[kevanjosh]

- 19 Jul 2023 04:33 #216532 I've noticed that a lot of games call themselves RPGs without having an actual focus on roleplay, making it very hard to find games that fit what im looking for.

As a quick example, Eve Online is a game that focuses on roleplay because the mechanics make you behave in a way that's realistic. Eve feels like an actual world and there's an immersion there that's not found in other games I've played. Do any of you have any recommendations?

[SKyTheThunder]

- 19 Jul 2023 05:45 #216533 A lot of that comes down to what exactly you define as "RPG". Technically any game where you embody one specific character in a narrative can be considered an RPG, because your're playing the role of said character in that world. On the other hand there are classic RPG gameplay elements like character customization and complex skill progression that are often associated with the term.

Something like Eve Online falls under the open world sandbox category from what I know. Things like DayZ come to mind in that corner.

Not really something you can accomplish with games that focus on PvE though. The necessary depth and complexity required for the world to react to your decision making in a natural way is beyond what pre-defined AI can do. And when attempting to create such a system you'll quickly run into resource constraints with all actions causing overlapping ripple-effects that affect pretty much everything in some way...
For such complexity you need to mainly rely on player interaction - which is really hard to predict and balance around, especially if you want to avoid creating too many restrictions.

Have you tried getting into Pen&Paper RPGs? There the Game Master can react dynamically to everything you do and create a world you can interact with in a realistic way. If necessary you can even give immediate direct feedback on what does and doesn't work for your immersion in your role and potentially adjust the game mechanics.