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[Tilla]

I think people call Final Fantasy games RPGs out of habit.

People are like, "If this isn't an RPG, what is?!"

Just because the early video games grabbed the word and twisted its meaning, now we're stuck with holdovers from an ancient era, like "save points" and "hit points" and excessively linear gameplay.

I figured all you DFers would have little patience for games as straitjacketed as FF.

FF when it started was fairly RPG. There were not predetermined player characters, and in fact they were heavily inspired by D&D as far as stats and systems went.

[Mfbrew]

Does anyone around here speak Japanese?

I wonder if they call RPGs the Japanese translation of the words "role playing game" or if they refer to the genre with some katakana transliteration of the acronym RPG.

If it's the latter, then it'd totally make sense why they're willing to stray so far from the concept of playing a role.

It's sorta like how they see all kinds of distinctions between sushi, sashimi, etc whereas in the west, sushi is beginning to really mean "elaborate maki rolls served at a trendy Asian fusion restaurant."

[quinnr]

Has anyone ever tried making another game that is like Planescape:Torment? I mean with a similar style, compelling main character and philosophical approach.

I can't really say much about the subject at hand. The only Bioware RPG (BRPG) I've ever played was Neverwinter Nights (the first one) and it sucked. The only JRPG that  played was Golden Sun on the Gameboy. I don't think the games can be compared. They are completely different genres but share 3 letters of the acronym. I think that's what make developers frustrated. If a customer likes Bioware RPGs and looks for RPGs in a store catalog then JRPGs show up too and it hurts the sales.

Also I hate the "moral choice" gimmick. Choosing whether you murder everyone including the children and get -1000 Karma in Fallout or get +1000 from saving puppies isn't a moral choice. It's more of a background/character development/flavor choice. A game in which I saw real moral choices was The Witcher. That game didn't tell you which one was "good" and "evil". I was up to your morals to decide and the consequences of your decision would be portrayed later in the story, for better or for worse.

Golden Sun! Yay!
(Favorite game!)

[nenjin]

"Strength stat" or whatever has long been synonymous with RPG as far as video game players are concerned (since they ain't doing a lot of role-playing by themselves....). To PnP people, yeah, it has a different meaning. To those that do both...I'm not sure it really makes a difference. RPG can mean "acting and making decisions from the view point of a character" to me as well as "rules and mechanics that abstract things about the character you're playing." Ideally it's both, for me, 'cause I like systems.

To all my non-PnP friends, I say "role playing game" and they get it, since the mechanics and stuff are their frame of reference. They tend to run screaming from the concept of actual "role-playing."

So I think it's fair. For some of my friends who haven't done table top, but have played lots of RPG FPS (FO3, STALKER, ect...) they're doing the RPG thing, just not as literally as PnP gamers.

If you want to go the literally definition of RPG...any FPS can be an RPG if you define certain rules for yourself while you play. (I don't shoot people in the back, I only use knives, I avoid 95% of the enemies in a level.) That's the same philosophy as behind traditional role playing, just with a more limited scope of options.

[Hawkfrost]

I figured all you DFers would have little patience for games as straitjacketed as FF.

Depends on which one.
I still like the first FF and the Tactics spinoffs.



I agree that the term "RPG" when referring to these sorts of games is incorrect, but the fact of the matter is that the meaning of the term has changed now.
"RPG" doesn't mean "roleplaying game", it means "game with stats".
Unless you create a new term and spread it around enough to make the players, devs, and media switch, then your just going to have to ignore it.