Diablo or Mass Effect gives you in a matter of minutes. Your DM also in most cases is not going to force you to waste time creating inventory for old loot/garbage weapons, which many cRPG's go out of their way to encourage.

The characters simply don't pick up that loot.  Much like in TES games - most of the loot is left behind, uncollected.  As it should be.
 
Picking up everything just because it's there is dumb.  Which makes games with auto-loot extra dumb.

 

The thing with loot, though, is that there should be useful items all through the world.  The mistake comes in expecting players to collect every last thing.  What CRPGs should do, I think, is severely limit inventory, but offer tons of loot.  In a tabletop game, a decent GM would enforce weight limits, and make you deal with the wagon caravan of +1 swords you're hauling around everywhere.  Feeding those pack animals gets expensive, and sometimes kobolds shoot them with poisoned arrows.  really, carrying all that loot isn't worth the trouble.

 

But that doesn't mean it shouldn't exist.  Because you never know when you might need something.

Quite a few cRPG's are designed with that style: Baldur's Gate, Fallout, Elder Scrolls. The "no direction, do whatever you want" has quite often been a selling point for many of these games.

My first CRPG was like that.  Questron offered no direction at all until you'd managed to gain a level, and then the only direction was when you spoke to any merchant, he would say, "Mesron wants to see you."  Mesron was the King's court wizard, but the game contained no accurate maps (and no maps at all outside the castle), so even if you wanted to go find Mesron it wasn't clear how you could do that.
 
I loved that game.  Someone should port it to Android or something.

Your DM is not going to stop you going West (except when he does, which feasibly speaking he can do since he's the DM, but ideally he'll get creative about it), but your DM is also going to be trying to give you relevant motives for why you should be dealing with the adventure, based on your character concept. And in many cases, unless the players are going out of their way to be difficult, they'll latch on to some aspect of the DM's plot threads.

The DM might also just move the content he had planned to the west, so you'll find it regardless.

[Sylvius the Mad]

This was what I meant to get at. A lot of sand-boxes try to encourage emergent narrative by trying to provide the player with a billion different things to do, where the narrative often occurs through some amalgamation of these activities. 

 

Engaging in exploration in ME1 focuses on: minerals/resources, thresher maws (on a rare occasion), or that single merc base identified on your map. That's very limited in scope even for an emergent narrative to take hold. 

If the Mako hadn't been fun to drive (I genuinely enjoyed that thing), I would have hated ME1.

 

But as it was, I think it's the best ME game.

[Il Divo]

The characters simply don't pick up that loot.  Much like in TES games - most of the loot is left behind, uncollected.  As it should be.
 
Picking up everything just because it's there is dumb.  Which makes games with auto-loot extra dumb.

 

The thing with loot, though, is that there should be useful items all through the world.  The mistake comes in expecting players to collect every last thing.  What CRPGs should do, I think, is severely limit inventory, but offer tons of loot.  In a tabletop game, a decent GM would enforce weight limits, and make you deal with the wagon caravan of +1 swords you're hauling around everywhere.  Feeding those pack animals gets expensive, and sometimes kobolds shoot them with poisoned arrows.  really, carrying all that loot isn't worth the trouble.

 

 

 

See, this is exactly why my old DM would do and it worked out fairly well. Gameplay in cRPG's too often devolves into loot management. I don't necessarily mind if it's in the context of reasonable weight limits. But if the weight limit is because I've picked up my fiftieth great axe and I'm not sure whether I want to sell that or the repeating crossbow lying on the ground, then I think the game might want to rethink how it's approaching the concept of loot. 

 

I loved that game.  Someone should port it to Android or something.

 

 

 

Kickstarter. It's the way of the future. 

 

The DM might also just move the content he had planned to the west, so you'll find it regardless.

 

 

I've seen that happen too. I've definitely been in situations where a DM had to improvise an encounter quite a few times actually; at the end of the day, no one is a mind-reader and it's simply going to happen.

 

But I also think in the context of pen and paper, there is something of a gentlemen's agreement not to simply derail the general direction of the adventure. The DM is going to try to provide compelling reasons for the adventure based on each character's personality, but (ideally) everyone will have chosen characters who are at least open to the premise of the adventure.

 

We've talked about the tabletop-cRPG dichotomy before, this is one of those areas where I think cRPG's have a huge advantage. The lack of other players/DM to be concerned about means I don't have to worry about my RP concept affecting the "fun level" of the group. 

[Ahglock]

Can you tell my players about this gentlemans agreement.

[Il Divo]

Can you tell my players about this gentlemans agreement.

 

Sure, just lemme write it up. 

 

It goes something like this: "Don't screw your DM". 

[AlanC9]

Yeah there was more to it than that, 3rd edition seemed like kind of casual mode D&D, 2nd edition was like hardcore, but not cheap or something, just, everything had consequences.

Really? What stood out to me about 3rd edition was that it had a ton more customization options and viable builds.