The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition - Obsidian's first-person sci-fi RPG set in a corporate space colony

[rusty_shackleford]

sometimes they're incredibly flimsy.

Vendortron.

 

[Roguey]

sometimes they're incredibly flimsy.

Vendortron.

The meta-reasons for that are solid (players, especially energy weapon players, will always have a shop to buy weapons/ammo from). And it's not like New Vegas lets you destroy any building, so it's internally consistent as well.

 

[Zombra]

Combat is one of the actions allowed in most RPGs. There are some RPGs that decide "Yeah you can fight those who are hostile to you, but you can't initiate hostilities against these select characters for reasons." Sometimes the reasons are completely justifiable, sometimes they're incredibly flimsy.

Meh. Buying goods and services are also in most RPGs. So why can't I sell my mad dentist skillz? How dare they not support my dentist lifestyle. The systems are already there, they just need a little extra development to give me what I want even though it was never, ever an intended part of the game. They're so lazy!

Substitute combat for commerce and serial killer for dentist. And then substitute whatever the fuck any edge case player might want, because they're just as justified.

 

[Cael]

Being able to kill every NPC is a good idea because not everyone has the same morality. For example, if I am roleplaying a lawful good paladin I will seek out and cleanse evil wherever I find it. Not being able to kill an evil NPC -- or even worse, being forced to work with an evil NPC -- would be antithetical to my character's nature.

Being capable of doing something doesn't mean you must or even that you want to do something. Choosing not to do something is as equally as important as choosing to do it, but when there is no choice it is no longer an aspect of your character but something forced upon you by the developers.

This was my biggest gripe about NWN2's OC. Even if you are playing a Lawful Stupid Aasimar Paladin, you can't smite the everloving frakk out of Bishop the second you saved Shandra. That is some grade A bullshit right there.

 

[Grunker]

Here we go again. I'm mad at every RPG that doesn't add a dentistry minigame just because the designers were too "lazy" to support it.

As BLOBERT so eloquently put it back in 2011

A BRO SHGOULD BE ABLE TO KILL OR TALK TO ANY MOTHERFUCKER

THE WORLD SHOULD SEEM LIKE A REAL WORLD BROS THEY COULD DOP THIS SHIT IN THE 80S

Combat is one of the actions allowed in most RPGs. There are some RPGs that decide "Yeah you can fight those who are hostile to you, but you can't initiate hostilities against these select characters for reasons." Sometimes the reasons are completely justifiable, sometimes they're incredibly flimsy.

The world doesn’t seem real due to these factors. Otherwise it loses this realness by being unable to jump, or burn down a house, or whatever else completely arbitrary restriction you want to claim is a fundamental limit on player freedom that destroys verisimilitude.

Like I wrote about Bloodlines, a game sells immersion by being consistent with its fiction contract and adhering strictly to a coherent setting that abides by the rules it tells you are fundamental - if its themes and gameplay are otherwise compelling.

Your belief that one rule is universal to establish verisimilitude is childish, but moreover you can’t explain why it is fundamental as opposed to whatever else might restrict player freedom, which means it is also arbitrary.

If I can steal - why can’t I steal a merchant’s entire inventory?

If I can cast fireballs - why don’t they destroy terrain?

And so on and so forth. It is the Larian or Bethesda definition of “believability”, a kind of hopeless pursuit of 360 degree interaction. And it is meaningless, because it is unachievable and the development cost is quite high compared to the dubious benefits. Ironically, it often leads to a collapse of verisimilitude as the systems that are supposed to approach “realism” has the uncanny valley effect of approaching them so nearly that their unrealness is glaring. Another reason why that school of fiction design is such a waste of time.

If your design benefits a lot from having killable NPCs like New Vegas does, then it’s a good idea to design your game around that. But arguing for that rule as a baseline virtue of any RPG belies a misunderstanding of what creates verisimilitude in the first place, is arbitrary because there is no principal reason for it being chosen as a rule over other things, and thus ultimately logically leads to an unreachable ideal of 360 degree realism for game design.

 

[Justicar]

Meh. Buying goods and services are also in most RPGs. So why can't I sell my mad dentist skillz? How dare they not support my dentist lifestyle. The systems are already there, they just need a little extra development to give me what I want even though it was never, ever an intended part of the game. They're so lazy!

https://witcher.fandom.com/wiki/Won't_Hurt_a_Bit

You can but only in the best rpgs.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Here we go again. I'm mad at every RPG that doesn't add a dentistry minigame just because the designers were too "lazy" to support it.

As BLOBERT so eloquently put it back in 2011

A BRO SHGOULD BE ABLE TO KILL OR TALK TO ANY MOTHERFUCKER

THE WORLD SHOULD SEEM LIKE A REAL WORLD BROS THEY COULD DOP THIS SHIT IN THE 80S

Combat is one of the actions allowed in most RPGs. There are some RPGs that decide "Yeah you can fight those who are hostile to you, but you can't initiate hostilities against these select characters for reasons." Sometimes the reasons are completely justifiable, sometimes they're incredibly flimsy.

The world doesn’t seem real due to these factors. Otherwise it loses this realness by being unable to jump, or burn down a house, or whatever else completely arbitrary restriction you want to claim is a fundamental limit on player freedom that destroys verisimilitude.

Like I wrote about Bloodlines, a game sells immersion by being consistent with its fiction contract and adhering strictly to a coherent setting that abides by the rules it tells you are fundamental - if its themes and gameplay are otherwise compelling.

Your belief that one rule is universal to establish verisimilitude is childish, but moreover you can’t explain why it is fundamental as opposed to whatever else might restrict player freedom, which means it is also arbitrary.

If I can steal - why can’t I steal a merchant’s entire inventory?

If I can cast fireballs - why don’t they destroy terrain?

And so on and so forth. It is the Larian or Bethesda definition of “believability”, a kind of hopeless pursuit of 360 degree interaction. And it is meaningless, because it is unachievable and the development cost is quite high compared to the dubious benefits. Ironically, it often leads to a collapse of verisimilitude as the systems that are supposed to approach “realism” has the uncanny valley effect of approaching them so nearly that their unrealness is glaring. Another reason why that school of fiction design is such a waste of time.

If your design benefits a lot from having killable NPCs like New Vegas does, then it’s a good idea to design your game around that. But arguing for that rule as a baseline virtue of any RPG belies a misunderstanding of what creates verisimilitude in the first place, is arbitrary because there is no principal reason for it being chosen as a rule over other things, and thus ultimately logically leads to an unreachable ideal of 360 degree realism for game design.

You're arguing from the POV where combat isn't the basis of RPGs therefore your entire argument is wrong.
Destructible terrains and stealing a merchant's inventory aren't the basis of an RPG, killing things is.

 

[Grunker]

Here we go again. I'm mad at every RPG that doesn't add a dentistry minigame just because the designers were too "lazy" to support it.

As BLOBERT so eloquently put it back in 2011

A BRO SHGOULD BE ABLE TO KILL OR TALK TO ANY MOTHERFUCKER

THE WORLD SHOULD SEEM LIKE A REAL WORLD BROS THEY COULD DOP THIS SHIT IN THE 80S

Combat is one of the actions allowed in most RPGs. There are some RPGs that decide "Yeah you can fight those who are hostile to you, but you can't initiate hostilities against these select characters for reasons." Sometimes the reasons are completely justifiable, sometimes they're incredibly flimsy.

The world doesn’t seem real due to these factors. Otherwise it loses this realness by being unable to jump, or burn down a house, or whatever else completely arbitrary restriction you want to claim is a fundamental limit on player freedom that destroys verisimilitude.

Like I wrote about Bloodlines, a game sells immersion by being consistent with its fiction contract and adhering strictly to a coherent setting that abides by the rules it tells you are fundamental - if its themes and gameplay are otherwise compelling.

Your belief that one rule is universal to establish verisimilitude is childish, but moreover you can’t explain why it is fundamental as opposed to whatever else might restrict player freedom, which means it is also arbitrary.

If I can steal - why can’t I steal a merchant’s entire inventory?

If I can cast fireballs - why don’t they destroy terrain?

And so on and so forth. It is the Larian or Bethesda definition of “believability”, a kind of hopeless pursuit of 360 degree interaction. And it is meaningless, because it is unachievable and the development cost is quite high compared to the dubious benefits. Ironically, it often leads to a collapse of verisimilitude as the systems that are supposed to approach “realism” has the uncanny valley effect of approaching them so nearly that their unrealness is glaring. Another reason why that school of fiction design is such a waste of time.

If your design benefits a lot from having killable NPCs like New Vegas does, then it’s a good idea to design your game around that. But arguing for that rule as a baseline virtue of any RPG belies a misunderstanding of what creates verisimilitude in the first place, is arbitrary because there is no principal reason for it being chosen as a rule over other things, and thus ultimately logically leads to an unreachable ideal of 360 degree realism for game design.

You're arguing from the POV where combat isn't the basis of RPGs therefore your entire argument is wrong.

No, I'm not. I fully suspected the argument that Roguey's rule only applies to the core mechanics of an RPG - that is, "no no, we're only arguing that this player freedom must exist in terms of the mechanics that are in the game."

Hence why I used the example of stealing a merchant's entire inventory if there's thievery in the game, or destroying terrain with fireballs.

And it's not like these examples are hard to come up with, you can produce them endlessly, even within the confines of established game mechanics.

Destructible terrains and stealing a merchant's inventory aren't the basis of an RPG, killing things is.

Thievery is a part of many RPGs. How does your example differ from being able to pickpocket someone, but having no access to stealing a merchant's inventory?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

No, I'm not. I fully suspected the argument that Roguey's rule only applies to the core mechanics of an RPG - that is, "no no, we're only arguing that this player freedom must exist in terms of the mechanics that are in the game."

Hence why I used the example of stealing a merchant's entire inventory if there's thievery in the game, or destroying terrain with fireballs.

And it's not like these examples are hard to come up with, you can produce them endlessly, even within the confines of established game mechanics.

the core mechanics of an RPG are character customization, character advancement, and killing things.
Arguably looting too, therefore the one about shopkeepers has some merit.

So, yes, you should be able to kill everything. Because choosing not to kill things is an important part of an RPG and defines who your character is. Deciding to destroy terrain or not with a fireball has nothing to do with an RPG.

 

[Grunker]

Don't you see the absurdity your argument is leading you to? To sustain it, you must argue that "who not to kill" is a more core and interesting, character-defining choice than whatever else a designer might dream up in their vision. That's such a limiting and strange approach to entertainment

 

[jackofshadows]

I sense some serious murder-hobo discrimination vibes. Also inability to steal the entire inventory is an odd argument, some RPGs allows that, Fallout comes to mind first so those who copy their design like ATOM team copy that aspect as well. I've seen some Trudograd beta-testers asking devs about whether it worth to keep such a game-breaking feature.

 

[Grunker]

Most games I enjoy in nowadays are murder hobo games. But now that you mention it, most strict murder hobo games - that is, RPGs that are strictly about combat, typically have unkillable NPCs. You might even say it's a staple of the murderhobo genre. It's the case for many blobbers and many tactical combat RPGs.

Also inability to steal the entire inventory is an odd argument, some RPGs allows tha

Why is it an odd argument because some RPGs are doing it? :S

Unless you think I'm arguing that RPGs shouldn't allow you to kill all RPGs or steal from a merchant's inventory, in which case I think you should re-read my posts.

 

[Zombra]

the core mechanics of an RPG are character customization, character advancement, and killing things.
So, yes, you should be able to kill everything.

And you should be able to customize your character to be anything, especially a dentist. That's your logic, not mine.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

the core mechanics of an RPG are character customization, character advancement, and killing things.
So, yes, you should be able to kill everything.

And you should be able to customize your character to be anything, especially a dentist. That's your logic, not mine.

If that's your background, sure.
But don't expect an RPG to actually let you be a dentist because they're about combat.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Don't you see the absurdity your argument is leading you to? To sustain it, you must argue that "who not to kill" is a more core and interesting, character-defining choice than whatever else a designer might dream up in their vision. That's such a limiting and strange approach to entertainment

But it is a core choice in an RPG?
Choosing not to kill the bad guy is just as important of a choice as killing the bad guy.

 

[Zombra]

Don't you see the absurdity your argument is leading you to? To sustain it, you must argue that "who not to kill" is a more core and interesting, character-defining choice than whatever else a designer might dream up in their vision. That's such a limiting and strange approach to entertainment

But it is a core choice in an RPG?
Choosing not to kill the bad guy is just as important of a choice as killing the bad guy.

Are we talking about killing bad guys? Or killing anything under the sun because we don't like its haircut?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Don't you see the absurdity your argument is leading you to? To sustain it, you must argue that "who not to kill" is a more core and interesting, character-defining choice than whatever else a designer might dream up in their vision. That's such a limiting and strange approach to entertainment

But it is a core choice in an RPG?
Choosing not to kill the bad guy is just as important of a choice as killing the bad guy.

Are we talking about killing bad guys? Or killing anything under the sun because we don't like its haircut?

Who the "bad guy" is depends entirely on your character's POV.

 

[Grunker]

Don't you see the absurdity your argument is leading you to? To sustain it, you must argue that "who not to kill" is a more core and interesting, character-defining choice than whatever else a designer might dream up in their vision. That's such a limiting and strange approach to entertainment

But it is a core choice in an RPG?

No, but neither is the choice of whether to kill all npcs or not

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Don't you see the absurdity your argument is leading you to? To sustain it, you must argue that "who not to kill" is a more core and interesting, character-defining choice than whatever else a designer might dream up in their vision. That's such a limiting and strange approach to entertainment

But it is a core choice in an RPG?

No, but neither is the choice of whether to kill all npcs or not

It's not "kill all", it's "kill each"

 

[Zombra]

Who the "bad guy" is depends entirely on your character's POV.

No. CRPGs pretty much always define very clearly who the bad guys are.

I generally agree that RPGs are "about" combat. However, this conversation started because Roguey posited that the reasonable expectation is that this extends to murder. Blowing away a shopkeeper because you don't like their style, or you think it's funny to commit lethal crimes against the innocent, has nothing to do with "combat" or anything else that CRPGs are "about".

You know what else RPGs are generally "about"? Heroism. Solving problems, protecting the innocent etc. Stopping the evil wizard from destroying the world. This is baked in just as fundamentally to the settings as combat is to the mechanics, and you can't argue for one while conveniently ignoring the other. You can cherry pick counterexamples where evil options exist, but I guarantee I can pick a lot more examples where attacking noncombatants isn't allowed.

Roguey outright admitted that what he really wants and expects is a power fantasy ... in his case the fantasy isn't protecting the weak or saving the kingdom, but murdering folks who remind him of his real world prejudices for laffs. Haw haw I beat up that [gender/race/ideology] I want to torture in real life. It's pretty sick shit if you ask me, and I bet very few developers would agree that it's a valid interpretation of what their games are "about".

 

[Grunker]

Who cares about all these side discussion about what is murder and what is not. The relevant thing here is whether the implementation of the player's ability to murder every NPC is crucial to a good RPG experience or not - or at least, whether its implementation is universally worth the development effort no matter what cRPG you are making.

To that point, I have yet to see a single argument in favor of this being the case. The sole argument instead relies on it being a necessity for verisimiltude or the enshrinement of player choice, and that argument seems fragile at best given the multiple examples of the opposite.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

but murdering folks who remind him of his real world prejudices for laffs. Haw haw I beat up that [gender/race/ideology] I want to torture in real life.

This is basically the definition of games like Outerworlds, except it's ok because the people we're killing are bad because they do capitalism. Haw haw I beat up the [gender/race/ideology] I want to torture in real life because the designers made them a strawman!
At least half of modern RPGs have examples like this. Dragonfall Humanis mission, anyone?

Who cares about all these side discussion about what is murder and what is not. The relevant thing here is whether the implementation of the player's ability to murder every NPC is crucial to a good RPG experience or not - or at least, whether its implementation is universally worth the development effort no matter what cRPG you are making.

To that point, I have yet to see a single argument in favor of this being the case. The sole argument relies on it being a necessity for verisimiltude or the enshrinement of player choice, and both arguments seem fragile at best.

The argument is that what my character thinks is good and what your character thinks is good and what the designer thinks is good will rarely, if ever, mesh.

That was the entire argument from the beginning since the Avellone quote.

Players should be able to play an RPG the way they want, and they don’t need my moral judgments getting in the way of how they have fun. I also am not a fan of pre-determined attitudes and alignments for players-my hope is that at the end of the game, they’ve answered the question, “What kind of character am I really, and how did that depart from what I thought I would be?” I always considered Torment a sort of role-player’s experiment, where each incarnation of the Nameless One had the potential to be a different personality and a different type of gamer, depending on the choices he made in the game world. It’s echoed a bit in Alpha Protocol at the end of game with Leland, where he asks if you became the person you set out to be when you joined the agency, and it’s something I like to keep asking players when possible because moments of self-reflection never hurt.

As combat is the de facto tool of argument resolution and problem solving in RPGs it therefore is the most sensible solution to allow players to kill NPCs they don't like.

 

[Grunker]

And like I said, you could argue for the implementation of many systems of that account. Again, the question is not whether killable NPCs is virtuous - all player freedom that doesn't break the fiction contract is, more or less - it is whether it is worth the cost to implement.

If there is 0 cost I completely agree that it should always be implemented, because why not.

My entire point since we began this discussion was that given how little you actually use the system and how little value it brings, it is an odd system for so many Codexers to choose as one of the fundamental tenets that must be in all RPGs.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

And like I said, you could argue for the implementation of many systems of that account.

No, you couldn't.

As combat is the de facto tool of argument resolution and problem solving in RPGs it therefore is the most sensible solution to allow players to kill NPCs they don't like.

RPGs are not storybooks, they are not racing games, they are not dating simulators.

My entire point since we began this discussion was that given how little you actually use the system and how little value it brings, it is an odd system for so many Codexers to choose as one of the fundamental tenets that must be in all RPGs.

Must be nice to always side with the designers 100% of the time and never think they made a horrible decision in favoring a terrible character.
Again:
It is not about killing every character, it is about the choice of being able to kill each character. If you play a game where everyone can be killed and chose to kill a single character the designers otherwise wouldn't have wanted you to kill, then congratulations, you used the system.

Tell me, who did you kill in FNV? How would your experience be different if the designers arbitrarily decided those characters are actually immortal?

 

[Zarniwoop]

Yes I promise you it is true. TOW is that bad.

Not even close.

TOW sucks because there's nothing good about it except being polished. Andromederp doesn't even have that, it's still buggy AF after years of patching. It's so bad even die-hard Bioware LARPers that cream themselves over Tali fanfics, hate it.