How do you define RPG?

I'd agree with Fnord on what defines a crpg for me. I have no idea what CoD means though, other than cash on delivery? And while it's true that I prefer a game with a group for me to play, a well done solo character will work for me too, if the game basics are decent.

Carnifex said:

I'd agree with Fnord on what defines a crpg for me. I have no idea what CoD means though, other than cash on delivery? And while it's true that I prefer a game with a group for me to play, a well done solo character will work for me too, if the game basics are decent.

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CoD = Call of Duty, which is different than when Duty calls

Pladio said:

So, when's your lobotomy scheduled for ?

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Three years ago.

Carnifex said:

I'd agree with Fnord on what defines a crpg for me. I have no idea what CoD means though, other than cash on delivery? And while it's true that I prefer a game with a group for me to play, a well done solo character will work for me too, if the game basics are decent.

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Fnord's post was about character progression. I forgot to mention that in my post, so I'll take this opportunity to add that area as a reply to you instead of a late-edit to my original post.

This thread is using such words as 'progression' and 'leveling up'. The word I prefer is 'Experience'. There's a reason the term Exp is now a meme, because Exp is the driving factor behind the other two terms. An RPG, for me, should provide a character with Experience that enables the character to function in a 'better' way as the game progresses. Levelling up is a tried and tested model for this to be translated to the player and I see no reason to change it unless someone comes up with something genuinely better.

Also, the term 'Loot' is also more important than simply a game mechanic. It ties in with the whole nostalgic concept of Ancient Mythology and Medieval Weaponry origins of RPGs and the literal meaning of Loot is integral to the concept of collecting both artifacts and money, both from conquest or legitimate enterprise or academic archaeology. To have no Inventory/Loot is therefore quite a massive leap away from the original concept inspiration.

I expected a fairly wide range, but at the moment we seem to be going from "everything is an RPG" to practically "only D&D is an RPG", which is about as wide as you can go.

I call your range and raise it to:

Nothing is 'really' an RPG. In the end you will always play a version of yourself mixed with the mind of the designer/developer. You will act within the boundaries of your own mind and the ruleset of the game.

In such a reality, the 'idea' of playing a role is nothing but a mere illusion you are creating for yourself.
Your mind won't let you do an action in the game if you can't even fathom to try it out.
So playing a role is in and of itself playing yourself.

How's that ?

Pladio said:

I call your range and raise it to:

Nothing is 'really' an RPG. In the end you will always play a version of yourself mixed with the mind of the designer/developer. You will act within the boundaries of your own mind and the ruleset of the game.

In such a reality, the 'idea' of playing a role is nothing but a mere illusion you are creating for yourself.
Your mind won't let you do an action in the game if you can't even fathom to try it out.
So playing a role is in and of itself playing yourself.

How's that ?

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quite nonsensical.

Which is why I prefer enforced roleplaying games, no matter how many people cry foul play at the sight of it. If my fighter is simply not able to sneak and my thief is simply not able to fight toe to toe, then assumption of the role is ensured by these boundaries. Which makes the game more fulfilling for me, because, yes, I'm basically playing out the vision of whoever created the ruleset, and I assume a role that is logical and possible within these boundaries.

I define an RPG as a game that has the following:

Loot and inventory management
Character customization, as well as character building
A story, with dialog and NPC interactions
Exploration of the game world

Those are probably my 4 main pillars. To be honest, these days I don't play many games unless they have all of these traits. I stay away from action-adventure games and things like that, strictly focusing on the RPG genre as I see it.

That said, I mainly go by feel. If the game doesn't feel like an RPG to me, I'm not going to be as interested in it. If a game feels like a hardcore RPG (such as Baldur's Gate), I am going to be extremely interested in it.

DArtagnan said:

Not really. In my opinion, leveling and progression is a major part of these modern online shooters.

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I think we have a very different look on these shooters then. For me, the progression system is a take it or leave it kind of thing. It's not why I play those games. The closest thing I've seen to a progression system in a modern shooter that I actually care about is the Payday 2 system, where you have skill trees (which do impact the gameplay quite a bit and offers the players a good amount of interesting choices), but even then I don't find it to be a core part of the experience. It's just a nice little addition/carrot on a stick.

HiddenX said:

One major thing for me in role-playing is: Character skill should influence the whole game more than the player skill.

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Personally I'm still pondering that one. Exactly where I personally would draw the line, where the characters skill becomes such a small part of the experience that I don't consider it a core part. I don't consider it important in say NOLF 2, which does have a minor character progression system. But what about Dark Souls? It has a robust character progression system, but in the end, a good enough player can beat the game without even touching it.

Menigal said:

I expected a fairly wide range, but at the moment we seem to be going from "everything is an RPG" to practically "only D&D is an RPG", which is about as wide as you can go.

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Well, I tried my best to phrase it so I wasn't saying 'only D&D', so I feel I have to respond to this. D&D was inspired by things that went before it and is only an example of a successful application of something all cultures like, Ancient Mythology and Middle-aged Valour-based Warfare.

By limiting oneself to striktly D&D one would be opening oneself up to claims of racism and a purely euro-centric hegemony of RPGs. Which should not be the case. While the mechanics might have originated from a western mind-set, mechanics themselves are pretty universal, a mario-like platformer is a mario-like platformer no matter the subject matter, the mechanics of the method of play are universal.

By saying a game 'has to be D&D' would be to exclude something like a good JRPG where Fireballs are replaced by meditation magic and Warriors are replaced by samurai. Or a South American RPG where offerings to the gods replaces a regular Priest's Heal spell, etc etc. I think you get what I mean. By isolating D&D as the primary example too much you run the risk of wrongly alienating people who view D&D as a purely western cultural activity.

Sacred_Path said:

quite nonsensical.

Which is why I prefer enforced roleplaying games, no matter how many people cry foul play at the sight of it. If my fighter is simply not able to sneak and my thief is simply not able to fight toe to toe, then assumption of the role is ensured by these boundaries. Which makes the game more fulfilling for me, because, yes, I'm basically playing out the vision of whoever created the ruleset, and I assume a role that is logical and possible within these boundaries.

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It was a joke though

It was a response to Menigal

Pladio said:

It was a joke though

It was a response to Menigal

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Yep. Nonsensical!

I try not to, though I use the term quite liberally in casual conversations .

I guess there are some gameplay elements which I consider to be RPG elements/layers and when I feel a game is rich on these, then I´d call it an RPG, or a fully-fledged RPG, when there is less of these I´d call it some kind of hybrid or a game with RPG elements. It´s a continuum.
The elements pretty much boil down to opportunities to express my character(s), like stats, quest solutions, dialogue choices or exploration.
One condition that is pretty much a must for me to consider these elements well implemented is a sufficient degree of reactivity to at least some of them (narrative differences, enemies being affected differently by a type of offense and so on). Whether I find this degree sufficient or not depends on an experience I feel a game is trying to provide me.

I came to crpgs through tabletop, so to me it's mainly a question of defining my own character and my choices in the story.

Action-based gameplay doesn't bother me -- "player skill vs. character skill" is a spectrum anyway. Even in a pure turn-based, stat-based system, I could still lose a fight due to my own mistakes -- and even in a pure FPS I'm not really using my on gun skills but my own sitting-on-the-couch-with-a-laptop skills.

Most of my favorite games are somewhere in the middle -- real-time tactical with pause, action with lock-on targeting, etc. It's building up the kind of character I like, both as a skill-set and as a narrative, that makes the difference for me.

That said, I will simply be unable to complete a game that requires me to center a reticule on a moving target. I could manage the Mass Effect trilogy but just barely and only with constant reliance on biotic powers.

DeepO said:

One condition that is pretty much a must for me to consider these elements well implemented is some degree of reactivity

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On the whole I agree, but I have to say that one of the most powerful experiences I've had in an RPG was being forced to face the fact that my character's choices didn't matter a damn.

In the original Deus Ex way back when, you were sent in alone for the prologue mission at the Statue of Liberty. I like playing the good guy, so I set myself the challenge of getting through the prologue on the highest difficulty and without killing a single person. I reloaded and died, reloaded and died, but in the end I succeeded -- a bloodless victory!

Following which ... my wicked masters swept through the area and massacred every single one of the people I had gone to so much trouble to spare. I felt like I'd been punched in the gut.

And that more than anything is what an RPG is to me -- the feeling that the choices I'm making are real. That feeling can be created with reactivity, but it can also be created by a fully-fleshed-out world that has its own reality and might just trample all over the personal choices I try to make.

RedSocialKnight said:

That feeling can be created with reactivity, but it can also be created by a fully-fleshed-out world that has its own reality and might just trample all over the personal choices I try to make.

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Indeed.
Generally I like these kind of things when I feel they exist by design and dislike them when I feel they exist, well, due to lack of it.

Pladio said:

It was a joke though

It was a response to Menigal

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Oh. It read like something people would say in earnest on the Codex

Thanks for all of the responses, guys. I've enjoyed it reading through it. Some of the more technical definitions given seem like they've been a subconscious starting point for all of us and then we just narrowed down what rpg was to us based on the games we like, computer based or otherwise. Makes sense to me. What it was to me and what it was to everyone else was just connected to their experiences (I'm assuming here) and that's pretty cool in my book.

Hopefully, we all remember to start from an objective definition if we ever decide to argue about this xD

Fnord said:

I think we have a very different look on these shooters then. For me, the progression system is a take it or leave it kind of thing. It's not why I play those games. The closest thing I've seen to a progression system in a modern shooter that I actually care about is the Payday 2 system, where you have skill trees (which do impact the gameplay quite a bit and offers the players a good amount of interesting choices), but even then I don't find it to be a core part of the experience. It's just a nice little addition/carrot on a stick.

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Yes, we look at it very differently. I wouldn't take a second look at Battlefield without the progression system. If I don't have ways to evolve and progress that I can see and feel, I lose interest very quickly.

There's a reason almost all modern shooters have implemented RPG progression systems, and it's NOT because most people don't really care.

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.