Larian Studios Forums Divine Divinity (English) Suggestions What is Roleplaying

I'm a little confused about what is actually roleplaying these days.

Your game rocks and I know that I am roleplaying. A rat is a rat and simply killing it is just that with a little experience. I don't understand why in other games that I must build up to kill a rat, I must become stronger to take on such a task. Hahahaha, I don't mean to laugh but it is really silly.

I love that you will improve on your combat, but at the sametime I feel that your game is so much better than everyone elses. I truly feel that I am roleplaying in your game and the world around me is real. Challenges may be different and that is fine by me.

I like the fact that there are stronger opponents mixed into the battles. This makes me get the kills that I can and return when I am stronger to finish off the rest. This is truly roleplaying as it was meant to be and I see that. Fights may be easier for others, but then again the world you created wasn't about that. It is about choices and what stands before you in what choice you should make.

I'm rambling on but I think that the first experience through out your game is outstanding as it was meant. Once again I really, really hope you hold true to that in all other games.

I do understand why you may wish to create a game and think about the people who are playing it over and over again. But once all the magic is gone then you are just character building and anyone can do that.

Roleplaying is about the magic. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mage.gif" alt="" />

"Fights may be easier for others, but then again the world you created wasn't about that."

Ok, I am drunk and I won't fix that statement but you know what I meant. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

In my opinion Roleplaying has only little to do with fights. Role playing is something different for me. It´s Interaction between players and NPC´s.

How would a (eg.) male survivor would react in a cretain Situation, how would a female mage? and how would NPC´s react on the special class.

True Roleplaying would be a game in which different reactions of the player would lead to different results and this in coincidence with class features.

(I hope this is still understandable... (not sure about my English!)

Anyway: <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" /> comes realitively near to a real RPG and it is one of my absolute favorits and that´s why I´m here. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

"(I hope this is still understandable... (not sure about my English!)"

I understand it perfect and you explained it better than I did. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />

to add to what bernard said,
you would have to have different NPC reactions based on the PC alignment, looks, and attitude. a 'good' alignment might get a different reaction from an NPC than an 'evil' alignment PC. the same goes with looks, the better the looking a PC the better chance to get a better price or more info from NPCs. in pen&paper these things are a major part in role playing. if these could be add to a crpg it would open different dialouge options and give different quest.

Kinda like Lionheart in the beginning.

If you were a pureblood or could pass as one, people would treat you better. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

One thing that I like in RPG (and I think that is the idea from the first place), is that you have the chance to be somebody else. You get to play a Role. You are able to do things that perhaps you couldn´t do in normal life. And you have the freedom to choose. To make decisions. To be someone better or worse. RPGS are the only type of game that you decide in everything. What to eat, what to wear, what to buy, who to speak.... etc. That is something that will never stop amaze me. Because with the development of RPGS more and more the games seem so real. Like a second life parallel to the one we actually live. It is like some fairy tales come true.

What is Roleplaying ? - Thoughts, featuring an translation of an article from me.


There are many, many discussions on what „proper roleplaying“ is, even what’s roleplaying at all !

To me, there are several fractions of role-players out there.

For example, I think that Blizzard has invented a new sub-genre to the RPG : The “Action-RPG” , like Core Design had invented the “Action-Adventure” with the ascending of Lara Croft.

Several other fractions say that Blizzards products are not RPGs at all; I instead say that they are a very cut down form of RPG : The “Action-RPG”. Very straight, very few interactuion at all, but lots of fighting and collecting.

The ideal of role-playing - as I believe it - is the development of an character. Including interaction.

To me, role-playing in its literal sense has *very much* to do with actual acting - what actors do in movies or in theatres. You incorporate a character and try to play its role.

Someone even said that he could imagine even an First-Person-Shooter as an RPG, because you are playing the role of someone. I don’t agree, because that point of view lacks some traditional , essential parts of real role-playing.

There / they are :

• Characters (which you play), sometimes including the need to build them up on your own;
  
• Experience-Points (however they may called);
  
• Skills
  
• a Rule-Set or Rule-System.
  
• This normally includes somekind of “up-leveling” of a character - the more experience a char gets, the higher levels he or she is able to climb up.
  

This is the core of what a traditional view of role-playing is made of.

About the fighting part there is an interesting article I recommend somewhere at www.RPGDot.com : “Is there a game after combat ?”


Apart from that I’ve got an article on my harddisk which might eventually appear at RPGDot. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />

As an extract from that, I show you what real roleplaying is to me :

My PoV is reletively simple:

1 you create say a Paladin
2 you play the game as if you are a Paladin

iow you don't go around picking pockets, (hmm maybe that should be a Rep Minus in <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" /> 2) you try to do all the good things and if possible, since you are a Paladin, act un-intelligent but very pious <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/devil.gif" alt="" />

You all are right but I still like the adventurer feel that Divinity has.

I have always liked being an adventurer and having many skills. I know there have been suggestions on class specifics and that's how most people normally roleplay. But since you are a solo character it is great to have access to all skills and create what you wish.

No matter what, when you travel alone you are truly an adventurer. That just happens to be my favorite way to roleplay. I still welcome Riftrunner though and having a companion, it should make the game a whole new experience.

I'm really not confused, I just keep changing my mind. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/stupid.gif" alt="" />

I'm curious - intelligent people can't be Paladins in Your opinion? Interesting considering the fact You are one of the goody-two-shoes type as far as I remember( in DD of course)... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

My thoughts:

Role playing is playing a role of someone else. Technically, playing an Indiana Jones game is role playing - you're playing someone else. But in Indiana Jones, you play like Indiana and think like Indiana and talk like Indiana. You're not so much playing a role as playing someone else entirely with minimal character input.

I see Diablo as a role player. The game offers you the chance to become a champion against evil through combat. That is the scope of the game. If you don't like it, don't buy it. You can select your class and develop it to your tastes. Each specialised class in Diablo 2 can be refined further, each having roughly three distinct paths, depending on your tastes.

Divine Divinity offers more with reputation, quests, multiple responses to NPCs... While a lot of actions don't have a great effect on the overall game, it's all part of your character. The Divine One could be the most holy and giving person in the world or an evil greedy [nocando]. All the same, you go and kill the ultimate evil. It's all about what you want the character to be. Be something you're not. If you have fascinations of mass murder, it's better that you play it out in a game then in real life!

One final game: Nethack. A standard dungeon crawl with the addition that when you die, your save game is deleted. There is an abundance of actions that you can perform. When you finish a game (successfully or fataly), the game lists a number of statistics: were you a vegetarian, did you comit genocide, did you pray for divine intervention, did you use a weapon, did you polymorph...? These are all role playing options which ultimately come down to this little statistic panel. They're there for you to increase your game difficulty through self deprivation. So as a vegan, do you sacrifice your vow and chow down on the goblin corpse or do you stay true and starve to death? I think moral dillemas like that make for better role playing role playing.

In terms of computer games, Nethack is ancient.

dictionary.com says:

role-play (rlpl)
v. role-·played, role-·play·ing, role-·plays
v. tr.
To assume or represent in a drama; act out: “Participants are encouraged to pass on leads about jobs... and to role-play interview situations with each other” (Hatfield MA Valley Advocate).

v. intr.
To assume or act out a particular role: “When I hire people I role-play with them... to see how they take pressure” (Peter Schrag).

n.
Role-playing.


role-play·ing (rlplng)
n.
Psychology. A therapeutic technique, designed to reduce conflict in social situations, in which participants act out particular behavioral roles in order to expand their awareness of differing points of view.
An instance or situation in which one deliberately acts out or assumes a particular character or role.


roleplaying

n : acting a particular role (as in psychotherapy)

Okay I am a Paladine but sofar I still have to met a Paladin with a higher IQ than 10 <FR_Example; depending on game rules> who was worth his salt in a game that required a ...say undead hunter, it is just not feasible to put points into intelligence for a Paladin and end up with a good Con, STR, DEX and Charisma <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

To me RPing is all about acting...you need to become your character and you in their world.

Your point being?

So is Pac-Man, but it's still a much loved action game.

Nethack is one of the first adventure games I know of. It's an derivate from the game "Rogue" and that' ancient, too. There are only few older games - considering the Adventure genre - and the "original" "Adventure" game aka "Collosal Cave" is maybe one of the oldest or even the oldest as far as I know.

Oh my god! I just downloaded it and I remember it. I've played it before somewhere, probably on a very old computer. I never got very far. I was too young to work it out.

boy do i remember that game...and what those MIT people did with it by writing zork(s)!! (heck virtually ALL those old infocom games were/are great!!)
interestingly, now that you point the game out, i have to wonder if that is exactly why i'm such a 'completion-ist' with rpgs. in the old text format gaming, there were no mouse-clicks...there wasn't a mouse!...and you had to try EVERYTHING to solve the puzzles. additionally, you picked up and tried to use everything you found.
and look what this has done to me.......
<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/stupid.gif" alt="" />