Incline Let's settle this once and for all: Jagged Alliance 2

[JarlFrank]

It has dice rolls so it's a roll playing game.

 

[Sacred82]

playing with ur rolls is the original roll playing game

 

[RNGsus]

playing with ur rolls is the original roll playing game

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Oh the name says it's an RPG, therefore it's an RPG.

Cool.

In other news, North Korea is a democracy because the full name is "Democratic People's Republic of Korea"

 

[RNGsus]

We have a constitution.

 

[spectre]

Laptop guy's got no stats. It was solved years ago, people.

I suppose you *could* call JA2 an RPG, but why would you call a darling game like that such bad names?

 

[gaussgunner]

If it was a strategy game like Wesnoth, your mercs would be nameless cannon fodder for the most part. Imagine if it was basically "turn-based Command & Conquer": the mercs would have no individual personalities, only generic lines like "locked 'n' loaded! time to turn up the heat! sir, yes sir!!"

Sure, the role-playing aspect of JA2 is a little light, but this style of TB combat is the hallmark of classic RPGs.

If JA2 isn't an RPG then you'd have to say Shadowrun Returns isn't an RPG either, it's just a tactical wargame with one RPG element: dialogue. Darklands? Certainly not an RPG. Bloodlines? Not even party-based. It's just an FPS with dialogue! Not an RPG!!!!111

 

[Sacred82]

Sure, the role-playing aspect of JA2 is a little light, but this style of TB combat is the hallmark of classic RPGs.

If JA2 isn't an RPG then you'd have to say Shadowrun Returns isn't an RPG either, it's just a tactical wargame with one RPG element: dialogue. Darklands? Certainly not an RPG. Bloodlines? Not even party-based. It's just an FPS with dialogue! Not an RPG!!!!111

How much are you actually playing the protagonist in JA2?

inb4 you aren't your character

 

[RNGsus]

Laptop guy's got no stats. It was solved years ago, people.

He's got the money though, and that's ultimate stats.

 

[octavius]

Laptop guy's got no stats. It was solved years ago, people.

Why must a CRPG revolve around a protagonist, or main character?

Wizardry, Bard's Tale, Might&Magic, Gold Box games; they all had characters that were interchangeable, and you could always get new adventurers from the Adventurer's Guild in Wizardry and BT if your party was wiped out.

 

[mondblut]

Bloodlines? Not even party-based. It's just an FPS with dialogue! Not an RPG!!!!111

That's not far from truth, you know.

Regardless, JA2 plays more similar to modern day-set D&D derivatives (Twilight 2000 comes to mind) than most "undisputed" CRPGs, and that settles it.

 

[mondblut]

Wizardry, Bard's Tale, Might&Magic, Gold Box games; they all had characters that were interchangeable, and you could always get new adventurers from the Adventurer's Guild in Wizardry and BT if your party was wiped out.

JA2 makes a step further and provides a laptop guy for your laptop guy.

 

[JarlFrank]

Sure, the role-playing aspect of JA2 is a little light, but this style of TB combat is the hallmark of classic RPGs.

If JA2 isn't an RPG then you'd have to say Shadowrun Returns isn't an RPG either, it's just a tactical wargame with one RPG element: dialogue. Darklands? Certainly not an RPG. Bloodlines? Not even party-based. It's just an FPS with dialogue! Not an RPG!!!!111

How much are you actually playing the protagonist in JA2?

inb4 you aren't your character

I always assumed the character I created myself in the beginning is "me".

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

Sure, the role-playing aspect of JA2 is a little light, but this style of TB combat is the hallmark of classic RPGs.

If JA2 isn't an RPG then you'd have to say Shadowrun Returns isn't an RPG either, it's just a tactical wargame with one RPG element: dialogue. Darklands? Certainly not an RPG. Bloodlines? Not even party-based. It's just an FPS with dialogue! Not an RPG!!!!111

How much are you actually playing the protagonist in JA2?

inb4 you aren't your character

I always assumed the character I created myself in the beginning is "me".

Really? I never did. Mainly because win/loss states or gameplay doesn't change based on him living or not.

Basically - you can kill that character off, but you still can manage the company. If he was the MC I feel like that would be impossible upon his termination.

 

[JarlFrank]

I never let her die and reloaded when she did

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

My favorite part of Jason Liang post is where he considered BG2 and PoE as "RPG lineage" instead of classic RPG.

BG2:EE supports multiplayer gameplay, as does NWN obviously.

In fact, this is yet another way to understand the problem of AoD and other modern rpgs of the decline age. By implementing an over-complicatead skill system, AoD tries to impose a "rule system" on the non-rpg, adventure portion of the gameplay. Even BG2 did not go this far, which is why BG2 outside of combat feels very much like an adventure game (taken to the extreme by PST). This explains why skill systems inherently contradict a game's rpg nature - a classic rpg's adventure gameplay has traditionally not required advanced rule systems. Why saddle a game with unnecessary rules?

.

I assume you’re at least partially talking about AoD’s social skills here, which is a little dumbfounding. Even the original Wasteland had a couple of dialogue skills: bureaucracy and confidence. But the reason to impose rule systems on stuff like dialogue is Fallout. Why shouldn’t social interactions have RPG elements just like combat? Of course your character’s stats should influence what he/she can say and what he/she can get away with in dialogue. That’s the great thing about Arcanum and Bloodlines, too. This obviously exists in PS:T as well, albeit in a simpler form with only your attributes changing the dialogue. PS:T is just linear, but its stat gated content makes it less of an adventure game than either Baldur’s Gate.

The lack of these systems in the Baldur’s Gate series is actually one reason those games always felt somewhat unsatisfying to me. Playing them for long stretches feels like eating lots of cotton candy; each bite may be sweet, but it never really satiates you.

Why introduce role playing elements into social interactions? Because it can create an awesome level of reactivity and replayability, and when done well it’s a lot of fun. You might as well ask why introduce all of these role playing elements into combat?

Anyway, you’re contradicting yourself. If RPGs are defined by advanced rule systems, clearly there’s no tension in applying those systems to more than just combat. Skills don’t make something less of an RPG, they make it less of an adventure game. What you’re talking about here as some kind of fundamental tension is just your personal preference for RPGs that play like adventure games outside of combat.

 

[J_C]

I don't think it is a RPG, but it is indeed one of the best games ever made. It is up there with Thief for me.

 

[spectre]

Laptop guy's got no stats. It was solved years ago, people.

Why must a CRPG revolve around a protagonist, or main character?

Wizardry, Bard's Tale, Might&Magic, Gold Box games; they all had characters that were interchangeable, and you could always get new adventurers from the Adventurer's Guild in Wizardry and BT if your party was wiped out.

Storytelling is important in RPGs and a main character is the easiest way to make a narrative work. Without some form of a story what do you get? A glorified boardgame.

In this case, I think it's a matter of scale. In Wizardy, Might and Magic etc. the party acts in a way as the protagonist.
You go where they go, you see what they see, it's a singular entity. If you were to control multiple groups of adventurers, I am sure you would agree that we're starting to encroach on strategy game territory.

In JA2, you can have multiple squads, you can choose not to generate your custom merc to act as an avatar. Conversely, you can try a minimalistic approach and try to beat the game with a single character.
Perhaps it becomes something of an RPG in such a case, but I have a feeling that it would be borderline larping, and with enough make-believe anything can be an considered an RPG.

 

[gaussgunner]

I'll take "Define RPG" for 200, Alex...

CRPGs are called RPGs because they evolved from PnP RPGs.
The roleplaying is vestigial because computers can't improvise. Story is not roleplay.
They're still RPGs.

If someone made a tabletop version of JA2 there would be no question it's an RPG.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

I'll take "Define RPG" for 200, Alex...

CRPGs are called RPGs because they evolved from PnP RPGs.
The roleplaying is vestigial because computers can't improvise. Story is not roleplay.
They're still RPGs.

If someone made a tabletop version of JA2 there would be no question it's an RPG.

Hold up, if you made a tabletop version of JA2, it would play much, much better as a wargame. Good luck keeping the battlefield straight in your head.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

It is quite literally what it says on the tin:

Alpha Protocol also called itself an RPG on the cover, but wasn't even close to being one.

The German cover of Jagged Alliance 2 called itself "Ein Strategiespiel mit Rollenspiel-Elementen", a strategy game with RPG elements. Though really it's primarily concerned with tactics and secondarily with strategy.

 

[groke]

Alpha Protocol also called itself an RPG on the cover, but wasn't even close to being one.

Funny, the Codex sang a very different tune back in 2010: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/rpg-of-the-year-2010.52717/page-10#post-1467093

 

[Sweeper]

It's a tactical squad based game.
If Jagged Alliance 2 is an RPG so is XCOM or Xenonauts.
Suck it Lilura.

 

[Carpincho Pampeano]

If thinking Jagged Alliance is an RPG game is wrong, i don't wanna be right.

 

[DavidBVal]

You blow up walls to make your own door into places. You murder enemies and then vultures eat them days later. If that's not an RPG, I don't get what you people want from life.