Why I love Skyrim

[Black Angel]

I'm not following the latest iteration of DnD. Besides, that's why I'm here and in the Codex, talking about computer RPGs instead. But calling Skyrim's system something better than PnP's system is..... well, I'm starting to doubt you actually played DnDs.

The height of a good roleplaying game is ultimately about being able to do what you want and respond as how you might.

AND the system, the world, the WHOLE game, reacted to your choices and respond. This is something that Skyrim, and clearly Fallout 4, didn't have. You can do whatever you want, sure, but the game barely reacted to it. And like @Crni Vuk said, actual role-playing games also simulated the weaknesses imposed by the role you chose.

 

[CT Phipps]

Stabbing people in Dungeons and Dragons was where the story began when it was a tactical wargame created by Gary Gygax but, for me, it was always better to do the stories behind the stabbing and between them. That's why I always favored Ed Greenwood and the Forgotten Realms where the world-building and lore took a primary place. Albeit, you could go too much in the wrong direction with Dragonlance and Ravenloft not caring about the PCs at all. Dark Sun was infamous in how Troy Denning totally wrecked the post-apocalypse setting for his decent Prism Pentad novels.

Ehhhh, I also really enjoyed being the Ultimate Badass of the Wastelands in Fallout 3 and Skyrim.

I felt it was a failure in Fallout 4 because the Sole Survivor never felt like they'd earned their superior status. I kept coming up with more questions than answers. While I could buy the Lone Wanderer being a 19 year old who, nevertheless, could murder every single Enclave soldier alive by the time they'd had a few months of combat experience, I never believed the Sole Survivor was the Renassiance Man/Woman who could save the Commonwealth.

Why can they build everything? How did they become so badass? Why does everyone trust them?

Whereas I felt it was earned in previous games.

 

[joevonzombie]

You aren't more intelligent about RPGs because you've written one. This is really pathetic advertisement for your book, and it shouldn't be used in an argument. Tell us why he is wrong, and not use a third party.

Thank you. What he also fails to realize is you can create something and still not really know what you're doing. Todd Howard is a perfect example of this.

 

[R.Graves]

If i may cut in , Tbh I don't mind skyrim's lack of roleplaying elememts. I'm generally fine with how it plays. I just wish the writing went as in depth as morrowind's did.

 

[CT Phipps]

Thank you. What he also fails to realize is you can create something and still not really know what you're doing. Todd Howard is a perfect example of this.

If you like. I stand by my point that roleplaying games are about the story you and your players tell not the rules.

But to each their own.

 

[R.Graves]

If you like. I stand by my point that roleplaying games are about the story you and your players tell not the rules.

But to each their own.

Roleplaying rulesets play a big part in it. Especially in Crpgs. And yes story and world building are VERY important in RPGs. Its why I prefer RPGs to most to other genres of gaming. That's why it pains me that Bethesda, and by extension, skyrim has such a terrible story set in a poorly realized worldspace.

 

[CT Phipps]

Okay dokey.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Strange, I completely forgot about that Bard quest line and I have even done it once. Shows on how ... memorable the questslines of Skyrim in the end are :/. But now that I think about it, my character pretty much ended up as a badass singing dragon killing warrior Bard leading the companions as highest Werwolf-Arch-Wizard from the Collegue of Winterhold while secretly guiding the thiefsguild as super Assasin trough the Brotherhood who not only assasinated the Emperor but ... no one actually knew that I was all of those things ... oh, and my character once slept with Sithis, alright ... my character ... pretended ... that he slept with Sithis.
*Le sigh* Living the dream of a typical Dragonborn I guess.

 

[joevonzombie]

If you like. I stand by my point that roleplaying games are about the story you and your players tell not the rules.

But to each their own.

Even if we remove the pretense of what is or is not roleplaying and focus solely on story, Skyrim is still a poorly written mess.

 

[CT Phipps]

Even if we remove the pretense of what is or is not roleplaying and focus solely on story, Skyrim is still a poorly written mess.

Like I said, it's a matter of taste and I agree with the fact a lot of the quests could have been improved by doing the "Dawnguard" thing. More choices=better. Oddly, my least favorite quest was one of people's favorite in Dragonborn. I really didn't like being Hermaeus Mora's sock puppet and felt that quest was rather railroaded.

Then again, it's the unfortunate part that there's not much to say about the game discussion wise. We don't seem to have much common ground to begin a discussion.

Still, thanks everyone for talking about it.

 

[Risewild]

Stabbing people in Dungeons and Dragons was where the story began when it was a tactical wargame created by Gary Gygax

You're confusing Dungeons and Dragons with Chainmail. Chainmail was the tactical game, Dungeons and Dragons was always the story behind the encounters, the early Dungeons and Dragons used Chainmail rules and you would even require the Chainmail ruleset to play it, but it was a different kind of game because it used the story and quests and all of that already.
Dungeons and Dragons was never about just stabbing people, it always involved story of why you are stabbing people and how the world reacts to those people being stabbed.

However, rules wise, I think previous editions of D&D got bogged down in number crunching versus Skyrim's perk and experience system.

The height of a good roleplaying game is ultimately about being able to do what you want and respond as how you might.

Not really, i had a player in the past that always played as a cleric. He wanted to be best at sneak and traps than the rogue, best at combat then the fighter and the barbarian and best at magic than the wizard. He always failed because he was a pure cleric. That is why RPGs have rules and limitations.
If a cleric could be the best at everything like he wanted, then what is the point in playing other classes? Everyone would just play as a cleric and be the ultimate character. Basically everyone would have the same character with little variation in between them. That is not roleplaying that is streamlining.

I said it around here before a few times but I will say it again, RPGs are all about the character's skills, abilities and limitations, not player's skills, abilities and limitations.
I will quote a post I made here before when someone asked "Where's the line between an RPG and an action game?"

Spoiler: Old post quoted:

The line has always been there since the first roleplaying game and the first adventure game.
First roleplaying game was Dungeons and Dragons (Pen and Paper) and so we can see what a roleplaying game is by looking at how it worked.
Then we can see through history what other RPGs share in common with the first and we can define what a RPG is by seeing what all of those games share in common. And no, controlling a character, leveling said character up or do quests are not the only things that make a RPG. Pretty much 99% of games have you controlling a character in some way, today most games have some kind of leveling up and/or quests, but that does not make a RPG, those are elements that were first encountered in roleplaying games, but are not what made that genre being a specific genre.
We also need to deconstruct all of the RPG genres too, because RPG has subgenres:

• cRPG
• Action RPG
• Tactical RPG
• jRPG

Why are these genres also RPGs? Because all RPGs have the same base element:
-The character or characters you roleplay use their own skills, strengths, abilities, weaknesses, and faults to interact with anything in the world. A RPG uses the character to interact with the game world, not the player. That is the fundamental rule of what a RPG is. From P&P to cRPG, Action RPG, Tactical RPG, jRPG, etc, It is always what they all have in common.
Your character(s) have stats and values and those are used in everything (usually using some kind of "dice roll" or RNG), from hitting the enemies to convincing someone that a lie is truth, from unlocking a locked door to sneak past enemies, etc.

People say that what is important in a RPG is good choices and story, a good and reactive world, believable characters, good combat system, action, dialogue, and whatever else people prefer, but that is still not what a RPG is. That is all what makes a good RPG for each of us, not what makes a RPG.

For example World of Darkness RPG system didn't have character levels, characters do not level up. World of Darkness is a RPG and has one of my favorite RPG systems ever (it is the same used in Vampire the Masquerade cRPGs too). So leveling up is not what a RPG is.
For example people say that a RPG needs quests. But quests are just objectives, and pretty much most games have objectives in one way or another. Quests are not what makes a RPG.
Etc.

Those things are not what makes the RPG genre but what enriches it instead.

TL,DR:
What all RPG genres and games have in common since the first one was created is: It's the characters stats and values that are used to interact with everything in the game world, not the player skill.

Sorry for derailing the thread... But I still don't understand why people keep making it sound like it's hard to know what a RPG is when it's the same it always was in any platform (computer/video games and P&P) and in any subgenre (cRPG, Tactical RPG, jRPG, Action RPG, etc)... Character stats are used for everything in the game, the players only decide how the character act while the rest is out of their control.

EDIT: I forgot that you mentioned you can roleplay a lumberjack or a farmer or other more mundane professions in Skyrim. But that is not entirely true either. You can't roleplay a lumberjack for example, all you can do it go to someone else's lumber mill and put logs into an automatic saw or chop small logs into smaller ones from some wood piles that are spread around some settlements. You can't grab an axe, go into the forest and fell trees, then find a way to carry those trees to your lumber mill (oh wait, you can't even own lumber mills), you can't fill wood orders and find customers, you can only grab some wood and take it to a general store.
With roleplaying a farmer there is the same problem, you can only pick vegetables. You can't till the soil, you can't own a farm, you can't own a field, you can't own animals (does the Hearthfire DLC allow animals? I think it might allow chickens but I can't remember), you can't seed the ground, you can't feed animals... All you can do is going to someone else's farm and grab their produce. Hearthfire DLC allowed the players to own their own property and build in it but, it did only allow a small garden, not really close to what a farm needs to be.
Blacksmith you can do more than lumberjack and farmer but again you can't own your own shop and you can't set ore suppliers to provide you with raw materials for smelting, you can't fulfill orders, you can just forge stuff and then go to an actual shop to sell it.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Then again, it's the unfortunate part that there's not much to say about the game discussion wise. We don't seem to have much common ground to begin a discussion.

Still, thanks everyone for talking about it.

If common ground is, to circle jerk each other on how awesome the RPG experience of Skyrim is, then yes there isn't much of that here.

However, just so that it isn't missed by anyone, you will find a lot of people here that will explain you very nicely how and why they had a tremendous amount of fun with Skyrim.

The point is just this, I can only speak for my self here but I will not pretend that I enjoyed Skyrim for something that I think it isn't. I am not necessarily talking about you here, but many people enjoy Skyrim and when you ask them why, they give you as answer, cuz I love RPGs! And this is such a great RPG! I can do everything! Which usually boils down to, I can kill everyone - as long as they are not immortal! And walk everywhere! Collect every shit garbage item I see!

But if you ask me, there is nothing present in Skyrim what I personaly value in RPGs, seriously almost NO quest in the game is actually giving you a choice and you're always roleplaying pretty much the same type of character, someone who gets shit done by killing. That's what it boils down to most of the time. You're never the character that actually starts something, if you don't count the start of a quest as interaction. You're always pushed into a direction, collect that, collect this, kill that, kill this ... and that's what I actually think was one of the biggest issues.

At the end of the day, you're never part of the narrative or shaping it in any way or form, you're simply railroading trough the game, someone always gives you a task and you are never ever allowed to leave that predertimend path. In other words, you can not fail in Skyrim. It's impossible. Outside of getting killed of course. And that makes the world feel unatural and unbelievable to me.

In Morrowind I had at least the illusion that I was part of a breathing and interactive world where I could decide to be a part of it or not, but in Skyrim I always had the feeling like the world looked better, but everything was like carved in to plastic, a kind of theme park where you go from ride to ride and enjoy them a little, but they have absolutely no conection. For example, completing certain quests in Morrowind had sometimes the potential to block you off from other quests, killing a certain NPC for the Brotherhood could mean that a different quest would end in a failure for you.

Perfect Video about what I am talking about in detail:

 

[CT Phipps]

If common ground is, to circle jerk each other on how awesome the RPG experience of Skyrim is, then yes there isn't much of that here.

Hardly. Just pointing out the fact I like a lot about Skyrim and enjoy those elements which other people don't feel are as good or work for them at all. It's been a good conversation but I'm not sure what there is left to say. We aren't discussing specifics here, just whether we liked it or not.

However, just so that it isn't missed by anyone, you will find a lot of people here that will explain you very nicely how and why they had a tremendous amount of fun with Skyrim.

Im sure there are.

The point is just this, I can only speak for my self here but I will not pretend that I enjoyed Skyrim for something that I think it isn't. I am not necessarily talking about you here, but many people enjoy Skyrim and when you ask them why, they give you as answer, cuz I love RPGs! And this is such a great RPG! I can do everything! Which usually boils down to, I can kill everyone - as long as they are not immortal! And walk everywhere! Collect every shit garbage item I see!

What would you prefer to be able to do?

But if you ask me, there is nothing present in Skyrim what I personaly value in RPGs, seriously almost NO quest in the game is actually giving you a choice and you're always roleplaying pretty much the same type of character, someone who gets shit done by killing.

What RPGs do you prefer?

That's what it boils down to most of the time. You're never the character that actually starts something, if you don't count the start of a quest as interaction. You're always pushed into a direction, collect that, collect this, kill that, kill this ... and that's what I actually think was one of the biggest issues.

Interesting.

At the end of the day, you're never part of the narrative or shaping it in any way or form, you're simply railroading trough the game, someone always gives you a task and you are never ever allowed to leave that predertimend path. In other words, you can not fail in Skyrim. It's impossible. Outside of getting killed of course. And that makes the world feel unatural and unbelievable to me.

See, I disagree with that as you can choose to begin any quest by simply showing up at a group and wanting to join. That's your initiation by choice. You choose to get involved in the business of aiding the Daedra, aiding the good guys, or ending the Civil War.

In Morrowind I had at least the illusion that I was part of a breathing and interactive world where I could decide to be a part of it or not, but in Skyrim I always had the feeling like the world looked better, but everything was like carved in to plastic, a kind of theme park where you go from ride to ride and enjoy them a little, but they have absolutely no conection. For example, completing certain quests in Morrowind had sometimes the potential to block you off from other quests, killing a certain NPC for the Brotherhood could mean that a different quest would end in a failure for you.

Essential NPCs do seem to bug a lot of people. In Skyrim, the only quest line you can block yourself off from is destroying the Dark Brotherhood.

 

[Black Angel]

EDIT: I forgot that you mentioned you can roleplay a lumberjack or a farmer or other more mundane professions in Skyrim. But that is not entirely true either. You can't roleplay a lumberjack for example, all you can do it go to someone else's lumber mill and put logs into an automatic saw or chop small logs into smaller ones from some wood piles that are spread around some settlements. You can't grab an axe, go into the forest and fell trees, then find a way to carry those trees to your lumber mill (oh wait, you can't even own lumber mills), you can't fill wood orders and find customers, you can only grab some wood and take it to a general store.
With roleplaying a farmer there is the same problem, you can only pick vegetables. You can't till the soil, you can't own a farm, you can't own a field, you can't own animals (does the Hearthfire DLC allow animals? I think it might allow chickens but I can't remember), you can't seed the ground, you can't feed animals... All you can do is going to someone else's farm and grab their produce. Hearthfire DLC allowed the players to own their own property and build in it but, it did only allow a small garden, not really close to what a farm needs to be.
Blacksmith you can do more than lumberjack and farmer but again you can't own your own shop and you can't set ore suppliers to provide you with raw materials for smelting, you can't fulfill orders, you can just forge stuff and then go to an actual shop to sell it.

To add to this, an actually good role-playing games would have rules and system that would allow such thing to happen, so basically allowing skills for that. So if you want to be a farmer, there should be skills which allows just that. I can't think of what kind of skills that fits a farmer, but in Underrail, you can role-play an actual engineer by putting skill points into Mechanics/Electronics, or an actual scientist by putting skill points into Chemistry/Biology. Hell, some of the quests and NPCs allowed you to role-play just that, albeit to a lesser extent in comparison to other games like Fallout 1/2/NV where in those games it was robust with such things.

I haven't the chance to play Age of Decadence, but from what I know the system designed allowed for quite a robust opportunity to role-play any kind of character that might live in such a harsh, brutal world. Coupled with well done turn-based combat mechanic, you have the recipe for an actual RPG masterpiece.

Hardly. Just pointing out the fact I like a lot about Skyrim and enjoy those elements which other people don't feel are as good or work for them at all. It's been a good conversation but I'm not sure what there is left to say. We aren't discussing specifics here, just whether we liked it or not.

Well, you keep pointing how you had 'FREEDOM!' in Skyrim. That's just false. The only freedom that can be found in Skyrim was only in the surface. Try to go deeper than that, and you will hit a brick-wall. Face first. And hard.

See, I disagree with that as you can choose to begin any quest by simply showing up at a group and wanting to join. That's your initiation by choice. You choose to get involved in the business of aiding the Daedra, aiding the good guys, or ending the Civil War.

Yes, but it was such a mess. Like have been pointed out, again and again, and you seemed to just keep ignoring it, is how you could be a head of ALL factions, without any degree of consequences or repercussion.

Staying away from a settlement for some time to get rid of bounty's probably the stupidest mechanic designed to prevent casuls from getting angry over a serious, dire consequences.

 

[CT Phipps]

Yes, but it was such a mess. Like have been pointed out, again and again, and you seemed to just keep ignoring it, is how you could be a head of ALL factions, without any degree of consequences or repercussion.

No, I didn't ignore it. I said that was awesome. It's perfect if you want to play an actual demigod who can be the best at everything.

Which is appropriate for the Dragonborn.

You can also choose not to become the head of the Factions by not playing their quests or all the way through.

 

[Millim]

Skyrim is fun, it's really fun.
But it's not the masterpiece that everyone says it is.

It's a very sloppy game. If there's anything I can compare it to, it's Dragon ball (the manga).
Kind of an odd comparison, but hear me out
Both are pretty weak for their genres and were made to get a wide target audience.
The author bad done better work but it continues to be their success.
Both have very dumb plots which very little character development.

Yet both are enjoyable in that I can waste a few hours on them without noticing.

I wouldn't put Skyrim anywhere near my top 100 games, there are better RPGs out there.
Skyrim is really fun when you're fucking about with it. Especially when you use mods and console commands.

The game itself is rather dull however, and things could have been so much better.

Understand, I can do a Fallout 4 style essay on what Skyrim fails at, yet what separates Skyrim from Fallout 4 is that Skyrim is at least fully explorable with creating a character that suits you.

 

[Black Angel]

No, I didn't ignore it. I said that was awesome. It's perfect if you want to play an actual demigod who can be the best at everything.

Yet you can't say no to or challenge Hermaeus Mora during the Dragonborn DLC.

Guess Dragonborn isn't as awesome as you think he is, eh? Enjoy that freedom, lol.

 

[Deleted member 93956]

If it pleases you, I should clarify that a better word than "pretending" would probably be roleplaying is interactive storytelling. It's basically collaborating between the player and the storyteller to create a spoken story or mental novel where there is a beginning, middle, and end. I consider it to basically be a cousin to writing and certainly the skills which help in one help with the other.

I disagree with you about freedom, though. I think that's an essential part of the RPGing experience. The Legend of Zelda was a great told fantasy story to my 5 year old mind but it was all essentially preset. Link WILL free Zelda and save the land unless you fail and that's not the way things are supposed to turn about. To me, choice is an essential part of it being an RPG

The "storyteller" being with you to create your own story would require an original intention of doing so... I think that The Witcher is more akin to that definition.

... Zelda is not a RPG ...

And if you want total freedom, why don't you go to say, Just Cause? Then you can believe to be whoever you are (even if you are Rico Rodriguez)

 

[CaptJ]

@CT Phipps
Skyrim is the story of the legendary pest-control that saves the "It's a small world" ride from flying lizards and fishes out some litter in the way.

This must be how God feels. He hasn't ragnarok our asses not because some divine love or desire to watch us suffer but pure apathy. The NPCs are barely worth interacting with. I have no desire to help or harm these people much less partake in their pointless legends. If the game made Alduin slowly destroy a sequence of cities permanently but changed nothing else, it would still not add much to the urgency of the main quest. This game make a good case of not saving the world not with that stupid line.

 

[Hassknecht]

Skyrim plays well and looks decent. Yeah, the gameplay is basic and shallow as fuck, but it feels good enough to not get too boring. Yeah, the graphics suck compared to any game made by a competent developer, but it looks decent enough, hands down.
It's a medieval dollhouse simulator that you can sink time into without thinking too much. It's good at that. I actually prefer a game like that to some deeply involved hardcore game experience from time to time. Call me a filthy casual, but I'm too fucking old and have too much going on to get so deep into a video game anymore.
So yeah, I get why people like Skyrim. Well, I don't get why people think it's some sort of Holy Grail of Roleplaying because it quite obviously isn't, but I get why people are playing it. I do, too. Even though it's mostly "install new mods and fiddle around a bit and then go back to watching Babylon 5".