PlayStation Universe interviews Pete Hines

[Brother None]

Well, firstly it's in a different sub-genre at most.

No, not at most. People use this term "RPG" as if it somehow magically makes games connected. It's not, tho', Fallout 3 looks to be closer to GTA: San Andreas then to Fallout 1.

Pen and paper emulation and "we want it to be fun" open-world FPSRPG are really wildly different design philosophies to start from. The dialogue structure might end up being the only hold-over, as everything else is shovelled out the window.

Secondly, Fallout's charm wasn't in it's combat system, it was in it's settings and characters and style.

Subjective. Fallout's charm - I would say - was in its pen and paper emulation, which includes the combat. If your personal opinion is that it wasn't, sure, fine, but don't tell me "its charm wasn't ..." as if it's fact. It most certainly is not. Fact is that Fallout was a post-apocalyptic retro-50s pen and paper emulating cRPG, and Fallout 3 is not.

I don't see how they've mistaken the spirit of Fallout.

Fallout's goal was to be a computer game that was "as close as you can get to playing GURPS, short of playing GURPS", "trying to recreate the tabletop gaming experience as best as possible" as they "were trying to make a very pencil-and-paper type of RPG. We didn't avoid the previous computer RPGs, but we spent a lot of time to get that tabletop RPG experience into a computer game", which "showed how popular and fun turn-based combat could be, when everyone else was going with real-time or pause-based combat".

That is the spirit of Fallout, from the mouths of its creators.

Please explain to me how the above quotes apply to Fallout 3.

Can you help me get my head around that motivation? You've already argued that acquiring fallout was a good business decision.

I argued that it was a business decision. Where did I say it was a good one?

 

[eff-out]

No, not at most. People use this term "RPG" as if it somehow magically makes games connected. It's not, tho', Fallout 3 looks to be closer to GTA: San Andreas then to Fallout 1.

Pen and paper emulation and "we want it to be fun" open-world FPSRPG are really wildly different design philosophies to start from. The dialogue structure might end up being the only hold-over, as everything else is shovelled out the window.

I've never played pen and paper role-playing games (well, one lunch period in 7th grade). Most of society 20 years ago had never played pen and paper role-playing games, even less play them now. It is unrealistic to expect videogame developers to cater specifically to such a small demographic, especially since pen and paper rpgs still exist. You can play them. You can make them up, you can draw your own maps and everything. I'm sure cRPGs that emulated P&P RPGs met with some of the same conservative ire that you level at Bethesda.

Subjective. Fallout's charm - I would say - was in its pen and paper emulation, which includes the combat. If your personal opinion is that it wasn't, sure, fine, but don't tell me "its charm wasn't ..." as if it's fact. It most certainly is not. Fact is that Fallout was a post-apocalyptic retro-50s pen and paper emulating cRPG, and Fallout 3 is not.

Agreed, but that brings me to another question: Aren't all Bethesda RPG's pen and paper emulating? I mean, it's all dice-rolls behind the curtain, right? I'll admit I'm coming from a place of ignorance on the subject, but what exactly does an RPG need to be "Pen and Paper emulating"?

Fallout's goal was to be a computer game that was "as close as you can get to playing GURPS, short of playing GURPS", "trying to recreate the tabletop gaming experience as best as possible" as they "were trying to make a very pencil-and-paper type of RPG. We didn't avoid the previous computer RPGs, but we spent a lot of time to get that tabletop RPG experience into a computer game", which "showed how popular and fun turn-based combat could be, when everyone else was going with real-time or pause-based combat".

That is the spirit of Fallout, from the mouths of its creators.

Didn't know that. I'm glad they made it fun, because that description wouldn't have sold me.

Please explain to me how the above quotes apply to Fallout 3.

Again, please let me know what the tabletop experience was, and I'll get back to you.

Can you help me get my head around that motivation? You've already argued that acquiring fallout was a good business decision.

I argued that it was a business decision. Where did I say it was a good one?

First, thank you for not answering my question. Second:

Fallout 3 is just portfolio diversifying, eff-out, you can't just keep churning out sequels for the one franchise you own safely, you have to diversify. That's good business sense, so yes the purchase of Fallout was primarily a business decision.

 

[Brother None]

It is unrealistic to expect videogame developers to cater specifically to such a small demographic, especially since pen and paper rpgs still exist.

What does that have to do with anything? I'm explaining why Fallout and Fallout 3 have different genres. The motivations for the genre change don't factor into it. If RPGs were completely unpopular and Fallout 3 ended up a racing game, would say "it is unrealistic to expect an RPG" would be a relevant argument?

Aren't all Bethesda RPG's pen and paper emulating?

No. Pen and paper emulation isn't about dice rolls behind the curtain, because that's the bare minimum of what RPGs as an overlapping genre are. Bethesda's Arena was originally intended as just an arena-fighting game and eventually had some RPG elements thrown in. That's Bethesda's heritage. Almost diametrically opposed to Fallout's heritage. It's like fire and water.

I'll admit I'm coming from a place of ignorance on the subject, but what exactly does an RPG need to be "Pen and Paper emulating"?

It needs to start out from the idea that your game is about emulating the pen and paper experience. I think you're stating it backwards, it's not like an RPG has a number of things I can check off and then say "yip, this is an RPG emulation", if an RPG starts out from that principle it will end up with a number of elements automatically.

Which elements those are depend in large part on what pen and paper game you're emulating. If you're emulating DSA (3rd edition) it'll come down to a complex RPG system and concentration on basic survival (food rations, wounds, diseases) which is what Realms of Arkania did. If you're emulating D&D it comes down to tactical dungeon crawling, like the Gold Box game. If you're emulating GURPS it comes down to allowing varied approaches to gameplay and minimizing how crippled one approach is compared to the other.

Two elements that stick through to all of these are turn-based combat and offering the player real choices with real consequences in quests and dialogue.

Didn't know that. I'm glad they made it fun, because that description wouldn't have sold me.

Then perhaps you're not the target audience of Fallout. Does that mean Fallout should be adapted to your tastes?

First, thank you for not answering my question.

It wasn't much of a question since it was based on a wrong interpretation of what I said. "Good business sense" is not the same as "good business decision". It's good business sense to hire a PR guy, it's a bad business decision to hire someone incompetent for the job. It's good business sense to diversify your portfolio, that does not mean Fallout was the right pick.

 

[sarfa]

As a fan of P&P RPGs, and someone who spends roughly 16+ hours a week playing them, I have to say that P&P emulation wasn't really Fallouts design philosohpy all the way.

The combat system in Fallout tracks to many variables and involves some very complicated caluculations (More so even than GURPs) which qould make it an unweidly system to run. Even the P&P Fallout game by Jason Mical is a simplified version of the computer game mechanics and pretty much requires the use of spreadsheets or a calculator in order to run combat at a pace thats acceptable (at least, thats what I found when I ran it. Incidentally, I'm good at Maths, thats why I'm doing a degree in it)

I agree that P&P emulation was the idea at the beginning, but certainly for the combat system at some point someone said "Lets do this thing that ins't really feasible for a fun P&P game because it's it involves fairly complicated arithmetic, and is only really feasible here because a computer is doing it as opposed to a person", and at that point it's no longer pure P&P emulation, it's P&P using a computer program for rules calls, which is not quite the same thing.

The computer games that jump out at me as being "as close to playing a tabletop P&P game as possible" are things like KOTOR, that is games whose entire mechanic set is based on P&P.

However, starting at P&P emulation and doing pretty well until the combat system comes into play (Which really is far to complicated without having the GM work out the maths beforehand or having a caluclator for the number crunching or whatever) does give Fallout a lot of it's charm, and by not doing this for Fallout 3 I expect (and am fairly certain) that much of that charm has been lost.

 

[Brother None]

(snip)

You're saying it's not pen and paper because its system is more complex than it could be for a pen and paper game? That makes about as much sense as saying it's not pen and paper because you're looking at graphics instead of a spreedsheet

Limiting the game to pen and paper's capabilities isn't necessarily what pen and paper emulation is about. I think you're thinking more of real, pure pen and paper conversions, like the system WotC is bringing out with D&D 4th edition. That's not really the same thing as a cRPG emulating the pen and paper experience.

 

[Beelzebud]

This is simple. Instead of thinking about Fallout, think of it this way.

Imagine your favorite game. Now imagine that someone buys the rights to it, and their "sequel" to the games you loved is an entirely different genre than games it's supposedly a successor to.

Let's say you like Halo. Would you like it if Halo 4 was a turn based isometric viewed game? I doubt it.

Let's say you like Civilization. Would you like it if Civilization 5 was a first person shooter?

Let's say you like Grand Theft Auto. Would you like it if GTA5 was a turn-based strategy game?

Let's say you like Deus Ex. Would you like it if Deus Ex 3 was a turn-based isometric viewed RPG?

This isn't rocket science. They took a series that was a turn-based isometric RPG, and have turned it into a first person shooter. I don't expect people that never played Fallout 1 and 2 to care, but what annoys me is that those same people seem to HATE the fact that we wanted a game that is recognizable as a Fallout game from just glancing at it. Reskinning Oblivion with Fallout themed art, doesn't cut it for many of us.

Is that okay? Are we allowed to have that opinion, or would that just be too unfair to Bethesda?

 

[eff-out]

What does that have to do with anything? I'm explaining why Fallout and Fallout 3 have different genres. The motivations for the genre change don't factor into it. If RPGs were completely unpopular and Fallout 3 ended up a racing game, would say "it is unrealistic to expect an RPG" would be a relevant argument?

No, it would be a straw man argument. But I guess that's your point.

No. Pen and paper emulation isn't about dice rolls behind the curtain, because that's the bare minimum of what RPGs as an overlapping genre are. Bethesda's Arena was originally intended as just an arena-fighting game and eventually had some RPG elements thrown in. That's Bethesda's heritage. Almost diametrically opposed to Fallout's heritage. It's like fire and water.

Wow, genetic fallacy! Arguing with you is like taking an intro course in communications. The fact is that whether you like Oblivion or not, it was very close to P&P emulation, both in a relative sense against other major RPG releases and in an objective sense, taking into account the very general criteria you've laid out.

It needs to start out from the idea that your game is about emulating the pen and paper experience.

You can't focus on origin to the exclusion of current realities.

Which elements those are depend in large part on what pen and paper game you're emulating. If you're emulating DSA (3rd edition) it'll come down to a complex RPG system and concentration on basic survival (food rations, wounds, diseases) which is what Realms of Arkania did. If you're emulating D&D it comes down to tactical dungeon crawling, like the Gold Box game. If you're emulating GURPS it comes down to allowing varied approaches to gameplay and minimizing how crippled one approach is compared to the other.

Sounds like F3 meets all those criteria. Again, some are incredibly general (tactical dungeon crawling?) but even in these broad strokes I see the 101 vault suit.

Two elements that stick through to all of these are turn-based combat and offering the player real choices with real consequences in quests and dialogue.

A: Please, you must understand that turn-based gameplay was pure necessity in P&P gaming, right? You had to roll the dice, account for stats, confer with other players etc. etc. between rounds. Whether or not you became emotionally attached to the mechanism, it was literally the only way to handle that kind of gaming. When you're playing a single player RPG with a computer's brain that's capable of making the stat crunches in half a blink, it becomes a taste issue, not a make or break criteria for role-playing.

B: The videos for Fallout 3 have shown real choices and real consequences, however deep and far reaching they are has yet to be revealed.

Then perhaps you're not the target audience of Fallout. Does that mean Fallout should be adapted to your tastes?

If the creators of Fallout had only wanted to appeal to tabletop players, they would have made a tabletop game.

It wasn't much of a question since it was based on a wrong interpretation of what I said.

Actually, I think it was such a good question, I'll ask it again: You say you can get your head around this motivation: "they're competent and fucking it up on purpose". I would like to know how you would realistically explain that scenario.

This isn't rocket science. They took a series that was a turn-based isometric RPG, and have turned it into a first person shooter. I don't expect people that never played Fallout 1 and 2 to care, but what annoys me is that those same people seem to HATE the fact that we wanted a game that is recognizable as a Fallout game from just glancing at it. Reskinning Oblivion with Fallout themed art, doesn't cut it for many of us.

First of all, for this to make ANY sense, you have to honestly describe Oblivion as a "First Person Shooter" (Note, that you did not even add RPG) which, regardless of your feelings on Oblivion, is an indefensible position.

Oblivion was an First Person RPG, Fallout 3 will be a First Person RPG. To insist on the FPS nomenclature because it has guns, you would have to start adding "shooter" to every Fallout's classification, for consistency's sake.

 

[Brother None]

No, it would be a straw man argument. But I guess that's your point.

I suppose it is.

Wow, genetic fallacy!

Uh, weren't you the one who brought in the topic of Bethesda's RPGs? I was just replying.

The fact is that whether you like Oblivion or not, it was very close to P&P emulation, both in a relative sense against other major RPG releases and in an objective sense, taking into account the very general criteria you've laid out.

Really? Because I'm fairly sure my criteria started with "It needs to start out from the idea that your game is about emulating the pen and paper experience", which is something Bethesda has never done. And that shows. Oblivion is an action-adventure with RPG elements, it's barely even primarily an RPG, let alone having any ties with pen and paper gaming (no TB combat, no choice and consequence, no varied equally developed skill set, overt hand-holding, all anathemas of pen and paper emulating)

You can't focus on origin to the exclusion of current realities.

I don't understand. What's your point? I've never seen an pen and paper emulating RPG that did not start from the design principle that this RPG must emulate pen and paper gameplay. Is it possible for someone to just start making an RPG and somehow it ends up being a pen and paper emulation? Sure, but that's somewhat unlikely.

Sounds like F3 meets all those criteria. Again, some are incredibly general (tactical dungeon crawling?) but even in these broad strokes I see the 101 vault suit.

"All those"? Did you even understand what I was saying? They weren't critera that were all supposed to apply to Fallout 3, since it's not emulating DSA or D&D.

Please, you must understand that turn-based gameplay was pure necessity in P&P gaming, right?

Doesn't matter. The question is not what pen and paper gaming once decided to do something but that it did. Then, when you're emulating pen and paper gameplay you're not trying to go back to 0 and emulating what pen and paper tried to achieve, but what pen and paper is. If you're trying to just bringing a reiteration of what pen and paper tried to achieve primarily then yes, real time makes sense, but it doesn't if you're trying to emulate the experience.

Now if turn based was some kind of horrible hackneyed system inherently inferior to real-time I might agree with you, it's something that needs to be sliced out. But turn-based and real-time are just two systems with their own strengths and weaknesses, it's just that turn-based fits the pen and paper emulating philosophy better.

The videos for Fallout 3 have shown real choices and real consequences.

Pete Hines has stated they are giving second chances to all major choices. That is pretty much the anathema of real choice and consequence.

If the creators of Fallout had only wanted to appeal to tabletop players, they would have made a tabletop game.

But they didn't, they wanted to appeal to gamers who like pen and paper emulating RPGs.

Actually, I think it was such a good question, I'll ask it again: You say you can get your head around this motivation: "they're competent and fucking it up on purpose". I would like to know how you would realistically explain that scenario.

Thanks, now that the wrong interpretation of my statement is out of it I can actually address.

Pretty simple: ZeniMax wanted another franchise. Some of the Bethesda devs though some of the elements of Fallout were pretty cool so they advised it to ZM. It was the biggest, cheapest RPG IP on the market so it was an easy buy for ZeniMax.

Then it's in the hands of Bethesda, people who never cared for the pen and paper emulating philosophy of Fallout, care more about making it "fun" then keeping it true to the originals and think certain things are "cool" to add even if they don't make much sense from a franchise perspective (goodie-goodie BoS, mini-nuke launcher, exploding cars)

They cared primarily about making the kind of game they want to make. Whether or not it remains true to the originals is a secondary concern.

That's what I mean when I say "they're competent and fucking it up on purpose". It's just more likely then them thinking this is a sequel that holds true to the originals. You'd have to be pretty bone-headed to think that.

 

[eff-out]

Uh, weren't you the one who brought in the topic of Bethesda's RPGs? I was just replying.

To be fair, I wasn't reaching back to 1994 to uncover the origins of their empire, I was making a relevant comment on their trajectory as it pertained to the game in question.

(no TB combat, no choice and consequence, no varied equally developed skill set, overt hand-holding, all anathemas of pen and paper emulating)

I want you to know that I am genuinely interested in finding out what integral elements Fallout 3 will lack. I count Fallout 2 among my favorite games of all time, and I'm familiar with Oblivion's approach to role-playing and (other than obvious scaling flaws that even Bethesda admits and watered down dialogue options that I can see for myself have been improved in Fallout) I don't see how it is such a poor fit.

Can we please agree that TB is a taste issue? To say that it's absolutely necessary for P&P emulating RPG's to have TB gameplay is vlery close to saying that P&P emulating RPG's still need a human dungeon master. I don't understand why this is such a huge hang-up, and how people here can compare its absence (with a straight face!) to making Fallout Cart Racing and Halo Extreme Football Championships.

Ditto for Isometric, someone else brought up GTA and I don't think history views that franchise's move from top-down to 3-d as a gameplay misstep. Granted - action game, fallout is not GTA, I know this, I know this, I know this - I'm just laying precedent for a major graphical overhaul not negatively affecting a game's spirit or playability.

Choice and consequence really is a guessing game. When Pete Hines says he'll give people second chances we can only speculate how it will manifest itself. I know hardcore P&P players would probably view the idea of a quick-save/quick-load as hand-holding and as an anathema to "real consequences". Dig that analogy, anyone? I think it speaks volumes.

I don't understand. What's your point? I've never seen an pen and paper emulating RPG that did not start from the design principle that this RPG must emulate pen and paper gameplay. Is it possible for someone to just start making an RPG and somehow it ends up being a pen and paper emulation? Sure, but that's somewhat unlikely.

You know why it's likely? Because if Role Playing Games started on the tabletop, then games that were influenced by P&P influenced other RPG's and so on and so forth. Do you think Bethesda invented their Role-Playing independently or do you suppose they had a frame of reference?

"All those"? Did you even understand what I was saying? They weren't critera that were all supposed to apply to Fallout 3, since it's not emulating DSA or D&D.

No I didn't understand what you were saying, because apparently my enjoyment of videogames is dependent on fore-knowledge of some nebulous criteria from Dungeons and Dragons. Oh yeah, what were those criteria again?

If the creators of Fallout had only wanted to appeal to tabletop players, they would have made a tabletop game.

But they didn't, they wanted to appeal to gamers who like pen and paper emulating RPGs.

Snarky? yes. Substantive? no. If you define something SPECIFICALLY by what it is emulating, which part do you give more gravity to? Now, please read my quote again. (Snarky and substantive!)

That's what I mean when I say "they're competent and fucking it up on purpose". It's just more likely then them thinking this is a sequel that holds true to the originals. You'd have to be pretty bone-headed to think that.

Okay, I understand. I think completely missing the point counts as incompetent though. But then, if the point is only Turn-Based Isometric gameplay, I guess I'm pretty incompetent too.

 

[Brother None]

To be fair, I wasn't reaching back to 1994 to uncover the origins of their empire, I was making a relevant comment on their trajectory as it pertained to the game in question.

Aye, that's fair, especially considering the Arena/Daggerfall lot are long gone. Still, simple enough, Bethesda has never made a pen and paper-emulating RPG, and doesn't employ anyone who has such a game on their resume. The same pretty much applied to Interplay TSR working on Fallout 1, true enough, but their intent was pretty different.

I want you to know that I am genuinely interested in finding out what integral elements Fallout 3 will lack.

We'll see. I'm curious why you would believe it would stay limited to TB combat? If you drop TB combat to appease the "fun crowd", why not just drop focus on dialogue and choice and consequence while you're at it? Who is your target audience, after all?

To say that it's absolutely necessary for P&P emulating RPG's to have TB gameplay is vlery close to saying that P&P emulating RPG's still need a human dungeon master.

How so? An RPG with a human dungeon master (co-op gameplay) would be a better P&P emulating RPG than one without. You have to make choices, tho', you can't emulate pen and paper games perfectly and nor should that be your intent (see sarfa's post), you don't want the pen and paper heritage to limit what you're doing or you'll end up making a bad game.

TB and RT is a design choice in which neither one is inferior to the other, tho', which means by default you should chose the one better fitting your purpose. Here, that is TB.

I don't understand why this is such a huge hang-up, and how people here can compare its absence (with a straight face!) to making Fallout Cart Racing and Halo Extreme Football Championships.

It's a difference in scale for sure, but how is it an absolute difference?

Ditto for Isometric, someone else brought up GTA and I don't think history views that franchise's move from top-down to 3-d as a gameplay misstep.

Y'know, I recently got around to replaying the GTA series (and playing VC/SA for the first time), and I really, really don't understand this argument.

GTA III plays the same as GTA I/II. It keeps the same design philosophy and has the same gameplay implementation, it just shifts the camera to something that better suits its purpose. Third person works better for a game in which shooting and driving is a big part, anyone who played the originals (GTA I and II) knows that. That means it's an improvement on an existing philosophy.

Equally, bird's eye view camera just works best with turn-based combat. I have always been fond of shiftable camera (RoA used it) and wouldn't mind seeing a pen and paper emulation with first-person/OTS exploration and bird's eye-view combat.
I don't think the camera view really matters once you dump the TB gameplay, tho'. It's not so much a separate point as an extension of the same one: bird's eye view just fits pen and paper gameplay because of TB combat, it doesn't fit the gameplay independently. At least, that's my argument, it's well possible people have other reasons to be sticklers for isometric.

Choice and consequence really is a guessing game. When Pete Hines says he'll give people second chances we can only speculate how it will manifest itself. I know hardcore P&P players would probably view the idea of a quick-save/quick-load as hand-holding and as an anathema to "real consequences".

Most hardcore P&P players do not like the idea of quick-save/loading, including a lot of developers. And they're right. But it's a part of what computer gaming is about, and that's something pen and paper gaming will have to adapt to. I don't like the forcefed solutions, in any case.

Is it a guessing game? To a certain extent, sure, but little we've seen is all the positive. You can only swing Megaton about so many times before it becomes suspect. The only two arguments for C&C since the very game's announcement is: Megaton and dead people can't give you quests. The last point is banal at best, which makes me wonder why Bethesda wouldn't be showing us the money.

We'll see, tho', it is a guessing game.

You know why it's likely?

If it's so likely, why hasn't it ever happened yet? Name me a single game that did not start out as a pen and paper emulation but ended up as one.

Tbecause apparently my enjoyment of videogames

Didn't we already go through this? If this isn't your genre, fine, but please leave us to our enjoyment of it.

Snarky? yes. Substantive? no. If you define something SPECIFICALLY by what it is emulating, which part do you give more gravity to?

I don't think you gave my point enough thought. Pen and paper emulating RPGs are supposed to transmit a certain experience to the computer. That means it'll appeal to original fans of that experience, for sure, but it won't be limited to those original fans at all, because it's on a new medium, and in being a new medium offers yet another unique experience. That's why "only appeal to tabletop players" doesn't make all that much sense.

TOkay, I understand. I think completely missing the point counts as incompetent though. But then, if the point is only Turn-Based Isometric gameplay, I guess I'm pretty incompetent too.

No overt hand-holding, real choice and consequence, varied equally developed skill set and balance, TB combat, these are all things I've repeated before. Some we know aren't in Fallout 3, some we have good reason to expect not to be.

Why are you talking to me if you're unwilling to listen and just looking to distil my arguments into easily deflatable tidbits?

Completely missing the point counts as incompetence, but that's not what I said they did. They know the point, they just don't care. They think their own design philosophy is superior to Fallout's original one, so they're applying it over the original.

 

[Ausir]

Aye, that's fair, especially considering the Arena/Daggerfall lot are long gone. Still, simple enough, Bethesda has never made a pen and paper-emulating RPG, and doesn't employ anyone who has such a game on their resume.

Well, they did have Ken Rolston as recently as Oblivion. Not anymore, though.

 

[steppenwanderer]

your are all missing the bigger picture here...

pc gaming was doomed the instant micro$oft entered the console gaming biz
(producing cheap pc hardware & calling it xbox)

and now we all have it - kiddy games only released for said crapbox. there
lies the whole problem.

the day developers give m$ the middle finger, we will see good pc titles
again. only problem is...

it won't happen, m$ console crap equals mad ca$$hh

/just my 5

 

[sarfa]

Brother None, you said that for P&P emulation it wasn't neccesarily crucial to be limited to P&P's limitations. In that case, given Scion and it's 'tick based' combat (a system essentially designed to make the game less turn based, and about as close as P&P can get to real time) how can you argue that moving to real time isn't just evolving beyond P&P's limitations? Aren't you saying that first person and real time combat break the P&P emulation thing, when P&P combat systems are (usually) made to emulate real time combat (the fact that turns don't happen sequentially, like they do in Fallout 1 & 2 is a big part of many P&P combat systems) and a P&P games perspective is very much first person without graphics (In the sense that a GMs description describe the world from your characters first person view, not from the camera in the sky).

In fact turn based combat in many P&P systems is a weakness, because having fights like that breaks immersion in the game and makes the players very aware that they are playing a game. As a result, complex mechanics are avoided in good systems (Specificly to limit calculations), so by having a complicated combat system that requires lots of calculations Fallout 1 & 2 did very much go against a couple of the rules of how to design a good P&P game. And delibratly so.

Ugh, D&D 4.0 is to P&P games what Fallout 3 is to CRPGs. Seriously dude, for what a P&P game should be like have a look at Pendragon, WFRP or Cortex.

 

[ArmorB]

A note on P&P rpg and choice/consequence...I played in a good number of P&P games in my younger years and one thing rang true, no matter what 'you' wanted to do, you were bound by the whim of the GM/DM. If he wanted you to go to that damned evil looking dark castle, then every god damned path was going to that castle no matter what direction you turned. And lets say you got spooked by the main quest giver and had some misunderstanding and left his corpse hanging in a tree, then magically there was either another quest giver or the first one received divine grace and was resurrected.

Point being that just because the game facilitates unlimited choices doesn't mean the guy running the show gives them to you. The DM/GM wants you to have fun and even though they may not be able to be as flexible as another DM/GM doesn't make them a bad one, just different. So basically Beth is a DM/GM that wants you to have fun rather than suffer because you made a stupid mistake and have to reroll.

As well there is another perspective on this. I ran a couple P&P groups back in the day and I wrote all my stuff from scratch, drew up my own maps and wrote out NPC backgrounds. Some times I made stuff that was 'so cool' (to a 15 year old) that I had to make the group experience it. In after thought that wasn't so much for their fun but for my own in the need to watch it unfold (hopefully the way I planned it).

In my opinion, Beth knows that the great masses will play this game once and move on. And they want to make sure that even though people won't get 'everything' on one play thru, they will get enough to have made it worth the customers time to play it. As well it would appear they have added 'enough' content that can only be reached on multiple plays to satisfy those that like to do every little thing, no matter how long it takes.

 

[Brother None]

how can you argue that moving to real time isn't just evolving beyond P&P's limitations?

Simple, real time isn't an evolution of turn based. They're different systems with clearly distinct advantages and disadvantages. The fact that one is currently more popular does not make it inherently superior, especially considering that pen and paper emulating just is in the "less popular" camp anyway.

Aren't you saying that first person and real time combat break the P&P emulation thing, when P&P combat systems are (usually) made to emulate real time combat (the fact that turns don't happen sequentially, like they do in Fallout 1 & 2 is a big part of many P&P combat systems) and a P&P games perspective is very much first person without graphics (In the sense that a GMs description describe the world from your characters first person view, not from the camera in the sky).

That's confusing the argument. I addressed this above, to eff-out:
Doesn't matter. The question is not what pen and paper gaming once decided to do something but that it did. Then, when you're emulating pen and paper gameplay you're not trying to go back to 0 and emulating what pen and paper tried to achieve, but what pen and paper is. If you're trying to just bringing a reiteration of what pen and paper tried to achieve primarily then yes, real time makes sense, but it doesn't if you're trying to emulate the experience.

Now if turn based was some kind of horrible hackneyed system inherently inferior to real-time I might agree with you, it's something that needs to be sliced out. But turn-based and real-time are just two systems with their own strengths and weaknesses, it's just that turn-based fits the pen and paper emulating philosophy better.

In other words: you're not talking about emulating pen and paper gameplay, you're talking about emulating what pen and paper gameplay tried to emulate. That's not the same thing.

In fact turn based combat in many P&P systems is a weakness, because having fights like that breaks immersion in the game and makes the players very aware that they are playing a game.

By that same argument, dice rolls are a weakness in P&P systems. I think you can see why that wouldn't work? You're just reconstructing what pen and paper gaming is into what the "immersive" genre of computer RPGs hope to offer (that is: pretending to be the PC). Those two things are not the same.

Ugh, D&D 4.0 is to P&P games what Fallout 3 is to CRPGs. Seriously dude, for what a P&P game should be like have a look at Pendragon, WFRP or Cortex.

And DSA. And GURPS.

 

[aronsearle]

/Derail.


Brother none, What the fuck is that codex tab doing on NMA, please no, no, no, no.

 

[Ausir]

And DSA. And GURPS.

Rolemaster is the ultimate gamist RPG.

 

[Brother None]

Brother none, What the fuck is that codex tab doing on NMA, please no, no, no, no.

What, you don't like it?

I think it's cute.

Rolemaster is the ultimate gamist RPG.

Your face is the ultimate gamist RPG.

 

[FeelTheRads]

o basically Beth is a DM/GM that wants you to have fun rather than suffer because you made a stupid mistake and have to reroll.

Why does it have to be a stupid mistake? Again, in case there are people who still don't get it: choice and consequence doesn't means you won't get the quest from that guy who's brains you just sprayed all over the floor. Most people would load a save game if they realize they've lost a quest by doing that anyway.
Choice and consequence is about having choices that are meaningful to the game world, choices that would make you think before making them and once you do them they'd make you think if you did the right choice. And of course, it doesn't mean that any of the choices would lead to fucking up the game and not being able to finish it (although personally I did enjoy that in some games, but anyway), but to have different outcomes, some good, some bad, some easy, some difficult. However, I'm all for fucking up side-quests and preferably not just by killing the quest giver . Being able to finish every goddamn quest in an RPG the first time you play it is just fucking boring and not challenging at all.

 

[eff-out]

We'll see. I'm curious why you would believe it would stay limited to TB combat? If you drop TB combat to appease the "fun crowd", why not just drop focus on dialogue and choice and consequence while you're at it? Who is your target audience, after all?

First of all, you play these games because you enjoy them, stigmatizing "fun" just makes you sound pretentious. I'm not a Jerry Bruckheimer fan, I'm not an unwashed hun, I think videogames should be fun. Hint: So does everybody. I know you mean "fun at the expense of" etc. etc. but come on, can we all agree we like our games fun?

Second of all, I believe it will be limited to TB because I'm a common-senser, not a doomsayer. I think it made sense to remove TB (I'll elaborate in a second) I don't think it makes sense to say that Bethesda is de-emphasizing dialogue. Didn't Pete say there was more dialogue in F3 than in the first two combined? I wish it was Tim Cain (or whoever the original writers were) but it's not, and as a common-senser I can live with that, and recognize that the writers of the original Fallouts weren't Cormac Mcarthy, they were game
developers. The bar was set high by videogame standards only.

you don't want the pen and paper heritage to limit what you're doing or you'll end up making a bad game.

You and I are making the same point, only instead of following your argument to its logical conclusion, you're drawing some arbitrary line in the sand? Games and game-play evolve, and should evolve.

you should chose the one better fitting your purpose. Here, that is TB.

...

GTA III plays the same as GTA I/II. It keeps the same design philosophy and has the same gameplay implementation, it just shifts the camera to something that better suits its purpose. Third person works better for a game in which shooting and driving is a big part, anyone who played the originals (GTA I and II) knows that. That means it's an improvement on an existing philosophy.

Think of the original philosophy of Role Playing at it's outset and see if you can understand why I think walking around a bombed out DC in first person sounds more appealing than looking down at sprites on a map. I know "immersion" is a dirty word here (and marketing-buzzword that it is, I get why) but can you argue that it isn't the ultimate goal? Being there?

I don't understand why this is such a huge hang-up,

Name me a single game that did not start out as a pen and paper emulation but ended up as one.

Every RPG is emulating pen and paper to a certain extent because the first RPG's were pen and paper (and I don't think I'm reaching too far back to make this point). The real question should be, why are we sand-bagging ourselves by trying to emulate pen and paper when we can come closer to emulating what pen and paper were trying to emulate.

Didn't we already go through this? If this isn't your genre, fine, but please leave us to our enjoyment of it.

I love fallout. That makes it my genre. No P&P or Gold-Box experience required. Sorry.

No overt hand-holding, real choice and consequence,

Definition of overt is obviously subjective, I'm sure some DM's were more liberal with the "Are you sure you wanna do that?" comments than others.

Choice and Consequence, is becoming an NMA buzzword and is on the fast track to losing it's meaning, so if you could tie it to some sort of concrete idea I'd appreciate it. From where I stand, Fallout 3 has shown more C&C than Oblivion and I don't see a reason to believe that it's limited to one event the first town in the game. For the record, when I see "more than oblivion" I also mean "no less than fallout". Again, based on what little we know.

varied equally developed skill set and balance,

Does this mean you shouldn't have to pick a specialization or... what does this mean? Because if it's what I think, there was a big difference just between F1 and F2 on this one. Again, just on it's face I'd say Oblivion had it and F3 probably will too.

TB combat, these are all things I've repeated before. Some we know aren't in Fallout 3, some we have good reason to expect not to be.

One you know isn't in Fallout 3, the rest are too subjective or general to make a rational judgment either way.

Why are you talking to me if you're unwilling to listen and just looking to distil my arguments into easily deflatable tidbits?

You have no idea how much I want to understand your objection to this game.

Especially since this site seems to embace the Fallout aesthetic more than it's technical minutiae. You guys like stalker, right? Isn't that less of an RPG than Fallout 3? As a life-long fan of the post-apocalyptic fiction that Fallout originally appropriated, I see the aesthetic as more than intact in the videos for Fallout 3.