After playing Baldur’s Gate 3 for just about two weeks now, I’ve come to realize something. This is the first true role playing game I’ve played in a very long time. I feel like the genre of role playing games, or RPGs, has really gotten confused about what that term was originally suppose to mean. RPGs are meant to be games where you get to pick what role you want to play. Your choices should feel like they matter and are being picked for a reason that isn’t just getting more dialog or information. The character you play is meant to be your own. But very rarely is this actually the case with RPGs and after playing so much of an amazing RPG, that’s starting to kind of annoy me.

I feel like there are two types of games that often get labelled as RPGs nowadays. Games that are actually trying to have a role playing experience and then games that people don’t really know how else to classify so they are just called RPGs. These games tend to be ones that involve leveling up your character and picking different stats and choices like that. I’m talking about games like Final Fantasy which never really had this aspect of role playing but since there is some choice involved in what you do with your characters it gets labelled an RPG anyways. Like it baffles me that some people call games like Dark Souls RPGs because you get to pick what kind of character you want to play and what kind of play style you’d like to have. But that’s not what an RPG is, that’s not you playing a certain role or feeling like you are really affecting the world with your choices, it’s just player freedom! And nothing is wrong with that. I don’t even have a problem with games like these, I just feel that they shouldn’t be labelled RPGs. But until we find a better term for these kinds of games I guess we’ll have to keep calling them that. And that’s not really what I want to talk about either! It’s just something I feel needs mentioning before moving on. What I really want to talk about are the RPGs that do try and give you choice or pretend that your choices matter only to completely lack that feeling of role playing. Because those are the ones that I find to be somewhat offensive to the term RPG.

Not all RPGs of this style are bad though. I’d classify games like Persona and Cyberpunk 2077 as these kinds of RPGs and I love both those games! But they also never really tried to truly capture that role playing element. You can tackle things in different ways in each game, especially Cyberpunk, but they don’t try and act like a choice you made at the start of the game will have a massive impact on your ending or overall experience in ways beyond giving you a different quest later or something. Well… Cyberpunk did, but that was at the start of development when they clearly had bigger dreams for the game before pulling that back but I digress! No, it’s the games that attempt that last part, that “All your choices matter and you’re a massive player in this world” and fall flat, those are the games that get under my skin the most. And I’d say the two biggest offenders in that regard have to be Mass Effect and just about every Bethesda RPG.

Now to give credit where credit is due, I will say that Mass Effect certainly tried really hard to make good on the ‘all your choices matter’ promise. It helps a lot that you can bring your save file from Mass Effect 1 into the sequel and then into Mass Effect 3. Meaning certain choices do follow you throughout the series. And while the fate of some characters change depending on your choices, the actual ending itself comes down to one choice with three different options right at the end of the third game and that’s it. I probably don’t even need to talk much about this given how upset everyone was at the time. That ending managed to ruin the entire series for some people. And while I personal wouldn’t go that far, I can at least understand why people would feel that way. After all it was years of build up after all these choices and in the end none of it really matters. That’s going to sting really really hard. But beyond that, the other way the series fails as an RPG is in the fact that it doesn’t feel like you’re really able to make Shepard, the main character of the series, your own. It never feels like you’re making choices on what you, the player, think. And that’s all thanks to the Paragon and Renegade system.

The Paragon and Renegade system is a morality system in the Mass Effect games. Paragon options, which are highlighted in blue, are ‘good’ options. While Renegade options, highlighted in red, are ‘evil’ options. Now while I don’t think it’s inherently wrong to clearly show the player how their choice will be seen by everyone around, it’s the fact that once you decide to be a ‘good’ or ‘evil’ Shepard, all other options don’t matter.

To even be able to pick certain dialog options you must have enough Paragon or Renegade points, which you’d obviously get from making choices earlier in the game. And late in the game, these choices can mean a lot, they can determine if characters live or die sometimes! Meaning you are far better off just picking to be Paragon or Renegade before you even start the game, meaning you don’t pick your choices based on what you actually think but if they are blue or red! And even if you were wanting to play a ‘good’ character, wouldn’t it be more fitting and rewarding to pick choices you personally thought were good or ‘right’ from the options rather than just going with what the game tells you? That would be far more in line with a true role playing experience, picking what you want to go with for that playthrough instead of letting the game tell you. It also goes to show you just how shallow these options really are in the end. By needing to show that some dialog options are good or evil it shows that’s the only way to do things and it shows that this is how you’re suppose to be feel about these choices. There is no justifying that Renegade options are actually good after all. Seriously, just look up the definition of Renegade and tell me that it describes a good person. And because of this system there is really only two ways to go about any situation. The Paragon way or the Renegade way. That’s not how role playing works. That’s just picking between two different ways to play a game and nothing else. Because like I was saying, there is no reason to go back and forth between these two options due to the fact that it can lock you out of certain choices down the road if you don’t have enough points in either side. So no, you aren’t role playing in Mass Effect, you are picking between Blue Shepard and Red Shepard. There basically is no other choice beyond that.

That being said, Mass Effect is very lucky though. Despite not being a good role playing experience, it does still have good stories, great characters, and fun game play! After the first game anyways. So while the series is pretty misleading when it comes to being an actual RPG, it’s at the very least a good series! And one I would recommend. Though not for it’s role playing aspects.

Wish I could say the same thing about most Bethesda RPGs…

This is probably going to be a controversial opinion but I’ve never really been a big fan of Bethesda’s RPGs. I’m talking about games like Elder Scrolls Oblivion and Skyrim, and Fallout 3 and 4. And it wasn’t until recently that I realized my biggest problems with these games were the fact that they never really felt like true RPGs.

In a similar way to Mass Effect, Bethesda RPGs really feel like they lack much choice when it comes to how you want to play your character. A lot of the time, choices feel very black and white and that you basically pick if you want to play your character that way. It never felt like you were getting to be a unique character in that sense despite the fact that is what Bethesda was going for. You aren’t playing as a character like Shepard in Mass Effect, you were meant to play the character you wanted, a blank slate basically. But in the end I never felt like my character or my experience was really much of my own.

In Fallout 3 there was the Karma system, a system very similar to Mass Effect‘s Paragon and Renegade system though it did lack the color coded options. But at the end of the day it was a system that told you if you were being good or evil and how your actions were being seen in the world. And just like with the Paragon and Renegade system, it really benefited the player to simply decide to be good or evil right from the start. However, this system was dropped in Fallout 4 in favor of just letting your choices speak for themselves. The game would no longer tell you how your choices were being seen. Which is a good thing, right? Surely your choices would feel more like your own and less like you were just playing to have good or bad karma, right? Well funny enough, it felt like your choices mattered even less in Fallout 4. That lack of any feeling really shows just how empty the choices in these kind of games are. The fact that the games need to tell you your choices mean something or are doing anything because you can’t feel it yourself shows how poor the role playing in these kinds of games are. Your choices should speak for themselves. Either you, the player, should understand what that choice means or the world around you should reflect it but the choices lack any of that. And this very same problem plagues both Skyrim and Oblivion as well, both of which lack any real morality system and both of which still suffer from your choices not feel like actual role playing. At the end of the day most dialog choices in Bethesda RPGs basically amount to asking more questions for more information and deciding whether to accept a quest or not. They didn’t exactly drive the story one way or the other or even really paint your character in a new light. Those kinds of options aren’t role playing. I don’t feel like I’m in the role of a character like that. At least Mass Effect pretends to let me make these choices, at least there’s some illusion there. In Bethesda RPGs, there isn’t even that. And only now have I realized that’s my true problem with these games. That’s why I so very rarely even bothered to finish them. I always thought it was because how long they were or something like that, but no. It’s just the fact that it’s a hollow shell of an RPG that isn’t even trying to hide it…

Now I’m not going to say that Bethesda’s RPGs are completely terrible games, despite how unpolished and barely held together they are, but they pale in comparison to something like Baldur’s Gate 3 and even some of the older Fallout games from what I’ve seen of them. In those games, it really feels like your journey and your character are unique! And even better, it feels like your choices are made not based on wanting to be good or evil but rather what you actually want. As such, seeing where those choices lead and what affects they have feel much more rewarding and far more personal! That feeling is what can help carry someone through these 100 hour long games. That’s how an RPG should be!

While there is absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying any of the games I talked about here, I do think we should at least address that some of these RPGs are really lacking in the role playing department, especially now that Baldur’s Gate 3 has risen the bar so high. Think about how fun a Bethesda game would be with choices so in depth? Or how cool it would be to actually shape the story of what happens in the next Mass Effect? What I’m trying to say is, let’s not always settle for these half baked role playing experiences. Let’s hold these aspects to a higher standard and get some more real RPGs! Because now that I’ve gotten a taste of them, I just want more.

But those are just my thoughts! What are some of yours? Are you a fan of RPGs? Do you feel like some games can be kind of misleading when they are labelled as one? I’d love to hear your thoughts so don’t be shy!

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