🚀 go-pugleaf

Werner Arend <de...@unknown.host.de> writes:

> Tactical combat? What tactical combat? You can't even more your characters
> separately - and that would be the absolute minimum in order to speak of
> tactics.

Unlike most 1st-person RPG's you are supposed to rearrange the relative
positions of your party members if it is tactically useful. I have on
accsion done that, and it is useful. I agree that it does not have the same 
level of tactics as 3rd-person combat, but that is a natural limitation of
the perspective.
 
> Otherwise, yes I agree that W8 is better that MM 6+ regarding skill and
> spell balance. But that doesn't say much.

Fair enough. But of all the RPG's I remember, Fallout seems to be the only
one that uses skills and spells, or abilities more efficiently than Wiz8.
 
> Perhaps I should elaborate: it isn't so much a complex stats and skills
> system that I object to, but the fact that everything you do has some
> impact on some number. My experience while playing W8 was that I was always
> thinking in stats rather than "in character" in a role-playing fashion. In
> general terms, you start to think "where do I want to get my characters,
> and what do I have to do to get there most efficiently". This makes playing
> the game rather mechanical. True, you can avoid it, but the game doesn't
> encourage you to. The game encourages playing-by-stats. Morrowind, MM 6 and
> 7 and W8 are all similar in this.  

Yes. This is a common limitation of the "classic" RPG. Some people enjoy
it, some don't. Morrowind is trying to get away from it, just to fall into
it again. 

> Compare this with other games like PST, BG2, Fallout etc. There, you only
> influence the numbers when you level up. You're spared having to think in
> numbers while you play and can concentrate on role-playing - and
> combat-efficient combat instead of stat-driver combat.

Well. The D&D Bioware games are in some way the pinnacle of stat
heaviness. They do a better job than many to let you ignore it, but you pay
a price for that. And I don't quite see why you can't ignore the numbers
while you're playing Wizardry or Morrowind either.

> In short, I don't like any game so far where a stat-driver style of play
> can be used. And usually, it's the more stat-heavy games that implement
> this.
> 
> So far, there are two games that stand out in my mind as good in that
> regard: PST made creative use of so far "unimportant" attributes to enhance
> roleplaying without encumbering the system with more numbers. Deus Ex
> introduced a minimal-stats system that nevertheless left most important
> options open for you.

OK. 

> You see, the problem is that after 20+ years of role-playing, I understand
> even complicated systems fast, and instantly notice the most stat-efficient
> use of the rules. When mastering PnP sessions, that's an asset, but if you
> just want to play it is hard to constantly having to work around my brain's
> PnP-master conditioning. More so if numbers are shoved at you every turn
> you take.

I wonder if there was any attempt ever to completely do away with any
stats. Your abilities change, you get better at things by practicing, but
you never get served the numbers. Weapons and other items carry intrinsic
abilities, but you never get to see them, all you can do is figure them out 
by usage. Would be an interesting concept. A game like Morrowind should be
the right starting point for this kind of thing. Just drop all the point
systems, etc, no levels, nothing. Maybe keep the titles that you hold in
the guilds, but that's it.

Regards, Hartmut "Level 3 theoretician with 384 QM-points" Schmider
-- 
        Hartmut Schmider      | Morality is a venereal disease. 
        Queen's University    | Its primary stage is called virtue; 
        --                    | its secondary stage, boredom; 
        h...@post.queensu.ca   | its tertiary stage, syphilis. (Karl Kraus)