D&D has classes, it also is played between multiple people and has actions decided by dice rolls. There are multiple scenarios that D&D is played too... actually I've never played D&D so I'm having a hard time on this one, but your call to D&D is pretty lousy since while there are a lot of ways they're the same there are a lot of ways they're different.

Then again Half-Life 2 and Portal are very similar but completely different genres, one is an FPS while the other is a puzzle game, You can say both are first person games built in the source engine by valve but it's hard to really call Portal a shooter or Half-Life 2 a puzzle game.

Shhhh. If you go bringing common sense and logic in here... well, people will have a harder to venting their irrational views. And they don't want that.

And yet, I often have a blast in those D&D sessions: While the players tend to ignore the details of my story, they have a lot of fun playing out their characters... And a few sessions down the line, they have a completely in-character boast of their accomplishments, proving that they actually were paying at least half-attention to my story, even if they didn't show it at the time.

Bethesda does a pretty damned good job of simulating a GM, better than almost any other company out there. My character has more options right now than in almost any non Bethesda game I've ever played. I have an open world in front of me, far more open than any other companies so called "open world" games (Dark Souls, I'm looking at you). I can choose to explore nearly every nook and cranny. I have a quest log with 29 quests listed in it, with the option of following any one of them. I can play this game all day and never even look at a quest. I can't say that about most of the so called CRPGs I've played, and I've played a few.

Other games that people love to call RPGs like Mass Effect and Dragon Age lead you like an idiot through a pre-ordained story on a pre-ordained path, like almost every game out there, with almost nothing in the way of side quests or areas to explore. The only choices you have in those games is within the quests, in dialogue options, and then there's really only three options at any time, and for the most part cosmetic. Side quests are few, and exploration is pathetic. In Mass Effect you can't even choose who you play, which I believe is a big element in any game that dares call itself an RPG.

I've played RPGs most of my life (D+D, Traveller, GURPs, Rolemaster), mostly as a GM. I've always disliked GMs who lead players by the nose and never give them choices. I've learned over the years to give the players a good setting, and let them decide where to go, then react to them, play on the fly. Contrary to what many people say role playing is about the imagination. Most CRPGs try to crush your imagination and tell you their story outright. Bethesda takes a more passive approach, and tells you their story while you create your own. Far more eloquent, but you have to have an imagination to appreciate it.

Add: I'd also like to say that there is no way in hell that a computer can accurately simulate the mind of a GM. For a computer game, there has to be a set outcome. It just can't react to a player the way another human can. It's a limited medium.

You're just reinforcing my point.

Yes, yes it does sound familiar.
What other games have I played like that?
Baldur's Gate
Baldur's Gate 2[/i]
Morrowind
Oblivion
Arena
Knights of the Old Republic (Except for the ending cinematic)
Knights of the Old Republic II
Dragon Age
Dragon Age II
And every other CRPG out there, with the exceptions of Minecraft, Runescape, and Dwarf Fortress.

Actually, no, there's one sticking out that doesn't have that: Skyrim.

On my Khajiit Berzerker, the Dark Brotherhood is in ruins, slain by her hand. The Empire has re-united Skyrim, the King in Rags has escaped Markarth's prison, Barbaras has been banished to Oblivion, leaving Vile to abuse his power freely, Hircine has gifted me with the Cuirass of the Savior's Hide, and the Blades have abandoned me. The thieves guild has left me an open, but rejected, invitation. And J'zargo likes his new Staff of Magnus.

There are a lot more choices I can make on other characters.

TES is an RPG game in the same vein as the old Gothic games. You learn and progress your character and advance the skills you select to use. How you do it is down to you, you choose the path.

The fact is that far to many of these so called "rpg fans" have never played anything other than an MMO like WoW and cant the tree's for the forrest. If its not got 4 million buttons and skill tabs and endless pages of stats its not an RPG to them. Frankly as said above, D&D is where this all started and Skyrim does a bang up job of keeping itself true to the real genre. RPG's are about the choice's a player makes, how a player chooses to play is more important. These MMO games all funnel people in to predictable pre-ordained paths with only a token element of choice. They wont let you enter places, towns or areas until you do as your told and do the specific quest tasks to the letter, getting lead around by the nose.

A real RPG must have freedom of choice, freedom to hack people to bits or zap them full o'magic. Freedom to buy an NPC a beer or rob him blind. Freedom to ignore fat idiot on throne demanding quest advancement, or take his advice and solve a problem. All the while making no demands on the player, just offering suggestions and possible quests they might want to do if they feel like it.

Skyrim has this in abundance and is infact one of the only real RPG's on the market at this point.

its the best game ever, however u classify it

Why I do think you just hit a nail on there head - there are a lot of different RPGs. And a lot of different RPG sub-genres. And a lot of different ways of playing different RPGs. Skyrim fits in with plenty of RPGs.

There are even storyteller RPGs these days that do away with stats, classes etc all together and has a bare minimum use of dice or paper. And most of the paper contains back stories and real time recording of character development. "Perks" are popular in these games too. A player creates a number at the start to match the character. They are a phrase that sums up something quintessential about the character. "Lived a hard life" - character is awkward in social situations above a certain level, character is tough.

Then it is about RPing.

This topic again? We had this discussion last time with Oblivion.

It's an RPG if you want it to be.

Yeah, it sounds familiar because you just described any number of RPGs, including a number of the classics.

If you want games that let you do practically anything you could think of in a situation that might be possible and have the world react accordingly then I'm afraid you only find that in PnP games, and then only good if you are playing with a good team led by a good GM. Electronic RPGs, shooters etc are still far to limited.

Granted: Skyrim is more a mission based, open world, action orientated game with RPG elements...
But.. for a mainstream game, as far as RPG elements go, it still can be qualified as an RPG.
Now a lot of RPG elements long time TES players take for granted, have either been removed or nerfed. But if one takes a more objective point of view... it still is a game which leans on its RPG elements..
Compare it to Mass Effect ( yes I know.. ) The first one was basically a 3d person shooter RPG. But with a lot of emphasis on RPG style of leveling and equipment management. ME2 nerfed it to such a degree (I still like it though), that the RPG elements feel more like leveling up in MP shooter. (you chose a clas, blammo these are the elements you can improve on..) The same can be said about FF, Dragon Age.. and the list goes on..
Now let us return to Skyrim: Given the current state of (main stream) RPG's one should give credit to Bethesda. While they have nerfed elements or even removed some to make the game more accessible ... It still has its bases covered. You still have to appreciate RPG's to really get everything from the game. Especially playing on master.

It's even an RPG if you don't want it to be. Try playing as a two-handed berzerker in Skyrim on another person's character who played as a mage the entire game.

Official Yawn.™

Off-topic

Since when has Minecraft been an RPG? A few small RPG elements have been added but they're small at best but not in traditional RPG ways at all. It doesn't matter what you do in minecraft your character doesn't get stronger, faster, etc. There is almost literally no storyline what-so-ever. It's just a very very large sandbox creative game, to call it an RPG... that game isn't an RPG. It can be modded into an RPG like for example using adventurecraft but the base game just isn't an RPG what-so-ever. Even the new leveling system only works for enchanting items which are unrepairable and all have endurance levels before breaking.

Maybe in time Minecraft will add more and more and become an RPG but right now, no... it's not an RPG.

On-topic

Knights of the old Republic uses a specialized/customized version of the D&D ruleset that many actions are actually played against. However the game while having a some what linear progression (ok you can decide to do like 4 parts of it in a slightly different order), is made an RPG more because of how you can do things differently within that storyline, in Skyrim you don't get very much of that and that's where skyrim is lacking in comparison to many other RPGs, Skyrim is just a go clear this cave out whereas other RPGs, even Oblivion had more to the quests themselves.

This said, I believe the order you did do things in, in KOTOR did also have an effect on the storyline... yeah...

Indeed.

HA...WIN !

I was semi-joking with Minecraft, to point out an absurdity of the claim. Although, from my last check, it's a lot more of an RPG now, with elements such as Enchanting and Experience thrown in.

I've not seen this to be the case. There are several ways to do things differently within Skyrim's quests. Diplomatic Immunity for instance.

Other quests likewise demonstrate variables methods of performing them, and those within Faction quest lines, while "Smack it with a Stick" is usually AN available option, it's not always the best, and there are some points that require you to actually use the skills associated with the faction.

Skyrim DOES make "To Do or Not To Do" a significant choice: there are nigh-unlimited quests in the game, that you cannot be expected to do them all. Some quests are mutually exclusive with each other . And some quests you can simply say "Not my Style" and ignore.

How rudely pretentious of you to dare think you can place such insulting words in my mouth. I'm not sure what your experience is, but there is blatantly more character development possibilities in, say, Daggerfall than in Skyrim. I've said nothing more, nothing less... yet you've already decided what I meant to say by not saying anything and came up with definitive, pretentious thoughts about me saying something I never and never would say. Your disagreement with what I've seen to be true and my recollection of said fact is no justification for insolence. It just isn't true. Skyrim does not have more possibilities than any other Bethesda game simply because it doesn't... it doesn't have as many choices, as many options, as many character development aspects, as many story development aspects, etc. and that has nothing to do with my position on Skyrim as an RPG or your background. Keep your ad hominem arguments out of this, please.

i agree, it depends on a person definition of an rpg, things evolve so what an rpg is now, might be a bit different than how they were a long time ago, i enjoy skyrim fine apart from the bad patch which i removed ,but yeah they streamlined character development, but there's a lot of perks, you get to choose to allocate points to health, stamina or magic etc, plus the standing stones and the racial traits...but i do wish there was a perception and luck attribute.

Is just? Perhaps you are exaggerating just a little there.

This is the same reason I say that a progressive leveling system doesn't make a game an RPG, it's just a single RPG element, the thing is that RPGs usually have a strong narrative which in my opinion skyrim lacks and one of the reasons I don't consider it to be a hard-line RPG, but rather it sits just slightly more on the RPG side of fine line that makes a game an RPG. Oblivion had in my opinion a much stronger narrative and while oblivion did occasionally send you on long quests into dungeons, those dungeons themselves usually had things that connected into the quest line in some way, whereas in skyrim there are quests where the quest giver is literally at the door of a dungeon, gives you a quest at the dungeon... you then find nothing at all in the dungeon that relates to/adds to the quest at all. Not all of them are like this, but a lot of them are.


Not really, no. It really is pretty much like that in my honest opinion and no exaggerating, I've cleared about 90% of all the dungeons and done about 80% of the quests by this point too. Don't get me wrong, there are a "couple" of special missions, and the word couple fits this perfectly as I think out of the 100+ dungeons there is like 5 that really have things in the dungeons that relate the quests that the dungeon has associated with it.

Of course the Radiant quests literally have nothing, except maybe a quest item inserted into the boss/dungeon loot at the very end, so they in fact make things worse.

Its not a lie if you believe it.

Meh...

Of course it is an RPG. You can tailor your character in any number of ways. You can interact with NPC'S through dialogue and have an element of choice over how those interactions turn out, etc, etc. It may be missing some features you like, but it is an RPG.

And yet, Skyrim's quests that DO address the lore are much richer than Morrowind and Oblivion's similar quests.

Want to know something else that lacks strong narrative? Early-edition D&D campaigns. EVERYTHING was randomly-generated, without a plot.

There are several different kinds of Role-playing Gamers, and there are RPGs that match them. "Storytellers" are just one of Seven known Roleplayer types. There are also "Butt-kickers/Real Men", "Munchkins/Optimizers", "Strategists/Tactitions", "Wierdos/Outliers", and "Casual/Quiet Guys". Please stop trying to exclude them.