Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
It's not that are players are "resistant to change" it's that Obsidian is resistant to risk. Changing things up requires courage and risk. If you don't want to take the risk just STFU about being able to do much more, because the fact is you can't do more if you don't want to risk anything.
I respectfully disagree on both counts.
Big choices that effect the overarching story or world are more of a modern addition(a good one I might add) and not confined to RPGs. Traditionally the biggest decisions in an RPG have been in regards to your character with the success of smaller choices dependent on your stats and how well your choices mesh with that. In old P&P RPGs the story was always set and what mattered was the strength and weakness of characters/party and how well their strengths were utilized.
The only way a set PC works in an RPG is if it's a starting point, if you can't change the character your playing a character not a role and I would argue it's not an RPG by definition. The Witcher games are a great example of an established PC that still allows the player to fit it to their play style or change things up; you can focus on combat, signs, alchemy, or some sort of hybrid and those choices change how you play the game.
I would also argue that "role playing" requires us to be able to identify with the character and limited customization makes that less likely; I know I'd have a hard time relating to a militant vegan, anti-vaxxer, hindu\christian\muslim\jewish\buddhist, nazi, ISIS, flat earther, hooker player character(well maybe the last part because who hasn't done something they regret for money).
So every Tell-tell game is a RPG?
I would set two groundwork arguments about Obsidian and their "definition" claim.
1. Obsidian is tired of making cookie-cutter RPG fare, and further taking outsourcing jobs from established IPs which further cement their position in the industry is hurting their image.
Think the movie 'The Other Guys' in which Mark Walburg's character yells, "I'm a peacock; you gotta let me fly!" I think Obsidian is just b*** and moaning about the very hole they dug themselves into. After they broke away from Bioware to form their own company, Obsidian accepted the role as 2nd fiddle to said company and take any job thrown their way.
2. Obsidian wants to broaden the accepted definition of what an RPG is and means when the term is used.
From the comments here I feel a lot of people want to coin a game an RPG because it has RPG elements. Yet, the core is an adventure game or shooter. I honestly say the closest a game came to losing its RPG tag in an effort to "blend" elements was Mass Effect 1. Sorry, ME2 and 3 were adventure games with RPG elements.
Games like Horizon:ZD, Zelda, Tell Tale: Name a Game, etc that focus on static story A~Z, exploration, or choose-your-own-adventure story telling are adventure games. Hell it's there is the story telling identification. An RPG such as some have mentioned above focus on character growth not only through narrative but through bonding with the observer through attachment of character. This is achieved by customization. In the earliest days it was YES pen-and-paper DnD style that eventually evolved into video games.
Movies and music do this bonding through emotional manipulation and philosophical agreement. Given video game's form of interactive nature it has to be more than just emotional or philosophical. It breaks down to human nature and how we judge outcomes of effort. Movies and music = zero effort, so internalize the reward. Video games = minimal to total effort, so externalize the reward.
All adventure games = choose your own adventure
Assume a role, choose plot path, pick up whatever is thrown at your for inventory, follow story to the end.
RPG games = open story telling and character growth
Create a role to insert into the story world, react to story and plot developments to further expand the development of the overarching story,
Sorry, I could go on forever and type out a dissertation on this subject. Even GDC has had entire panels devoted to this very topic. Work calls and I have to earn a paycheck now. Keep the discussion going though, it is nice to see different viewpoints on the topic.
That's essentially the problem people have with his sentiment. It's like when the Mass Effect (I think) dev bitched about how having to have combat in the game was getting in the way of "muh story". It's not that a RPG with different gameplay is impossible, it's that the product we're sold will just have gameplay take a back seat. Those sorts of devs should just go write books or films.Alpha Protocol, which most people praised the dialogue and choices but lament the actual gameplay.
At what point is a game no longer an RPG game?
This is like bitching that FPS games could be so much more but people think FPS game should be first person and involve shooting things. Think of how better that games could be if they were 3rd person tactical games that involved more stealth and less shooting.
If you remove stats and hit points from a game then what you have isn't an RPG game, it is an adventure game.