You have heard that Universal are looking at making a M.A.S.K. movie right?

Yeah and I think Voltron & Thundercats were mentioned too but I was never a fan of those

Aha! I always KNEW Madden NFL was an RPG!
And you've a point about stats. Gothic 1&2 have almost none, certainly less than Oblivion, yet both are far and away better examples of the RPG genre, simply because the world interactions are so much deeper.
I wrote up my views on the subject in an older post.

Would monkey island count since you gather insults & replies to get better in fighting?

Is there an INSULTS skill or a FIGHTING one?? Then no, no stats, no RPG!
/RPGNazi...

OOOOOOH! Ha, now you have to admit that Fallout 3 is an RPG

/Jedi Mind trick
A game with stats as decoration will never be an RPG in my book!!!
/waits for Fallout:New Vegas

While I side with the old school RPG folks on the overall subject, I have to give a lot of props to IGN for putting Freedom Force on their cheers list. Even Oblivion's more of an RPG than Freedom Force is, but it's still one of my favorite games ever. In my eyes, it makes up for the rest of the list, especially since it lets us rename it the "Best and Worst Games with RPG Roots" list.

Better Egoistical Recursive Transgression?
Preferably, Ernie should also be the name of either the protagonist or the antagonist.

Nah Ernie would have to be the sidekick, Bert was clearly the top in their relationship and catchers aren't really hero material...

Wait, wait, wait, is this something I've missed? <googles "bert and ernie">
Oooooooooh, Sesame Street. Good one. Didn't think of that. I thought I was being slightly original.

Vince said he tries to implement better combat in AoD than in Fallout or Arcanum, to at least make it enjoyable, but it really isn't the main focus and it doesn't try to go against better games in that area, like JA2. And I explained it's possible to reflect the character's lack of intelligence in a combat situation, where you still give the command but the execution depends on your character. Heck, you might even give a bonus to stupidity, like a resistance to mind affecting skills!
That's not abuse, it's how the system was created: the lockpicking mini-game in Oblivion relies on the player skill and mostly use the character skill to determine if the lockpick breaks after a fail attempt, or how many are broken when you use an auto-attempt. Besides, "role play" in this case is simply make believe: you voluntarily cripple yourself for an imaginary reason while the game won't acknowledge that fact. [url=http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Roleplaying]But then again Oblivion is very famous for it s roleplaying aspects.[/url]
There's no rule but it is indeed bad design: why place content in the game and then later give you the means to regularly bypass it? Why have the content in the first place?
I was talking of Gothic, I haven't played Gothic 3. From what i heard Gothic 3 combat is broken with the stun mechanics, where basically whoever lands the first hit wins the fight, but again I haven't played it.
Realism in games defeats the purpose of the game, and the more realistic they get the more boring they are. And I imagine a game like Oblivion would rate very poorly on the realistic scale, if only just because of the fantasy setting though we can also find other reasons. Being believable on the other hand is something games of this kind should strive for, but Oblivion doesn't even try to. Besides, believable or not, it still doesn't remove the fact that a low weapon skill won't handicap you much.
Wizardry is a dungeon crawler, a subgenre thatfocuses on the dungeon aspect of the RPG: exploration, fight, loot, drinking in your enemy's skull. It's also math nerd heavan with all the skills and calculations the game uses, which incidentally translate on the skills of your party, not you. That's again the core RPG design: you make the decisions but your character(s) do things, not you.
Bloodlines and ME still have a different approach to it: it's pretty easy to shoot stuff in the latter — it's mostly what you do anyway — but unless you invest in the firearms skill in the former, you will miss and do little damage when you actually hit. And melee weapons will get very underpowered later in the game if you do not invest in the skill but want to keep using them. And yes, the end game is combat oriented, which is one of the game's big flaws, but the first 3/4 make up for it by using different skill checks to ensure that two different characters may be required to solve problems in a different way. And that's without getting into the different clans, which for the most part offer some small differences in gameplay, and with Malkavians offering the biggest.
That's pretty much an anti-CRPG comment there. The current trend, which you can see with games like ME, Oblivion or Fallout 3, is that you should be able to do everything and see everything with any character. That's poor and lazy design, especially considering the potential of a CRPG. Classes will give you limits in what you can do but at the same time open up new ways to do things. It's like the old example of the guarded tower: you need to get into it but there are strong guards at the entrance. A fighter type would naturally go there and fight the guards, will probably have to fight many more inside but assuming his fighting skills are good he should be ok. A rogue on the other hand isn't good at front-line combat and so will likely need to sneak past the guards then keep sneaking inside, or maybe he could try to climb the walls of the tower. A wizard could try to levitate to find an opening at a higher level, or maybe even teleport inside. Class selection of course only takes sense if the game actually supports the choice and gives different options for each, but if done right it can really lead to a different game each time you play it, and a fair bit of replay value.
You say you know what you want but what you describe is basically an action game with a focus on the story — no clue if the story is good or bad. One can logically reach the same conclusion as I. Your history with games and your job are also irrelevant to the discussion and give you no weight, so are your preferences. I'm just talking of what makes good CRPG (and game) design, not what I like or dislike.
Is this the old argument of "in the past we did stuff only because we didn't have the means to do better"? If you are talking of combat systems, it's not about being the victim of randomness but rather be aware that your character isn't perfect and might fail in some actions. You have to know his strenghts and weaknesses and you can usualy easily see how much of chance of success he has. After all, you won't want to start a grapple with a weak character or shoot a bow with someone with a poor aim but use them in areas where they have the advantage. Remove character skill to favour player skill and you may end up with a good action game but certainly a poor RPG.
And if you talk of randomness in general ... Well, it can add a lot of replay value if done well, though it is unfortunately very rare. NetHack thrives on randomness, giving you a new dungeon each time you play with items that need to be identified; Diablo throws different quests and enemies your way, many you won't see in a single playthrough; Daggerfall simply has you fear dungeons, because you'd never know what'd be awaiting you down there, and you may just spend days trying to find the exit and die trying or get out alive with a cart full of magic items, talk about glorious! Even other hybrid RPG benefit from randomness, like the recent Kning's Bounty or the excellent King of Dragon Pass, and the latter is all about coping with random events.

I still don't see how this invalidates my example. And in any case, working around such lack of intelligence demands player skills.
There's a difference between playing the systems and playing the game.
I really don't get this argument. Giving the player access to items and skills which makes certain content redundant in the late game is common in RPGs.
And what are you saying, anyway? That if content is there, the player should be forced to experience it? Isn't that very anti-RPG? Remove the freedom from an RPG and you're left with Progress Quest.
Well, you responded to a comment regarding Gothic 3 so I obviously assumed you were talking about that.
Way to go with the sweeping generalizations there, buddy. This is just unfounded nonsense.
Not only that, but it's a very strange argument coming from an RPG-fan. Most RPG mechanics are in fact attempts to simulate reality, in various different ways. The focus on skills, the freedom to choose between different kind of solutions, the way players of a P&P RPG can suggest completely unique solutions to problems, and have them accepted and implemented through existing mechanics, these are all elements which are there to support a sense of realism.
Believable/realistic... whatever you want to call it. Semantics, and a good way to avoid answering what I'm really saying.
Which is: If my sword hits the enemy, it should be counted as a hit. Anything else is just artificial and weird, and breaks immersion by screaming "this is a game, it doesn't follow the rules of the real world!" in your face.
I know.
But the fact that it is so inconsistent is an even larger crime in my book. It lures you into thinking that all skills are created equal, and that non violent solutions are as valid as any others. Then you reach the last part, and realize you're up shit's creek with no paddle.
No, this example does not support your argument. You see, it's not the class selection in itself that allows for different solutions. Or rather, it isn't in a well designed RPG. Instead, it is the skill levels of the characters. If your character is good at fighting, he can fight, if he is good at magic and knows the teleport spell, he can teleport inside. If he's good with smooth-talking, he may talk his way inside. It's the skills that matter, and these are things that your player has learned throughout the game (mostly).
You also suggest that leaving classes behind would result in games where everyone can do anything, and see anything. This is not necessarily correct either. You have to work for your skill increases, remember. In many games you are limited to increasing skills as you level up. Some games even have a level cap. So you have to choose what skills to learn, what you want your character to be able to do (and, just as important, what you don't want to focus on). A well designed system will force you to specialize.
And the important thing is, these choices happen during the game. Not before you've started, which is what happens with class selections. If anything, class selections should only give you a foundation, and allow you to take your character from there, in any direction you want as long as you're capable of it. It should not say "ok, you've decided to become a fighter, now you must fight all the way through the game no matter what, and you are not allowed to wield a dagger, btw, because that is for thieves you dimwitted fighter". _That_ is lazy RPG design.
I am too. But comment such as this one seem to indicate that you are not taking my opinions seriously, and dismiss them because you have decided I don't know what I am talking about, or that I have (like a n00b) mistaken an RPG for an action game with a story.
Which is funny, because I can't remember talking about story at all, just game mechanics.
(and obviously the idea that experience don't give opinions any more weight is a bit silly as well, of course it does. games are like everything else in the world, and the more you've experienced the more you know)
But remove randomness to favour player skill, and you may end up with a good RPG. You still haven't offered any counter arguments - in fact, the first thing you do is to is to swap "randomness" for "character skills" in your response, which means that you respond to an argument I am not making.
In a standard RPG, the outcome of an attack is calculated, roughly, by randomness+character skills+weapon stats+enemy resistance. I am not suggesting you remove character skills from that equation, but randomness. Remove the effects of the dice, replace them with my skills. That's what I want.
Ah, but this is something else entirely. I am talking about randomness as a substitute for player skill. These are not examples of that. These are examples of randomness being used for other purposes in the games. Procedural content, basically. I have no problem with this, in fact I welcome it as long as it is done well.

Wether or not the sword/arrow/bullet/fist hits, and how hard/where it hits should affect how the animation looks - if it doesn't hit, or slightly scrapes the opponent, the animation should display that - a character with a low skill in swords probably wouldn't hit as much, or as hard, as a character that's trained a lot with swords (ie. they have a high skill, wether that is because the player has put a lot of points in the skill, or they've just gone around swinging the sword at a ton of enemies and training dummies, or paid trainers to teach them the skill) - if the animation depicts a hit, but the health bar does not (or whatever measurement there is; displayed as part of the interface or by the opponent's movement and/or bruises) it decreases the believability, but it can be believable even if the hit is randomly determined, as long as the weapon animation and the result on the opponent "agrees".
Some of this is only relevant in a case similar to Fallout 3, where the game begins with your character's birth, in any other story various stuff has already happened to your character before the game starts, and as such they have already learned a set of skills. How it's implemented is another matter - chose a class to get a determined skill set, or let the player shose every already-known skill themselves (perhaps limited to what the character can realistically know at that point in their life, so advanced magical rituals or sword movements would be unavailable at that point, but migh be learned later) (both of which are choices in Oblivion), or like many other games do: chose a class that determine BOTH what skills you know, and what skills you can learn (not right, imo).

Yes and no, its like the difference between authentic and realistic. One tries to replicate the experiece as exactly as possible whilst the other tries to make it feel more immersive whilst not being overly complicated. Its a minor difference really but thats the reason that the BIA games were called authentic rather than realistic (and "eh they're okay I guess" rather than "best thing since OFP!")
What about a spray of sparks rather than blood for hits that mathematically don't hit? Shows they're stopped by the armour. Less realistic for non-metal armour though
Ick! I've made an on topic post in this thread! Back to the DIY game, I'm now swinging wildly between Red Dawn the RPG and something Steampunk