3) A contemporary attempt to port the tabletop experience to a video game format. Now obviously this is where a lot of the opinions begin to unravel. Bioware was unable to faithfully adapt turn based combat to ADND, so they settled for RTWP. If you don't believe me, look up the old interviews. Yes, you read that correctly, the entirety of RTWP was a workaround. An innovative, genre defining workaround, but a workaround none the less that obviously has its own interpretation in the present day given that we have the capability of having a robust tabletop turn-based inspired gameplay experience that attempts to faithfully implement the tabletop experience into a video game environment.
This point is, in my opinion, very important. Not so much to respect the BG "spirit" but much more to represent the fights in this kind of game.
TB follows D&D rules much more than RTWP. It's a fact. On the other hand, and undeniably, RTWP makes it possible to visually represent the fights in a much more dynamic and alive way.
Beyond that, if it were humanly possible to manage D&D fights as the RTWP allows them to be managed, we would all do it. But we are not machines and that would put a happy mess in the fights.
So, what is valid around a table is not necessarily valid in a video game and vice versa.
And RTWP is, in my opinion, the best choice for a BGlike.
