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[Neonivek]

Isn't it possible to have an RPG with few or no numbers, such as Space Station 13?

Harvest moon is the closest thing to a RPG without numbers... but it features a Stamina stat. To me you become an RPG if you have stats.

Space Station 13 gets away with being a RPG because it is litterally a roleplaying game where you roleplay yourself. Something only a select few other games feature.

Though honestly the difference between a RPG and Adventure game is honestly a superfluous distinction. Though I will give what the differences are not
-Role: Both feature you playing a role.
-Story: Both can feature a strong story and both can be devoid of it as well. Some of the best stories to come out of videogames are from the adventure genre.

I don't really mean to pick nits though, as arguing over something with no official classification (or something as pedantic as the genres of specific games) has no real purpose

Its ok personally.

Or, is an action-adventure with RPG-elements

Like that one Tomb Raider game?

[pilgrimboy]

I would say that Terraria moved away from the Minecraft genre and became more a side-scrolling fighter without the scrolling. It became all about the battles rather than building after the updates.

I say this with bitterness because I liked it a lot early on. Then it became and action/fighting game that I wasn't all that into.

[Girlinhat]

Going by literal definitions, RPG is "Role-Playing Game".  That is to say, a situation in which you participate as your character, not as a player.  If we make that distinction, then Minecraft is an Adventure game, you are a player participating in a game.  Meanwhile, the general bulk of the JRPG genre is made to put you into the game as one character and let you play through it in their eyes.  This can result in some unusual classifications, as Diablo 3 (as I understand it) would be an Adventure game because it has no story to speak of, nothing that makes your character into a member of the world but rather leaves the player with a series of dungeons and lots of clicky action.  (I haven't played D3 and won't, but from what I've heard there's no real story in it.)

But, if we go by contemporary definitions... RPG is the "Dungeons and Dragons style of stat building and character growth".  Really started with the Final Fantasy series, at least how I see it, it revolves around handling your stats, gear, and level ups to progress your character and continue through increasingly difficult scenarios.  Under this definition, Terarria is not RPG because there are no stats and no real progression of character.  Nor would Minecraft, because "experience" and "levels" aren't contributing to character growth, they're merely a non-tradable resource.

Literal: Harvest Moon (and Animal Crossing sorts) is RPG, SS13 is RPG.
Contemporary: Harvest Moon is a simulator, SS13 is a fancy MUD/MUSH.

[ductape]

snip...

But, if we go by contemporary definitions... RPG is the "Dungeons and Dragons style of stat building and character growth".  Really started with the Final Fantasy series, at least how I see it,

snip...

seriously? Final Fantasy started it? I have never played any of the FF games, EVER. Been playing RPG computer games since long before the makers of FF even knew how to make games, Check your stuff.

[Frumple]

Yeah... it's a minor chime in, but item based progression (ala terraria and minecraft, in this case) is as legitimate a form of character progression as the stats/skills paradigm. You can have an RPG without having levels, never mind stats or skills. There's a few that are purely or mostly item based. Brogue is a good example of one that's primarily item based.

[kg333]

Yeah... it's a minor chime in, but item based progression (ala terraria and minecraft, in this case) is as legitimate a form of character progression as the stats/skills paradigm. You can have an RPG without having levels, never mind stats or skills. There's a few that are purely or mostly item based. Brogue is a good example of one that's primarily item based.

I'm not sure this quite works, although I haven't played Brogue.  The examples that come to mind for me are System Shock 2 and Bioshock.  They're very similar games, but Bioshock dropped all stat-based elements.  I would argue that shifted the genre over from the definitely RPG SS2, over into a plot-based shooter.

But, if we go by contemporary definitions... RPG is the "Dungeons and Dragons style of stat building and character growth".  Really started with the Final Fantasy series, at least how I see it...

seriously? Final Fantasy started it? I have never played any of the FF games, EVER. Been playing RPG computer games since long before the makers of FF even knew how to make games, Check your stuff.

That was my initial reaction, but I did fact check.  Final Fantasy I released in 1987, which does make it a contemporary of Dragon Warrior, which is one of the earliest that seem to be considered an RPG.  Ultima is arguably older, being released on the Apple II in 1981, but was not remade for other systems until about 1986-88, so it's still around the right time frame.  It's certainly one of the earliest JPRGs, at the least.

KG

[Frumple]

FF1 came out the same year as dragon quest's first sequel, which has it lagging a bit

RPGs in general go back even further -- you've got Rogue back in the seventies and a few things before even that, and plenty of other stuff in between that and stuff like DQ hitting consoles. DQ was the first major JRPG, though, yeah, and it pretty strongly defined the genre for quite some time.

[Seriyu]

I'd say it comes down to whether you consider Roguelikes RPGs or, well, their own seperate genre, roguelikes.

Although I guess Rogue wasn't a Rogue-like persay. 

[LoSboccacc]

Come on, if you pretend to be serious at least do a quick fact check with wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_(video_game)

[Seriyu]

Your link is broken. Not hard to figure out what you meant, but still.

[Deon]

It looks like the Adventure genre is so forgotten now that people start to name exploration and any other games with progression "adventure" games, which makes me sad. Where are you, Myst, Sam&Max, Space Quest etc?..

[Sonlirain]

Combining different genres into one game is not a new thing.
Quest for Glory combined Adventure and RPG AGES ago.

Minecraft is a FPP block building Sandbox with survival elements.
Elite was (and still is) a space sim.
Starfarer will most likely become Mount and Blade IN SPACE!
Cortex command is a side scrolling shooter (with some innovative elements but it's still a side scrolling shooter).

Warcraft 3 had RPG elements but was it a RPG? Nope it's still a RTS.

[Girlinhat]

seriously? Final Fantasy started it?

Was sleepy as I wrote that.  What I meant was "made popular" the RPG theme.  I don't claim to know which came first, but I can claim which made it popular.  When I think "Old-school RPG" I think "Black Mage, Fighter, Red, etc".  Maybe that's just me, but Final Fantasy seems to be the start of the popular, regular genre.  That said, FF13 was one of the worst games I ever played and FF12 (Was that it?  The online one?) was one of the worst MMO disasters in recorded history, not to mention that some games like Supreme Commander were fun, but then when Supreme Commander 2 had a story done by Square Enix it was entirely boring and straightforward.

Regardless, I'm not debating who did it first or who did it best.  Tabletops came way before, and "best" will never be decided.  I'm debating who made the genre appeal to a wider audience and basically "introduced" the unwashed masses to a new style of play, and I think Final Fantasy did that, maybe not with the first game but along the way it really took off.

Either way, once you get down to it, Adventure and RPG get difficult to separate because you can interpret them differently.  But I enjoyed Myst back when I was just a wee lass.  I had no idea what I was playing, but it entertained me.  I usually try to enjoy the classic Adventure style, except so many of them just become boring.  I'm just saying it, you're all thinking it, but if you started playing in the late afternoon a lot of them would put you to sleep.  Slow-paced animations, gentle music, and NPC (if any) who will patiently wait on you.

What was Oddworld: Abe's Odyssey?  Adventure Platformer?

[Frumple]

It's the continuing minor chime, but FF's influence towards popularizing the JRPG stuff was stronger in the states than the place from whence it came. Dragon Quest was the major starting point for that style of game, yeah, and it had/has a much stronger following in Japan. If you're looking for the start and spread of the popular JRPG, you're looking for Dragon Quest. FF both came later and didn't have as much influence until much later in the general history (such as it is) of RPGs.

The discrepancy is partially because a lot of the DQ games just never really made it over here to the states. Blazes if I know why, but eh. Fair number of major influences to the JRPG world (even the stuff we got over here in the states) were either never localized or localized much, much later than their initial release.

[GlyphGryph]

Hmm... did games like Starflight not count as RPGs? Sci-fi rpg, obviously, but still. Wasteland definitely was, though, right?

Shoot, I've never been good at the genre thing.

But yeah, I'd go with world-builder game. Where everything around you is buildable-destroyable pretty much. That goes way beyond terrain deformation and quickly becomes the defining aspect of many of these games.