The term "Role-Playing Game"

How did the meaning of this term get mutated so much? Today, "RPG" suggests that there are numbers that get larger. If a game does not have numbers that get larger, then it does not appear to be considered an "RPG" by the general population.

However, this is actually only a peripheral element. "Role-Playing" originally meant playing a role, and trying to imagine what someone in that role would do.

Whose Line Is It Anyway is a good example of a role-playing game. The players are given roles, and they have to try to play them. The numbers that get larger (i.e. the points) are meaningless in comparison to the playing of the roles.

lolwut.

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It's not a video game thing.

It's from tabletop as much as anything else.

RP Gs went from the tabletop to electronic simulations of RP Gs, called 'CRP Gs', in the form of Ultima and Wizardry. Japan then copied them in the form of Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. From there they mutated off into the freakish genre known as JRP Gs, which have nothing to do with RP Gs at all, because of the additional degree of separation from the tabletop games. Meanwhile CRP Gs split off in a direction of their own, but stayed rooted to their tabletop foundation.Recent western RP Gs like Mass Effect and everything Bethesda does have started a new movement in western RP Gs that is severed from the tabletop base as well.

RPG as a blanket term covers two entirely separate genres that share only a common ancestor. One of them long separate from the tabletop games and doing their own thing totally exclusive to video games, the other just beginnign to sever itself from its roots, but historically at least attempting to recreate the tabletop experience. The two have nothing in common other than their lineage and trying to find comparison is futile.

That's a bad analogy, because they say it themselves, "The points don't matter." while the numbers DO matter in RP Gs.

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Because…

1. Playing computer games which include one or more Player Characters (I.E.: almost anything with a plot) is, by ye olde tym definition, ipso facto an RPG.
2. The numbers are necessary in order for the player to be statistically abstracted from the character they're playing as, which allows the player and their character to have differing aptitudes. For instance, fixing broken machines and stabbing people with a sword depends on the character's skill, rather than yours.

Eric,

By that definition, every FPS and TPS is a RPG, too. I hence don't think it's really a workable definition. What RPGs require is to have some immersion to that rule, and stats offer a way to get that, since they allow you to customise your character, your role.

Same for the much maligned "dice-based" combat - it makes sure focus is on the character, the role, instead of the player.

So all those stats etc. do relate to "playing a role", which you have defined as the important part of a RPG.

/E: Ninja'ed.

edited 7th Jun '11 12:35:04 PM by Octo

Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. Unrelated ME1 Fanfic

The only real difference between a computer RPG and a pen-and-paper RPG is that Rail Roading is built into the fabric of the game to some degree or another. Technical limitations mean you can't just account for every possibility in a video game, since the story has to be pre-planned completely in advance. (At least until someone does a MMO-style toolkit software that allows virtual games of that sort; Neverwinter Nights being the only one that came anywhere close.)

Statistics are just one way of separating your character from real life. There are plenty of creative ways to do it without hard numbers, but Grandfather Clause is in full effect, meaning most people won't see them that way.

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)

The point of role-playing games is that the character is not you. The player's skills are not the character's skills. If the character is an elite sniper, it shouldn't matter if the player has never touched a gun (or an FPS). It's about pretending to be someone else, and abstracting from yourself.

"In Fire."

-Kosh, when asked how this thread will turn out.

Home of CBR Rumbles-in-Exile: rumbles.fr.yuku.com

RPG is a larger broader term for games than most people care to admit.

Random encounters? Not in Mario RP Gs.

Turned Based battle? Not Final Fantasy Adventure, not in Star Ocean.

A party? Not in Legend Of Zork, not in City Of Heroes. Not all dragon warriors have parties either.

Leveling Up? Not in Custom Robo.

About the only things consistent are a different mode for battling than for exploration, large amounts of text and the ability to upgrade as you progress. Then people are surprised when Zelda is called an RPG. Its not, even though Star Tropics and Sabre Prince are, Zelda's not because we said so, not even when Link started leveling up.

Modified Ura-nage, Torture Rack

Exactly.

Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. Unrelated ME1 Fanfic

Random Encounters, Turn-Based Tactics, Player Parties, and Character Levels are all just RPG Elements. The core feature of RPGs, extending everywhere from the tabletop, to JRPGs, to roguelikes, to classic PC RPGs, is abstraction.

The reason it's so crucial for tabletop and play-by-post RPing is because without stats you end up in an endless loop of “I do this” “You can't do that” “Can too!” “Nuh uh!” “Uh huh!”, the reason it's crucial for computer RPGs and LARPing is because otherwise The Cast Showoff's character will STEAMROLLER all challengers.

Eric,

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In any case, the term Role Playing Game sadly has the misfortune of being labeled with probably the most open ended name of genres out there.

It needs a new name like...Story and Party Development Game or something.

After thinking long and hard about this and being involved in an argument about it I feel it is best we just sort of accept the mutation and ignore it. Kind of like how nobody questions why karaoke went from "kah-rah-oh-kay" to "carry-okee". Or why the word karaoke, the freakish mutant combo of Japanese and Latin that it is, even exists at all.

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

At least it's actually descriptive of the basic abstraction mechanism to an extent, as opposed to… Adventure games, for instance, which are typically some of the least adventurous games I can imagine (and could best be described as multi-puzzle games, or more often as rubbing-inventory-items-against-each-other games.)

Eric,

A more apt name for them would be WTF Logic Puzzle games.

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

This is the fourth thread we've had on this topic.

I tend to prefer moment-to-moment, skill-based RP Gs than those dominated by turn-based combat or semi-real-time combat because of the immersion involved. The immediacy involved helps me empathise with the character. For that reason, I'd argue that real-time, skill-based combat doesn't prevent a game from being an RPG.

As a defining trait, "numerical skill and stat progression" seems like as apt a definition as we're likely to get. This seems, literally, to bethe only constant factor between RP Gs in both video games and tabletop games.

You can bring the approaches of complete player control and character-restricted gameplay together, though. To do this, I'd probably construct a complex, real-time combat system for high-level characters and scale back the peripheral elements as levels get lower. Gaining a certain feat might unlock the ability for superior dodges, or allow better ripostes or something.

Swordsman Troper — Reclaiming The Blade — Watch

I think most video game RP Gs are not strictly speaking RP Gs. I think they should have a seperate name. But yes, pretty much the only thing that makes a game a RPG is sweet sweet xp. Of course that's an exageration, but what is important is that the very idea of playing as a character rather than just playing the character has been lost. Mainly just because it's hard to have open ended gameplay. But we've tried.