Wishing for an isometric RPG, party focused a la Baldur’s Gate. I played a bit of Path of Exile, and it was really close to what I like, but was just clunky and ugly enough that I had a hard time sticking with it. I’m also fairly farsighted (getting older, lollerskates), and it’s one of a number of games that’s just damn hard on the eyes.
The character creation was interesting, but fiddly in a way that turned me off. Anyway, I’m not hear to bitch about that game.
I’m idly wishing away for an Iso RPG set in Cairn, with character classes that aren’t idle cliches, and a character dev system that doesn’t look like more D&D ripoff*. One of the biggest pros for GD is that the classes are tied to the setting. This makes the fiction so much better. I’d love to see that in an iRPG.
We all love the TQ/GD multiclassing. The advent of the devotions gives us another fabulous layer to play around with. In an iRPG, I think this would be even hotter. Personally, I’d like to see 2 classes selected like the devotion paths, but with the numbers rubbed off. I don’t like min/maxing, optimizing, or munchkins in tabletop games**. I also don’t like them in computer RPGs.
Still sick, really lightheaded, will add more to this thread later.
*I mean seriously - the paper mechanics of D&D are friggin’ awful. At least rip off a game that uses better math!)
why no, I don’t play Pathfinder*. How’d you guess?
***because if I want to play something tactical, let’s bust out the miniatures and play some Battletech or Armati.
2E ADnD was actually probably the best version overall for feel, even with the wonky THAC0 mechanic. We’re never getting another video game with 2E, though.
***I see you like giant stompy robots as well. Good taste, even if the IP is going to hell in a handbasket.
iRPGs shouldn’t use a chargen system that feels at all like a paper system. Computers are much better for doing the exact opposite. Give me something that looks pretty, has no numbers attached to it, and opens weird paths and synergies down the road. I’ll try to give examples when my head doesn’t feel like it’s orbiting Neptune.
And yeah, stompy shooty robots FTW. I haven’t a clue what’s going on with the IP these days. I just play tabletop, and infrequently at best these days.
They made FR the default setting in 5E. That was a really dumb idea, IMO.
EDIT: To clarify: FR is (IMO) the blandest and least interesting setting for no really good reason I can think of. It SHOULDN’T be, but it is. Eberron was actually kind of interesting. Dark Sun was neat, but I’m a sucker for apoc vibes.
I once was in a play-by-email Pathfinder group and it was the worst experience I’ve ever had because the other players were some shade of munchkin. Everything my character did was outshone and they barely roleplayed at all (lots of obvious self-insert shit instead of playing a character). Soured me on powergaming/munchkinism and Pathfinder all at once. DM was kind of railroady at times but was surprisingly (and unfortunately) hands-off when it came to letting other players derail into sexcapades.
I could write chapters about D&D, but that’s not why I started this thread.
I love TTRPGs. I love pencil and paper, dice, all that. I really do, I’ve been doing it for almost 30 years. (When did ICE MERP come out?) But that’s not the point. There are some things that happen at the table that a computer game can never do. But there are some things that a computer can do that you can’t do at the tabletop. And some things that a computer game is just simply much better at doing.
Most computer RPGs have still depended on some kind of ‘character sheet’. And with that comes a whole bunch of other artifacts from tabletop gaming. I’d like to see a computer RPG that seriously questions the fundamental uses of those features. Why have the numbers? The computer is rolling the dice for you. Just make a great character.
In my mind’s eye, this is my wish (and Cairn would be a cool setting for it). Chargen would be a matter of selecting backgrounds and careers. Advancement would be based on things your characters do. There would be ‘unockable’ advancements as well, as characters interacted with the world. An example of that would be the way we find equipment in ARPGs, and how the devotion system works in GD. I just want to see the numbers taken off ;).
Different games have done this to different degrees throughout the years. Ultima V had excellent chargen, but was ruined by a tweakable sheet. Diablo had some excellent hidden mechanics. GD is one of the few computer RPGs I can think of that really ties in the class system to the setting, which is soooooo important to writing good characters. I cannot overstate that. Paladins did not belong in DII. WTF even?
Yeah, I’d like to see a radical re-imagining of computer RPGs. No character sheet, no HUD, no numbers. If you want to know how a character is doing, you’d have to ask them! I would also like to see a shift from combat toward adventure and exploration - environmental interactions that aren’t combat driven. Pill. of Et. touched on this a bit.
It wouldn’t look like anything. It would be a paradigm shift away from character sheets and dice rolling. I gave some examples of games that have touched on these things, but I want a game that is from waaaaaay outside the box.
