Question for open minded fans

[CeloSk]

Hi.

I saw Jeff Vogel GDC talk and was captivated by his personal story.

Then I went to steam and had this "aha" moment. Without shame I will tell you, my initial thought was:

"Those are the generic RPG fantasy games for hardcore cRPG fans with graphics like its still 1995."

Well. Hope I didnt hurt anybodys feeling. Anyway...

I really cannot stand the generic fantasy genre like Skyrim, Baldurs Gate and Lotr.

I tried playing the newest Geneforge Mutagen demo and realized that Its very tedious so I know I wont be playing more than just one game.

But I played Fallout 1,2, Arcanum and other rpg that were tedious.

So I really want to give one shot with this studio and I am asking for help. Which game is the least tedious in design and has the best, original story (far away possible from classic upper mentioned games) ? 

Really thank you for the answer and hope you dont hate me for...obvious reasons :)

[Mechalibur]

It would help if you went into more details about why you thought Mutagen was tedious. I don't think it's anywhere near tedious, so some more info would be useful here.

Edited February 7, 2021 by Mechalibur

[Kelandon]

Geneforge is probably the farthest away from general fantasy. But yeah, the term "tedious" isn't specific enough for anyone to be able to help you here, most likely. You're going to have to explain what you did/didn't like and why.

[TriRodent]

Each of the major releases by Spiderweb (Avernum, Geneforge, Avadon, & Queen's Wish) are all set in unique worlds/universes with deep background stories to set up the game.  All of them rely, more or less, on 'classic RPG' tropes (magic use, a nobody growing in power to become an all powerful hero, etc), but to me anyway, they're great to play.

 

Best I can suggest is go to Spiderweb's website, download the large demos for each of the games & see if any one (or more) of them grab your interest. They aren't for everyone, but for those who do enjoy one of the games, they seem to tend to like 'all' of the games from Spiderweb (& I suppose that the converse it true as well).  Good luck, I hope that you stick around & find that which has entranced most of us for several decades.

[EA-N A S I R]

Given that you are (I think?) saying that you liked Fallout and Arcanum more than Baldur's Gate or Skyrim, Geneforge is definitely the obvious place to point you in terms of story and setting.

 

Avernum is also quite different from classic fantasy in terms of, again, just story and setting.

[Thaluikhain]

As well as needing to know what you mean by "tedious", some explanation of "generic" would help.

 

For example, I'd not say Avernum/Exile was generic...but then you play as an adventuring party of 4/6 people.  In the later ones you pick each characters race and that gives them various benefits.  Ok, no elves or dwarfs, but there are cat people or lizard people instead.  You then go on quests and dungeon crawls and fight various other sentient humanoids and pick up magic gear if you're lucky.  If someone was to say that was generic, I couldn't really argue.

 

Likewise, I'd not say Nethergate was generic, it's set in Roman Britain.  But then you play as either the Imperials or the local natives wanting to get rid of them, there's big world changing magic stuff going on and dragons and giant spiders and wolves and bears to fight...and I'm describing Skyrim there.  In only the vaguest terms, but still.

[darint]

Aside from knowing why some games you "can't stand" and others are "tedious", it might be useful to know which games you like. I personally make better recommendations when I can point to a similar game rather than a pile of dissimilar games. Otherwise I may land on "Well, backgammon isn't like any of those games. Try that."