Is there a chance that older style RPGs, in particular the ones heavily influenced by pen and paper games like Elder Scrolls: Arena, Wasteland, or Temple of Elemental Evil might make a mainstream comeback?
A lot of RPG titles in the last few years have been heavily streamlined, or outright omit some more traditional mechanics, and in many cases for good reason. Traditional RPGs being transplanted to a single player digital format are riddled with issues and compromises. Even in their native format they can show critical flaws. If you've never had to sit through a game of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, just imagine jamming your arm in a blender while watching paint dry. So, with Skyrim axeing attributes, and Fallout 4 and many action games such as Farcry 4 opting for a Perk focused leveling system as opposed to skill based, it would seem that the public prefers the newer, more simplified way of going about things.
However, at the same time older titles such as Baldur's Gate, or Fallout 2 that show a greater deal of faithfulness to their tabletop predecessors remain popular, to the extent that some accused newer titles of being dumbed down. That implies, to some extent or another, that a market for this style of RPG still exists. In addition to this, Obsidian recently released Pillars of Eternity, a throwback to the isometric RPGs developed by Black Isle, from which much of the founding staff of Obsidian originated.
You just made a thread asking a question you answered in the very OP.
The genre is pretty much sitting completely on the shoulders of Larian, Obsidian and Inxile at this point
So far wasteland 2 and Pillars of eternity were pretty good so I'm hopefull for Torment.
>>322575523
I was just wondering what /v/'s take on the matter was.
And bored. Very bored.
it's kinda funny to see streamlined / dumbed down games like baldur's gate and fallout get praised for being oldschool hardcore nowadays.
How the wheel turns.
I wonder if the same thing will eventually happen to Dragon Age, would be hilarious to watch people put it on the same pedestal as them.
>>322575234
>If you've never had to sit through a game of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, just imagine jamming your arm in a blender while watching paint dry
3aboos can fuck off
>>322575234
>>322575792
I hope for their sake obsidian will put a leash on Sawyer, the gameplay of Pillars was promising but it was lacking in any really ridiculous stuff, disables/buffs all did the same stuff (buff accuracy, reduce deflection), spell variety was lacking, weapons were horribly boring and devolved into 20% endurance or 20% graze to hit spam (that was almost the entire panel of weapon special abilities), and worst of all healing was way too strong in combat, making fights drag on for years when several paladins or priests were involved.
I hope they push the gameplay a bit more into fast and deadly, like older games were. With tons of ridiculous stuff to break the game and have fun.
>>322576218
tg_complaints_department.jpg
>>322575234
It's funny because Dark Souls is very much like early D&D
>strategy and trickery matter more than stats
>currency is experience
>>322576218
>worse mechanical balance than late AD&D 2e
>worse tactical combat than 4e
I will never understand how people can defend the shitheap that is 3.x
>>322576892
4e's combat is awfull mate.
It's just two giant sacks of hp hitting each other for 1 for 1 hour.
>>322576892
Combat in 4e becomes a quagmire of abilities, effects and actions past levels 8-10 because there's simply too many moving pieces for a group of 4-6 players and similarly leveled enemies for beyond one or two (if you're lucky) encounters a session
While just straight 4e combat would actually translate to a turn-based strategy RPG swimmingly, at the table-top it is much less fun. Shame that none of the games that came out that were "inspired by" 4e rules ever actually used any of them.
it's not like tabletop rpgs are particularly well designed to begin with though. I remember reading a developer interview where wizards of the coast admitted that they hadn't even considered playtesting their own games for balance until 4th edition. for most tabletop rpgs being an actually fun to play game is only like the 4th or 5th highest concern.
>>322578175
They fixed that after the first generation of monster designs. 4e isn't my cup of tea but as far as combat mechanics go it's pretty alright.
>>322576892
Dark Souls is indeed the most D&D like game I've played, except for maybe ADOM.
People defend 3.x because it was a lot of people's first RPG. And like it or not it did a lot to keep RPGs afloat back then. Too bad it's so poorly designed.
>>322579024
That's not true at all. Balance has relatively little impact on how fun RPGs are to play because they're entirely cooperative.
It's not until you get into 3.x style "whoops I broke the game in half accidentally"/"whoops I played a samurai guess I'm not contributing this campaign" imbalance that tabletop RPGs start to suffer.
>>322579339
balance is important even in single player games. if characters are too strong or too weak the game becomes too frustrating or too easy.
>It's not until you get into 3.x style "whoops I broke the game in half accidentally"/"whoops I played a samurai guess I'm not contributing this campaign" imbalance that tabletop RPGs start to suffer.
and this happens because they didn't even attempt to balance the game, or worse because people have the idea that the game doesn't need to be balanced. you end up with situations where only like 30% of the rulebook is actually used and everything else is handled by house rules, and people think this is perfectly fine because of some misplaced pride.
>>322578175
>It's just two giant sacks of hp hitting each other for 1 for 1 hour.
That's exactly like 3.x though.
>>322581071
In 3.5 that doesn't happen because the wizard casts forcecage and cloud kill.
>>322580071
Except tabletop RPGs aren't single player games and the difficulty involved isn't static. The GM can adjust the difficulty of encounters as necessary, it's not a video game with predefined encounters. The only time balance is a problem in RPGs is drastic inter-party imbalance, namely those that can be achieved by accident. Which is pretty rare. Have you ever played a TTRPG besides D&D or dark heresy? Because those problems are not common at all.
>>322576892
>I will never understand how people can defend the shitheap that is 3.x
With my group the legitimate answer is autism. 3 of the people in the group have it and refuse to play anything but pathfinder or 3.5 so if I want a role playing group I have to run 3.5.
>>322582408
>The GM can adjust the difficulty of encounters as necessary
he shouldn't have to. a well designed game is playable without 300 pages of house rules. just because the end user can change the rules doesn't mean the game developer has an excuse to half-ass the rulebook you're paying for.
>The only time balance is a problem in RPGs is drastic inter-party imbalance, namely those that can be achieved by accident. Which is pretty rare.
in what universe? almost every tabletop rpg I've come across either has glaring imbalances or is so vague that you can barely consider it having rules.
>There's better discussion about pen and paper on /v/ than /tg/
>There's better discussion about vidya on /tg/ than /v/
What fresh hell is this?
does anyone else feel like the people who design rpgs literally have autism? like you look at a game and you can see that any instance where you might be able to put things on a grid or a table has to be fully filled out, even if it's not necessary or a particularly good idea.
>>322583526
The fetish for grids and tactical combat is really a D&D 3.x thing that cascaded into the community.
Many games can be played without a grid or minis.
>>322583278
>/v/ hates video games
>/tg/ hates traditional games
It's like poetry, it rhymes.
I wish Bethesda would play some sort of PnP RPG, you know to see how their genre was made. Imagine Todd as DM:
I attack the commoner
>Nah he gets back up hes essential to a quest I got later
Oh man, I made this awesome character, you see he's a doctor an-
>Nah, I made characters for everyone, you're not allowed to play anyone else but these, if you don't like it leave.
>>322583278
Because the boards dedicated to something get the fanboys and fanboys are screeching retards.
>>322584585
Funnily enough, the Elder Scrolls series was originally just one of the dev's homebrew D&D campaigns with the names changed.
>>322584787
How the hell do they think the changes they made to FO4 are alright then? Many devs use some sort of PnP RPG for prototyping, of course Bethesda doesn't when the world is literally based on a PnP cam[aign.
>>322584585
Imagine the questlines.
>Players, go kill this bandit in Shithole Cave
>Players, you've received a mage-a-gram from Villageville, you need to go kill Orcs
>>322585571
Holy shit a dragon is attacking the town!
>The commoners, instead of running to their homes, run out and fight the dragon with their fists
How did the guards fucking hear us? We made sure there were no witnesses!
>The horse heard you and reported you, I thought it was funny.
>>322584218
I don't mean a tactical grid, I'm talking about anything you could order into an array. like you have your alignment grid, so if you make something there has to be one for each alignment, or how the multiverse has planes dedicated to mud and shit because someone decided they needed to cover every possible combination of elements. another example would be how in 4th edition you had your core classes at first, but then it seemed like the new ones were just filling out the role:source chart.
>>322585517
Because most of the old teams have jumped ship. MK is pushing papers at Telltell and meditating with the celestial ove- being or some shit, Ashley Cheng has been relegated to the janitor's closet where he sits yelling "B-B-BUT MUH LORE THO MUH LORE!", Gavin Carter has been gone since Oblivion, Christopher Weaver (who was the only reason the classic Elder Scrolls games existed) was thrown out of his own company after ZeniMax hijacked it, and Grandpa Ken is out making pen and paper games.
>>322585571
>>322585831
Sounds like a GM I knew once.
>>322585571
Alright, let's get pack to that ques-
>Oh no, forget it
What?
>Yeah, just forget that whole storyline
Why?
>Because I said so.
But it was a pretty majo-
>Nope, never happened. Now go kill 30 bears.
i'm creating my own video game but working it into it's own tabletop setting and mechanics first beforehand for the same reasons you've listed, op
i hope you'll like it when it releases in both mediums
>>322586971
I believe in you!
>>322586271
>like you have your alignment grid, so if you make something there has to be one for each alignment
This is thankfully limited to D&D so if you play something else you can avoid it.
>or how the multiverse has planes dedicated to mud and shit because someone decided they needed to cover every possible combination of elements.
Eh, even most D&D settings don't give a shit about the elements beyond the classic four.
>another example would be how in 4th edition you had your core classes at first, but then it seemed like the new ones were just filling out the role:source chart.
To be fair, that's something that's happened in many different forms throughout D&D. Cavaliers, Thief-Acrobats, Soulshapers, etc. Pathfinder is doing that right now.
>>322586971
Does it have a waifubait race? Be honest. Good luck in any case.
>>322587082
you can catch me in the homebrew and worldbuidling threads on /tg/ if you're ever interested albeit very rarely. i'm hesitant to share and receive feedback on most of my ideas with strangers, fearful they may be stolen
>>322586971
Hex or grid based?
>>322587181
Not him but in my setting, female orcs are the waifubait, also qt nomadic halfling girls
>>322587181
no magical realms. it's actually a very cartoony setting, but with the mechanical and writing depth of more popular games. it's about candy.
Grimrock something
>>322587314
>it's about candy.
So it's like Candy Land + D&D?
>>322587186
>i'm hesitant to share and receive feedback on most of my ideas with strangers, fearful they may be stolen
I'm hesitant because of that but also because /tg/ is pretty retarded sometimes.
>>322587249
>qt nomadic halfling girls
But are they cannibals?
>>322587763
it's more nintendo + early elder scrolls than anything but not too grimdark. rather i try my best not to make it very grimdark at all while still maintaining the setting's deep history, cosmology, unique physics, etc. it's a challenge and the bits of feedback i've gotten from people is rarely helpful with hardly anything to compare it to and learn from the faults of other things. potentially pioneering something is stressful
>>322587215
grid
>>322588248
When developing a setting, it's good to ask yourself questions about elements you add.
>Is this cool/interesting?
>Does this fit with my established world?
>If it does, does adding it in over-complicate things if I include it?
>If it doesn't, can I change it to fit the world?
>Can I change the world to fit it?
>tfw you have no one to play DnD with
>>322589489
do you own tabletop simulator
>>322589489
There are plenty of online fora that you can use. Just avoid /tg/ groups.
>>322589276
what if i enjoy the over-complication
>>322589489
good, don't be a fucking nerd
>>322589812
Grab a first edition copy of The World of Synnibarr. One of the most convoluted rule systems ever shit out.
>>322586304
So how did Todd rise to power?
>>322589812
Over-complication may appeal to you but it's unlikely to appeal to your customers.
