bump.
With the recent development of oldschool mechanics games like Wasteland 2, story heavy games like Torment: Tides of Numenera, minimalist games like Antharion and open world simulators like TW3, I've stopped to wonder about how the same subgroup of gamers can get excited about all of them at once.
It seems to me that the one thing they all have in common is one thing: immersiveness. You can snub your nose now.
As this is the least tangible element of an RPG, many discount it as trivial or too subjective to consider. While it is extremely subjective for the player, the developers' intent on creating it is not. In fact, RPG's seem to me like the genre where the saying that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts is most true. Story, dialogue, choices, combat system, exploration and character progression all serve one goal: to create internally consistent fiction, to take you to a setting and make you feel a part of it. Combat systems don't hinge on d6's, but swords and maces. Skills commonly aren't "get money" and "spend less money", but "pick locks" and "barter". And we may all have snubbed at those dialogue choices that had no connection to the underlying fiction, but were 100% "real world" stuff (last happened to me while playing Persona 4: Golden).
What's the difference between an RPG and any work of fiction then? The active element, obviously. But what does the player's input serve if not enhancing immersion, the feeling of "being there"?
To me, it seems that any game that includes different systems that all equally contribute to a greater fiction is an RPG. An RPG is a game that can get shot in one leg and still stand upright. As long as it's not exactly the one element that makes or breaks an RPG
for them, RPG players will still get excited about it.