Hi everyone. After postimg a wee bit last year, I've been away from the boards some months. I got D2 last year and I thought I'd start a thread on it.

Diablo2 isn't a RPG. The same was said about Diablo 1. This may be true but then how many REAL RPG's are out there. Fallout is one of the few I've played that had true role playing.
You can make choices in Fallout. Real choices like go where you like, kill who you want. People remember the things you say and do and you have real influence over the game by the choices you make in dialogue. AND THE DECISIONS MATTER.
Does D2 have all this? No.
Does BardsTale? No.
Does BG? No (dialogue is a farce.)
Admittedly Ultima and some of the Wiz's have much of this also. Most of the so called CRPG's are more accurately described as party/character management with combat and puzzle solving. In Wiz7 I spend 95% of my time doing these things. In D2 its more like 97% (3% admiring the Sorcerers shapely curves.) The only times Wiz7 actually approached roleplaying for me were times like I was feeling remorse over killing blindmise so I could nick his cane off him and similar situations.
What D2 does strongly is character management, combat and eyecandy. The backstory is kinda compelling too. The D1 protagonist becoming Diablo himself is profound. I think of Diablo as 'Gauntlet for the nineties' with CRPG elements. Its as least as much of an RPG as BardsTale is and about 2/3 as much a s BG. but no one questions those games genres.

• Good thread,Llevram, 07:41 AM, Feb-08-01
  • RE: Good thread,FuzzyMoogle, 10:18 AM, Feb-08-01

But I think I have a different angle. I see role playing, since it is a computer, as what you put into it, and secondly, what the game mechanics allow vs. force you to do.

By this I mean, when I play an RPG like Wiz 7, I can role-play or not. I can "get into" my characters and decide that my priest will be a healer (learning all healing spells first) and my valkyrie be a fighter (learning all damaging spells first). I can choose to be good (and make alignments, honor deals) or I can be bad (and kill on sight, play the double agent). Or maybe I split it and have some of each (good and bad) in my party.

In this light, yes, Dia-blow (that is for my friend John ) might under the right shade of light, viewed at the right angle resemble an RPG. But given my approach and what the game allows, Wiz 7 is definately an RPG (the RPG to this day, for me).

For the record, I did play Diablo I once and really enjoyed, for what it was - hack and slash, with artifical RPG-flavoring added

Maybe we should change RPG from Role Playing Game to Re Playable Game ... then the distinction would be clear

Tools for your Wizardry(r) toolkit

That's what I'm screamin'. An RPG isn't just stats and hacking, it's about a world that you can walk around in and do almost anything, where a party has four or five different ways to tackle a problem. It's alive with personalities, alliances, deals, double-deals and evil stuff tied together with good stuff.

Dia-blow (hee hee ) isn't an RPG. It is, indeed, the Gauntlet for the 90's/2000's. A fantasy action game with numbers attached. You go through dungeons, hack many things, collect treasure, sell, wash, rinse, repeat. Now this is a nice way to get introduced to the rudimentary points of roleplaying, it just ain't the real thing.