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[Overside]

He's got a health meter and a magic meter, sounds like an RPG to me

Skeletons dont have ears.

 

[A Link to the Past]

Well. Health meters are obviously in several different games. And magic meters are just an abstraction to limit resources and force resource management, which are, again, in several different games. By your definition Halo is an RPG because you have health and ammo. So is Street Fighter because you have health and super meter.

Street Fighter is my favourite RPG, I enjoy the fighter class a lot

 

[Vex_]

Your one line of saying it doesnt does not alter reality.


It doesnt matter how much marketing splooge you gargle.

A video game rpg is a digital version of a pen and paper rpg.

They are not called computer rpg's because 'you play a role in a game'.

They got the name because they were literally NAMED AFTER pen and paper rpg's.


You can call a cat a dog all you want, you can even get a bunch of idiots to parrot the act and call the cat a dog.

Doesnt change the the fact its a dog, and the people who know better and shake their head as they walk by the drooling yokels chanting dog at a cat are not wrong.

You mean like your one line? Or did you miss my post up top? The rest of your post is irrelevant (dogs and cats). You made a horrible analogy. Do I need to explain to you why that doesn't work here? Please.

Like, I said... Rpgs are dead. There are many people that disagree with you in this thread alone. So I'm not the only one, or are they "idiots" too? Fuck outta here with that.

 

[Overside]

You mean like your one line? Or did you miss my post up top? The rest of your post is irrelevant (dogs and cats). You made a horrible analogy. Do I need to explain to you why that doesn't work here? Please.

Like, I said... Rpgs are dead. There are many people that disagree with you in this thread alone. So I'm not the only one, or are they "idiots" too? Fuck outta here with that.

Yes, they can keep calling the cat a dog. the It doesnt turn the cat into the dog, or make the action adventure game an rpg. Your inability to resist marketing does not change genres into other genres.

It just leaves you believing things that are wrong.

 

[NullPointer]

In the pen and paper RPGs I was brought up with it meant inhabiting a character and a world and making decisions on behalf of that perspective to advance the character and heighten the drama of a collaborative story.

In video games it usually means ever increasing numbers taking the place of player input and novel content. Also used to gate content in the form of gear checks to make sure player agency alone can't defeat certain challenges ahead of a rigorously defined player progression schedule. Its also used as justification for the combat in The Division just as being an MMO is used as justification for the non-combat elements in Destiny.

In this day and age where technology and design maturity allows devs to be fully capable of showing rather than telling its a pretty meaningless concept for the most part, though there are exceptions.

 

[jesu]

Without thinking too hard, I'll say it's all about character stats and numbers.
Not so much actual role playing, you can do that in any game.

 

[Digital Savior]

What RPG is, is a terrible name for a genre. Not only can we not use the term literally (role-playing game), as that would describe every game ever made, but we also cannot use it to separate games by gameplay or story structure or anything else. We cannot use it to describe story heavy games, as that applies to too many games to be accurate. We cannot use it to describe games where we create our own character or "make choices", because there's far too many games that do that too. We can't even use it to describe games with "stats", as basic progression structures have made their way into every genre. It's a garbage term that is thrown around whenever it feels appropriate (and it gets even worse when we start adding W's and J's to it). We use it because we're used to using it. Because once upon a time it may have had some meaning, and since then we've simply clung to it. It's far more difficult to create new genre names that work, and have them spread wide enough that people actually use them properly, than it is to just stick with what we've been using even if it is outdated or clunky.

But most of the time when you call something an RPG most people will agree with you or at least naturally understand what you're talking about. So it doesn't really matter, I guess.

Pretty much sums up my view. Just about every game is a RPG as you play as some other entity. But even if you break it down, just adding stats to a game makes it a RPG. It's a pretty dumb term. But, generally as indicated, people know what you're talking about when you use it, so we need to keep using it.

 

[water_wendi]

Who carries out the action? You or the character?

An example. In Super Mario Bros you take control of Mario but Mario is not the one running and jumping, you are. The skill of you as the player is the sole determining factor on whether you get to the flag/castle. In Final Fantasy VII Cloud is performing the attack, not you.

 

[30yearsofhurt]

For me RPGs are about an adventure that your character goes on that involves character growth that is required to solve an issue, adversary or problem that was unsolvable at the start of the game.

For it to be a JRPG there needs to be:
a) a well defined story arc;
b) a party of at least three central protagonists who each have well developed backstories and story arcs. Each character and their story needs to serve a purpose to the greater arc/story; and
c) the party grow closer and mature through the course of the story.

For this reason I would not have the Souls games as JRPGs but an RPG nonetheless.

What about Zelda? Does Link demonstrate character growth when he gets more hearts on his health bar?

Is Pokemon an RPG because your Pokemon get stronger and learn new abilities and evolve, etc.? Is earning badges character growth?

 

[texhnolyze]

You don't need a description to classify an RPG. You play it, and you feel it, then you'll know it.

Many franchises trying to blend RPG elements into their games, and many have failed miserably.

 

[SuperAngelo64]

Japanese developers should just start calling JRPGs "Odysseys" so this nit picking can end.

 

[TeddyShardik]

Everything that isn't an Action-Adventure?

I don't know, genre barriers have become very blurry these days to the point where people actually argue about what a game actually is supposed to be.

 

[Haruka]

Genres come with certain expectations, but these expectations themselves do not shape the genre, because genres slowly evolve over time. This is true with any kind of art or media: movies, literature, music, etc. So if you try to think of a defining element for RPGs you're doomed to the following two outcomes: 1) You come up with a definition of RPG which isn't inclusive enough or 2) you come up with a definition which is too broad.

Of course, it's true that genres most of the time if not always have very strict rules they have to adhere when they are still young to in order to be considered to be part of that genre. I think a good example are the strict rules that existed when it came to writing Greek stage plays from 2000+ years ago. But I think over time these rules get more often ignored because by that time people think of them as boring or they just want to try something new. So a stage play or movie which would now be considered "drama" might not at all be like a Greek tragedy while they both probably would be put together under the same umbrella term nowadays. I think a similar process occurs which shapes video game genres over time.

So when you would pick the first 10 RPG games ever made, and assuming these the developers of these games were aware of the works that came before them and drew inspiration from them, it's probably very easy to come up with a very detailed set of criteria of what an RPG game is. But if you would try to do this with when considering more and more games, it becomes basically impossible to do. The reason for that is because developers or publishers stretch the term to include their game as a marketing strategy ("This game has leveling so it's an RPG!"), and because of the muddling of genres.

How do you determine objectively is something is an RPG or not? You can't, at least not entirely. It depends on your opinion. My personal method of determining what an RPG is, is simply looking if they are labeled that way by the publisher or the developers. But does that mean you can just point at any game and declare it to be an RPG? I don't think so. I believe there's still a "hard divide" that exists. The reason I do is because I have never seen anyone declaring a game like Tetris or Flappy Bird to be RPGs, so there must be something that makes them different. What exactly this hard divide is may be up to debate, but I think it's the element of "character building". This is a definition which would fall under outcome 2 I mentioned earlier, it applies to too many games to be useful. Therefore, I think the definition of what an RPG is being dependant on opinion is unavoidable, at least nowadays. I think there's also a "fuzzy zone" that exists between games that fall behind this hard devide, games which are more likely or less likely to be considerd RPGs by the majority of people.

I think this is also why the debate about whether or not The Legend of Zelda are RPGs exists. The games still has that essential element of character building but lacks a lot of other expectations that come with RPGs. Therefore, the Zelda games are more closer to this cut-off point than say Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy. I think it's with games that fall in this fuzzy zone where you see a lot of arguing about whether they are RPGs or "action-adventure"".

 

[Molemitts]

Table top role playing games were around before video game RPGs. When video games were created with character stats, like how the characters you role play as in table top RPGs have stats, they were called RPGs, despite the actual role play not being a part of the game.

So, the answer is that RPG is a silly genre name for video games in the first place.

 

[Shifty]

Best I can tell, it's a G in which you P an R.

Take from that what you will.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

To all the people saying RPG is a dumb genre name for video games. Suggest a better name then.

 

[CecilRousso]

It's a combination of player agency and character building/development,

 

[More Fun To Compute]

To all the people saying RPG is a dumb genre name for video games. Suggest a better name then.

Strategy-Adventure.

 

[Haruka]

To all the people saying RPG is a dumb genre name for video games. Suggest a better name then.

Playing Game.

 

[Jerry Orbach]

To all the people saying RPG is a dumb genre name for video games. Suggest a better name then.

Fantasy Adventure Game

 

[Arulan]

Dark Souls is an RPG made in Japan so it is indeed a JRPG.

That's perhaps for a different discussion, but personally I don't feel that clarifying where a game is made has much meaning. It's the design and origins of said design that I feel have more significance in distinguishing so-called genres. For instance, Dark Souls has many of its design origins in King's Field, which has many with Ultima Underworld. Ultima Underworld is the direct inspiration for what is referred to as immersive-sims, which King's Field retains a lot of. Following King's Field, From Software created its own branch of the tree with the 'Souls games, instead of following directly down the immersive-sim branch which led to Thief, System Shock, etc. And finally, there are RPGs made outside of Japan that could be called JRPG due to design similarities, such as Anachronox, South Park: The Stick of Truth, and Undertale.

 

[Finale Fireworker]

I find the endless debate concerning the definition of RPGs to be truly bizarre. Oldschool D&D and CRPG fans seem the most dedicated to enforcing a definition, followed by JRPG fans who seek to quantify the use of the letter J.

Then you have people who say Bethesda games are the only real RPGs in the industry, including the people making them.

So my own question isn't what constitutes an RPG, but why are people so frustrated and enamored with trying to define it? For me, an RPG has to do a lot more with presentation than anything else. If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, it's probably a duck.

If it looks like an RPG, it's probably an RPG.

Why is an RPG that's based around choice more or less of an RPG that's around random number generation? Why is an RPG with blank characters and a weak story more or less of an RPG with developed characters and a narrative focus? Why can't these all be RPGs? Why is BioShock less of an RPG than Dark Souls? Why is Secret of Mana less of an RPG than Baldur's Gate? Why must we constantly challenge and attempt to narrow a genre that is historically wide, varied, and functionally nebulous?

 

[ash_ag]

I'll never understand this phenomenon of trying to baptize Zelda an RPG. It's been going on for years -- some players insist on the idea, and get defensive when told it's not so. It boggles my mind, because Zelda is like the dictionary definition of an Action-adventure game. It focuses on travelling, action, and puzzles. It's as much an RPG as Mass Effect is a visual novel, or Final Fantasy VII is a racing game. Why Zelda, and why an RPG specifically? Why not call Mario a first-person shooter or Half-Life a dating sim? Did Zelda II leave such a strong impression?

But seriously, defining terms such as 'role-playing game' is a fun thought experiment, but nothing more than that. In the end, it's not that hard to figure out what game fits which genre: "Is it similar to Dragon Quest?", "Does its setup roughly resemble Mario?", "Is it anything like Zelda?". Besides, no game has to fully comply with a particular genre. Game design goes beyond genre, and genres are just convenient descriptors for roughly explaining how a game plays. There are plenty cases where a game is so much "its own thing", that you can't really put it in a category.

 

[Mozendo]

And finally, there are RPGs made outside of Japan that could be called JRPG due to design similarities, such as Anachronox, South Park: The Stick of Truth, and Undertale.

Which was based on Western RPG designs.
Console-styled RPGs had always had a strong root to Western developed RPGs, if JRPGs were a genre it should be used to describe a genre that Japan invented like Action RPGs.

 

[Azuran]

To all the people saying RPG is a dumb genre name for video games. Suggest a better name then.

Best genre ever but it will never work because others will get offended at the truth.

 

[4Tran]

If a game is part of a lineage obviously traceable back to D&D, it's an RPG. Lets not kid ourselves, most of these games have you playing less of a "role" than Tomb Raider or Metal Gear or whatever.

Yes, it's ironic that D&D is called an RPG for combining roleplaying and wargaming rules while the games mostly stick to the wargaming side. It is what it is.

Obviously on the furthest reaches of the genre there is less D&D DNA, in which case you apply the "know it when you see it" rule. Yes, this is broad. Yes, it's weird when you realize "action games" like Dark Souls have more in common with D&D than a lot of newer turn-based games do. And then stuff like King of Dragon Pass really muddies things (including being derived from Glorantha, a pre-D&D gaming setting).

Historically, the original D&D doesn't have anything that we would consider "role-playing" either. It was a loot-fest where your character was carried over and grew from game session to game session. At the time, calling this a role-playing game made a lot of sense because it was still unique among the board games (like Monopoly), wargames, card games, and puzzle games of the time.

Video game RPGs take their name and game design from the early D&D days, so the name makes a certain amount of sense.

 

[jblank83]

If it's formulas then how do RTS play into it.
Many have similar formulas that you talk about including unit level but still are not at all RPGs. I don't think formulas or stats have anything to do with what makes an RPG.

My reply:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=194378042&postcount=31

Summary: character sheet

Longer summary: All games have formulas, as all games have choices, as all games have characters; It's the extent to which they challenge<>determine a character's actions and growth that makes an RPG. There is grey area, but the distinction is easy enough to determine if you aren't intentionally trying to obfuscate the terminology.

 

[NipplesAndToes23]

Stats in an RPG implies formulas, specifically complex formulas determining character performance. RPGs use formulas to model systems and thereby to determine character performance, or modify player performance. As so:
http://www.chrisclarke.co.uk/D2stuff/PDFs/ToHit.htm



Action games use player skill to determine performance. Whether you hit an enemy is solely dependent on your ability to aim at that monster and hit the attack button at the correct time. There are formulas here, but they are physics and matter only in determining position in a 3 dimensional space (i.e. to graphically render the action).

Hybrid RPGs come from a blend of player skill and modifying RPG formulas. Meaning the player skill determines if they hit, but the underlying skill/stats determine the effect of that hit (how much damage, criticals, etc).

Zelda is neither of these, with the exception (barely) of Zelda II. The "stats" in Zelda are no more an indication of it being an RPG than the stats on a scoreboard in Madden qualify that game as an RPG.

You're very well spoken.

 

[Mivey]

A genre for which people can argue in many words what defines it. Some of these words are "stat(istic)s","level", "systems", "character". Also contains an entire taxonomoy of subgenres, each sharing the property of having people argue about their definitions, though often with more words.

I think that's as objective as you can get.

 

[Arulan]

If a game is part of a lineage obviously traceable back to D&D, it's an RPG.

Genres like other constructs can be very arbitrary and filled with exceptions, but sometimes the endeavor can be fascinating. It's why I found the article interesting, and decided to post it here. Not because I'm looking for a complex list of characteristics that defines an RPG.

That said, I often too prefer to think of genre in terms of design origins. Much like what I said about JRPGs earlier, you can usually see the origins of influence in RPGs, and that often coincides to the sub-genres we use today. So, I could say that an RPG in terms of video games is one that has a common origin in pen and paper role-playing games, either directly or indirectly. Wizardry and Ultima were some of the earliest and most influential RPGs. You can directly observe how these two, although specifically Wizardry, created its own branching point to JRPGs. Moving forward these (Wizardry and Ultima) would help define the Dungeon Crawler, or also known as the Blobber. The later Ultima IV would have a tremendous effect on the genre, as well as The Gold Box games. The Infinity Engine games come from that branching point. Ultima Underworld would become the beginning of another branching point as the immersive-sim, later followed by Thief and System Shock. Diablo would inspire another branching point of RPGs, defined not just by real-time combat, but a number of design choices that separate this action RPG from something like The Witcher.

I'll stop there. There is a lot left to be said, but the point was demonstrate that line of thinking. Of course, not everything may be so clear. Sometimes a game will borrow from different origins, and there could be other problems too. Regardless, I feel looking back through a game's design origins and history to offer a much clearer and informative picture.