What makes a game a RPG?

[4RM3D]

Games have different genres, e.g. adventure, FPS. Now RPG is also a genre, but I have always found it to be ambiguous. When asking people to name an example of a RPG, you will get answers like Final Fantasy or Fallout or Skyrim. But when I name a racing game (e.g. Need for Speed) then that's not a RPG but a simulation game. I understand, but I have been thinking... Aren't you "roleplaying" a race driver and doing some insane stuff on the race track (or in case of GTA, off the track)?

The question I ask you: What makes a game a RPG?

It can't be a story, a moral choice or an open world, because some RPG games don't have any of those (like Final Fantasy XIII . Stats (statistics) you say? The ability to customize the character you are playing? Nope. Mass Effect 2 is a RPG (an action RPG, but still), but it rarely has customization apart from choosing a class.

What then? Is there a checklist of requirements for RPGs and does it have to have a combination of things to be called a RPG? The lines between the RPG genre and some other genres are fading, but we can still classify something as a RPG... On what grounds?

Now, don't get me wrong, I am not here to bash games. I am not saying Mass Effect or Final Fantasy are bad games. I am just talking about the RPG aspect.

So, I ask once again: what classifies a game as a RPG?

We can all identify RPG games, but can we explain it?

 

[Giest4life]

Which was first, the chicken or the egg? To be or not to be? Cogito ergo sum, or, sum, ergo cogito?

 

[Smooth Operator]

Ah howmany times we were over this...
It's meaningful choice in all aspects of the game, that would be the ultimate RPG, some come closer then others.

 

[EmperorSubcutaneous]

Seems like there are two ways to define an RPG:

1. A system with experience points and stats that resembles, to some extent, a pencil and paper RPG system.
2. A game where you create your own character and play them as you choose, to some extent.

In both definitions the main focus is on story rather than gameplay, or a balanced mixture of the two. If the focus tips heavily toward gameplay, though, it gets a bit harder to call it an RPG (as in your racing sim example).

JRPGs tend to fit with definition 1 more, while WRPGs are starting to fit more with definition 2. The two definitions used to be more intertwined in most cases, but that's no longer necessary.

 

[death525]

Theoretically: A game that allows a player to play a role that they decide upon.
Actuality: A game that has a leveling system or some variation on that.
World of Warcraft is the best example of the second item. Every class has a specific way thaat equals perfection.
Skyrim is a good example of the first. You can be good, evil, neutral, a mage, a warrior, a theif, etc.

 

[The Abhorrent]

Theoretically: A game that allows a player to play a role that they decide upon.
Actuality: A game that has a leveling system or some variation on that.
World of Warcraft is the best example of the second item. Every class has a specific way thaat equals perfection.
Skyrim is a good example of the first. You can be good, evil, neutral, a mage, a warrior, a theif, etc.

Good summation, but it should be noted that the original concept (at least as I understand it) is from Dungeons & Dragons tabletop RPGs; which incorporates both the choice for the player as to how they play they game, and laid the ground work for stat-and-level systems in the process.

The real question is whether or not the stat-and-level system is integral to the concept of a "Role-Playing-Game". I don't think it is, and the more advanced technology these days means RPGs don't have to rely on the relatively simple (in terms of programming) stat-and-level systems of old; more action-oriented gameplay can be developped, player skill (rather than stats) can be made more useful, and dice-rolls can be bypassed. All without sacrificing the idea of choice of playstyle the genre was initially founded upon.

This isn't to say stat-and-level systems are bad, nor should they be abandoned entirely (people can and do still enjoy them, though the obsessive min/maxing can be very annoying); just that they don't have to be the defining aspect of the genre. The idea that they are is a very narrow perspective, and one which is proving to be notoriously difficult to dislodge from the minds of the fanatics.

---

With all of that out of the way.... hit the dirt!

 

[ResonanceGames]

I can't think of a more tedious argument than whether or not a certain game is an RPG. It's a genre spectrum that encompasses a ton of different ideas and approaches to gaming. Usually it means exploration coupled with character stats/progression of some kind. There's no point in trying to pin down all the specifics because, like I said, it exists on a spectrum.

There are people who have spent the last 20 years crying that X games aren't RPGs -- usually any game that isn't Goldbox, Ultima, or Fallout 1&2. These people are fools who've trapped themselves in a stupid semantics debate and should be mocked frequently and with gusto.

Fortunately most of us are intelligent primates who can have a discussion about a game without fretting over exactly which genre it belongs to.

 

[4173]

Numbers. Numbers I can actually see.

 

[ElPatron]

If you want to define an RPG as a game where you play a role, then get the fuck out. You play a role in pretty much every video game that's going to be mentioned here, whether that's a racing game or Mario. You play the role of Mario in a Mario game, does that make it a role-playing game? No, it fucking does not.

You're not role-playing because you are stuck to Mario's actions. You "control" Mario. You don't make him a role to play inside the game.

Think of acting. It's role playing. You take a script and play a role. You're the one reading the lines, you read them the way you want - you are not obliged to take the writer's directions.

Take into account that English is not my mother tongue so of course I don't know the technical terms.

 

[Adamc-mh]

Role Playing, without Role Playing elements it's not really an Rpg for me.

 

[DEAD34345]

In my mind, Final Fantasy isn't an RPG as you're offered no ability to role-play at all (or maybe that's just the ones I have played...). To me, an RPG means a "Role-playing game", and although you can theoretically roleplay in any game some games are clearly designed with that in mind and some aren't. In games like KOTOR and TES (I think that) you are supposed to get into your character's mindset, and make decisions as you think he/she would.

In a racing game you can do that, but most people don't, and the I don't think the developers intend it. In a JRPG you can't do that in my experience, as they are entirely linear (again, I may be completely wrong here, as my entire experience with that genre is just the beginning of a couple of Final Fantasy games). In a hack & slash "RPG" you also can't do that, as there are no decisions to make apart from purely Out-Of-Character mechanical ones, so I wouldn't say that is an RPG either.

To me being an RPG is nothing to do with stats or dice, and entirely to do with how the game is supposed to be experienced.

 

[NickCaligo42]

I hate people who use the 'roleplaying' argument, it's inane. Games will never allow the absolute freedom to 'roleplay', nor does playing as a digital avatar make a game an RPG.

The term RPG refers to gameplay elements borrowed from DnD and other tabletop games, the only element of said games that could be fully replicated in video games. It was originated by Richard Garriot's Ultima series, and the Wizardry series, which later inspired the first true "JRPG' as we know it, Dragon Quest. Therefore, games that continue from that lineage, and share that gameplay- level ups, epic quests, character growth and story, customization, etc., are RPGs. Not all games that HAVE those elements are RPGs, but the culmination of all these elements do. That's why Final Fantasy is an RPG, and why Skyrim is an RPG, and why Call of Duty or Gran Turismo are NOT RPGs.

Basically what this guy says. Something that replicates the experience of playing a role-playing game; either in the respect that you're crafting a character yourself as you would at a tabletop game or in the respect that you're following an adventure of a group of characters. Any of it is a valid approach to re-creating said experience, but that's the skinny of it, I think.

 

[NotSoLoneWanderer]

Being completely governed by hidden dice rolls and Stats.

 

[Shirastro]

Role playing has nothing to do with role playing games.....as strange as it may sound.

For me an RPG is a game where you can level and better your character as you level, through stats and better equipment.

It can be a pure RPG like Skyrim, action RPG like Diablo, or just a game with some RPG elements like many of the modern shooters where you can upgrade your weapons or stats.

 

[Shirastro]

So why is Mass Effect 2 still, at least in part, an RPG? I can think of no real reason why it should be classified this way other than "because its predecessor was that way." ME2 isn't an RPG, it's a third person shooter with a good helping of RPG elements thrown in, which are almost invisible save for the after-mission report that comes up every time you complete something.

Do people define ME2 as an RPG? I thought it was an action game with RPG elements.

Yes, some people do still define ME2 as an RPG when it's most clearly not.

More like a third person shooter with experience points and lots (and lots and lots and lots) of talking.

Most people define it as action-RPG.....and i agree.