Crusader Kings III - Review @ Polygon

So you'd say The Witcher and Gothic are not rpgs ?

People have been saying that since they came out, but they are extremely popular, and as you well know, and has been mentioned in this thread, words and their meanings are quite democratic and there's only so much the original meaning of something can withstand before the usurper prevails :)

The thing is, just because there's a rigid structure in place for what constitutes something it doesn't mean that 'close enough' isn't a thing. There are many games we call RPGs for no other reason than they are Close Enough and it gets tiresome having to write the proviso every time we talk about them. Those who were around at the time of release already know the deal, unfortunately, when new arrivals appear, they are not familiar with the 'unspoken knowing' and hence this contributes to the democratic loss of meaning.

Take Diablo, for example, the Codex don't even permit Diablo threads in their GRPG forum. Like-wise the RPGWatch does not traditionally view Diablo as GRPG material. The reason always was because it was a single character game and therefore not 'properly' RPG.

Take jRPGs, for example, why do they even have different sub-forums? Yu think it's just veiled racism or because they are 'foreign'? No, it's because jRPGs don't traditionally have character creation and, usually, enforce a static linear narrative, which is why you can't have character creation. This is why Planescape Torment is often referred to as, variably, more of an adventure game, more of a jRPG, and etc, and why people find it hard to describe PST as just a pure RPG.

What you seem to be getting upset about is not the definitions, but rather the idea that [insert your favourite game] is not considered a 'pure RPG'. As if it's some kind of shame that [favourite game] is somehow substandard because it's not 'pure RPG', when this has never been the case.

Someone says "yeah, great game, but it's not exactly RPG is it", and the army of fanboys of [favourite game] rush in to say how retarded XYZ is for 'slurring' their [favourite game], when that was never the intention nor purpose of the comment. It is merely an expression of fact. A communication tool that lets others know what kind of game it is.

Like the other guy said, because we like to categorise things. Because one-liners are more readable than walls of text. The short-hand always wins out. "This game that's a bit like an RPG is really great, try it out guys", get's shortened over the years to "Try out this great RPGs guys".

Divine Divinity is another classic example of when it was released it was one of those "wow, great nearly-RPG game guys, try it out", that is now written as just "Great old RPG". I myself highly praise DD & will always recommend it to other RPG fans, but if I ever wall of text about it, I'll always qualify it as "a nearly RPG", just as many others from that era would. But if someone just asks "recommend me a good old RPG", then I'll just type DD without any qualifiers, because that's just how it is.

The reaction of both you and @jfarrel is weird because you are not new people to the genre, and yet you both seem unaware of the unwritten knowledge that silently caveats all RPGs. So I'm wondering where you're coming from aside from [favourite game] historical arguments.
 
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You didn't read carefully enough ;) He isn't. In Witcher, you can choose whether you specialize in alchemy, magic, etc.

No, I'm afraid that's not entirely it, my wall of text reply to @Pladio; goes into more detail on this.
 
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Is a game are CRPG or not is not a yes/no question. The CRPG tag for a game is a genre tag. Most genres of games, movies, music etc. have fuzzy borders and what belongs to a specific subgenre can be very subjective. So there's is no mathematical definition for the CRPG genre.

But we solved this problem years ago - you can measure CRPG elements of a game pretty well and if it is some kind of CRPG or not is in the end a subjective decision:

-> Thread
-> Article
-> CRPG Analyzer
 
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No, I'm afraid that's not entirely it, my wall of text reply to @Pladio; goes into more detail on this.

Haha, you begin to remind me of something. I come from Norway where black metal is a big thing and every second metal band wants to be "black metal". Among the connoisseurs, only very few bands are "trve evil norwegian fucking black metal" while to us laymen they all sound the same. A journalist asked one "TRVE" black metal artist "what is black metal then?". He answered something along the lines "black metal is the feeling, you just know whether it is true black metal or not." Sounds like RPGs could be classified the same way :p

PS. I think I know too when music is black metal or when a game is an RPG. Mostly using my blessed skill of sarcasm here.
 
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Is a game are CRPG or not is not a yes/no question. The CRPG tag for a game is a genre tag. Most genres of games, movies, music etc. have fuzzy borders and what belongs to a specific subgenre can be very subjective. So there's is no mathematical definition for the CRPG genre.

But we solved this problem years ago - you can measure CRPG elements of a game pretty well and if it is some kind of CRPG or not is in the end a subjective decision:

-> Thread
-> Article
-> CRPG Analyzer

Your dedication to over-analysis is commendable, but on the one hand you say there's no mathematical definition but on the other hand link to a very mechanical and mathematical-like analysis system.

When the reality is, we all know a pure RPG when we see one. They're the games we instantly just know that they are the real thing. And I've no doubt you do this as well, but prefer linking people to the analyser because you believe it a diplomatic way to approach the 'problem' of people wanting [favourite game] to be referred to as a pure RPG.

While you view it as diplomacy, I would suggest it's more like brushing the conversation under the carpet.
 
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Haha, you begin to remind me of something. I come from Norway where black metal is a big thing and every second metal band wants to be "black metal". Among the connoisseurs, only very few bands are "trve evil norwegian fucking black metal" while to us laymen they all sound the same. A journalist asked one "TRVE" black metal artist "what is black metal then?". He answered something along the lines "black metal is the feeling, you just know whether it is true black metal or not." Sounds like RPGs could be classified the same way :p

PS. I think I know too when music is black metal or when a game is an RPG. Mostly using my blessed skill of sarcasm here.

Lol, once again, my post to the previous responder is also a reply to this, in this case my reply to @HiddenX;

And, yes, that's a great parallel. Whenever a niche gets 'popular', and the definition blurs, yes, you get this same exact kind of debate. It is indeed a part of life.

You should google "what is a true Scotsman" if you haven't already ;) :D
 
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diplomatic way to approach the 'problem' of people wanting [favourite game] to be referred to as a pure RPG.

This is not sarcasm, more just discussion: here you imply that one desires a game to be an RPG. I get it here on RPG forums, but generally why? What is so much more desirable with an RPG compared to other genres? Perhaps we come to the "commercial bullshit" argument here.
 
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You didn't read carefully enough ;) He isn't. In Witcher, you can choose whether you specialize in alchemy, magic, etc.

You didn't read carefully enough. He says that if you're not in a team, it's not an RPG.

Besides, in the Witcher, the closest thing to your class is, wait for it, Witcher. That is literally your role in the world. By his definition, you do not have a role made distinct by your role in a party, therefore the Witcher games are not RPGs.
 
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You may disagree with it, as you have, but it is the entire point of RPGs and always has been and so you are factually incorrect in your statement.

Must be awesome to pull things out of your ass and claim them to be incontrovertible facts. "Presto magico, I am Lackblogger and I say it is true that early Ultima games are not RPGs because they are solo games and lack anything resembling classes. Now I shall tell everyone how wrong they are, using as many meaningless words as possible."

Even your analogy is crap. Nobody plays football one on one, that's true. But people play basketball, a team game, one on one ALL THE TIME. And it is still basketball, recognized as such by everyone in the world who plays and follows basketball.
 
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The CRPG Anylyzer checklist is very easy to apply and Wulf, Arhu and I discussed it with dozens of gamers. It works pretty well and should encourage the discussion about CRPG elements and is not brushing conversations under the carpet.

Most questions about the CRPG genre have been discussed in this thread.

An older system (from RPGDot times) tries to ask questions for a game reviewer to measure the CRPGness of a game - I like it as well:

CRPG-Meter reviews:

Skyrim
Geneforge 4
The Witcher
Drakensang
Gothic 3
 
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This is not sarcasm, more just discussion: here you imply that one desires a game to be an RPG. I get it here on RPG forums, but generally why? What is so much more desirable with an RPG compared to other genres? Perhaps we come to the "commercial bullshit" argument here.

My guess is that the developers set out to make a game to cash-in on a market niche, and find that developing a true RPG is actually a very complex process and decide to go other routes as development demands. An example might be how Diablo started out as a turn-based RPG but ended up as real time, for example.

But it's not limited to the cash demand, it can also just be creative expression. A developer really likes RPGs but wants to add their own twist to help them stand out or to prioritise the specific feature they personally like the most, or the features they are most expert at. And other such innocent and positive reasons.

Those latter reasons are much more common than you think and explain a whole raft of RPGs and nearly RPGs from Ultima VII to Undertale via Planescape Torment and Fable, and many, many more.

The desire for change, or, rather, having new twists to the genre, is a good thing and often produces great games. The danger that comes from this is that the fans of only these kinds of experiments then start expecting 'all' RPGs to be like the experimental exceptions. And if no-one makes any true RPGs any more, then there's no rock from which people can experiment away from, and, eventually, there's no RPG anchor and no more RPGs, just millions of vague 'RPG elements' games where people don't even know what elements are the RPG elements, it becomes, as someone said, just a PR catchphrase of no meaning other than a dopamine hit in the customer.
 
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Must be awesome to pull things out of your ass and claim them to be incontrovertible facts. "Presto magico, I am Lackblogger and I say it is true that early Ultima games are not RPGs because they are solo games and lack anything resembling classes. Now I shall tell everything how wrong they are, using as many meaningless words as possible."

Even your analogy is crap. Nobody plays football one on one, that's true. But people play basketball, a team game, one on one ALL THE TIME. And it is still basketball, recognized as such by everyone in the world who plays and follows basketball.

And people play football one-on-one all the time. But its not football, as in what people want to 'buy' and get involved in on a commercial level.

As for the rest of your post, it's just ad-hominem attack because [favourite game] has been mentioned, you're not actually discussing RPGs.
 
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You didn't read carefully enough. He says that if you're not in a team, it's not an RPG.

Besides, in the Witcher, the closest thing to your class is, wait for it, Witcher. That is literally your role in the world. By his definition, you do have a role made distinct by your role in a party, therefore the Witcher games are not RPGs.

Yes, that is correct. Though you are incorrect in your propaganda of claiming I said "not RPGs" when the phrase was "not true RPGs" or "nearly RPGs", and you are indeed doing what I describe in my previous replies, just being offended that [favourite game] isn't True RPG, as if that means anything other than a factual statement.
 
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You didn't read carefully enough ;) He isn't. In Witcher, you can choose whether you specialize in alchemy, magic, etc.

I don't think so:

And in order for your Character Class to have any meaning as an individual Role the player must be choosing their class from a wide variety of classes and also that they must be playing alongside other team members who have different classes, otherwise it wouldn't matter what Role you were playing. Hence Lara Croft is an action adventure game, even if she has loot, upgradable abilities and a levelling up noise.

That specifically says you must be playing alongside other types of classes.
 
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Yes, that is correct. Though you are incorrect in your propaganda of claiming I said "not RPGs" when the phrase was "not true RPGs" or "nearly RPGs", and you are indeed doing what I describe in my previous replies, just being offended that [favourite game] isn't True RPG, as if that means anything other than a factual statement.

And my favorite game is...what? Since you apparently seem to know and can't conceive of someone making a point not made from a partisan perspective?
 
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I don't think so:

That specifically says you must be playing alongside other types of classes.

Honestly, I think he played himself out with those arguments. Circular logic, etc. @JFarrell71; is correct that I did not read careful enough but that's beyond the point. I like this discussion. Let's not spoil it by blames and off-topics. Generally logical arguments in those posts.
 
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Honestly, I think he played himself out with those arguments. Circular logic, etc.

Are you referring to me? If so, that's an unqualified statement that doesn't say anything and provides no meaning. I have no idea why you just said that.
 
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Are you referring to me?

Kind of. @JFarrell71; is right that some of your arguments used logic that does not fly in that original post although he was unable to explain why. CRPGs do not amend only from tabletop RPGs, but also from the RPG books (remember those things from the 80s where you would read and choose your actions, then jump to a certain page). That kind of RPGs were in fact some of the first ones made to Amiga/Nintendo/PCs. In those, you were operating alone and therefore the argument that one would need a team does not fly.

Do not worry, however, I get your point and I did learn something. Let us try to keep this discussion free of off-topics and pointless blaming. They'll just spoil the discussion. Also, remember that it is about CK3 and we are drifting further and further…
 
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