What's the best RPG game of all time?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by cyclotron7
While it is true much of the experience is based around challenge ratings, challenge ratings can be assigned to non-combat situations as I have often done, and the DMG does support story awards and such.

I can't recall the DMG gives guidelines for non-combat XP, though I haven't seen one since the first edition, sometime in the 1980's. I suppose you can put in your own "Challenge Rating," but such is hard to made to be in line with the combat XP awards, and requires extensive trial-and-error.

Originally posted by cyclotron7
Not all evil creatures fit into the "grrr, I'm evil, so I hate all life" category.

Nah, that's not evil. Evil is "I will get my way, others be damned."

Originally posted by cyclotron7
I find that I can do considerable things with the craft and profession skills, and the rest I can adjucate as I see fit with little difficulty.

My problem with these is they are not well defined. What exactly is craft? How narrow or broad can it be? Can you invent new things or stuck with building existing things? If you can invent, how? Questions like these are simply not answered.

[Odin]

Originally posted by MrFun

That was Final Fantasy III in the United States.

But this is an international forum.

[LDiCesare]

That's a great way to be a fighter/mage.

Yes, but that is still a limiting choice. If I don't want to be skilled in armor, but only 2 handed sword and still be a mage, am I wasting some capabilities by choosing fighter class? OR should I chose ranger, but then why should I get limits on my alignment?
And what if, due to his background, my character should be able to do bard-like magic but doesn't sing, just talks? In D&D, I 'd have to choose a bard class, which provides weird capabilities my character shouldn't have. In a skill-based system like Rolemaster or the Chaosium games, I just pick the skills I'm interested in, and I may bypass very cheap skills (like singing for a bard) if I want to. In D&D, a bard can sing period. In Rolemaster, you can pick bard because it's the class that best fits your character's skills.

[Jon Shafer]

Originally posted by Gatekeeper
I hope Chrono Break is coming out sometime in 2004.

No info has even been released. I doubt we'd see it before 2006 unless they speak up soon.

[Urban Ranger]

I agree that, in general, skill-based systems are superior to class-based systems.

[Ari Rahikkala]

No references to either NetHack or ADOM here yet. I'm sorely disappointed .

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
I can't recall the DMG gives guidelines for non-combat XP, though I haven't seen one since the first edition, sometime in the 1980's. I suppose you can put in your own "Challenge Rating," but such is hard to made to be in line with the combat XP awards, and requires extensive trial-and-error.

The DMG (I'll assume 3rd edition at this point) does indeed talk about special DM and story awards. I can't quote you as I have the books at home (I'm at college right now), but there is indeed discussion of story awards. Obviously, there is not much, since story awards are by definition up to the DM to define and award on a case-by-case basis.

As for CRs, they already have CRs for inanimate objects like traps. I don't see why you can't just give some story goal CR 7 or something with great ease.

Nah, that's not evil. Evil is "I will get my way, others be damned."

Which is, from any reasonable moral perspective, not a valid reason to slaughter people.

My problem with these is they are not well defined. What exactly is craft? How narrow or broad can it be? Can you invent new things or stuck with building existing things? If you can invent, how? Questions like these are simply not answered.

This is the kind of thing I have to adjucate as the DM, but I'm fine with that. It's pretty easy to see where a proposed item would fit in relation to the ones given as examples in the DMG, and assign a DC and time as you see fit.

[Dis]

class base is superior. Because races and classes give a game more feel and realism. Sure skill based systems offer more flexibility, but it doesn't really mean much. It just means you can powergame more

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Odin


But this is an international forum.

And guess which country dominates the international world?

So guess what that means on an international, online forum?

[GePap]

Originally posted by MrFun
I loved Ogre Battle -- but when I rented Tactics Ogre to see if I like it, I thought it SUCKED.

Very Good game. The first time I played it I had no idea what I was doing, so all my units were becoming more and more evil with time, but they kicked but easily.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by MrFun

And guess which country dominates the international world?

In the production of mindless, vulgar, pornographic pap? The US of course.

So guess what that means on an international, online forum?

Wow! I agree with you...

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Agathon


In the production of mindless, vulgar, pornographic pap? The US of course.



Wow! I agree with you...

In the words of Caveman Bush -- "My words are backed with nuclear weapons."

[Spiffor]

Board RPG : Shadowrun. A complete and complex environment, and a really exciting game experience. Every other Board RPG I played was simplistic in comparison.

Computer RPG: Fallout / Fallout 2. Great environments, great humour, great freedom. Although Morrowind sounds appealing, heroic-fantasy environments are too ordinary IMHO. And depite Arcanum had a highly original backround, there was less humour and spontaneity than in the Fallouts.

Console RPG: 1- FF3. Best console RPG ever. Great characters, great plot, great directing
2 - Chrono Trigger. Extremely enjoyable from a gameplay perspective, entertaining plot and sympathetic characters. But it didn't reach the level of perfection of FF3.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Dissident
class base is superior. Because races and classes give a game more feel and realism. Sure skill based systems offer more flexibility, but it doesn't really mean much. It just means you can powergame more

Not sure what you are getting at.

I have nothing against races, it's classes that are silly. It really does not make any sense at all, even AD&D is trying to get around this by having multiclass characters, feats, and skills.

Most if not all skill-based RPG systems award experiences according to how good a character is played (as usual, being clever grants bonuses). So power gaming is a non-issue.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by MrFun

In the words of Caveman Bush -- "My words are backed with nuclear weapons."

One good troll deserves another, my excellent friend.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by MrFun


And guess which country dominates the international world?

So guess what that means on an international, online forum?

and some people wonder why they're hated...

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Gatekeeper
Chrono Trigger is the best RPGs, IMO.

The premise of the story — traveling through various eras of your planet's past, present and future to save it from destruction at the hands of an alien enemy —*combined with good graphics and an entrancing mixture of science and magic made for a beautiful game. It's a legendary title, IMO, and the sequel, Chrono Cross, is pretty good, too.

I hope Chrono Break is coming out sometime in 2004.

Gatekeeper

I thought that Chrono Cross was just the Japanese translation for Chrono Trigger. I never knew there was a sequel. Although, I've never finished Chrono Trigger. I left off leveling up the in the Black Omen.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by DaShi
I thought that Chrono Cross was just the Japanese translation for Chrono Trigger. I never knew there was a sequel. Although, I've never finished Chrono Trigger. I left off leveling up the in the Black Omen.

Chrono Cross is excellent, beautiful and light hearted. You may want to try, it is really an enjoyable game. But it is not as great as Chrono Trigger though: it is short, there are fewer combos, and there are way too many characters (44) for each of them to have a strong identity.

[Proteus_MST]

Dunno,
I have played a ot of RPGs (DSA, D&D/AD&D, Earthdawn, Shadowrun, Plush Power & Plunder, Mechwarrior [and I liked to play Paranoia Complex, but never succeeded in getting enough People together]), but I don´t know if I have a clar Favorite.
Maybe DSA is closest to being my Favorite.
DSA (Das Schwarze Auge [The Black Eye]) came out in the 80s but AFAIK it got never translated into English, so most of you won´t know it. It is as widespread in Germany, as is AD&D in most english speaking countries.
DSA has also extensive Material about the Lands where it plays (the Continent Aventurien mostly) and its Races.

So, as most of you probably won´t know the Game, I give you a brief Overview:

It has a nice System of Attributes like in AD&D (with Courage, Strength, Intelligence [which is like AD&Ds Wisdom and Int combined], Dexterity [in later Editions of the Rules Dexterity and Manual Dexterity] and Charisma.
But unlike AD&D it also has bad Attributes (Superstition, Fear of great Heigths, Claustrophonia, Greediness and Nekrophobia [wich is very nice, if you encounter animated Skeletons ]) and the Good Atributes can be raised as well as the Bad Atribues can be lowered, as you advance in Levels)
and it has a very extensive Set of skills with a Range from Basic Combat Techniques (which are used to calculate Attack and Defense with certain Types of Weapons), Ranger Skills (like Knowledge of Plants and Animals, Living in the Wilderness, or Creating Traps), Body Control (like Jumping, Riding, Swimming or Hiding) to other Types like Crafts (for Example Weapons Smith [which allows you to forge your own weapons as long as you have Access to a Smithy and enough time] or Alchimy [allowing you to create Poisons and the like if you have Acess to an Alchimic Lab and of Course as long as you have the necessary indegredients ]) or Social Skills (things like Carousing, Dancing, Seducing ).
And those skills are closely linked to Attributes, i.e. if you want to use such a Skill you have to make Tests on three Attributes (depending on the Skill, for exaple if you want to seduce someone, you would have to make 2 Tests in Charuisma and one Test in Courage). If one (or more) Test/s fail/s you can use the Skill Points to make up for the Difference (for example, one of the three Tests Fails by 2 Points, whereas the other two succeed; if you have a Skill Level of at least 2 you can make up for the 2 Points and yur Skil Test succeeds, whereas with 1 or les Skillpoints it fails). Oh and btw. Skill Levels can also be negative (especially thoe skills in Crafts, making it very hard to succeed, unless you are trained in them [Beining Levels of the Skills depend on the Character Class, a Warrior is god in other Skills than for example a Magician])
Magic is also organized in Skills. Instead of having Boks with certain Spells (like in AD&D) the Magician has a Skill Level in each Skills. The Basic Levels depends on the Magic Academy where the Magician went into (every Academy has a Special Topic#, for example Combat Magic or Conjuring) and on the Difficulty of the Spell (a Spell to conjure mighty Daemons has a much higher Complexity than a "Light" Spell, and therefore most Magicians of all Academies begin with positive Skill-Levels for "Light", whereas even Magicians from a School specialized in Conjuring begin with large negative Beginning Levels for "Conjure mighty Daemons").
So, unlike AD&D not every Spell you memorized automatically succeeds and you aren´t limited in the Number of Spells you can cast.
Instead you have a Pool of Astral Points which Renews every Day and for every Spell you cast you must deduct some Astral Points (few if you cast easy Spells [just 1 ASP for "Light"] and much more for difficult Spells [23 ASP to conjure a mighty Daemon + additional ASPs/time to control him]) and if your ASPs reach 0 you canot cast any more spells til the next Day.
But you can try to cast any Spells as long you have a Skill Level of moe than -5 in them and must make a Skill Check to test if they Succeed, with Failure sometimes having funny (for example a failed Invisibility Spell which just makes your outer Skin invisible, so that all people can see your Skeleton and your Intestines ) or horrible Results (a conjured Daemon attacking its Conjurer).
Oh and each Magician must have a Library with one Book per Level, or he can´t ue the Magic Abilities per Level (i.e. if you are Level 9 and have just 8 Books, you can just use the magic Skill Levels you had when you were in Level 8) and, as those Books are very large and heavy, it means that you will someday (when you are at a very high Level) have to ask the Question, if you will Rent a Room or buy a house, where you can store all of your magic Boks) or if you want to travel with a Trailer (or a Caravan of Mules)through Aventurien
Oh and instead of being the Basis for calculating your ToHit-Rolls, Armor is used to diminish Damage. If your Atack succeeds, the Armor of your Enemy is deducted from the Damage you make (for example you attack with a Sword which makes 1D6+4 Damage, succeed in the Atack [to d so you must make a Sucessful Atack and the Enemy must fail in his Defence Roll] and Roll a 3 and your Enemy has a Chainmail [Armorclass 4] then you make 3 Points of Damage [instead of 7 without Armor]).

A nice complex RPG and I like it (it has grown in Complexity since it Beginnings, in 1986 it were just 1 Value for Attack and 1 Value for Defence, regardless of the Weapon you used and you had no Skill Levels or Bad Attributes).
(One Drawback against AD&D is though, that you don´t have Race and Class separated. Elves are a separate Class, just as Magicians are. Elves are a Mix of Magician and Warrior, with Magic Abilities, but also with the Ability to use normal Weapons, but you will never find an Elven Warrior odr an Elven magician. You also won´t fnd a Dwarven Magician (but you have Geodes, which are Druids of the Dwarves))

[Drake Tungsten]

Chrono Cross is excellent, beautiful and light hearted. You may want to try, it is really an enjoyable game. But it is not as great as Chrono Trigger though: it is short, there are fewer combos, and there are way too many characters (44) for each of them to have a strong identity.

Plus, it rapes the storyline from Crono Trigger, if what I hear is correct. Not that this matters to DaShi, who hasn't finished the first game.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Plus, it rapes the storyline from Crono Trigger, if what I hear is correct.

Don't bother with that. The hints to the original game aren't frequent. They're just excuses to justify the use of the name "Chrono" in the title. Chrono Cross brings almost nothing new to the general storyline, so the rape isn't a problem at all.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Master Zen


and some people wonder why they're hated...

I didn't think anyone on Apolyton hates me -- rather, that some just dislike me.

[Cruddy]

Think again Mr Fun.

I ref'd WFRP for about a year, updating the rather naff spells and magic with a cross of Runequest and AD&D. It went down pretty well.

However, my favourite paper RPG of all time is without doubt Twilight 2000. A very dated plot now - but what other RPG let's your characters have RPG's?

Whoosh---BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

Loadsafun. The silliest RPG of all time, without a doubt, was Paranoia.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Cruddy
Think again Mr Fun.

[Cruddy]

/threadjack

Look on the bright side - I'm 3,000 miles away with a serious medical complaint. What's the big deal?

Anyway, there are sh1tkickers on this site I hate more. Much, much more.

/threadjack

[MrFun]

serious medical complaint??

[Cruddy]

My left arm doesn't work at all well. Fingers on the left hand are numb, and the whole lot could go gangrenous if I'm not careful.

Some accuse me of causing the problem through masturbation. I tell them it's the wrong arm!

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

You sure you haven't just left your arm in the freezer? I did that once.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Proteus_MST
Magic is also organized in Skills. Instead of having Boks with certain Spells (like in AD&D) the Magician has a Skill Level in each Skills. The Basic Levels depends on the Magic Academy where the Magician went into (every Academy has a Special Topic#, for example Combat Magic or Conjuring) and on the Difficulty of the Spell (a Spell to conjure mighty Daemons has a much higher Complexity than a "Light" Spell, and therefore most Magicians of all Academies begin with positive Skill-Levels for "Light", whereas even Magicians from a School specialized in Conjuring begin with large negative Beginning Levels for "Conjure mighty Daemons").

A number of RPGs are like that. In DragonQuest, each spell is a distinct skill with an associated success chance. In Fantasy Hero, spells are actually powers, but they are not automatic, either.

Originally posted by Proteus_MST
Instead you have a Pool of Astral Points which Renews every Day and for every Spell you cast you must deduct some Astral Points (few if you cast easy Spells [just 1 ASP for "Light"] and much more for difficult Spells [23 ASP to conjure a mighty Daemon + additional ASPs/time to control him]) and if your ASPs reach 0 you canot cast any more spells til the next Day.

Casting spells in DQ costs "fatigue," a loose measure of your daily energy pool. Doing things costs fatigue, and when you run out your start passing out.

In FH casting spells costs "endurance," which basically is the same thing as "fatigue" in DQ.

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Dissident
class base is superior. Because races and classes give a game more feel and realism. Sure skill based systems offer more flexibility, but it doesn't really mean much. It just means you can powergame more

Hmmm, so can a 20th level farmer grow alot of wheat per acre. (And where is THAT combat table listed? )

Actually, I always preferred the skill-based systems like WoD and Cyberpunk with the caveat that I, as referee/storyteller had to approve all skill combinations. Often this involved the player coming up with a justification for a particular combination. But if a plausible background story could not be given, the combination would not be allowed. This made "class" a sort of informal arrangement.