I absolutely love Skyrim. I've played for thousands of hours across different platforms since it came out over 10 years ago. And thanks to a vibrant mods community, it keeps up with modern AAA titles (even surpassing a lot of them).

Skyrim is king among RPGs I'm sure I'll be playing it for another 10 years, minimum. I've only got one beef with it: there's no roleplaying.

When I sit around the table playing TTRPGs with my friends, we speak as our characters. We make decisions beyond what to swing our swords at next. We really get into our characters' heads. The line between player and character blurs. We live out other lives through character sheets and dice.

That's the feeling I want from a video game, but they fall short. I may be climbing mountains and slaying dragons, but I never utter a word. I just move my hands across the keyboard and mouse (or controller), making choices and enjoying the previously-written story unfolding before me (for the hundredth time, lol).

I don't say any of this to defame the good folks at Bethesda Game Studios, or detract from the incredible work that they've produced. They've come as close to a truly interactive experience as one can without relying on an AI--or another human--to interact with the player. I just want more.

I'm aware of communities like Valheim Roleplay (I'm also a member of that one) that inject roleplay into games where it doesn't exist out of the box. They manage it with a ton of mods and extra human effort. It's really great, though it stands as proof that RPGs are really just ... Gs.

Has anyone played an RPG video game that incorporates roleplaying out of the box?

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@Alexander-Salkin @K-O This should be fixed. Sorry for the delay, it was a weird issue with the theme installation. Please let me know if it acts up again, and thanks for reporting it!

@Katie That looks awesome, thanks for the link! I've been picking up a bit of Blender myself, mostly so I can design random little things for my 3D printer. It would be fun to do some character modelling as well.

Not exactly an RPG podcast, but related: Hello from the Magic Tavern is a laugh riot.

We're always open to discussing the stuff we're doing right or wrong. Hit us up here and we'll reply as soon as we can.

If you're looking for quick answers to common questions, you might find them in the FAQs -- so check there first!

@Kendall I'm really getting into the Old School Renaissance (OSR) games, namely Mörk Borg.

That one is a little dark for some, but there are others that look interesting. Old School Essentials, for one.

Fate is another good one, which @SwampCreature mentioned above. I just got disenchanted with D&D around v3, when WotC made it super stats-and-rules heavy. I just want to tell a cool story with my friends without getting a degree in advanced math first.

@Alexander-Salkin that's a great question. We don't have a specific list because it would be impossible to come up with an exhaustive, specific one upfront. We do want to provide clarity and guidance, though:

For non-contest Tales that we produce in the future, Unplay will not reserve any rights to the creators' intellectual property (IP). By creating the game on the LiveTale platform, the creator grants Unplay a perpetual, unlimited license to use their IP on the LiveTale platform.

For contest winners, it's effectively the same deal; however, the creator also signs a non-compete agreement that's in effect for 2 years. During that time, the creator can't use their IP to create works with anyone that Unplay deems a competitor. Generally speaking, that's any digital game producer/publisher. Unrelated rights (book, film, etc.) are entirely untouched by Unplay and remain the creator's property.

I hope that clarifies our intent. We don't want to take any more IP rights from creators than we need to produce games on our platform. We require the 2-year non-compete for contest winners because of the investment that we make in the game; after that, creators are free to break our hearts with any producers they like (though we get to keep publishing the game on LiveTale).

@K-O

@Alexander-Salkin @K-O This should be fixed. Sorry for the delay, it was a weird issue with the theme installation. Please let me know if it acts up again, and thanks for reporting it!

@K-O

@Alexander-Salkin that's a great question. We don't have a specific list because it would be impossible to come up with an exhaustive, specific one upfront. We do want to provide clarity and guidance, though:

For non-contest Tales that we produce in the future, Unplay will not reserve any rights to the creators' intellectual property (IP). By creating the game on the LiveTale platform, the creator grants Unplay a perpetual, unlimited license to use their IP on the LiveTale platform.

For contest winners, it's effectively the same deal; however, the creator also signs a non-compete agreement that's in effect for 2 years. During that time, the creator can't use their IP to create works with anyone that Unplay deems a competitor. Generally speaking, that's any digital game producer/publisher. Unrelated rights (book, film, etc.) are entirely untouched by Unplay and remain the creator's property.

I hope that clarifies our intent. We don't want to take any more IP rights from creators than we need to produce games on our platform. We require the 2-year non-compete for contest winners because of the investment that we make in the game; after that, creators are free to break our hearts with any producers they like (though we get to keep publishing the game on LiveTale).

@Katie That looks awesome, thanks for the link! I've been picking up a bit of Blender myself, mostly so I can design random little things for my 3D printer. It would be fun to do some character modelling as well.

@TableTopProphet just FYI, the broken image links in your submission are an Imgur thing. They don't allow their images to be directly embedded, so you'll have to click them individually to see the images.

Thanks for submitting!

We've implemented spoiler tags to help you hide chunks of content. Here's how to use them.

:::

Just wrap what you want to hide in triple-colon and blank lines, like so:

:::

Have fun!

I'm really into the OSR-style "rules light" systems. Anything that favors good storytelling over needing a degree to navigate the rules system.

Specifically, Mörk Borg is great. "Light on rules, heavy everything else."

I absolutely love Skyrim. I've played for thousands of hours across different platforms since it came out over 10 years ago. And thanks to a vibrant mods community, it keeps up with modern AAA titles (even surpassing a lot of them).

Skyrim is king among RPGs I'm sure I'll be playing it for another 10 years, minimum. I've only got one beef with it: there's no roleplaying.

When I sit around the table playing TTRPGs with my friends, we speak as our characters. We make decisions beyond what to swing our swords at next. We really get into our characters' heads. The line between player and character blurs. We live out other lives through character sheets and dice.

That's the feeling I want from a video game, but they fall short. I may be climbing mountains and slaying dragons, but I never utter a word. I just move my hands across the keyboard and mouse (or controller), making choices and enjoying the previously-written story unfolding before me (for the hundredth time, lol).

I don't say any of this to defame the good folks at Bethesda Game Studios, or detract from the incredible work that they've produced. They've come as close to a truly interactive experience as one can without relying on an AI--or another human--to interact with the player. I just want more.

I'm aware of communities like Valheim Roleplay (I'm also a member of that one) that inject roleplay into games where it doesn't exist out of the box. They manage it with a ton of mods and extra human effort. It's really great, though it stands as proof that RPGs are really just ... Gs.

Has anyone played an RPG video game that incorporates roleplaying out of the box?

@Kendall I'm really getting into the Old School Renaissance (OSR) games, namely Mörk Borg.

That one is a little dark for some, but there are others that look interesting. Old School Essentials, for one.

Fate is another good one, which @SwampCreature mentioned above. I just got disenchanted with D&D around v3, when WotC made it super stats-and-rules heavy. I just want to tell a cool story with my friends without getting a degree in advanced math first.

We're always open to discussing the stuff we're doing right or wrong. Hit us up here and we'll reply as soon as we can.

If you're looking for quick answers to common questions, you might find them in the FAQs -- so check there first!