I've pretty much developed my own method of roleplaying in-game with it's own rules and what have you. S'pose that guide's good for people who don't know where or how to start, though.
Yeah, these articles would be quite useful for people new to the Elder Scrolls, or less experienced.
I think most of us do develop our own methods as we go, but I think it's interesting to hear about how other people play. Every once in a while you come across a good trick that you haven't thought of.
The guide is mostly for people who are new to role-playing who don't always know how to get started. Some people are so used to playing linear games that they don't understand what they're supposed to be doing in a game like Skyrim. The problem isn't that they lack imagination just that they're so used to being told what to do when they play a game that they think that's how games are supposed to work. When the game doesn't force them to do something they think there's something wrong with the game or themselves. Guides like this are supposed to shake them up a little so they can think about the game differently.
What i find pretty amazing is how Tes 2 Daggerfall had alot of what you revealed in your writings in its character creation and game world mechanics...
Some of the older games just did things better. Partly that's a consequence of the technology: if you don't have to worry about fancy things like dynamic lighting and million-poly models, you can put a little more time and effort into the game design itself. Partly it's a consequence of the market: if the market demands voice acting, you're going to be severely limited in terms of the quantity of dialogue you can produce, and consequently the depth and complexity of the quests. RPGs are a lot more mainstream than they used to be, which impacts the design of these kinds of games as developers scramble to make their games accessible to more players.
I like your ideas for adding complexity to single player interactions. One thing with complexity is it ups the ante for chaos theory. I have no doubt gaming will become more complex because there will be better AI in the future, but more variable outcomes will mean gaming companies will need a lot more QA than they have presently.
Or better ways of making sure that things don't get broken. Quests need to be designed in a way that is self-correcting: if a developer forgets to account for some possibility, the quest itself needs to be smart enough to fix the problem. Part of the solution might be forcing validation on quests when creating them in the editor, similar to the way programs are compiled: a test to make sure that quests are not creating impossible conditions or conditions that cause other quests to fail.
Giving factions a motive hierarchy combined with a reputation system would also be a step in the right direction. With Radiant, factions can offer jobs, but they could do a lot more than this.
Factions should have hierarchies of objectives: preserve the current faction leader, eliminate a rival faction leader, protect faction strongholds, attack rival strongholds, locate powerful artifacts, accumulate wealth, recruit new members, etc. Players would essentially earn fame within their own faction and infamy with rival factions by completing faction objectives. (You could make this even more interesting by having sub-factions that simulate power struggles within each faction.)
Motivation hierarchies are more interesting than traditional quests because they depend on the current state of affairs, or world conditions, not quest conditions. In other words: you don't have to make them branching because by definition they are not linear, but granular. There would be no quests to break. The player's actions would simply influence their fame (within their faction) or infamy (with rival factions). If the player performs an action which results in an increase of fame within the faction, the faction leader offers them a commensurate reward. If they perform an action which results in a loss of fame, the faction leader disciplines them (possibly leading to expulsion or even a death warrant). The faction leader's responses would be dictated by the player's gain or loss of fame, not by quest conditions, so it could be very dynamic. If the player finds a powerful item and surrenders it to his faction, his fame goes up. If he kills a member of a rival faction (depending on their attitudes toward killing, of course) his fame goes up. If he recruits a new member, his fame goes up. If his fame goes up too much, rival factions send someone over to intimidate or eliminate him.
This would give the player freedom to create more of his own quests. For example, say that the player discovers a stronghold owned by a rival faction. If the player assaults it and wipes out all of its members, or sneaks in and steals valuable artifacts, his fame within his own faction goes up, and his infamy with the rival faction goes up. His actions might prompt the rival faction to retaliate, however, which might result in the player's fame in his own faction going down for every fellow faction member that is killed by the rival faction. Players would be free to pursue their own objectives without quests and the consequences of their actions would have an impact on the world. A more cautious player might avoid attacking the rival faction stronghold and instead build up his reputation by recruiting new members, donating gold and items, and completing routine tasks like escorting dignitaries or guarding locations. In a way, you could think about the player's faction rank as a sort of alternate 'level' and fame/infamy as a sort of xp that applies specifically to his faction.
All of this, of course, is meant to supplement the existing Radiant system. You would still need 'traditional quests' to execute the main narratives. But it would make executing those narratives easier because it would take some of the burden off of quest design and reduce the number of quests that can be broken. You wouldn't need to design as many 'quests' because there would be alternate activities the player could engage in that provide the player with the same thing that quests do: goals and rewards.
I also find what you were saying about not playing my character as an extension of myself eye opening but in both directions. Yes playing outside myself can make things feel very different and unique with the spark of newness as well as a sense of escape from the real world my real self. Then again i also started realising i could be myself and be even more true more exagerrated to who i am in real life...
As far as what is and isn't role playing - what's your opinion about someone who wants to play as themselves? If they go to the trouble of making their character look like them and make choices that were their own, is this role playing? It is a very different approach to all that you've outlined so far which tends to heavily rely on the creation of fiction to facilitate immersion into a role play.
I think role-playing as yourself is a legitimate form of role-playing, it's just a highly specialized 'character'. I know there are players who play every game as if they themselves were transported to that world. I suspect it's typically an idealized version of themselves, which, to me, isn't a whole lot different from a fictional character. Instead of "what would Elsbet do?" they're just asking "what would I do, if I was this awesome version of myself?" I doubt very many people really try to play as their
real self, with all of their real limitations. If you're playing yourself, you don't really need the guide at all, since, presumably, you already know what you're like.
» Tue Jun 12, 2012 2:02 am 
I'm glad you enjoyed it. I hope it helps. And always back up your stuff somehow. I lost months worth of writing, mods, textures, models, etc., because of a power outage that lasted all of 2 seconds.
