Vidya similar to tabletop RPG's

Hello Veeky Forums,

Could you recommend me some video games that best approach the feel (and especially the freedom) of a tabletop roleplaying game? I got to play D&D once and now I want more. I don't have many friends though and I sure as hell don't have any that would play D&D with me.

Skyrim got the exploration down but really fails to evoke the same sense of freedom with it's stale combat and boring quests.

Well Baldur's Gate is pretty good and so is Pillars of Eternity but it is hard to capture the open feel of trpgs in vidya.

Oh boy.

Dorf Fortress is often shown as an example so I'll list it. I don't play so I can't say much more.

Nethack is a good one. The devs have contingencies for basically everything. For example, each item has unique descriptions for when you're blind, when you're delirious/insane, and when you're both blind and insane. You can also move while levitating by throwing objects in the opposite direction of how you want to move.

Fallout: New Vegas. I love this game and I'm biased, it's not a perfect example. HOWEVER, most quests have a handful of different ways to best them depending on your skills. For example, Guns controls your shooting, but you can also use it to talk to NPCs about firearms.

Hitman [Blood Money] is similar in the freeform element. You're given a target and a level. The only "failure state" is getting killed. The fun comes from finding different ways to take out your target.

I've only played a bit of it, but Planescape Torment is directly based on the Planescape setting and D&D rules.

X-Com is more like a miniatures wargame than an RPG, but I'd say it counts. Permadeath for your troops means every turn matters, and the mix of short-term tactics and long-term strategy gives the game real depth.

I don't know if it approaches tabletop RPG, but if you're looking for a good CRPG, then go with Dragon's Dogma.

I second this game. It has the most beautiful world and combat.

Combat is great in general, but also because it's class based, and every class actually feels super unique in how they fight.

Like, you don't just do different kinds of damage with a change in class, the entire way you approach a fight changes immensely.

Truly "open" games are really hard to find and most trade depth for breadth.

Skyrim's a good example there. Or Fallout 4 vs New Vegas. Or Fallout 3 vs Fallout 2.

Darkest Dungeon's a resource-managing dungeon crawler RPG with a CoC inspired sanity system.

Diablo and clones are inspired by P&P loot-focused dungeon crawls.

Of course, lots of grand strategy and 4X games are based around the ability to set up your nation/faction any way you want. Civilisation is one example. I think Sword of the Stars is a good sci-fi one?

Not really a vidya, but there are plenty of ways to play D&D online now. Friends optional.

>dwarf fortress
Send help, I'm overwhelmed.

I already installed Baldur's Gate II yesterday after seeing a thread about it. I'm sorta stuck near the beginning though and I don't want to use a walkthrough.

I'm downloading Pillars of Eternity now.

I already played Diablo and plenty of it's clones. I enjoy them but they are more linear than what I'm looking for. I already played the Fallout games.

Generally, the more freedom CRPG has, the less technologically advanced it is, since you can only expend resources on so much different choices a player might take. So various "roguelikes" (games inspired by a game called Rogue, read about it) with minimal graphics are probably the best in that regard. That said, I don't have much experience with them so I'm going to recommend what I know.

1) Infinity Engine games - Baldur's Gate I and II, Icewind Dale I and II, Planescape: Torment. Oldie but goodie. Planescape is the most powerful storywise. Icewind Dale is fairly freeform and plot takes a backseat to just playing D&D on PC basically. Baldur's Gate is sort of a middle ground between the two.

Planescape gives you a lot of meaningful choices in actually roleplaying a character. BG and ID are more about actual adventuring.

Maybe it's too late to get into these games since they're fairly dated but I still think it's a solid choice. Can't comment on Enhanced Editions that BG and ID got.

2) Modern isometric RPGs - inspired by Infinity Engine games. Divinity: Original Sin, Pillars of Eternity. If you can find a friend to play the first one, do it, it shines in coop.

3) Morrowind - if you take Oblivion, Skyrim and Morrowind, the latter is clearly superior as a sandbox closer to the tabletop. Nothing scales to your level. You can kill everyone, even if it prevents you from doing certain quests in the future. You have to find stuff on your own, no markes on the map. Things like that. Plus shitton of mods and graphical enhancements available these days.

4) Legend of Grimrock is a terrific dungeoncrawling game with the hardcore option of drawing your map if you don't want to get lost in the grim halls of the vast dungeon prison without food and light.

5) Neverwinter Nights was basically designed to do tabletop on PC, with GM options for creating their own modules and campaigns and such. With any luck, you'll still find multiplayer servers.

No videogame can, or will ever, actually emulate the tabletop experience.

I dunno.

I feel like if you had the game stop every time someone had to take an action, have one of your party members stop moving for five minutes, then tell you sorry, their girlfriend texted them, and then sometimes just had enemies die suddenly because the DM lost track of their HP, you'd be a long way towards getting the experience right.

You could try finding a game on roll20, or another online DnD platform. Dragons Dogma and Pillars of Eternity are what I'd recommend for the vidja substitutes, there are the Baldur's Gate and other Forgotten Realms licensed games, but they are a bit dated for some people.

Dragon's Dogma isn't really like any tabletop game I can think of, but it is a really fun game

The only ones I haven't seen in this thread I'd mention would be Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines and those newer shadowrun games (at least Dragonfall and Hong Kong). For Vampire you'd want the fan patch though

What's your problem in Baldur's Gate? If you want I can I can give general advice without telling you anything specific.

Going to go out on a limb here and say holding tab all the time to see what you can actually interact with is your friend with those games the first time playing through (at least I think it was tab for them)

Yeah it helps but it can cause you to find one of the most powerful Magic items in the game at level 1 sitting on the ground.

Pillars of Eternity!

I just discovered it recently, it's so damn good!

It's a little too slow and balanced for me to really love it the same way I did the Baldur's Gate games, but it's not bad. They kind of drove me crazy with "balance patches" (I mean it's a single player RPG, not an MMO) when it was newer, but now that I doubt anything like that is still going on. I just wished they did a little more to make character advancement feel more impressive

The Dark Souls series does a pretty good job of immersing you and giving you a lot of freedom. Plus it's got some fantastic lore that really makes you work to uncover it. Tons of room for speculation and exploration to uncover the story of the setting.

Divinity original sin 2 is on early access now.

I'm still stuck in the first room but I guess this will help. Thanks!

Enhanced Editions are buggy shit.

Just wait till we create hyper-advanced AI game designers and have them create and GM games.

Never liked the dnd video games. I just can't get immersed in 3rd person.

Seconding these recommendations. Also recommending Deus Ex (the original one) because of how there's multiple ways to complete each mission, you're rewarded for finding secrets and completing objectives, not mindless killing and it doesn't signpost everything for you.

You need to hit up Arcanum

>Nothing scales to your level.

i never got what was wrong with this. doesn't it mean you can't just faceroll everything at higher levels?

I recommend Mount and Blade. Warband has so many mods and it's the closest thing I've played to a low fantasy ttrpg. Good basic mechanics and a lot of stuff can happen. With or without the PC doing stuff. Also means plot hooks happen naturally.

Underrated post.

Try to find a new dnd game instead.
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>your games will never have a narration so nice

Shadowrun Dragonfall and Shadowrun Hong Kong are both fantastic