Do you powergame or roleplay?

[Luis Antonio]

[QUOTE=moltovir]Major story spoilers!
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If you would really roleplay, the game would be insanely hard. Who cares about Trademeet or the Umar Hills if your sister is in danger? Who cares about returning to a fancy stronghold to help some poor farmers if you need the Rhynn Lanthorn to save Suldanesselar and beat your archenemy Irenicus? True roleplayers would exit Chateau Irenicus, pay whatever side they want, do the quests and part for Brynnlaw immediatly, take the quickest route into the Underdark, and thereafter directly get the Lantorn to get to Suldanesselar. They would probably die 10 times per minute, but that's what i call true roleplay [/QUOTE]

Done that already. And do it often. Best way to play, for sure. Even better with some mods installed (with tactics it gets impossible, or near that, got that once with LOTS of cheese) but the get the lantorn and fight Irenicus right away is not something I'd call "sane". I do the udd, get Sola, usually, and head to the docks to complete the equalizer (I almost everytime use the equalizer).

I dont like to powergame. Thats why, when I select to be an evil char, I dismiss Jaheira and Minsc and get along only with Yoshimo and Immy - not that I like her much, cz I'm evil, but she is my sister, after all.

[nephtu]

Bzztt! WRONG!

[QUOTE=moltovir] -SNIP-
True roleplayers would -SNIP-[/QUOTE]

This is the whole problem with the "roleplay" designation. Once you start with "A true roleplayer would.." or "A real paladin wouldn't..." or "A real super-duper extra double plus mean'n'evil half-orc assassin would never..." you run into problems, IMAO - in point of fact, real people often act in complex, contrary and unpredictable ways, not like the simplistic cardboard characterisations that typically come from derivative movies and books. Sadly, these reflex machine expectations tend to define roleplay oriented actions, leading to a banal and vapid experience of Snidely Whiplash vs. Dudley Doright

Again, a large part of the problem is the stupid and horrendously silly DnDalignment system. Virtually no-one - except the odd pimply goth vampire wannabe - considers themselves evil, and chaos and law are even less real to people's actions. People DO align themselves with groups, however.

There are issues about using cheese, exploits, and "out-of-character" knowledge, but they're a whole different ball of wax, completely independent of the roleplay issues.

Ok, I'm done my rant and I feel better now. Good gaming to all!

[The Jester]

I do roleplay.Because its not necessary to be powerful such as a group with Korgan and Edwin.Im sure it is possible to finish any game with any character(such as soloing a druid).In Bg1 im sure there is a way to beat sarevok with Tiax,Quayle,Skie,Eldoth,Garrick and a druid protagonist.Because otherwise these characters wouldnt exist.So to answer your question, i do roleplay.

-Oh God!-Garrick

[Brynn]

[QUOTE=nephtu]This is the whole problem with the "roleplay" designation. Once you start with "A true roleplayer would.." or "A real paladin wouldn't..." or "A real super-duper extra double plus mean'n'evil half-orc assassin would never..." you run into problems[/QUOTE]

I never think "What would a real mage do now?". I always choose what the real ME would choose in that situation. I don't really care about abilities (e.g. a mage would probably not try fighting with melee weapons, but if I feel like trying out myself, why not?), I'd rather play according to my chatoic character (which is the same in life, I have to tell... Decide whether it's good or not )

BTW, to play a "perfect mage" assumes that you have read all the books and stuff about the Realms, and know perfectly well how a mage described there would act - but that's already written, so who cares?

[glenfar]

Personally, I agree with Nephtu that everybody is a little different, and you can't say 'they must do this ...' just because that's the stereotype. As for rushing out after Imoen as soon as possible, I can see a couple other factors that might effect that.

For one, you're entire party was captured by Irenicus, and you've only just escaped from his prison ... You've just watched him blow away shadow thieves and cowled mages like they were flies ... Don't you think there's going to be a bit of fear? It might take awhile (i.e: a few quests) before you feel enough confidence to go after him.

Second, the Shadow Thieves are bad people ('evil' if you like - although as Nepthu said, the alignment system doesn't really make sense). You probably don't want to rush into an alliance with them - could be because you don't want to be associated with them, you don't want to give them any help, or you just don't trust them. So you might look elsewhere first, before finally admitting that you need their help to get Imoen back.

I could easily see doing quest's like Umar Hills, de'Arnise Keep, Unseeing Eye, Skinner murders and Planar Sphere in the hopes that the Nobles/Church/Government/Wizards might be able to help you get Imoen back. (Of course we know that's pointless, but your character doesn't)

[Locke Da'averan]

havent played tob so don't know the end, but my goal through the whole saga was to obtain the most über powerful items there is, and become as close to omnipotent as you can so that i can watch some feeble demon trying to hit me and then obliterate him in couple of whacks. I don't cheat, well i might use some cheese like abuse poor AI to win battles..(i played SoA through 3 times with my custom party with the cap remover, on the third time through words "i got the power" came to mind while slaying everything within seconds, yep it was kinda boring but strangely relaxing when you don't have to wonder what tactic to use to kill some dragon. just go in whack whack whack and get carsomyr.. It was fun but then i got bored with the game for awhile and now i've misplaced my 2nd disc so i can't install it again..

[me0w]

nephtu - I have to agree with pretty much everything you said.

Personally the way I've always played games was that I was going to try to become as powerfull as I could, If I killed good people for good items or more experience, I would.

My characters in BG have nearly always been evil. ToB aligned my character as Lawfull Evil, which is what I do. I will sacrifice anything to gain more power. Now you may want to call that cheese, but hey, thats just me. I would (if in a medievil time, where I had no hope of getting a good job) kill everything, sell out anyone and take on any quest I could. Because that would be all I cared about.

In #2 I forgot about Imoen... I never liked her. Who cares if she is my sister, she was too much hassle, I only went after Irenicus because I wanted him dead for torturing me, but I would wait forever if I knew there were more quests to take, people to kill and money to be made.

For me, the moment you start to precast before battles your "powerplaying", doing anything else, really isn't. You can run half way through battles, using your boots of speed, stealth, and return to backstab your enemy, and thats not cheating, its common sense (although its not particuly fun).

My party always had Edwin and Korgan, they had great dialogues, and were just good characters I also took Minsc, he was cool, Aeries was a good character too. In the end, I took who I liked, then went by how powerfull they were. What kind of person is gonna take somebody they hate, just because of similar alignments, and who isn't gonna take people they do like and are powerfull, just because of oposing alignments?

Also, you can never truely be yourself in a game, you will always try to be who you want to be. Which is fine, but its never "really" you.

Well, I hope this rant made atleast some sense.

[Locke Da'averan]

[QUOTE=me0w]
Also, you can never truely be yourself in a game, you will always try to be who you want to be. Which is fine, but its never "really" you.
[/QUOTE]

exactly, i mean when you ran across IE a beholder who's threatening some innocent children and if it were my neck on the line i'd run so fast to the other way.. but in a game i'd try to save them, 'cause i get cudos from their parents who are hopefully rich/give some very nice eq as a reward..

[UserUnfriendly]

I cheat...I powergame...I cheese...

therefore i roleplay...

i mean a character in real life tends to go after as much power and skills and weapons as possible if you're going dragon hunting, or lich stomping, or demon baiting...

[Xandax]

I normally semi-powerplay in single player Baldurs Gate.
I say semi-powerplay, because I don't want to become the most powerfull I can be per se, which means I'll not export/import to reach XP cap, or use any XP cheats/exploit etc.

However - what it does mean is that I use meta-knowlegde (it is very hard to not do in most circumstances).
This means I try to get the equipment that I want, when I can. I prepare myself for fights because I know the will come and what I should do. I'll also do unlawfull things with my lawfull characters simply because I know what to expect.

But multiplayer is a different matter - in any cRPG game (except MMORPGs) - then I roleplay extreemly. I try to avoid using meta knowlegde, I try to act as I expect my character (not me - importent difference) would in-game and so on. I do however find Baldurs Gate extreemly boring in multiplayer.

[Vicsun]

I rolegame. Does that count?

[me0w]

Just wandering, when you say multiplayer, you mean not soloing?

Or playing online... I never understood playing on line, it says I need to export a character, but won't let me select from my export list, I just don't get it. And what happens when you play online, do you clock the game with friends?

[Sir Redweed]

Definately role play. I generally use a paladin as my main char and if played properly it limits your choices in situations. I will never allow evil members into party which rules out some strong characters. I've actually considered playing an evil main character and trying to play the exact opposite of my norm. These choices make the game more fun because most parties no mater what composition can achieve endgame.

What doesn't kill you will make you stronger!

[Brynn]

[QUOTE=me0w]Just wandering, when you say multiplayer, you mean not soloing?

Or playing online... I never understood playing on line, it says I need to export a character, but won't let me select from my export list, I just don't get it. And what happens when you play online, do you clock the game with friends?[/QUOTE]

Meow, "multiplayer" is for playing online. When you play on your own at home, it's "single player", even if you instruct a whole party.

It's not that hard to do. You just have to start a game (inviting your friends to join by MSN, for example), generate a character just like you'd do when starting a normal, single player game - if you want to use a character that already exists, you have to click "Import" and then choose from the list of your character file. Then you wait for the others to join, and when the player characters' list appears you can assign different permissions to each player.

But you can try it when you're alone as well, that way you can have more than one PCs directed by you. Choose multiplayer, and when the character list appears simply choose several chars and assign all the permissions to yourself.

Playing online is a great fun NPCs are great, of course, but friends can be even more entertaining and it's also useful if you play with more experienced players. That way you can learn a lot (However, I found that playing with others takes much more time that palying on my own... It takes a while until we discuss where to go, what to sell and what to do next... Butit's fun anyway).