character creation in skyrim is this:

advance the skills i use, increase either magic/health/stamina, and pick a perk.

that's it. that's all there is to it.

Advancement in Morrowind was, sleep pick 3 attributes and you're done... wow so much more complex!

Edit that to heavily reliant on ONE attribute...your speed, all the other attributes were more or less flavour, you could get by with quite low ratings in all of them if you had high skills, but speed on the other hand...made you invincible regardless of your playing style...

you sir are evil... yet...right at the same time....

No...don't forget the pre-leveling bunnyhoping, swimming against obstacles and sneaking behind walls...

You don't want to leave out all those aspects of deep and immersive roleplaying...

Wait that sounds familiar, Oh wait Oblivion was the same. Use the skill, level up and choose stat.

That's it, that is all there is to it..

Genre tags are fine. The problem is, there's so much genre blending going on these days that many people cannot understand the difference between RPGs and action-adventure games.

Then you cannot judge the game.

It's Bethesda's best RPG to date by far, so calling it an action-adventure game after trying it for only 5 minutes is ludicrous.

More attributes + skills = better character definition / development... which is really what RPGs are about. Also, Morrowind's combat is much more about the character and their abilities than the player's skill, unlike Oblivion and Skyrim. Characters are actually capable of failing. On top of that choices seem more meaningful - not so much in terms of the main storyline, but in terms of which race you pick, which factions you join, etc.

RPGs are supposed to be all about the character or characters you're playing as. They should be as uniquely defined as possible, and everything they do within the gameworld should be determined by their stats.

Literally, all that separates the RPG genre from the adventure genre or action-adventure genre is the use of numbers to allow for character definition and progression in a gameworld that responds to who the character(s) is/are.

Wow. Your right, why should any of us have opinions on things. Skyrim was perfect in every way because it sold really well and that after all is the true seal of quality.

Yea if they streamline that anymore COD will indeed have more character choices.

In Oblivion even though the streamlining and hand holding was a little shocking at first to a die hard TES player like myself, at least the story and writing and questlines were involved and not nearly as predictable as Skyrim.

Now we not only have skill progression related streamlining we have some of the most repetitive quest lines in any RPG. Oh and the endings of the main quests and civil war quests are enough to just throw the damn disc out the window. Freaking horrible and just reinforces the fact that you have NO IMPACT on the world at all!!!

No, sorry but no. Morrowind is nothing like OB or Skyrim as far as playstyle and RPG-ness. Just take combat in MW. Swing a sword at a mudcrab. Go ahead, try to hit it. See how your sword went straight through it and no damage was done? Well this was because you combat skills were not high enough to make a hit. OB took the stats in combat hit/miss away from us. Now try to pick a lock. Go ahead I'll wait. See how it is just click, click, click, break. You can't really do anything except click. No mini game, just your characters SKILL stat against the lock, also adjusted by the quality of pick you are using.

All of this and many other RPG elements were removed when Oblivion was made. Skyrim just kind of cleans them up a little and removes attributes altogether.

I didn't enjoy morrwind all my characters had bad d20's

I'm not right, just providing a different point of view.

Morrowind had attributes that meant nothing, or became redundant. As a whole attributes/skills held no real weight as you could easily enhance them via spells, potions, or enchantments. Given that the attribute/skill itself dictated everything about your character you could easily create a mega character with one simple enchantment, or spell.

They were also severely redundant as the effect of the attribute was spread across multiple different attributes. For example fatigue was affected by more than one attribute and the same for mana.

As a side what a annoys me the most is when people as for the cause rather than the effect. When they want the spell, attribute, or skill when they have already have the effect that the spell, attribute, or skill caused.


You're using table top definitions to define a video game which in itself is silly. You're using a ruleset that defines an incredibly limiting medium to define a medium that has no limits.

Even then this rule set was done terribly in Morrowind, and ultimately made it an extremely flawed game.

That's what happens when games don't have a definative ending, and given that Todd Howard came out after Fallout 3 and said it was a mistake to have had the game end, and one that they wouldn't be repeating again, I wouldn't get your hopes up that this trend is going to change.

Please tell me how the end-game worlds of Oblivion or Morrowind differed from the worlds where you never even started the main questline. Please.

CoD already has more character choice, or metagame at least, than any TES game.

Well said.

Soon we`ll have a COD type game with no attributes whatsoever, you just run around with a sword or fire magic spells... Much like that online Guild Wars which I tried and hated. there was no sense of adventuring in a world of a past time set in ancient world, just a bunch of joyriders speeding about. It was so far from immersive it was unenjoyable. In fact, thinking about it, it was quite similar to Oblivion and Skyrim in some ways....

All I'm going to say is this. Some people are affected my visual stimulus, and others are stimulated by mental stimulus. I played with legos a ton as a kid and the stimulus for me was seeing the correlation between the physical representation of my legos and my mental representation. I never attached numbers to them, nor did I ever assign a rule set based upon a dice roll.

So for me I find that my character looking like I imagine he would is a bigger stimulus then seeing a bunch of numbers that define him.... I'd rather see him actually do something with his swords than see him have more damage alone... if that makes sense.

As a last point I've never found Morrowind to be stimulating outside of an obsessive level (which was all about the numbers). I got bored of my characters once I saw the lack of correlation between this number and what my character actually did.

EDIT: I find that level of emulation to be extremely limiting. It is good for tables tops that have no real way of emulating your character (which is why people LAARP I suppose) , but for video games themselves it doesn't take advantage of what video games can do. It relies on an old way of showing what your character is, which some people may find to be more stimulating, but for me I find it boring and easy to see through.

A true RPG should have an extensive attribute system and skill system to define who a character is. Perk trees can sometimes add flavour to a character with unique one-time skills, but they're nowhere near adequate as a substitute for skill progression as a whole (which is what Bethesda have tried and failed to do in Skyrim).

So something like this:

Attributes - who the character is physically and mentally
Skills - general skills they learn and improve over time, like skill with a longsword, or lockpicking. These should improve gradually over time based on the character's actions, with no sudden leaps in ability like 50% damage multipliers.
Perks - more specific skills they learn once with limited or no improvement after, such as learning to speak a certain language or learning to craft a certain type of armour. There may be multiple perks for one skill (such as basic dwarven metallurgy. advanced dwarven metallurgy. etc) but progression should generally be limited, unlike regular skills, as it makes sense to have more sudden leaps in ability.

Lots of different types of games can have more "attributes" than a rpg to simulate an individual character in a simulation. Sports games employ a whole range of stats and attributes, which also develop over time, but you don't 'roleplay' your hockey-player. Is Football Manager a rpg? It has tons of more stats and attributes than any of the TES games, everything from technical attributes to mental attributes and hidden stats and personality traits...and they develop over time, and you have extensive control over the development through training schedules and coaching...I am sorry Baldur's Gate, Planescape, Fallout, Daggerfall and all you other rpg-wannabes, you have to step aside because we just found the ultimate roleplaying game of all time: Football Manager!

...or do we take the other definition about playing a role in an imaginary world or setting as more of a core-mechanic of a rpg??

Fortunately, there is actually no definition of "a true RPG" (as defined by the True RPG Player ?).

In Football Manager, the emphasis is on managing a team rather than playing the role of a uniquely defined character or characters. The players in FM may have stats to determine how effective they are, but the end result is they're more like units (albeit slightly more unique) in a strategy game than characters in an RPG.

You're right though - genres often share a lot of similarities.

The RPG genre itself is really just a fusion of several genres - the strategy genre, adventure game genre, and more recently, the action game genre.

If we break down Oblivion it had 2 things stats and skills. At every 25 increase in a skill you gained a "perk", not a perk you choose, but a added bonus for training the skill to that level.

Skyrim removed the character attributes and kept 3, changed the skills so that you can define your character by what perks you choose.

There are no sudden leaps in damage unless you choose the assassin path where you gain a lot more damage from backstabbing people, other then that the damage boosts isn't really that huge unless you boost them up all at once. What they did with perks was improve existing skills and enhance them to give you the player more choice in what path you want to go. In oblivion you had blade, axe and blunt weapon skills, all did the same at each 25 increase you got the same power attach, now you have one perk tree for one handed and one for two handed that offers you the same possibility, but also can improve those skills and further specify in the weapon you choose.

Looking at Oblivion and the system they used, and Skyrim and their way of leveling I would say that Skyrim offers more possibilities then Oblivion ever did in the way of making a unique character. Yes you start out quite generic, but end result is way more unique then you could ever hope for in Oblivion

I disagree. Unless you self-gimp your character, they end up almost as generic as characters in Oblivion. The only difference is, it happens much, much quicker in Skyrim because perks speed up skill progression so much.

As I said in another thread, it goes something like this:


Oblivion:

Unique character >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> gradual progression >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Generic, all-powerful character


Skyrim:

Generic character >> fairly unique character >> generic character who's all-powerful in many skills

I'm not disagreeing that at end level you are powerful in Skyrim either, but the difference is that you are no longer a walking god that is good at all magic schools, all weapon types and the best thief ever. You can make a character that is good as a thief, good at destruction and good at one handed. But try to pick up a two handed weapon and you svck compared to an oblivion character. Equipping a heavy armor will work, but you aren't as good in it unless you also use perks in it. In Oblivion it doesn't matter what you use or wears once you have rteched end level you are able to use anything without a negative effect to it. that isn't possible in Skyrim, you can specialize in some things, but not all. And that is where you get a more unique character rather then the generic one.

as an example to clarify what I mean by unique. If I create a thief in Oblivion at end level I would be a thief that is good at all skills. In Skyrim I can specialize him to be good at certain things while other skills I'm nothing special. Which makes my character stand out as a thief, not a jack of all trades. Hence a more unique character as my next playthrough I could make a warrior and he would be totally different. Both in terms of skills and gear. In Oblivion the only thing that would separate my 2 characters was the name of the class and gear, other then that they would be very similar in what they could do, with slightly different stats.

I feel that Skyrim defines your characters in a more unique way because what ultimately defines their prowess is more unique.