RPGs defined

[bismarck55]

So Halo, Super Mario Bros. and Hungry hungry hippos are all roleplaying games? Lolwut?

Really? Who told you that?

Halo is a Sci-Fi FPS, Hungry Hungry Hippos is a talpbletop game and Super Mario Bros is a....... Nintendo game.

If you didn't play the role of a character in any game then what would you do? Fiddle with the game settings?

That's my point, you did play the role of these characters.

Halo is game where you play the role of a space marine super soldier, hungry hungry hippos is game where you play the role of a hungry hippo and super mario is a game where you play the role of the savior of the mushroom kingdom (also a plumber).

therefore according to plenty of people commenting in this thread, these games are all RPGs. An idea I find a touch stupid to put it gently.

 

[MercurySteam]

So Halo, Super Mario Bros. and Hungry hungry hippos are all roleplaying games? Lolwut?

Really? Who told you that?

Halo is a Sci-Fi FPS, Hungry Hungry Hippos is a talpbletop game and Super Mario Bros is a....... Nintendo game.

If you didn't play the role of a character in any game then what would you do? Fiddle with the game settings?

That's my point, you did play the role of these characters.

Halo is game where you play the role of a space marine super soldier, hungry hungry hippos is game where you play the role of a hungry hippo and super mario is a game where you play the role of the savior of the mushroom kingdom (also a plumber).

therefore according to plenty of people commenting in this thread, these games are all RPGs. An idea I find a touch stupid to put it gently.

I think people are mostly cheesed-off about your "Mass Effect = chest-high-wall-shooter" comment.

You play more of Shepard's role in Mass Effect than you do with Master Chief in Halo.

ABSOLUTE MORAL: Mass Effect is a true RPG.

 

[bismarck55]

I also remembered this:

NetHack = RPG, Mass Effect = chest-high-wall-shooter

Actually, NetHack belongs in an RPG sub-genre [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike].

Plus, NetHack is a game from 1987 with ASCII graphics, while Mass Effect 2 is a futuristic Sci-Fi RPG-shooter, released in 2010 also built with the latest Unreal Engine and made by a company that defines Western RPGs.

It's a bit like comparing Pac-Man with Brink.

Actually nethack has had tile based graphics for for some time now, though you can still play it in ASCII if you want. I don't consider rogue-likes to be a separate genre at all, either, regardless of what wikipedia says.

Also, Brink looks terrible. I'd play Pac-man over brink any day.

 

[Axolotl]

It's supposed to be YOU,

And that's where you're wrong. It isn't supossed to be you, it's supposed to be siomebody else, that's the point of role-play. If you skil is important then it's not role-playing. You assume somebody else characteristics and skill not your own.

No, you're playing as a fictional version of yourself. In J"RPG"s, you're controlling J. Random Douchebag. In WRPGs you are controlling you're own digital creation that is your stand-in for yourself.

Since when? RPG's have always been about creating a character for the world. Right back to the Blackmoor campaign they aren't a representation of the player, the whole point is to be somebody else with their own strengths and weaknesses.

It's your idealized self. It's the person you WANT to be.

No, no they aren't. Do the people who play an evil character in Morrowind really want to be a demon worshipping assasin? Do the people who do low Int runs in Fallout want to be drooling idiots? Do the people who play CoC want to be helpless pawns driven mad by god-like monsters? Do people who play sorcerors in Carcosa want to be paeophilic psycopaths? No, no a thousand times no.

 

[Ranorak]

Back when RPG was still a table-top thing, you had to have stats for combat, and the story parts for non-combat encounters.

Some RPG's focused more on the stats part for the player to manage, and put the story part totally in the hands of the game master, AKA the programmers. Final Fantasy, Tales series, and Diablo fall to this part.

Others focused more on the choices and the interactiveness and took the battle customisation back a bit.
Think Fallout 3, Mass Effect, Neverwinter Nights. Drago nage, Oblivion.

But at the base they are still RPG's.

Though discussions like this are pointless.
It's like discussing whether or not Deep Purple is Metal or Rock. Genre's are there to give a idea of what the subject might be like. it's not a crystal clear line.

 

[MercurySteam]

RPG's focused more on the stats part for the player to manage, and put the story part totally in the hands of the game master, AKA the programmers. Final Fantasy, Tales series, and Diablo fall to this part.

Others focused more on the choices and the interactiveness and took the battle customisation back a bit.
Think Fallout 3, Mass Effect, Neverwinter Nights. Drago nage, Oblivion.

But at the base they are still RPG's.

ATTENTION OP: This is what we've been saying all along.

Just because a game let's you do cover-based shooting doesn't mean it's any less of an RPG. In fact, if RPGs only had stat buliding we'd get very bored because the year is 2010. Using stat building as a primary function was okay 20 years ago but no anymore I'm afraid; that may be how the genre started out, but I'm sorry to say improvements in technology means we require more to do.

Moral: If a game says RPG under 'genre', save everybody some time and just accept it.

 

[kogane]

My definition of an RPG:

"The world/universe/galaxy is not gonna save itself. Here, have some other suicidal people who will help you for whatever reason of their own, some badass looking skills, and some sweet extras to help you with this.

Now go. Those other useless and sometimes hidden side missions won't do themselves, either."

 

[Ranorak]

It's supposed to be YOU,

And that's where you're wrong. It isn't supossed to be you, it's supposed to be siomebody else, that's the point of role-play. If you skil is important then it's not role-playing. You assume somebody else characteristics and skill not your own.

No, you're playing as a fictional version of yourself. In J"RPG"s, you're controlling J. Random Douchebag. In WRPGs you are controlling you're own digital creation that is your stand-in for yourself.

Since when? RPG's have always been about creating a character for the world. Right back to the Blackmoor campaign they aren't a representation of the player, the whole point is to be somebody else with their own strengths and weaknesses.

It's your idealized self. It's the person you WANT to be.

No, no they aren't. Do the people who play an evil character in Morrowind really want to be a demon worshipping assasin? Do the people who do low Int runs in Fallout want to be drooling idots? Do the people who play CoC want to be helpless pawns driven mad by god-like monsters? Do eople who play sorcerorsin Carcosa want to be paeophilic psycopaths? No, no a thousand times no.

You could probably actually make a great case study on the psychological implications of choosing your characters in RPG's. I personally am under the belief that people choose their characters and actions in these games based on real life desires, to an extent. That's not to say that any-one who chooses to play an evil role in a game and slaughter innocents by the bucket load really wants to take a machete and literally cut loose in a town square... although I'm sure there are some that do. But it definitely does say a lot about you. Whether it be you're a psychopathic mass murderer in the making, or someone who treats RPG games as a chance to be a character you could never be in real life.

I play on a RP realm in WoW.
I play table top DnD.
I role play in RPG's. (by that, I mean, I try to make choices on what my character would do, not what is game mechanical better. For example wearing slightly less effecive armour, because it looks better.)

And I never based a character on me, or what I want to be.
I base them on their backgrounds.
My Dragonborn fighter is a proud honourable, but slightly dim witted protector of the weak.
Why? is there a deep psychological reason? No, because that's how I see a Dragonborn fighter.

My undead warlock in WoW is a selfish bastard, who is continuesly looking for ways to entertain himself.
Again, because that's how I view a person could act when gifted with eternal life and fel corruption.

It has nothing to do with me, or my personally, just as much as Jack Sparrow has nothing to do with Johnny Depp.

 

[Axolotl]

-snip-

But even then if your playing a chacter you want to be (a point I still disagree with) they still aren't you and thus the capabilities should be determined by the character's skills and not the players.

 

[NeutralDrow]

IMO how you differentiated NetHack and Mass Effect apart from eah other was by their gameplay, not the genre.

That's what defines a game genre. It's why shooters, platformers, and fighting games are considered different genres.

I thought it was because there are different points and reasons to play the game in every one of them...

Shooters - you go around shooting things, that's the most important thing.
Platformers - you go around, jump from platforms and defeat enemies, story is only a minor thing here.
RPGs - story and assuming the skin of another character is the most important.

"Points and reasons" shouts gameplay to me. Just because Prince of Persia and Super Mario Brothers have a decided gap in storytelling doesn't mean the latter is more of a platformer than the other. People not like me who totally ignore the lore in World of Warcraft doesn't make it any less of an RPG. I can race through levels really fast whether I'm playing Sonic the Hedgehog or Gran Turismo, but the former is a platformer and the latter is a racing game. I can fight enemies one-on-one in Devil May Cry or Tekken, but the former is a complicated mix of action, platforming, and puzzles, while the latter is a pure fighting game.

All depends on how it's set up to play.

 

[veloper]

It's too late to try and define crpgs.

Sub-genres are the only meaningful way to categorize games now.

 

[nick n stuff]

i thought an RPG was a game in which you play a role...that simple

 

[geldonyetich]

My definition of RPG is pretty much the opposite of the original poster's.

If we're talking "an external character which you control whose characteristics are tracked by numbers" then you're talking pretty much every single character control computer game in existence, because that thing you're controlling on the screen does have its characteristics tracked by numbers whether or not it makes those numbers particularly visible.

On the other hand, if you throw in important choices and epic story, it becomes something more than that. You end up playing a role within that story thanks to the gravity of the importance of that role that the story has generated and those choices are what makes your involvement matter. That, I think, is closer to the true essence of role play.

 

[open trap]

mass effect is an rpg, masseffect 2 is a chess high wall shooter. The first masseffect had plyer skill involved but that does not meen it is a shooter, your abilities which are determindby numbers will be the deciding factor of victory and defeat in battles that are not just little skirmishes

 

[Kruxxor]

Technically every game ever made is a role playing game, because you're playing the role of someone whom of which is not yourself.

I win internet?

 

[deadguynotyetburied]

Honestly, a computer game can approximate an RPG, but the fact that the programmer has to choose all of the responses the player will have available ahead of time, and define all the possible impacts this can have on the outcome of the game, means it can never have the real flexibility of an RPG, nor can the character have as much of an impact on the storyline as you would like. However, the games where you enter a conversation with someone and choose from a variety of replies at least allow you to flesh out your character to some degree. Accepting or declining quests and tasks gives you the option of selecting some of the elements that will be included in your character's story. The shortcoming is noticed in the many times you'll be reading through the list of replies and finding nothing that sounds at all like what you want to say, or saying something in one part of a conversation that apparently was forgotten by the NPC as you plod through another segment.

In a table-top game I ran, one of the players had his wizard character begin offering prayers and sacrifices to the goddess of wine. No mechanic would have existed for the player to initiate this course of action in a computer game. The game could not have responded to incorporate that into the development of a wizard character. The campaign could not have been remapped to include the possibility of the goddess of wine becoming an interested onlooker. Of course, the player would have had the advantage of not having ME interpret the consequences of a wizard making devotions to the goddess of wine in ways that player had not foreseen, either.