In Wizardry 8, the Gadgeteer is the ultimate mechanic; they can craft the most amazing things.

In Arcanum, any character can become a mechanic; they just have to take points in the Repair skill, and invest in whichever tech trees interest them.

In Skyrim, you can max out your Smithing and Enchanting skill, and even temporarily boost them with potions, to make and maintain the most awesome weapons...

...oh wait, it's not THAT sort of RPG Mechanics you were asking about? My bad.

Oh yes, it is. Although it's main strength lies in it's atmosphere, it is also solid on the mechanics side. It is a quite good adaptation of the Pen&Paper rules of Vampire The Masquerade. Combat is nothing special, but works. Bonus: it has been continously developed and improved by a dedicated fanbase over many years. (It shares that trait with NetHack)

This is the first time i am hearing about that game! I will check that out !
Wizardry 8 and Arcanum - i have those and they are quite interesting. But there was something with Arcanum that really bothered me - if i remember correctly, i had issues with the game running properly on Win10. (Yes the GOG version)


I know about the Fanbase haha ... i am not stupid, but i never played it. It is incredibly famous for its fanbase. I remember when the game (Source Engine) came out and everyone was disapointed. A german magazin had an article about it again one year later or so, and really pushed the game for the fan-patch. (Happened also with Gothic 3)

Yet i was sometimes still afraid to buy it. But hey: I probably get it now during the christmas sale. You are right, i should check it.

I tried NetHack btw! I understand now why its good. But i think i will get a tileset for it :D !

Thanks again.

Oh i wasnt intimidated - but it caught my attention for sure, since i had never heard of anything related to that game at all. And now i realize that this is a whole series of games. Ha!
Its interesting to see what else is out there.

I tried Oblivion of course. Oblivion and Gothic 3 were the "big two" back then. Read everything about those for years. When they both came out, i was more "team gothic". The reason (if you are curious) is simply the design of the world. Oblivion was still an amazing piece, i loved the NPCs with their own life, the music and so on ... BUT: I really hated the enemies scaling with you.
Well... i wasted my first hours searching for the "Goblins and Ogres from the Screenshots" :D Till i realized that i wont encounter them for a long time haha ... I miss those days btw, where you didnt had all the informations in the first 24 hours :)
I tried some mods...

I spent so many times with both games (i mean Fallout 3) that i would need a complete overhaul. I already saw everything and had my big adventures in Cyrodil and Washington :) I want new places.
I tried New Vegas, but something puts me off with that one. I couldnt figure out what it was.

Saints Row ? Like... that GTA clone that turned into a comedy masterpiece and finally into its own parody? Nah... Not my thing. (And no RPG? BTW: I prefer - speaking of SR - the Just Cause Series)

Age of Decadence, it's rather short and combat is very difficult, but otherwise it has some excellent mechanics, a hardcore RPG to the bone.

The background of your character, the attributes, skills, previous choices and reputations with the factions have all a strong effect on the outcome of the game's quests and dialogues. There are multiple ways to handle quests, choice & consequence, non-linear gameplay, isometric turn-based combat...It was a pleasant discovery.

I loved Heretic Kingdom's "attunement system" where the character's stats for a particular item got better as she used it more.

My biggest hate point in Oblivion; the scaling. ;)
Well, it is a complicated & tough thing to handle but if you have set up a overhauled modded Oblivion its a different game and you choose how different; similar with Fallout (although there I only had the urge to modify the games balance after a certain high end DLC throw it of balance. Never had the urge to change how the base game worked; just expanded it with tons of mods though).

And Saints Row... well... Its a weird case. I had similar thoughts. And while its never classified RPG anywhere it is yet a far stronger RPG than most. They are all at -75% now; best time to give the unknown a chance ;) (If you do I'd suggest the getting Gentlemen of the Row mod for SR2 & not get intimidated by crazy car behavior).

Note that one of the major complaints about VTM: Bloodlines is that the last part is rushed and too focused on combat for builds that relied too much on other skills before. So while it's great that for a large part of the game there are many alternatives on how you can solve problems, including non-violent ones, you'll probably get into trouble at the end if you neglect your combat skills, because they never got to implementing alternatives to the hacking and slashing and shooting your way through the end game dungeons.

Still, if you do everything in moderation and don't make a build exclusively focused on non-combat skills, you should be fine.

Tales of maj'eyal has sweet mechanics. It has incredible depth of skills, leveling, and equipment. It's a roguelike but also an RPG.

There are a ton of different play types and so many different combos you can do. It's the game I've spent the most time on over the past year.