Best RPG of these 3

[Vyru]

Just curious which one of the 3 is most popular... Skyrim probably has a unfair advantage in this forum but then again it's the oldest one. Comment what makes your vote better than the others!

[Vyru]

I have (re) played all 3 within the last year and my vote goes to skyrim simply because of the modding options and the freedom and customization options they give us. If there was only the vanilla games my decision would be a lot harder. 

[jfraser]

Much as I love BG3, it is not truly open world, which is always my preference. Same with DA. So even without mods, i would choose skyrim.

 

Well, except the vanilla characters are super ugly, so I need one of the mod body replacers. Without that, I am picking BG3.

[Vyru]

2 minutes ago, jfraser said:

Much as I love BG3, it is not truly open world, which is always my preference. Same with DA. So even without mods, i would choose skyrim.

I totally agree with the open world part, Skyrim is the only one of the three that truly gives you the unlimited exploring expirience. Without mods i'm having a hard time to pick between DAI and Skyrim... on one hand i love how immersive Skyrim is and that i can go wherever and do whatever i want, on the other i do like to follow a plot and watch some cutscenes here and there... BG3 was awesome but i got to admit after 2 full runs i got enough for a while because 1. the maps are rather small and it's easy to see all the areas (even considering you can always see new stuff happening with different rolls / outcomes etc) and 2. the turn based combat can be fun but the waiting can get annoying after a while.

 

11 minutes ago, jfraser said:

Well, except the vanilla characters are super ugly, so I need one of the mod body replacers. Without that, I am picking BG3.

To be honest i did not consider graphics at all in my decision, that would just be unfair with games released 2011, 2014 and 2023

[Grey Cloud]

I don't really consider Skyrim an RPG. BG3 is grossly overhyped. So DA:I for the writing, story and characters.

[Grey Cloud]

4 minutes ago, Vyru said:

To be honest i did not consider graphics at all in my decision, that would just be unfair with games released 2011, 2014 and 2023

'Ugly' is more a case of aesthetics than graphics. Vanilla Skyrim NPCs are as ugly toady as they were when the game was released; Bijin NPCs are as good looking today as they were when the mod was released.

[Vyru]

1 minute ago, Grey Cloud said:

I don't really consider Skyrim an RPG

I get where you comming from, Bethesda games are more sandbox-ish, but as far as official genres go they are listed as RPG's so i think it's place in the poll is vaild.

 

6 minutes ago, Grey Cloud said:

So DA:I for the writing, story and characters.

Nonetheless i respect that decision and i'm actually glad someone voted for it and i agree with your 3 points, it definitly has the advantage over Skyrim there! As stated before there's a good chance i would have picked it if we only compared the vanilla games without mods.

[Vyru]

6 minutes ago, Grey Cloud said:

'Ugly' is more a case of aesthetics than graphics. Vanilla Skyrim NPCs are as ugly toady as they were when the game was released; Bijin NPCs are as good looking today as they were when the mod was released.

Fair... you got me there... i probably keep forgetting how shitty vanilla skyrim npc's actually look 🤣

Edited May 13, 2025 by Vyru

[Grey Cloud]

1 hour ago, Vyru said:

i think it's place in the poll is vaild.

Of course. I was just giving the reason for my rejecting it.

 

 

[Demonwise]

It's an interesting choice selection. All three play a bit differently than one another, one radically so. Skyrim is mostly a first person, can be third person, rpg. DA:I is entirely a third-person rpg. Lastly, BG is almost entirely a isometric rpg.

 

Skyrim has near-infinite modding potential and dang near about as many mods available for it. The benefit being that you can 'remake' your game over and over again with new mods. The downside to this is that mods, especially scripted ones can end up breaking the main story. I only ended up playing through and beating the main quest with all dlcs once because after that, with all the mods I had, the main questline was always borked in some way.

 

DA:I has very little mod support. There are some mods out there, perhaps even a lot dependent upon how you look at it. However, it doesn't have anything near the same modding scene that Skyrim does. I always did like the combat animations for this game though and the questline is pretty good as far as I am concerned. 

 

BG is a masterpiece depending how you look at it. It also has a modding community that is growing to be every bit as robust as Skyrim's. It is a great game on the surface but for folks that really like dungeons and dragons it perfectly fills a niche that hasn't really been seen since the Neverwinter Night series. I am not considering the mmo "Neverwinter" in this consideration since I don't play mmos. The gameplay rules and flow are dramatically different than Skyrim or DA:I, especially combat. There is a lot more 'chance' and rng involved with things in this game and I think it adds a certain level of intensity to the game when you're in critical situations and you have to rely on d20 roll and whatever bonuses you may have. In Skyrim there is some rng and chance for some things but in DA:I I don't believe there is any. If I recall in DA:I you either meet the requirements for something or you don't. For example, in conversation, you may be given the option to intimidate or negotiate but it requires something like "speech" level 25. You either meet the requirement and can use the option or you don't and the option is greyed out and can't be used. No rng, no chance, just binary yes/no. 

 

I am a pretty bad judge of stories and questlines. I find when I play a game I either like it or not. I rarely stop to think if the game is 'meh' or 'hey that's pretty good'. Rarely I will play a game and think, "good God, this is it, as a race we can't do any better. I'll just go and die fulfilled in my bed now." So that said, I thought the stories of all three games were good. I think DA:I is the most linear of the three. It is very easy to get distracted from the story in Skyrim. Hell, it makes no effort at all to keep you on the main questline and a lot of players won't even touch it past Whiterun. Baldur's Gate will eventually corral you back onto the storyline if you wander away for too long mostly by virtue of eventually exhausting side quests in an area and by having already fully explored and looted said area. 

 

[Vyru]

23 minutes ago, Demonwise said:

It's an interesting choice selection. All three play a bit differently than one another, one radically so. Skyrim is mostly a first person, can be third person, rpg. DA:I is entirely a third-person rpg. Lastly, BG is almost entirely a isometric rpg.

I thought about adding more to the poll (Oblivion, Fallout, some other non Bethesta games) but decided to stick with only 3 big ones in a similar non-modern setting from different developers. 

 

23 minutes ago, Demonwise said:

 

BG is a masterpiece depending how you look at it. It also has a modding community that is growing to be every bit as robust as Skyrim's.

It's been a minute since i last checked what's new, my last run was after patch 7 was released and while we already have a solid selection of mods i have to disagree... we're still miles away from what Skyrim has to offer... which isn't surprising considering the modding scene is more than a decade ahead. 

 

I can agree with pretty much everything else you pointed out and it was intetesting to read! Each one of them has some up and downsides compared to the others and they are all great in their own way. 

 

23 minutes ago, Demonwise said:

DA:I I don't believe there is any. If I recall in DA:I you either meet the requirements for something or you don't.

That is true but on the other hand it feels like a lot of choices you make trough dialogues have more meaning / consequences / impact than in Skyrim... at least to me.

Edited May 13, 2025 by Vyru

[Grey Cloud]

33 minutes ago, Demonwise said:

BG is a masterpiece depending how you look at it. It also has a modding community that is growing to be every bit as robust as Skyrim's. It is a great game on the surface but for folks that really like dungeons and dragons it perfectly fills a niche that hasn't really been seen since the Neverwinter Night series.

Which way do you have to look at it to see a masterpiece?

The BG3 modding scene will never be anything like the Skyrim scene because of the way Larian have dealt with modding the game.

There have been plenty of dnd type games between NWN and BG3 - PF Kingmaker, PF WotR, POE 1 and 2, Solasta, Greedfall to name several.

 

Owlcat's WH40K RT is the best rpg I've played in a long time. I'm eagerly awaiting the second DLC which is due soon.

[belegost]

Being a potato farmer I never played BG3 and probably never will, unless I win a lottery or something and will have enough left over after everything else to actually get a new rig.

DA:I bored me halfway through. I don't play games for story. When I want a story I read a book.

Skyrim is Skyrim but it ain't RPG. It's a fantasy porn simulator.

 

So my vote goes for Betrayal at Krondor.

Edited May 13, 2025 by belegost

[Demonwise]

1 hour ago, Grey Cloud said:

Which way do you have to look at it to see a masterpiece?

The BG3 modding scene will never be anything like the Skyrim scene because of the way Larian have dealt with modding the game.

There have been plenty of dnd type games between NWN and BG3 - PF Kingmaker, PF WotR, POE 1 and 2, Solasta, Greedfall to name several.

 

Owlcat's WH40K RT is the best rpg I've played in a long time. I'm eagerly awaiting the second DLC which is due soon.

 

Ahh, I have not played those games. I suppose I should have prefaced that for me and in my opinion there hadn't been any new games.

 

As for the Skyrim/BG modding scene. Of course, no game is ever going to have the modding scene Skyrim had/has. Bathesda gave gamers dang near sourcecode level access via their sdk for modding freedom. It doesn't mean that other games can't come close though in terms of mods or passionate modders. 

[Demonwise]

25 minutes ago, belegost said:

Skyrim is Skyrim but it ain't RPG. It's a fantasy porn simulator.

 

Lol. This is absolutely true. My word, I don't think I have heard such an unbelievably accurate statement on this site in a very, very long time.

😆

[nilead]

Eh? Skyrim was a great game, but its barely an RPG. Dragon Age Origins was great, but series got progressively worse with every installement. I tried to force myself to finish DA:I. Couldnt care to do so, felt like an MMO i somehow ended up alone on a server. Hell. it would be much coser with DA:O. BG3 is a clean winner here . In an RPG, the sheer breadth of choices that allow you to actually play meaningfully different roles is kinda important. And there is Larians smooth co-op on top of it.

[Vyru]

1 hour ago, nilead said:

Dragon Age Origins was great, but series got progressively worse with every installement.

Origins was definitly the best but literally nothing about 2 was better than inquisition??

[FauxFurry]

I enjoy the core of the Elder Scrolls games for the same reasons why I enjoyed Phantasy Star, Wizardry and Etrian Odyssey. That is to say, they are good dungeon crawlers with fun settings and characters (even if said characters are not particularly 'deep').

 

They do not fit the criteria for Role Playing Game as set out by Gary Gygax and company, being a game which allows one to tell a story though collaboration between the game master (developer in this case) and the players. Most games are about the game master telling their own story while the players can only interact with them in the most shallow of manners.

 

I maintain that a game like Kenshi or Mount and Blade (or even the Sims series) are better RPGs than anything like Baldur's Gate 1-3 which are closer to extremely sophisticated choose-your-own adventure stories. BG3 is still closer to being a role playing game than the other two choices but that is like asking what is more like a Cat out of a Wolf, a Coyote and a Fox. A role playing game should set out the bones of a story that does not insist upon itself then give the players tools enough to tell their own tale. At best, there should be lore but not pretense at 'canon'.

[Vyru]

14 minutes ago, FauxFurry said:

I enjoy the core of the Elder Scrolls games for the same reasons why I enjoyed Phantasy Star, Wizardry and Etrian Odyssey. That is to say, they are good dungeon crawlers with fun settings and characters (even if said characters are not particularly 'deep').

Haven't played any of the 3 you mentioned (gonna take a look at them) but yeah, the Bethesda games work just fine without deep characters that have a lot of background story or evolution... but it wouldn't hurt to have some in them either. 

 

17 minutes ago, FauxFurry said:

BG3 is still closer to being a role playing game than the other two choices but that is like asking what is more like a Cat out of a Wolf, a Coyote and a Fox. A role playing game should set out the bones of a story that does not insist upon itself then give the players tools enough to tell their own tale. At best, there should be lore but not pretense at 'canon'

Interesting way of looking at it and i get your point, i didn't even think about which one offers the most actual roleplaying elements when i created the poll, i just picked 3 games that 1. fall into the RPG category (at least officially even if you disagree 😜) 2. are in a medieval-ish... or at least non modern setting 3. were big releases i think most people know and 4. i personally enjoyed playing.  

[Vyru]

Btw @Grey Cloud you didn't actually vote for DAI it's still at 0% 🥲

 

 

[Grey Cloud]

18 minutes ago, Vyru said:

Btw @Grey Cloud you didn't actually vote for DAI it's still at 0% 🥲

 

 

I'm abstaining.

[Vyru]

2 minutes ago, Grey Cloud said:

I'm abstaining.

Oof i'm feeling bad for dragon age... almost makes me want to change my vote, it deserves better than 0% 😭😆

[Count Chocula]

I'm going with the consensus. The more sandboxy nature of Skyrim gives it an easy win. DAI is fun, once, maybe twice, but after that, zzzZZZzzzZZZ. And BG3's turn-based combat just turns it into a slogfest. Even unmodded, it's always possible to discover new things in Skyrim even after several playthroughs. For example, I have never completed the Dragonborn DLC story and there are no doubt things on Solstheim I've never encountered.

 

Even if you roll DAO and DA2 into the DA mix, the linearity of the stories can't compete with Skyrim's sandbox.

 

BG3 and DA, all roads lead to the same end. Character classes, kits, subclasses, different skills, etc., etc., etc., just window dressing.

Edited May 13, 2025 by chocula

[belegost]

Apparently I missed the fact that Dragon Age has I not O in there. I thought we were taking about Origins, not whatever "I" stands for. In that case, what I said about DA applies to Origins. I haven't actually played whatever "I" is.

 

I'm still going with Betrayal at Krondor though. That game has shaped my perception of what a cRPG is.

[Vyru]

49 minutes ago, chocula said:

The more sandboxy nature of Skyrim gives it an easy win.

I'm with you there, while there are things i think the other two are doing better i had to give my vote to Skyrim.

 

50 minutes ago, chocula said:

Even unmodded, it's always possible to discover new things in Skyrim even after several playthroughs.

That... is true but then again i finished vanilla skyrim twice and got all achievements years ago on ps3 and honestly if not for mods i don't think i would have played it again so i partly disagree here... also you can say the same about BG3 - you will find something new here and there in every new run... question is, is it enough to see everything you already know over and over again...

 

54 minutes ago, chocula said:

Even if you roll DAO and DA2 into the DA mix, the linearity of the stories can't compete with Skyrim's sandbox.

No doubt about that... i did play them more than twice though (except DA2 that one i played exactly twice) because sometimes i'm in the mood to follow a plot and watch cutscenes rather than exploring plus you just need a new setting once in a while... but yeah i have nowhere near as much playtime in any of them as in Skyrim.

 

58 minutes ago, chocula said:

BG3 and DA, all roads lead to the same end. Character classes, kits, subclasses, different skills, etc., etc., etc., just window dressing.

Techincally Skyrim leads to the same end too just without telling you the order to do stuff in 😜 Also BG leads to different endings... but i know what you mean.

 

1 hour ago, chocula said:

And BG3's turn-based combat just turns it into a slogfest

Yes, 100% with you there! It can get so annoying after a while... i've seen this 2-3 days ago and it's so true: