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Originally Posted by WanderingKnight
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I get it that this guy likes Deus Ex (who doesn't?). I also think he has a point about RPG games being not really
roleplaying games, especially them JRPGs (though their saving grace that he refused to mention is that a number of them do tell fun stories with attractive characters, and though that doesn't mean they're RPGs as he understands it, that
does mean they're fun to play...except for the shitty grinding). But I think he vastly, ridiculously overestimate the average human gamemaster's ability to really allows roleplaying to be conducted. Sure, sure, human AI -- but come on.
Frankly, your average livingroom gamemaster is no bard, no talented storyteller who can capture the limits of human imagination and let it loose, able craft some sort of modern myth that recurs through time like a chain-smoking, trenchcoat-wearing Homer. No, actually, given how the mechanics work in other mediums -- movies, books, etc. -- the few maestros expand our horizons further than any random wannabe bard on the street can hope to do. A single
One Hundred Years of Solitude is sufficient to inspire the imagination of millions, change the whole trajectory of world literature, and allow a massive range of interpretations in itself. A single well-written, well-directed CRPG can be just as good to those who seek to roleplay. Its other limitations are essentially trivial in this aspect.
Because you see, a painter works with a limited canvas. Not even Van Gogh can make a beauty out of an infinite blank space. A CRPG's job is not to allow us an infinite blank space to tell a story in; it draws us in with its story then allow us to roleplay its role: be an amnesiac zombie, say, or an unlucky guy off the street who gets told he's the only one who can stop a raging horde of Tolkienesque orcish barbarians ("darkspawn"). Then we are let go to do our thing, while the story guides us here and there -- which is fine. We're actors with a script, not pantomiming on the corner of Fourteenth Street, NYC. And any actor will tell you: yes, dammit, acting is roleplay.
P.S. He loves Deus Ex for its nonlinear plot and only gives a grudging mild "oh yeah, it sort of does that to" to Planescape? The hell bro?
P.P.S. It's also interesting how he doesn't mention the Elder Scrolls series, which to me are failed examples of the steps RPG makers are trying to make towards what he too wants to achieve. Understandable in a sense -- the devs of Oblivion claimed they abandoned their much-hyped real time AI system because of technical limitations -- bad game design in another. Bioware just sticks to telling good stories while slowly pushing the limits of nonlinearity.