Fallout 3: A Reflection on the Writing

Trithne said:
You could argue then, that GTA:SA is an RPG. Because it has that specialisation factor.
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Except it doesn't.

GTA:SA allows all skills to be maxed. Having max everything is not specialisation.

Specialisation, by definition, means focusing your attention in one place.

You can specialise in being a generalist too :) That would be evenly distributing your attention. But then a specialist is going to out-do you in his area of expertise.

You could play GTA:SA like an RPG if you chose, for example, to only use melee attacks and max your strength.

And yes, that would make it an RPG. A pretty shallow one, but an RPG none the less. After all, a strength bar differs from a strength score in presentation alone.
 
You can max all stats in Oblivion too.

EDIT: Not that Oblivion is a shining example of storytelling.
 
I can explain it better, so I will.

GTA:SA is not an RPG because it allows you to max all stats straight after mission 1.

If you could only gain a cetain number of skillups between missions it would have been an RPG.

Because then you would have a choice of, for example, going to the gym and getting 5 points of strength, or shooting your uzi to gain 5 points of marksman ship.

Then you'd have to do mission 2 with whatever skills you'd chosen to increase.

The fact that you can run off to the gym, then off to the shooting range, and drive around a bit, and max *everything* outside of the game missions, means it's not an RPG.

You can, iirc, skill up on guns just by gunning off. You skill up in driving just by driving round the block. This is outside of any mission or challenge.

If you can do the same thing in Oblivion - if there is no specialisation throughout the games missions, then... it's not an RPG.

What role are you playing then? The role of "an hero"? You can play that role in Duke Nukem 3D, or Halo.
 
In Oblivion you get skill ranks for doing things. Its an organic advancement. For example, you can max out stealth in Oblivion by walking against a wall near a creature that doesn't see you. Does that make it not an RPG or does it make it broken?

If I designed a game where stats existed but were hidden from the player, and advanced based on player actions rather than player wishes... would that be an RPG? It's still player choice.

I'm not sure how stat increases or specialization represent anything more than a genre convention, since the stated goal of the genre is to "role play". Stats are a means by which developers have chosen to represent player character construction and definition.

As for maxing skills. If I created an RPG where the end goal was to become the one true God, wouldn't it be expected that by the end of the game I would have maximized all my stats in order to be all powerful and all knowing?

If it makes sense in context of the setting, then it makes sense mechanically.

I was in the Army, I went to basic training... I did not gain hit points. Are determining the number of hit points critical to a game where the objective is role playing me?
 
What you've described is an "advancement game" or "levelling up game".

How can it be an RPG if you are capable of performing every action at maximum proficiency?

The "role" in RPG has to mean something.

I guess you could claim you're roleplaying a god, or a super=hero, or something. But unless that's the premise of the game, which it typically isn't, I fail to see how an RPG can knowingly allow all skills to be maxed (or advanced to skill cap) at any given time.

Especially, if - like GTA - there is only one *class* to play. If you have different classes with different skills, then I guess you can allow all class skills to be maxed at all times.

But in a non-class-based environment, or a game where all classes have access to the same skills, allow maxing at all stages of the game is... destructive.

You aren't playing an RPG. You're levelling up a virtual avatar.

Otherwise Dead Rising is an RPG, and you don't want to go there.
 
Roleplaying video games, by description, are games that don't hide the numbers from the player.

[Edit] To allow for things like Civilization I should add roleplaying games also feature one or more avatars that are intended to represent the player within the game.
 
I think you're talking about what RPGs do rather than what RPGs are. That's a fine line really.

My point wasn't that GTA:4 was an RPG, but rather that it does many of the things we associate with RPGs better than Fallout 3 does.

Taken to a much broader conclusion any game in which you adopt a role and play a game has all the basic requirements to meet the criteria set forth by the title of the genre. Role play, game.

To that end, what is and is not an RPG or what constitutes an RPG is not really what this thread is about. I'm more interested in the function of Fallout 3's writing in terms of translating design requirements into language that is accepted by the player.
 
Well, actually, I'll beat on the horse a bit more too.

I think the best way to define an RPG is this:

Does the success of the character's actions rely on the player's skill at controlling the character, or the character's skill values in those areas?

If the former, it's not an RPG.
 
TyloniusFunk said:
Roleplaying video games, by description, are games that don't hide the numbers from the player.

[Edit] To allow for things like Civilization I should add roleplaying games also feature one or more avatars that are intended to represent the player within the game.
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GTA:SA and Dead Rising don't hide the numbers.

They present the numbers graphically.

Also many RPG hide the formula the numbers are used in.
 
k9wazere said:
GTA:SA and Dead Rising don't hide the numbers.

They present the numbers graphically.

Also many RPG hide the formula the numbers are used in.
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Mario gets a mushroom and levels up graphically. Link gets a new suit or armor and levels up graphically. Numerals make RPGs otherwise every computer based game is an RPG.
 
That's silly. RPGs are not spreadsheets. They are not defined by presenting the user with numbers.

But if that's your opinion, I don't see that I can change it either.
 
Essentially, what you're saying is: A valid example of an RPG doesn't have to present the player with any character choices.

You can give the player all possible skills, starting at minimum value. You can let the player level up all skills to maximum value.

There are no choices to be made, and you don't need to make any in an RPG.

Doesn't sound right to me.
 
Bukozki said:
Maybe the problem is that the term "Role Playing Game" is a complete misnomer?
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It's become one. Most video games could probably be considered role playing games if the definition of a RPG was that the player takes the role of a character other than him/herself. RPVGs are originally based off of PnP RPGs, even JRPGs like Final Fantasy, so what makes a game a RPG is really all a derivative of having a system that's something like PnP RPGs (not any one PnP RPG). Because of that, stats, skills, and numbers are damn important.
 
TyloniusFunk said:
k9wazere said:
RPGs are not spreadsheets.
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Have you ever seen a JRPG strat guide?
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:clap: Bravo :clap:

Take a look at this: http://narukana.basci.net/?%A5%B9%A5%AD%A5%EB#n2500b2d

And that's for a game that is not even a pure RPG.

RPGs are not entirely spreadsheets, but the spreadsheets are the base of any RPG. Otherwise, why would all the D&D fans spend all their money on rulebooks, and time on making character sheets? You cannot just go out and say they are unnecesary.
 
In response to OP's intended topic:

Yeah the story sucks. Totally utilitarian. The genre discussion we are having is interesting because Fallout 3 is basically an Action Adventure game, except with RPG "doodads" tacked on. There's no reason stats couldn't be nonnumeric (i.e. novice, intermediate, advanced, and expert Science; instead of a numeral). Bethesda seems to be trying to trick us into thinking this is an RPG at first glance, while really delivering an adrenaline product to the masses.
 
UncannyGarlic said:
Bukozki said:
Maybe the problem is that the term "Role Playing Game" is a complete misnomer?
Click to expand...
It's become one. Most video games could probably be considered role playing games if the definition of a RPG was that the player takes the role of a character other than him/herself. RPVGs are originally based off of PnP RPGs, even JRPGs like Final Fantasy, so what makes a game a RPG is really all a derivative of having a system that's something like PnP RPGs (not any one PnP RPG). Because of that, stats, skills, and numbers are damn important.
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Hmm but that wasn't what I was saying.

An Role Playing Game doesn't offer one single role. Because, as you said, all games offer at least one role.

A role playing game offers multiple roles that can be played, but asks the player to chose, via character creation and future choices, which role or roles he wishes to fill in that game.

Saying "any time a player adopts a role in a game it's an RPG" isn't my argument.

It doesn't matter that in GTA:SA you can play with small guns, big guns or fists. GTA:SA never asks you to chose a role. It lets you switch back and forth on a whim, instantly.

Deus Ex asks you to choose a role, via aug canisters. It's a permanent choice. Just like choosing the mage class in BG is a permanent chioce.

I don't know anymore. I find it hard to believe that you guys want to reduce the concept of an RPG to any game which has stats.

It's quite discouraging.
 
Wow, great discussion.

I agree RPG is a misnomer. Roleplaying started as a social activity, but for the most part, CRPGs are single player activities. CRPGs, therefore, are inaccurate copies of the original experience of roleplaying (DnD or otherwise). This is similar to "comic book" movies which rarely have anything to do with comic books than the film depiction of the comic medium's characters. There are no cells, there is no text--although, some directors try to represent those stylistically through film.

Roleplaying has come to mean a game with explicit stats and skill checks, but with games like Diablo falling into that category, we (read: connoisseurs) need further criteria for an RPG to kick out the duds. I think the next evolution in discernment was pointing to choice. Our character's choices had to affect the world.

But even this is a poor criterion. My civilization is represented by my cities and my leader in Civ4 and I'm constantly making decisions that affect the world--AND the stats are explicit! All that is missing are separate cut scenes, even though ostensibly, there are different endings.

I point to what Scott McCloud said about the difference between comics and graphic novels: there is no difference--and it's a foolish term. Comics is the medium. "Graphic novel" is the word some use for good (read: "legitimate") comics.

There are computer games. Some are bad, some are good. Some mimic old PnP systems well, some don't. Now, suddenly, we can't make the excuse that, well, there was nothing good on the RPG front this year, so at least this keeps the genre alive. Rate by criteria--make those criteria explicit and use evidence. I'd love to see a reviewer in a big name magazine do that for once!

And on the front of writing, FO3 fails.

My non-spoiler example is Megaton. WHY does the quest to blow up or save the town HAVE to come from an NPC? It's embarrassingly like WoW. It's like the exposition we hear from bad tv shows when characters are fleeing bad guys: "Run! Keep running! We're almost there! I think we lost them!"

Let the bomb speak for itself.

It's there. Tinker with it and you can find out it could be activated or deactivated. Later, you find a BOSS raider who would love to take over the town. You tell him you could blow it up, but he can't live with the blood on his hands, so he tells the sheriff what you're up to. Oops on you! Should have talked to his 2nd in command, the bloodthirsty mongrel, he'll pay you to do it and keep it under wraps.

This is not rocket science. Quests do not have to come from NPCs only. Cf. Fallout 2. [spoiler:d59e3128a4]You can accidentally or intentionally blow up Gecko's power plant. I did it accidentally when I misread the clipboard my first play through.[/spoiler:d59e3128a4] Additionally, no one tells you what to do with Anna's bones.

I think most quest-writing is bogged down because it has to emerge from something or someone explicit. Remove that crutch and it becomes easier in my mind to write more unique and better "quests."
 
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