Unfortunately, current rpgs have the false goal of being foolproof. If you go to the Pillars of Eternity (first one) page there is, or at least was, a video there by the lead designer who described all the (horrible and misguided, IMO) things he and they did to remove from their game everything that makes Wizardry 8 great for example.

1) making character choices foolproof so even a new player blundering through the process will have a party capable of playing and finishing the game without extreme difficulty

2) removing all of the strategy by redefining attributes so every character needs all of them and so their effects are "linearized", i.e. so there is no major impact for raising attributes to a certain level.
2a) all characters needing all attributes is to destroy what he derogatorily calls, "min maxing", i.e. all of the strategic aspects of character creation and development which enable the characters and party to sink or swim depending upon the quality and wisdom of the choices.
2b) Strength for example is required by casters because for them it has been made to translate into the strength of their spells.
2c) The linearizing is to eliminate anything powerful from the character design process. A little bit more of an attribute means a little bit more only of whatever it does. Something like the Expert Skills in Wizardry 8 or the Novice-Expert-Master-Grandmaster exponential curve of abilities and spell effectiveness in the Might and Magic games is vigorously avoided.
Overall these measures are directly intended to make the entire creation and development process for characters less meaningful and important, instead there is a focusing on just the tactics, exploration and story aspects and eliminating character creation and development as an important part of the game (in large degree).

Modern rpgs can be fun, but do not expect an in-depth and meaningful creation of the party that opens up the possibility of utter failure. The utter lack of this in current rpgs is directly, overtly and shamefully saying players cannot handle a meaningful creation and development of characters and parties that allows them to fail utterly.

Last edited by Count Turnipsome; 26/09/23 01:39 PM.
It just reminded me of the bowl of goat's milk that old Winthrop used to put outside his door every evening for the dust demons. He said the dust demons could never resist goat's milk, and that they would always drink themselves into a stupor and then be too tired to enter his room..