I didn’t realize until a friend pointed it out that Skyrim
Now, what do I mean by that? Well, it seems to me that American RPGs have at least two of the following four basic traits:
1) High customizability of one’s own character. Instead of being a “level 1 fighter” who will go up a level and become a “level 2 fighter”, you start out with a certain set of inclinations given you by your race (which you can pick) and away we go. If you want to become an expert at using a bow and arrow, you can use a bow and arrow and if you instead feel like becoming an expert in two handed maces, you can do that instead. Your class doesn’t define what skills are available… every skill is available. Your skills go on to define what you are. Your class is the one that *YOU* create.
2) Variability when it comes to dealing with quests. A character comes up to you and says “hey, I’d like you to smuggle this ale out of here for me… there will be gold in it for you! But don’t talk to the foreman! He’s a jerk!”. You have two options on how to resolve this quest: You can smuggle that ale out of there and collect the gold *OR* you can talk to the foreman and ask him if he knows that he has smugglers on the floor. Of course, not *EVERY* quest need have two mutually exclusive ways to solve it (sometimes “go there, get item, come back with item” is good enough). It’s very good for the *BIG* quests have that, though.
3) Trade-offs when it comes to equipment. Light armor lets you move quickly but doesn’t defend you as well. Heavy armor can take a hit but you can’t sneak worth a dang. Maces do more damage but swing slower. Daggers swing quickly but require many more hits. Bows do very little damage, really… but can hit from yards and yards and yards away. And so on… there’s more going on than saying “an attack rating of 25 is better than an attack rating of 23”.
4) A “Great Man” theory of history. This is more than merely the feeling that the world (or the universe) is going to come up to a crossroads very, very quickly and without intervention there will be a certain outcome. It’s the very idea that there are multiple ways that things could go and which way will be decided by the character. This goes above and beyond the brewery quest mentioned in #2… that still gives the player the feeling that no matter what happens the brewery will still sell ale tomorrow, the week following, the year after that, and the decade after that and after that and business as usual whether or not you happened to show up. No, I’m talking about the sensation that there are factions that have a great deal of balance between them and it is up to you, the player, to drag the faction you choose across the finish line *FIRST*. It’s the sensation that you will have a footprint upon the world.
How does Skyrim do on these accounts? Well, without spoilers, I’ll just say that they are all there.
Are there downsides? Well, the early parts of melee combat are, as I’ve said, a little dull. There is also the issue of how much of a time investment this game will ask of you: this ain’t no “get it done in a weekend” kinda game the way that Portal 2 was. This is a game that has 80 hours in the first playthrough at least… and that’s only finding a handful of the sidequests. I could easily see hitting 120 with this. (Hey, there are folks for whom that last part is a downside.)
Those are easily waved away (and melee combat, once you actually get good at it, gets a *LOT* more interesting). This game is the culmination of a *LOT* of video game evolution. It is, in a word, a masterpiece.
So that’s my recommendation for you this week.
I definitely agree, Skyrim has all of these things in spades.
The combat isn’t really an issue for me, I don’t actually care for simulated combat anyway. I would actually prefer an RPG with turn-based combat, like the old Fallouts had.
Mmm yes I loved the classic Fallout combat.
I think 4th Edition D&D’s combat would be really suited to a turn-based game.
You may recall that several months ago I said that I liked reading and thinking about games more than playing them. That’s changed, partly due to other games, but mostly due to Skyrim.
I thought I didn’t like RPG video games. I’m not into micromanaging my inventory and leveling up my armor. My wife got Skyrim “opening weekend” and I made fun of her for cooking and mining ore in the game.
But watching her play, the world was so compelling. I like the quests and some of the NPCs and even the combat. But I love the world. We are playing on PS3, but I often wish we were on a PC so I could take screenshots. I want a tourist’s photo album of my adventures in Skyrim.
May I suggest Fallout 3?
The gameplay is superficially similar to Skyrim but it takes place in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
You may! Did you get the same sense of place from Fallout 3 that you get from Skyrim? As a world that is interesting in exploring for its own sake?
Fallout 3 takes place in the Capital Wasteland… that is, Warshington DC. Now, much of what you encounter the first hour or so takes place within a vault… but once you finish up the beginning and take your first steps outside? It’s breathtaking.
The first time I saw the Jefferson Memorial, I was haunted.
And, hey, you can get a GOTY version for the PS3 for $20. How can you lose?
Sold. I love not being at the bleeding edge–there’s a lot of cool stuff to discover that isn’t $60.
> High customizability of one’s own character. Instead
> of being a “level 1 fighter” who will go up a level and
> become a “level 2 fighter”, you start out with a
> certain set of inclinations given you by your race
> (which you can pick) and away we go.
What’s always been amusing to me on the tabletop is that virtually no early role playing game had this feature (they had much more rigid class systems), and then they all did, and there was almost nothing in-between.
Gygax (PBUH) intended his game to be a game for a team of folks, each with their own individual role. He wanted the game to be five people who needed each other (and pretty much always would).
All five man bands are like this. It’s a standard trope — but it fits. Ya can’t be good at everything, after all (although if you’re james bond…)
>>>>Gygax (PBUH) intended his game to be a game for a team of folks, each with their own individual role. He wanted the game to be five people who needed each other (and pretty much always would).
So this way, when he would create dungeons that had Spheres of Annhilation in a statue’s mouth, he wouldn’t just be trolling the person who was insta-killed. He was also trolling the four survivors who were now without their cleric/magic-user/fighter/thief.
I didn’t say he wasn’t a jerkwad.
In-between works better from a survivability perspective (if your cleric gets whacked and she’s the only one who knows heal spells, you’re all pretty much screwed) and from a game-play perspective (it’s rather boring running around in a combat casting “Cure Light Wounds” on your teammates one after the other, instead of taking on the bad guys).
Not a whole lotta inbetween available for lower levels.
Keep rolling until you get psionics.
Either that, or put your high stat in Charisma and actually role-play it.
Psionics. Boo! If you’re going to be a magic-user, be a magic-user. Don’t call it something it isn’t.
But… it’s not.
I mean, well, okay, it’s doing paranormal things. But it’s not the same.
My favorite character started off with psionics. It was the first (of two) times I made a character with two classes. One Fighter who became a Thief who became a Magic User, and a Bard. The Bard was straight up just a Bard, and he was an asspain because every time he changed classes he was a huge power imbalance problem.
The Fighter/Thief/M-U, on the other hand, was able to do stuff even when he was at low levels in the second two classes.
Now, *granted*, psionics with a bad DM is worse than a campaign without psionics and a bad DM…
I didn’t realize until a friend pointed it out that Skyrim was a play on words. Take “Middle Earth” and flip it
Internet confession – I finally only got this yesterday. For a week I’ve been scratching my head looking at “Htrea Elddim” and trying to figure it out.
(part of the problem is I had been pronouncing it “SKEER-im”)
A co-worker explained to me that I was pronouncing it wrong because Wyrm is pronounced “weerm” so Skyrm would rhyme.
I had to prove to him that there was an ‘i’ in the name.