What Is the Best RPG game you ever played!

For me, I think its a tie between Baldurs Gate II:SoA, Fallout 2, and FF VII.

 

Taking the original question literally:

It really depends on the people you are playing with, and the GM .

• Werewolf: The Apocalypse - woe to the opponent who was trying to abuse the volatile pack dynamics. Never seen a tighter PC group - totally based on the characters rather than the players.
• Shadowrun 2nd Edition - being set up as corporate runners on a Caribbean Island with After-Run Parties on the beach? You really want your Cocktail after each session.
• Anything with the Savage World Rules Set (because it's so easy).

 

For me, another vote for Planescape: Torment.

I agree that Dungeon Master is great - and I'm also a great fan of Bloodwych on the ST. Incidentally, if you like those games you might want to try Legend of Grimrock, which is the only modern game I know of that follows the style of Dungeon Master. It's not a huge game, but I really enjoyed it.

I never managed to find enough friends interested in playing paper-and-dice RPGs to get a proper game going. I still have a few original D&D rulebooks, including the one in your avatar picture, but I've hardly played them at all. My gaming sessions usually amounted to a heap of time spent teaching the rules followed by a little while of everyone just screwing around and then getting bored. I only had one friend who would stick with it enough to play properly, but that's just not as interesting as having a group.

I've always thought it's a bit weird that for computer games, "RPG" has somehow come to refer to a genre which doesn't really have anything to do with acting out a role to choose how a character should behave (ie. they have nothing to do with role-playing). Somehow, RPG has come to simply mean games where characters 'level-up' and get a equipment and stuff like that; even if there is no character personality, or no choice of character interactions. I reckon that's weird. (Obviously some computer RPGs have more role-playing than others; I'm just saying that the RPG genre doesn't seem to actually be defined by role-playing.)

 

Yes, and it gets even harder these days, when all those friends who would play (including yourself) have their available time cut short by job and family commitments.

The great thing about "real" RPGs is that not everything has been anticipated. Two stories:

1. In an ancient AD&D campaign of mine the group was infiltrating a sultan's palace to rescue a girl that had been abducted into his harem. Everything worked out fine until they woke the leopards chained in the sultan's bedchamber. The first rogue character grabbed the girl (he was the one who could climb best), throwing her down off the balcony to the fighter (background: Smith - he was really strong) waiting in the palace garden. Who caught her easily. The lithe wizard (played by a pretty novice female player) panicked when faced with the leopards running at her (the rogue, really), despite my description that they were on a long chain, ran to the same 2nd story balcony and jumped off, yelling "Catch me!!!". Apart from the smith still holding the rescued girl, she had previously turned invisible...
2. Another time as a player my Shadowrun group was infiltrating an industrial complex. Coming down a stairwell we faced a guard post. Instead of hosing them down with our Gel ammunition (which I always claimed would cause jams in my H&K gun - in "reality" my character wasn't keen on cleaning the guns using it after the run), I took a frag grenade from my belt (much to the exclaimed objections of two of my peacenik fellow games). Keeping collateral damage down was one of the side parameters of that specific run. The two cards dove under the desk (I had specifically thrown the grenade in front of it), I bounded down, jumped on the table and covered the two aghast guards while my team bound and gagged them. I had never said I pulled the pin...

Just two examples of things a computer game is never going to be as good as the real thing, as it forces you to play in the tight parameters the programmers thought up beforehand. Which can be quite enjoyable in its own way, I like PC/video games, but it's just a different form of entertainment.

Inspired by this thread I have given Fantasy Grounds a(nother) hard look - with TS3 you could probably have some great gaming sessions - if you can find the time. Of course that means you sitting in your own chair at your own PC, drinking your own beverages and having to have bought your own junk food (or pretending to do so, because in reality your wife put you on carrots and cucumber ).

 

Realms of Arkania 2.. Pirated it 19 years ago using 22 floppy discs.. Don't think i could have bought it anywhere.. And yes i did buy pizza in CH.. The game was awesome, you could create your very own characters, i remember rolling for stats for like 24 hours straight! Killed me some orcs.. Visited a brothel.. Slayed a dragon.. Stuff like that!

Oh and those floppy discs came with some nasty viruses..

 

my fav. was a PS1 game called Legends of Dragoon. had 5 disc's and had the best story ever. and some great shocking moments in it also. the best was finding out that your worst enemy was one of your first party members.

 

you can buy all 3 Arkania now a "Good Old Games".com , Arkania #3 was my first computer game i ever bought, but was the Original German version that i got when i was over there in the Army, lol was a pain in the ass trying to make a char. not knowing how to read German lol. believe you me i learned to read the boxes on games before i bought them after that lol.

 

i couldn't agree with you more.

i could fill this forum with 1000s of pages from stories of our old D&D games but im to lazy lol . but i like your point.

 

ragnarok

 

I loved heavily modded Bethesda games for immersion. As for storytelling and long-reads, Baldur's Gate series was awesome.

 

I've recently gotten back in to the Dragon Quest games, and loved them all over again. I had forgotten how good they were. I recommend playing Dragon Quest III (English patched version) on a Super Nintendo emulator (Snes9x). If you need the patched rom just drop me a message.

Few games give you the option to become the ruler of a country:

Two queens? Scandalous!

 

All-Time-Best RPG: Ultima 5
I've played most entries in the series, but 5 is the only one I've finished, and I've played it through at least 6 times. I love so many things about this: the graphics, the freedom to explore the map however you want, the illusion that you can invent new spells, and the subtle way fast characters get turns more often in combat.

Honorable Mention: Star Control 2 (now Open Source)
Not an RPG by most definitions, but this action/exploration game was the best I've ever seen at making me feel like my decisions mattered, both what I did and in some cases, what I didn't do.

Best Free RPG: MARDEK series (developer's website, Kongregate)
While it has flaws (a review I wrote), the skill system is perfect for making grinding feel worthwhile. I strongly encourage anyone who likes old-fashioned RPGs to try Chapter 1; it's super short, more of a teaser than a full game.

 

top down: Fallout 1/2
ego: System Shock 1/2
mmo: Anarchy Online

 

Dragon Quest V is a fine game. In what other RPG's make marriage a plot point (besides Fire Emblem: Awakening)?

The SNES conversion of this game was not nearly, NEARLY as nice as the one for Dragon Quest III.

 

I'm going to throw my hat in again to mention that Eye of the Beholder 1 + 2 are fantastic games.

 

Skies of Arcadia nothing beats playing with pirates, that or Panzaar Dragoon Saga. But I'm a Sega fan boy, so a lil bias here.