Originally Posted by Emrikol
Originally Posted by kanisatha
I think that ultimately this is the fundamental divide among people reacting to BG3: those who care about BG3 from a (D&D 5e PnP) rules and mechanics standpoint, versus those who care about it from a story/characters/lore standpoint. Both of these things are necessary for an RPG to work. My point is about on which side of this divide the focus of the developer falls in creating the game. And because this is what WotC wanted for this particular game, Larian's focus is on the rules and mechanics side of things far more so than the other side of things.

Fair enough.

Originally Posted by Seraphael
Who in your mind are the best then? Larian is in my mind leagues ahead of bEAware.

I can't say any game's story has really made it's mark on me, probably because of the point I have already made about a game being an inferior medium for delivering a good story.

Originally Posted by Argonaut
And before that the decision to make it was based on the desire to tell a story that involves characters. Reductive reasoning aside is there any other reason why you think mechanics should be the focus of a role playing video game based on a franchise infamous for being about the story and characters first and foremost? I can quote the PHB for you if you would like.

It's a fair point. Whatever the original intentions of Gygax and company, though, there is a divide, as Kanisatha has said. Some see it as RPg, others as rpG. Perhaps some miscommunication is arising from the lack of a distinction between 'story' and 'role playing.' I love a good story, but I really don't care much for role playing (which isn't to say I don't like having some direction over the story in a game).


Originally Posted by robertthebard
With that out of the way, I found the story in BG/BG 2 extremely compelling.

A story can be compelling, but that isn't saying very much

Originally Posted by robertthebard
The mistake you make, in so far as I can tell, is assuming that a game doesn't have at least a novella of content behind it.

No, I think a game cannot relay the depth of novella behind it as good as the novella itself.

Originally Posted by robertthebard
I don't go back to games thinking "I miss that fight". I go back to games because "I miss those characters", or "that character" sometimes.

I can say the same for books, but I cannot recall one character from a game that has done so.

Originally Posted by robertthebard
So no, a video game is not a vastly inferior medium for story telling. It's no worse than novels, or movies, to accomplish the goal. They, like any other medium, can be bad, but it's not the medium that's at fault for that, because there are some really good games out there, and that's not based on mechanics alone.

Of course novels can be bad. That's not the point. But again, if games are equal to novels in terms of story telling, which ones? Is the story of the original BG on par with LotR? The Elric sagas? GoT? Not 'compelling.' An equal.

The problem with snipping tidbits out of a post and responding to them, also known as cherry picking, is that you remove context, such as where I stated that I return to books for the same reason as I return to games, hence reading LotR 20 times. You "conveniently" removed responses that make it harder for you to support your claim of one medium being superior to another, which doesn't compel me to go "oh snap, he/she's right", but instead makes me think "why did they remove the bits that make their position harder to support". For example, you close out your comment here asking about which games are on par with books. I have not only already answered that question, but I gave several game series in support of what I said. I also listed another game a bit later, that's also wildly popular, and not because of the gameplay mechanics. If a game's not CoD, or Mortal Kombat-esque, then it's probably going to be a safe bet that story and characters in the game drove it's popularity. While there are some exceptions, I'm sure, the thing that always springs up when people discuss FF7 isn't "but I loved all the fighting", but the death of one of the companions. This tells me that it isn't about the mechanics, but the narrative. If I didn't find them to be equal, or in the same ball park, aka compelling, I wouldn't have listed them. The title of this game drew a lot of players here, why do you suppose that is? Was it because the combat was so memorable, or was it something deeper, that only a strong story/strong characters could evoke?

Story telling isn't stronger just because it's in a book. You can achieve all of the same elements that make a book good in any medium, if you're a good enough story teller. I used to tell great ghost stories around the campfire. Are they somehow lessened because I didn't write them down and publish them?