Crispy™ What is an RPG Attempt #186,091

[SausageInYourFace]

inb4 HiddenX shows up and posts the RPG Analyzer that he created with his SCIENCE!

 

[King Crispy]

But laptop guy has at least one stat: money.

And I riposte with the fact that laptop guy himself never does, and cannot, step foot in the game world. Not an RPG.

 

[Azarkon]

With all gravity...

The problem with defining RPGs, from the start, has been the moronic label that was assigned to them by RPG geeks, and which subsequent generations of RPG geeks have refused to discard out of sentimentality and the need for inflated self-importance.

RPG:

=

Role-playing-game

=

Game in which you play a role

=

Practically every game in existence

In fact, it's much harder to find a game in which you don't play a role, than it is to find a game in which you do. Only abstract puzzle games with no story eg Tetris could begin to be games in which you don't play a role. But even then 'tards could argue that you do play a role in the form of "the puzzle solver" and as such even Tetris is a RPG.

So how do we get to an actual definition of RPGs? The problem is simple: stop allowing the label to define the games, and start making the games define the label.

Once you've done this, you'll understand that the proper label for the bulk of the games we enjoy are actually just Baldur's Gate clones, and the rest - the "sand box RPGs," the "first person RPGs," and the "action RPGs" - are just Elder Scrolls-clones/Diablo-clones. You could also make genres for Fallout-clones and Wizardry-clones, but they are pretty dead except for indie games.

 

[Davaris]

Look back in history at the transition point from War Games to RPGs. What are the differences? Your answers lie there.

Chainmail (1971 Guidon Games edition)
http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?editionid=5134

 

[Excidium II]

And I riposte with the fact that laptop guy himself never does, and cannot, step foot in the game world. Not an RPG.

What do you mean? He can, he's the representation of the player that takes part on all the macro aspect of the game. He just interacts with the world on a different level of abstraction.

 

[King Crispy]

Looking back at the historical transition from Chainmail to actual D&D is useful, and informative, and lends perspective, but it does not provide the answers. The nature of the transition from pen-and-paper to computer, which is a vastly different medium, gave birth to the question of what is an (c)RPG itself. It is a much more in-depth discussion than something like whether or not a CYOA is an RPG (it isn't).

 

[King Crispy]

abstraction

There's our threshold again.

 

[Lurker King]

You can meaningfully interact with the game world, but it is rudimentary. You can open doors, you can shoot things.

It is not just about choices, is the nature of choices. In an action game, your choices are different ways to shoot things up, but in a cRPG you expect a wider range of options. Instead of just killing things, you can convince people to do shit for you, betrayal them, etc.

 

[Azarkon]

Look back in history at the transition point from War Games to RPGs. What are the differences? Your answers lie there.

Chainmail (1971 Guidon Games edition)
http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?editionid=5134

There is actually a gigantic difference between a PnP/figurine war game and a PnP/figurine D&D game in that war gamers don't give a fuck about story/character development, while D&D gamers do, but once again the RPG label is used incorrectly for the latter therefore making it retarded. Had they just called RPGs "story-driven character combat games" it'd have saved us a lot of time and effort.

 

[Excidium II]

There is actually a gigantic difference between a PnP/figurine war game and a PnP/figurine D&D game in that war gamers don't give a fuck about story/character development, while D&D gamers do, but once again the RPG label is used incorrectly for the latter therefore making it retarded.

What about stuff like Necromunda?

Also nothing stops wargames from following actual campaigns, nobody is forced to play independent skirmishes.

 

[Davaris]

Looking back at the historical transition from Chainmail to actual D&D is useful, and informative, and lends perspective, but it does not provide the answers. The nature of the transition from pen-and-paper to computer, which is a vastly different medium, gave birth to the question itself. It is a much more in-depth discussion than something like whether or not a CYOA is an RPG (it isn't).

CRPGs are just an attempt to imitate the freedom of an RPG. They are RPGs with limited choices, because they do not have a human GM interpreting the rules.

http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/37066/difference-between-a-tabletop-rpg-and-computer-rpg

In computer RPGs, every course of action that is allowable must be specifically coded for, potentially at great expense. At the single scene level, in a fairly open world game like Fallout: New Vegas, you can go into a shop and attack the shopkeeper, or buy from him, or conduct a canned discussion with him. You can't offer to go into business with him, or threaten him, or ask to marry his daughter, as these options haven't been coded in advance by a programmer, provided with art and sound, etc. But in a traditional RPG using the same setting, you could, as the only restriction on the players' activity is the mind of the present gamemaster and activity of the players; the game adapts to become what they all want to do instead of vice versa. Infinite scenarios are thus created using the same "engine."

What is true in one scene is even more true in the long term. The game's narrative, even in an open-world game, is constrained to the metaphor of the game and what it intends the player to accomplish. In the best CRPGs, a player can wander where they want to, and maybe pick one of several paths, and adapt based on "good vs evil" moral choices or the like. But they have strict limitations based on the need to control the narrative, including constructs like "the door that cannot be opened until a quest condition is met," or "the NPC that cannot be talked to until a certain phase in the game." A CRPG doesn't support many alternate paths and doesn't learn based on the player's choices. In a tabletop RPG, the prostitutes would stop getting into your car after a couple of them get killed, whereas in Grand Theft Auto they just keep lining up.

Of course, the tradeoff is that instead of extensive visuals and recorded dialogue and twitch-pleasing combat, all the activity occurs in the mind's eyes of the participants - but it can be done anywhere, anytime, with practically no gear or expenditure.

 

[King Crispy]

It is not just about choices, is the nature of choices.

I absolutely agree with you, but at some point you have to draw a line. Is something something or is something something else?

Interacting meaningfully with the game world means changing something in it and expecting it to stay that way. Unlike with, say Tetris. In Tetris, you change the block's position, but it just resets on the next level. In DOOM, you open the door, and, unless through some story-driven script or other meaning, it stays open. Rudimentary, but existent.

 

[Excidium II]

CRPGs are just an attempt to imitate the freedom of an RPG

I think that's the important point that Jedi Master Radek made and I'm inclined to agree with it. Even if the majority of CRPGs is stuck to imitating other CRPGs (Ultima, Wizardry, Fallout,etc), it all boils down to that in the end, because it's the original intent of the games that came before.

 

[King Crispy]

CRPGs are just an attempt to imitate the freedom of an RPG.

Yeah, whatever, pal. Like I said before, RPG Codex exists because of computer RPG's. Therefore this discussion shall be restricted to them.

Edit: Unless, of course, considering their PnP roots lends further credence to what makes them what they are.

 

[Excidium II]

Yeah, whatever, pal. Like I said before, RPG Codex exists because of computer RPG's. Therefore this discussion shall be restricted to them.

You are missing the point really hard.

 

[Azarkon]

What about stuff like Necromunda?

Also plenty of wargames follow actual campaigns, nobody is forced to play independent skirmishes.

In a classic war game, story is the background fluff. In a RPG - ugh, hate that label - story is the front and center. The DM in a PnP RPG is a storyteller who develops the story according to the player's interactions with it. War gamers have no need for a DM because the story is secondary, even irrelevant, to the actual game play. But of course a lot of them ended up getting DMs because they wanted to make war games RPG-ish. That's why a lot of war games today are closer to D&D than they are to classic war games such as RISK. This again shows the uselessness of labels.

 

[Excidium II]

In a traditional war game, story is the background fluff. In a RPG - ugh, hate that label - story is the front and center. The DM in a PnP RPG is a storyteller who develops the story according to the player's interactions with it. War gamers have no need for a DM because the story is secondary, even irrelevant, to the actual game play. But of course a lot of them ended up getting DMs because they wanted to make war games more RPG-ish. That's why a lot of war games today are closer to D&D than they are to traditional war games.

That's wrong though. War gamers have no need for the GM because the scope of what can happen in the game is entirely defined within the rules of the game. There's no need for a human element who is in charge of making stuff up to tell what happens.
Actually I think that's what you just said.

But of course a lot of them ended up getting DMs because they wanted to make war games RPG-ish. That's why a lot of war games today are closer to D&D than they are to classic war games such as RISK. This again shows the uselessness of labels.

Yeah I agree.

 

[Davaris]

Edit: Unless, of course, considering their PnP roots lends further credence to what makes them what they are.

Yes that is what I was saying. The only difference between the PnP version and the computer version is the human "AI", so you can discount it. The transition point I mentioned in PnP history, is where the answers lie.

 

[King Crispy]

You are missing the point really hard.

I corrected myself, above.

 

[Lurker King]

Looking back at the historical transition from Chainmail to actual D&D is useful, and informative, and lends perspective, but it does not provide the answers. The nature of the transition from pen-and-paper to computer, which is a vastly different medium, gave birth to the question of what is an (c)RPG itself. It is a much more in-depth discussion than something like whether or not a CYOA is an RPG (it isn't).

I think that the nature of a cRPG must be related to its origins: an attempt to emulate a RPG in a videogame system. Some games are successful in emulating just a part of certain RPGs, for instance, the use of stats to fight against orcs and other typical D&D monsters. Now, given our technological limitations, nobody expected to emulate all the freedom you have in a PnP game. Thus, the real question is – what are the central elements of a PnP experience that we could reasonably expect to implement in a videogame nowadays? Stats, skills, and choices determined by stats, skills and past choices, reactivity, etc.

 

[King Crispy]

The final definition likely has to include wording in it like thresholds. Like it or not, it's never going to be a cut-and-dried or irrefutable thing. Computer roleplaying games by nature have to be flexible things -- or, potentially more useful, have to be things that are not entirely inflexible. But how far like the reed can we or are we willing to bend?

Maybe some martial arts training would be handy during this endeavor.

 

[Lurker King]

I think we have to consider the normative aspect of how PnP games are meant to be played. Otherwise, you can just say that a retarded game master and retarded players love to hang out to kill monsters in a stupid history, and that is the end of discussion. I can use my chair to hit people on their heads, but that is not the chair function. I can larp Mario Brothers as a romance, but that is not how the game is meant to be played. If you approach the question from this angle, you can see what is wrong to state that a pure combat game is a cRPG. At the very least, you would have to concede that is a poor and very restricted cRPG, because that is what you would have said about a similar PnP campaign.

 

[Arthandas]

No need for some convoluted definitions, here's a simple test: if it feels like an rpg, then it's an rpg.

 

[Nael]

<insert snarky comment>

There. I posted in a Crispy Thread©.

 

[Rufus_T_Firefly]

I think you all are overthinking things a bit too much. The requirements for a video game RPG are:

1. You can level up.

2. Health is measured by visible numbers.

Anything else varies from game to game.