I was inspired to make this thread while I was re-watching Yahtzee's bit on World of Warcraft, specifically the part where he talks about games being all about numbers instead of whether your sword of doom aesthetically clashes with your elite boss clogs.
In real life, if I was trying to pull together some friends to make a soccer team, it's not like I could know that Johnny has a Strength 6 and Speed 4, and Suzie has Strength 3 and Intelligence 8. Instead, I have to make inferences based on observing and interacting with them, and even then I might be wrong - Suzie might be stronger than Johnny even if he looks bigger.
Would you play an RPG that functioned the same way?
Obviously the numbers would still have to exist to do the necessary calculations behind the scenes, but they wouldn't be revealed to the player. You wouldn't know how good your "One-Handed Melee" skill really is until you start practicing with a sword, or how high your Charisma is until NPCs replied to you in a way that suggested that, perhaps, you really are a huge dick. You wouldn't know that shield A is better than shield B from numbers, but rather from common sense and gameplay experience: "Well, everyone knows wood is weaker than steel, so the steel shield is likely stronger. But I've also noticed from playing the game that my character moves slower with the steel shield, so maybe I should use the wooden shield if I want a skirmisher-type character."
To me, this system better captures the essence of "role-playing" a character than what we currently have. Because what we currently have encourages power-leveling and max-DPS spec-builds and all kinds of other ridiculous shit, like putting together giant statistical spreadsheets and complex formulas (people do this all the time, especially for WoW). So you're not so much selling an experience for players, but more of a challenge to see who can level their stats the fastest or most efficiently by best exploiting the game's mechanics.
EDIT: my "yes - no" poll got eaten somehow
In real life, if I was trying to pull together some friends to make a soccer team, it's not like I could know that Johnny has a Strength 6 and Speed 4, and Suzie has Strength 3 and Intelligence 8. Instead, I have to make inferences based on observing and interacting with them, and even then I might be wrong - Suzie might be stronger than Johnny even if he looks bigger.
Would you play an RPG that functioned the same way?
Obviously the numbers would still have to exist to do the necessary calculations behind the scenes, but they wouldn't be revealed to the player. You wouldn't know how good your "One-Handed Melee" skill really is until you start practicing with a sword, or how high your Charisma is until NPCs replied to you in a way that suggested that, perhaps, you really are a huge dick. You wouldn't know that shield A is better than shield B from numbers, but rather from common sense and gameplay experience: "Well, everyone knows wood is weaker than steel, so the steel shield is likely stronger. But I've also noticed from playing the game that my character moves slower with the steel shield, so maybe I should use the wooden shield if I want a skirmisher-type character."
To me, this system better captures the essence of "role-playing" a character than what we currently have. Because what we currently have encourages power-leveling and max-DPS spec-builds and all kinds of other ridiculous shit, like putting together giant statistical spreadsheets and complex formulas (people do this all the time, especially for WoW). So you're not so much selling an experience for players, but more of a challenge to see who can level their stats the fastest or most efficiently by best exploiting the game's mechanics.
EDIT: my "yes - no" poll got eaten somehow
