how can you suck at diablo2? its an rpg type thing

No problems with the Warhammer concept its the marketing that gets me and the number of people that put up with it. If a unit needs a minimum of 8 and a max of 16 figures they will come in packs of 3,5 or 6 never in an evenly divisible number. That way you always end up buying extra. Considering they make the game and the figures its not like its happening by accident.

 

Have you heard of Dragon Dice? It's the game that bankrupts TSR... but actually I think the die are pretty and the game's fun... I have enough die for up to 7 players :grin:

Many wargames are like that... you need to have a ruler for measuring things. But most wargames I've played have rules for visibility

They have 2 shops in Hongkong, a tiny spot on the world map.

 

I remember this Warhammer-like game I used to play before it really caught on...it involved several teams of space marines boarding a ship, and trying to take out the bad guys on there. One peson controlled the bad guys, and there were 3 teams of marines (that's what I played anyway :smile. That was awesome fun. I'd love to do something like that again. I should really play some D&D with my friends this year...

I had something else to say, but I've completely forgot it, so I wrote this instead :smile:.

 

I think Quethim's definition of a COMPUTER RPG is spot-on. Diablo is an action-based RPG, whereas Arcanum is a story-based (true) RPG.

As for Games Workshop, the very first one opened opposite my school back in the 70's, and we were constantly in there at lunchtimes and after school. So blame me and my chums for the success of the now-ubiquitous GW.

Oh, and it should have been an orK with that space marine... can't stand that WH40K stuff though.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Reg Pither on 2002-02-25 05:00 ]</font>

 

So, you're saying that Daikatana is an RPG?

 

Err..I don't think so, but then I've never played it. Does it have all the features mentioned?

 

WH40K pretty much ruined several aspects of role-playing here. I expect you remember, Reg since you sound like you were in there at the same time.

At one time, White Dwarf was a cool Mag, up there with Dragon. Nice AD&D scenarios and all kinds of material for all kinds of games.

Then, sometime in mid 80's GW decided it should be a mag only for in house games. That amount to 12 parts WH40K, 1 part WFRP, 1 part 1 WHFB and 1 part flavour of the moment Boardgame stuff (bloodbowl, battlecars, etc).

Since I wasn't all that interested in Warhammer, I hung in for a few months, then cancelled my subscription.

Another aspect spoiled was miniatures. I used to be able to get all kinds of varieties, like Ral Partha, etc, before Games Workshop went with Citadel and drove all the smaller outfits away. After that, miniatures became genereric and horribly mass produced, including the advent of the nasty plastic figures.

I was never a huge mianiature collector, but I used to buy a few. When Citadel became ubiquitous, I stopped buying.

 

Factor in ridiculous cost, as well as huge amount of time needed to paint them, and you have a confusing hobby. Why spend hundreds of dollars collecting models, most of which are only going to be undercoated, which will never truly be appreciated and rarely used, because no one else can really be fucked painting and playing with them.

One of the better projects from GW, I thought, was Necromunda. Now that was some fun shit. I remember I played a demo game, with the Skags (shit house equipment, but there's a lot of them!) vs the Yuppies (can't remember the right name, but they were rich kids, good equipment, not a lot of them)...That was a great game, the person I was playing against made two rolls of sixes when it counted - their armour saved them when I had all but killed them, and the two bastards who were freakishly saved went on to slaughter my remaining gang members.

The point is though, you could really develop your gang, and it was the closest thing to actual role-playing they had (apart from the fantasy equivalent). Fantasy itself was much cooler than WH40K as well. Then again, I totally lost track of all this stuff in 1998, 1999, so...

 

I did some historical wargaming for awhile. Mainly De Bellis Antiquitas and some Armati.

DBA is the chess of miniture wargaming and cheap to play. To bad the rules are in Barkerese instead of English Each army only has 12 units with the largest unit being a stand of 4 infantry or mounted. So tops you only need 48 figures plus a general if you want get fancy although a simple flag will do.


Anyway back on topic. For me a lot of the so called RPG's especially the ones on console the RPG stood for "Railroaded Player Game". You just a little a cardboard cutout moving through the game world on rails. You had no control over your character's development or actions. Complete quest A to get item X to open door Z and go onto quest B. Dialogue was hollow and linear with no deviation from the storyline allowed.

A role playing game should allow you to choose a role for character and play it. Get it roleplaying, pretty smart huh? Freedom to develop your character the way you want to is a nice start but its more than that. You should have the option and the mechanisms to determine your characters morality. Your character can be a good guy, bad guy or something in between not the same old you are the hero go save the world bit. Freedom to choose your characters destiny. You should be able to pick and choose which quests to undertake and to whom you ally with. And of course be able to betray those alliances if you so choose.
For a CRPG multiple solutions to quests goes a long way in helping you play a role. Who would want to play a diplomat if 99% of all problems were solved only by violence. If your given an option to play a character in certain way it needs to be a real option with the programming to back it up.

Anyway thats my incoherent ramblings on the subject. So far I only know of a few games that were able to pull it off fairly well Darklands, Daggerfall, and of course Fallout.