Roleplaying Games for Role Playing's Sake

[sageoftruth]

I recently discovered Strat-Edgy on Youtube. In a nutshell, he's someone who likes RPGs, but prioritizes immersion and actual role playing above all else.
Lately, watching his videos made me realize that I've always wanted to completely slip into another character while gaming. Whenever I was tempted to play a game, it was always the idea of using my imagination to become someone else that drew me in. Unfortunately, I've picked up lots of gamer habits that have gotten in the way. Things like worrying about what choices are best gameplay-wise, or doing something out-of-character for 100% completion.

Since last night, I've been mulling over what would be a good game for slipping into a character role, that wouldn't get too bogged down with restrictive gameplay mechanics. A real D&D experience that doesn't require me to assemble a group of buddies and find a dungeon master.

Who else on these forums values games that enable role-playing, and what would you recommend? Feel free to share some past role-playing experiences if you like.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

I would love to do some games with deeper role-playing, I just find I am just put off by turn-based combat and whatnot that tends to come along with it.

I was considering picking up Divinity: Original Sin before the sale ends since the entire thing is coop in a way that matters(disputing decisions and course of action and all that cool stuff) but I have literally nobody willing to try it with me. I guess that's what happens when your friends list is mostly made up of people you met on shooters.

 

[runic knight]

I get that dilemma. As a gamer, you are pulled in different ways than as a roleplayer, and because they often overlap, it is sometimes hard to scratch one itch without overdoing another, so to speak. Best advice I can think of is to find hosted tabletop games online. Sort of does a lot of the work for finding a group of friends though it certainly has problems of its own. I think if you want to pull away from any and all game aspects, you could seek out means of roleplay through text or voice. Maybe improve groups or larp if you want to dive in deep there. Never found a great solution to that myself, though I never had too much problem setting aside the gamer elements either I guess.

 

[The Madman]

I love when rpg give me genuine opportunity to, y'know, roleplay in them. The problem is that very very few really do. Sure you can often make decisions like who lives or dies, between good and evil, who to 'romance' and whatnot but you're very rarely given opportunity to roleplay personality in an rpg. Games where you're given a chance to portray a character not just according to their straightforward decisions, but their rational behind said decisions as well, and to have some reaction accordingly even if it's only a cosmetic one.

How does my character feel? Are they happy with the course this adventure is taking? Why did they make the choice they did?

Being able to answer those questions in-game is exceptionally rare in rpg and the few games that do it well are the ones I tend to most adore. Whenever a new rpg comes out I hope it will be one that allows me that sort of roleplaying.

 

[sanquin]

It's the reason I travel by horse/cart as much as possible in Skyrim. And why I have the campfire and frostfall mods installed. Plus a few more immersion mods.

It's often hard to keep on roleplaying though. Taking the skyrim example again, for instance when you just finished a cave and are almost overweight. So you have two choices, run all the way back and forth on horseback just to unload everything you looted. Or use quick travel and quickly go back to the journey you were making while stumbling upon said cave.

I try to stay in character as much as possible though. And I wish more RPG's went back to focusing on the roleplay part rather than the gameplay part. The fallout series being a good example. Just compare fallout 1/2 to 3/4...

 

[Wrex Brogan]

Dark Souls. No, really, the Souls series of games is a great choice for Roleplaying, since the games are so immersive to begin with, the narrative is vague enough that you can fill in the gaps yourself however you please, and armour sets come down more to 'look like how I want to look' rather than anything stat-related. My buddy and I did a run through Dark Souls 3 as a Black Knight and a Silver Knight journeying together, and I've done another run as a Dual-Shield master simply because the latest DLC had a sweet paired Greatshield weapon I wanted to use.

Other games I've found that are good for role-playing are Fallout: New Vegas, Skyrim, Morrowind, Stardew Valley, Risk of Rain, Salt and Sanctuary, games that don't really give you much of a base-character to work with so you're free to make shit up as you go along. It's harder to do, but it's possible with more character-driven games like Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Horizon Zero Dawn and even shooters like DOOM, since you can still work around the structure they give to role-play like the character you want to.

A side note on something I personally haven't tried, but MMOs are also good for Roleplaying since you kinda just get handed the reins to a character and then can do as you please. I'm just not much of a social roleplayer and don't really feel like trying to get into any RP servers or guilds.