There's a difference. Unless you are good at it, RTWP is very frustrating to people like me. It is chaotic and ai scripts cause characters to do stupid things and get themselves and others killed. They waste spells and potions etc.
You know, it's like playing a game like Halo where you are supposed to be protecting some NPC and they stupidly run in between your gun and the aliens you're shooting at while trying to protect them, so you accidentally shoot and kill them. That's what it's like for me. How frustrating is it when some NPC ai does something to kill you even though you are doing everything in your power to play strategically? It makes me just want to throw the game in the can and never play it again.
With TB, you have full control. If you die, it's all on you. You're the one to blame, not some computer script or ai. So, if I die over and over again, I accept full blame for my own inability to beat the game. It also means that either the developer made the battle too hard, and other players on forums are also saying so, or I just need to learn what I'm doing wrong so I can fix it.
So yeah, I boycott RTWP because it makes the game entirely no fun for me. If BG2 TOB had been TB, I would have finished it. Because it was RTWP, I couldn't. I tried and tried and kept failing because no matter what, I couldn't keep my people alive. Do you know how frustrating that is? You invest tons of hours into a game. You struggle through all those battles where, over and over again, you have to reload because those ai scripts keep causing your characters to stand still and do nothing or run away around the wrong side of the battlefield, or whatever. You put up with it because you love the story and the characters...
... but you can never actually beat it all because the gameplay is so frustrating and you can't figure out how to get the dang ai scripts to work well with you as opposed to against you. Minsc would just sit there and die for no reason unless I'd click on him and tell him what to do, or Jaheira would run up to a demon and attack close range when I'd tell her over and over again to fight from the back using spells. I'd tell her to heal someone, and she'd start on her way to do so, but then for some reason her "get up close and fight in melee range" script would kick in and she'd never heal the person.
Or if I set the script to ranged attack and she ran out of ammunition, she'd just sit there doing nothing. I mean, over and over again I'd wrestle with the dumb scripts trying to get my characters to respond well.
I'll never forget the stupid beholder lair in the Underdark. Ugh! Talk about frustrating. I can't tell you how many times, for some stupid reason, SEVERAL of my characters would just run right into the midst of every stinking beholder and minion there was. Then they'd get pummelled and just die. RELOAD!
And it wasn't just BG1 and 2. It was the same with Icewind Dale and with NWN 2. Darn characters kept getting themselves killed, wasting spells, etc.
The only RTWP experience I had that was decent was KOTOR 1 and 2, and even that was a bit frustrating at times. For the most part, the cue up system worked, and I did enjoy some element of fast paced combat. Still, it wasn't great.
In short, although TB is slower, I have absolute control so my companions all work together as one Intelligent, cohesive unit. It makes all the difference in games like this.
