Poll: Do you take the JRPG/RPG acronyms literally?

[TehCookie]

I see genres as quick way of saying what a game is like and while I don't take the RP literally, I take the J mostly literally. To me RPG means the game has a leveling and stat system along with different quests. The J means it's a typical Japanese RPG. I really dislike when people think they can just divide up RPGs into western and Japanese, since both of those are extremely broad and misleading with games like Dark Souls. Instead of saying that game is a JRPG that's like a WRPG how about just saying it's an action-RPG and leaving country of origin out of it since it doesn't help describe it?

 

[Something Amyss]

I don't even take them seriously, let alone literally.

 

[pure.Wasted]

To answer the question at hand, though, I don't think you can take the RP in RPG literally. RP implies that you fully immerse and become the character you're playing. You get to say what the character says, you get to declare every action the character makes. RPGs might give you choices for action and dialogue and such, but those choices are pre-written.

For example, were Skyrim a true RPG, you could walk into any given town and slaughter everyone. There'd be no immortal children, no immortal nobles, everyone could be killed. But that's not an option, you can wound them and make them pissed off at you, but they're always going to be there...the choice to have you're character just snap one day and go on a rampage isn't truly there.

To be fair, this sort of definition disqualifies most tabletop RPG campaigns from being RPGs, too. I don't know too many DMs who would allow the party to do whatever they wanted, full stop. Then again, in my opinion those are the games that are missing the point... so you might be on to something.

I'm with Dragoon. The "J" is symbolic. A game produced here could be a JRPG if it was turn-based and its hero was an emo androgynous ponce.

As for the distinction between RPGs and games with RPG elements, I think that old style RPGs are going the way of the dodo, making room for a generation of games most of which can in one way or another be described as RPGs. For me role-playing doesn't mean mix/maxing, it means a story and character interaction. Everything else is secondary. Whether you're shooting or swinging a sword, whether you have 5 different stats that you have to put points into when you level up or you don't level up at all, doesn't matter.

 

[Eve Charm]

meh the whole terms are outdated and dead now. They made sense a bit around the final fantasy 7 era when everyone got into rpgs but now it's basically coined to Jrpgs being a game that gives you a predefined characters that grow or whatever tell you their back stories and what not. And the Wrpg being the blank slant character you can choose what they are how they act and you mainly tell their own story.

Just to point out how badly the terms are and were, the First Final Fantasy falls more under an Wrpg then an Jrpg since you pretty much have 4 blank slant characters that you pick any class you want with.

 

[Signa]

Well, since this is going to bring up the "what is a RPG" debate again, let me weigh in my two-cents: a RPG is a game where the player is controlling a character, and that character is not limited by the player's input, but by their own personal abilities. Example: The kid in Secret of Mana may be controlled by the player, but his own strength and skill with his weapons determine the outcome of his battles with foes. The kid in Bastion is controlled by the player, but his success weighs completely on the player's ability to keep him alive. Note in both games the player assumes the "role" of a character, but only in one does the player's input really really matter.


Despite this, a JRPG is really a genre of its own, and only loosely linked to RPGs. Cloud in FFVII has his stats, and those stats help him succeed, but the main drive of any FF game (or JRPGs) is the story they are trying to convey. While Secret of Mana is a RPG made in Japan, the game is still really fun if you ignore the story. Final Fantasy is just menu-based combat and would be weak without an engaging story. The Tales series is a nice blend of action combat and story telling, but I'd still say it's more story driven than gameplay/combat.

So yeah, the "J" doesn't mean much to me, but I have a VERY clear definition of what the "RP" stands for.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Yes I take them literally as genre names, because that is what they are, names.
People seem to confuse names and descriptions however, I'm not sure how schools are run these days but I would imagine those sorts of things would come up at one point or another.

 

[OrpheusTelos]

I take the terms 'Japanese RPG' and 'Western RPG' to mean exactly what they do mean- RPGs from those areas.
Now, if anyone can give me a new genre name that actually makes sense, let me know! I think we as gamers would be very grateful for some forward thinking.

 

[Rumpsteak]

To me RPG is the same no matter what, although it is expanding more and more nowadays. The J and lack thereof indicate more the style of RPG and doesn't have to be a Japanese/Western game.

 

[babinro]

Neither of them are taken literally.

The terms JRPG and WRPG simply conjures up traditional expectations of a game. If the actual game doesn't fit my stereotypes than so be it.

Does the game look or play like a Final Fantasy / Tales of ____? JRPG
Does the game look or play like a Bioware/Bethesda game? WRPG

If a game had combined the Bioware choice system but Final Fantasy combat my brain would shut down and I'd fall into a coma.

 

[Fishyash]

RPG is a very bad term in what it has been related to IMO. I do not take it literally, because it feels like I would have to put in some arbitrary rules to define an video RPG. To me, if the developer says it's an RPG, and it's been advertised as an RPG, it's an RPG.

It's far too vague. However, Japan is VERY distinct, so I take the "J" part literally. Although I am not too fond of the idea of giving a genre to just a nation just to distinguish it from games developed in other countries.

 

[veloper]

The JRPG is to me an actual genre, turn-based combat or semi, controlable companions, usually 4, anime visual style, etc. etc.

French fries don't get imported from France.
Alot of things in language aren't meant to be parsed literally. Someone could go still for the stupid definition: any RPG made in Japan, but we've got no lack of useless definitions in gaming already. Who cares where it's made? It's about gameplay.

The terms RPG and WRPG don't mean much already.
Pretty much any game with some kind of experience system and killing stuff, can be labeled a RPG or WRPG, if the company doesn't want to advertise it a strategy game or a shooter first. Dialogues, choices, character creation, depth, none of these things are a requirement anymore to be part of the genre.
So Diablo and it's clones are RPGs. Roguelikes are RPGs.

The only thing that seperates the WRPG from the RPG, is that the WRPG can be anything except not a JRPG. That still leaves us shooters, action/adventures, squad tactics and more with XP progression systems tacked on, to be part of this broad genre.

 

[Jodah]

No I just think about what the general game is like. JRPGs tend to be stuff like Star Ocean, Final Fantasy, and Dragon Quest. The art, gameplay, story, and cut scenes tend to be very similar. To me, the game doesn't have to be made in Japan to be a JRPG nor do all Japanese RPGS fall into the JRPG category (Dark Souls).

 

[StylinBones]

It's just a style thing, not to be taken literally all of the time.

 

[Bad Jim]

RPG is a bit silly really. In pen and paper RPGs, the idea is they model reality, albeit with a few concessions to fun.. A board game like Monopoly limits you to its' rules, and you can't for instance get a mortgage to buy your first property, even though it's normal in real life. An RPG puts a human GM in charge of the world, who will evaluate the plausibility of getting a mortgage and decide whether you can have one. The printed rules are merely guidelines, breakable at the discretion of the GM and just covering the common scenarios to help keep things consistent.

Now it will be said that in practise many GMs tend to 'railroad' players along the plot they have prepared. But even these GMs generally have some tolerance for players coming up with unexpected solutions to problems, and will try to resolve unexpected outcomes in a plausible way.

But computer RPGs lack that vital element, the human GM, relying instead on a computer program, in other words a set of rules. And just like every other set of game rules, they can only model reality imperfectly. They are just like all the other games that have rigid rules.

 

[Wayne Insane]

I think that this Question is really really weird.