Crispy™ What is an RPG Attempt #186,091

[King Crispy]

An RPG is any game in which the player assumes the role or roles of a single or party of adventurer(s) and whose primary focus is on the narration of that player's/those players' exploits and accomplishments throughout a story, and, critically, the tracking and reflection of improvement of the statistics and other derived characteristics of that/those character(s) as they affect the outcomes of his/her/their actions in the game's world.

Come at me, bros.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Come at me, bros.

grabs crotch

 

[Excidium II]

An RPG is a game where you go places and do stuff.

 

[King Crispy]

I forgot to mention anything about inventory. If a game existed that had everything I described in it, but no inventory system to speak of, would you still consider it an RPG?

 

[Excidium II]

I forgot to mention anything about inventory. If a game existed that had everything I described in it, but no inventory to speak of, would you still consider it an RPG?

Imagine you're playing D&D and nobody is keeping track of or carrying any items. What is it you are playing?

 

[King Crispy]

That's a great question.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Not this again...

Someone retardo this shit.

 

[Reapa]

i can tell you what's not an rpg and should be instantly moved to the strategy forum. battletech.

 

[Kem0sabe]

i can tell you what's not an rpg and should be instantly moved to the strategy forum. battletech.

I've been saying this for a while, not sure how many more times the devs need to say that it's not an rpg.

 

[Aenra]

Was still a stalker when these were all the rage..so will bite.

An RPG is game that successfully combines all three aspects:

- Versimilitude

- Lifting of the 'alienation effect' as caused by the existence of arbitrary conceptions in regard to setting, mood, characters, lore or systems deployed to convey said versimilitude

- Empowerment/Prioritisation of player agency through forms and aspects deriving from the game's mechanics

(so no, as far as i am concerned, inventories, D&D rulesets, TB/Iso or stats have nothing to do with an "RP" game. They are just "precepts" most have come to take for granted, thus blindfolding themselves into expectations of a perpetuity of "sameness", it being in itself the primary reason for what most unwittingly [literally and metaphorically] have come to refer to as 'decline')

 

[Excidium II]

That's a great question.

That's what I think whenever people start throwing around a list of things that define what is an RPG.

Another example: you also give character development as an essential characteristic of the genre, but say you ran an one-shot adventure where nobody is going to get enough exp to level up. So what the hell did you just play if it's not an RPG?

 

[King Crispy]

say you ran an one-shot adventure where nobody is going to get enough exp to level up. So what the hell did you just play if it's not an RPG?

If it still had the potential to improve the characters' statistics (through XP/leveling) and it contained everything else laid out in OP then yes, it would be an RPG. If the code didn't exist anywhere in the game, though, then that would be a real philosoraptor moment. It would come down to intent of the designer. COULD they add in that code as an "expansion" then allow the players to continue on, leveling as they did? RPG.

 

[Parsifarka]

An RPG is a game which we discuss in RPG discussion.

 

[Reapa]

That's what I think whenever people start throwing around a list of things that define what is an RPG.

Another example: you also give character development as an essential characteristic of the genre, but say you ran an one-shot adventure where nobody is going to get enough exp to level up. So what the hell did you just play if it's not an RPG?

an adventure game? duh!
unless it has real time combat. in that case it's a fucking action game.

 

[King Crispy]

It's easy to delineate the components most of us feel are essential; this has been done before plenty of times but for sake of argument why not list them again?

- You must have a character or characters whose "role" you step into.

- He or they must have mathematical representations of their individual abilities and/or "progression" levels.

- There must be some purpose for this/these character(s) to exist -- an interactive or affect-able story. A quest, if you will.

- There must be some system in place to represent items owned/used/needed. An inventory. This one is still up for debate.

- There must be a means by which the character(s) advance(s), whether by accumulation of mathematical allowances to invest into and thereby increase their statistics, or potentially assigned or chosen for them. The latter possibility would be undesirable for most RPG aficionados, but its presence would not preclude a game featuring it from being an RPG.

- There must be meaningful interaction with the game world. This may be in the form of application of accrued mathematical allowances to the character(s) statistics in order to more successfully affect a positive outcome on the world's various obstacles placed before him/them or through a more narrative means such as a two-way conversation system that the player has some form of control over. Usually both forms of interaction are present (applied stats + NPC interaction)

Am I forgetting anything?

 

[Excidium II]

an adventure game? duh!
unless it has real time combat. in that case it's a fucking action game.

See that's the thing with videogames. Any sort of adventure game already possibly shares enough with actual RPGs that defining RPGs by featureset within the context of videogames is a waste of time.

If it still had the potential to improve the characters' statistics (through XP/leveling) and it contained everything else laid out in OP then yes, it would be an RPG. If the code didn't exist anywhere in the game, though, then that would be a real philosoraptor moment. It would come down to intent of the designer. COULD they add in that code as an "expansion" then allow the players to continue on, leveling as they did? RPG.

Crispy I'm talking actual D&D not a videogame adaptation.

 

[King Crispy]

Primary focus of RPG Codex is on computer adaptations of RPG's. Dude.

 

[Excidium II]

Primary focus of RPG Codex is on computer adaptations of RPG's. Dude.

If it's an adaptation of RPGs then it's p. hard for it not to be an RPG.

 

[King Crispy]

An inventory-less RPG would still be an RPG. It would certainly be an oddball, and would very likely have to be extraordinary in other ways to make up for what is normally seen as a near-essential feature, but it would still be an RPG nevertheless. Does that settle that part?

 

[Excidium II]

An inventory-less RPG would still be an RPG. It would certainly be an oddball, and would very likely have to be extraordinary in other ways to make up for what is normally seen as a near-essential feature, but it would still be an RPG nevertheless. Does that settle that part?

Yes. The same is true for almost everything I see people screaming around as a defining feature of RPGs. The rest is just things that are typical to any videogame that isn't sports or some abstract arcade stuff.

Ironically enough one of the main defining features of actual RPGs which is the lack of a definitive victory state is absent on p. much every CRPG.

 

[StrongBelwas]

"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["role-playing game"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it."

 

[Veelq]

Someone here needs to watch some Bob Ross on Twitch ...

 

[Reapa]

Was still a stalker when these were all the rage..so will bite.

An RPG is game that successfully combines all three aspects:

- Versimilitude

- Lifting of the 'alienation effect' as caused by the existence of arbitrary conceptions in regard to setting, mood, characters, lore or systems deployed to convey said versimilitude

- Empowerment/Prioritisation of player agency through forms and aspects deriving from the game's mechanics

(so no, as far as i am concerned, inventories, D&D rulesets, TB/Iso or stats have nothing to do with an "RP" game. They are just "precepts" most have come to take for granted, thus blindfolding themselves into expectations of a perpetuity of "sameness", it being in itself the primary reason for what most unwittingly [literally and metaphorically] have come to refer to as 'decline')

An RPG is game that successfully combines all three aspects:

"- Versimilitude" = the appearance of being true or real - every fucking game does it!

"- Lifting of the 'alienation effect' as caused by the existence of arbitrary conceptions in regard to setting, mood, characters, lore or systems deployed to convey said versimilitude."
everything here can be easily summed up as immersion. every fucking game does it!
also what's up with dividing verisimilitude which you spelled wrong into 2 different aspects?

"- Empowerment/Prioritisation of player agency through forms and aspects deriving from the game's mechanics" - every fucking game does it!

"(so no, as far as i am concerned, inventories, D&D rulesets, TB/Iso or stats have nothing to do with an "RP" game. They are just "precepts" most have come to take for granted, thus blindfolding themselves into expectations of a perpetuity of "sameness", it being in itself the primary reason for what most unwittingly [literally and metaphorically] have come to refer to as 'decline')"
- disregarding the rpg elements makes your conclusion so inclusive that you could say book of ra is an rpg. let's check that. does it try to make the player believe it's a slot machine with the classical mechanics of a slot machine? yes. does it make the player forget the outside world and imagine cash coming out of the machine? yes. does it empower the player when spitting out cash when he wins? ideally, yes.
i vote crap on the definition and any thought put into it.

 

[Excidium II]

every fucking game does it!

The key to understanding CRPG definitions.

 

[Reapa]

See that's the thing with videogames. Any sort of adventure game already possibly shares enough with actual RPGs that defining RPGs by featureset within the context of videogames is a must.


Crispy I'm talking actual D&D not a videogame adaptation.

fixed that for you