Better graphics = less imagination??

[Arnabas]

I've been thinking about RPG's for a while now... and have found myself wondering if my mind is getting lazy.
Years ago I used to play the Bard's Tale games and LOVED them. I put an awful lot of thought and creativity into my charcters. I had a character named Jasn Dragonsbane, who was a Paladin. I found myself thinking that "Dragonsbane" was pretty arrogant for a 1st level character and wrote some history to explain it. Turns out it was inherited from his father, Brial, who was grandson of Ober the Great... Well, anyhow, to explain this guys NAME, I wrote out an extensive family tree, which eventually became over 700 years of history, maps, myths and legends, gods, demons, etc. etc. etc.
These days, characters look so much better and the graphic environments are so much better that I don't have to imagine as much. Consequently, my characters have become much less "real". They sometimes even devolve into monster-killing stats with a nice on-screen representation.
Has anyone else suffered this loss of creativity? And do you blame the increasingly realistic games?

[ 05-11-2003, 10:46 PM: Message edited by: Arnabas ]

[Legolas]

There's less character building, but I would blame that less on the graphics and more on the way the games are set up.
It's either the world expecting your character to be good and help everyone out (The regular hero character, Link in the Zelda series being the ultimate epitome), or the storyline expecting your character to be a specific individual. The more the game itself dictates details of your character's history, the less need there is for you to add to that.
The BG series has a 'prefab' setting, for example, and your character has it's own history, with plenty of detail (both in ancestry and circumstances of growing up).
You can pretend to be (roleplay) a character with all these things already having been determined, just as you can roleplay a character without this history which limits the traits you yourself can decide the character has, and without the gameworld expecting things of you that are based on that very history (and so 'decide' part of your character's personality). But for the first you need very little input of your own, whereas the second allows and encourages it.

[Albromor]

Arnabas, I think the issue is the story line itself. We live in a culture now where form outweighs substance, i.e., stunning graphics, poor story telling. As long as the story is strong the graphics can be "less than." But the roles have been switched. Perhaps the real problem is that the RPG world needs fresh blood and ideas when it comes to story telling. Start with a good story and let that dictate all else.

From my own experience this is why I prefer by light years a good Paper & Pencil version of D&D over a good computer RPG. One's imagination is in control. There are tons more things that can can place in a paper and pencil setting that no computer RPG can ever hope to replicate.

[ 05-12-2003, 11:28 AM: Message edited by: Albromor ]

[Arnabas]

I agree that a good (emphasis on "good") pen and paper games wins every time...