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[lumin]

I recently saw a forum debate that revolved around what a true RPG is.  An argument made aluded that Oblivion was less a RPG than Morrowind, but Morrowind was less a RPG than Neverwinter Nights.  In fact I've heard this argument a lot before.  Because Neverwinter Nights is closer to D&D, it must be a "truer" RPG.  A lot of people say that Morrowind is just an Action RPG.

It begs the question, is D&D even a "true" RPG?  I think some people, when defining NWN or Baldur's Gate as a Role-Playing Game, think that because they try to mimic the D&D system (although miserably), it is a more "true" RPG.

To me a Role-Playing Game is all about losing yourself in the shoes of another character, and his world.  When I play a game like Neverwinter Nights I don't really have a moment where I feel like I am a part of the world my character is living in.  Usually this is because the game revolves around a "quest" or getting from point A to point B in an efficient manner.

In these kind of games, there really is no "living" aspect to them.  You are required to kill a few monsters, get some loot and earn a level or two.  Game over.

What about Console RPG's (AKA Japanese RPGs), are they RPG's or just interactive movies?  Do I feel like I am a part of the story, or am I just watching a story unfold by pressing a button?

MUDS, MUCKS and MUSHs are pretty good at helping you feel like you are part of another world, although, at times they seem to focus on grinding and stat gain a little too much.  Although there are some very good examples here.

To me, Oblivion and, even more so, Morrowind (with a few mods) is much closer to what I think is a real Role-Playing Game because my characters can live another life.  They can eat, drink, sleep, have a house, buy a horse, sail the ocean, have a relationship, go fishing, and of course, do quests, and kill monsters (depending on how you define it).

Along those lines, a few games that I feel are even closer to a true Role-Playing Game are Accursed Lands, Armageddeon, Wurm Online and Cantr II.  These games are pushing the boundary for an alternate world to live in even though they are graphically inferior.

So what do you think a true Role-Playing Game is, and can you think of better examples than above?  Another question is, what would be the perfect Role-Playing Game?

[Nilocy]

Well, IMO an RPG is anything that puts you in a role of someone else, where you control their actions, what they think and what they say. There are many varying degrees, being a pen and paper rpg'er myself i know what i expect when i join a game, I want the world to be imersive, believable, gives the player the choice to do what they want and generally fun. I've been in many games, DnD, shadowrun, and Lstars own homebrew stuff and all of them bring something different to the table. I think you may be right in calling DnD the daddy of all RPGs. Its a system that can be adapted to anything the GM thinks of, rules are easy to make up as you go along, and the 4.0 is alot easier than the older versions making it alot more accessable to new and experianced alike. Games like Graveyard Dog is probably one of the most interesting I've played, instead of dice its poker cards. Theres alot of examples.

As for the perfect RPG, i don't think there will ever be one. Bar totally virtual immersion (visual goggles, forcefeed back etc) which will prolly come along at somepoint, i think theres no definative contender.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

A role-playing game is one where you play a different role than You. This requires a few things:

1: You get to choose who your character is, what its motivations are, what it looks like, etc.
Failure: Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Thief, System Shock, GTA
Marginal: World of Warcraft, Morrowind
Success: City of Heroes, Spore, Dwarf Fortress

2: You have the character interact with the world in a meaningful way. Ideally, the game should not restrict you from doing something that is within your character's legitimate power.
Failure: Final Fantasy, World of Warcraft, Chrono Trigger, City of Heroes, Thief, GTA
Marginal: Morrowind, Spore, System Shock
Success: Dwarf Fortress

3: If the game has a plot, you should be able to have any effect on that plot that you want. If it doesn't, you should be able to create your own plot and change lots of things about the world.
Failure: Thief, WoW, Final Fantasy, Morrowind, City of Heroes, System Shock, GTA
Marginal: Spore, Chrono Trigger, Dwarf Fortress (future dev)
Success:

4: Your character should persist from one game session to the next, growing in capability. This might include equipment, social influence, money, skills, etc.
Most games we consider to be "RPG" succeed at this. Donkey Kong does not, and so cannot be called an RPG.

Based on these criteria, different games get different things right. None of them get it all right. However, we're looking simply at computer games. When you talk about roleplaying games on the table, with pen and paper and dice, it opens up quite a bit. This is because your character's actions are limited only by the imaginations of the people at the table. It will be a long time before computer games offer that variety.

So what are these games, if not role-playing games?
I argue they are largely Story Completion Games. The story is already coded into the game, and you can make small decisions along the way, and you can direct the game to different possible endings, but you cannot create your own ending by taking actions the programmer didn't anticipate.

You might worry that this places a burden on RPGs that cannot be fulfilled. I'd say it's a misconception that a computer game can even BE an RPG. We assume it to be so because we see so many games labeled "RPG" but the genre started out with roots in wargaming and supported by the most powerful computers on Earth: the brains of the players.

I say you cannot expect a computer game to be an RPG for the same reason you cannot expect a cat to play the fiddle. The song is just too difficult to play for something of such limited capacity. The cat can't even hold the thing right.

To take the analogy a step further, an FPS computer game was made for computers. Nothing of the sort existed in the way strategy games and card games existed before computers. The FPS genre is like making an instrument just for cats, that they know how to play, and so the result is as pleasing as you can expect.

Computers can run computer games. But computers cannot run role-playing games. Not yet anyway.

EDIT: I'm leaving rules-less MUDs out of the above description, because they're really just a form of telecommuting to your game instead of showing up with chips and mountain dew. They're less games than chat systems.

[Tahin]

I completely agree with this. There is no such thing as a computer RPG because the definition of a roleplaying game is one with endless possibility. Therefore DF 1.0 might just be the holy grail of computer roleplaying games.

[lumin]

I completely agree with this. There is no such thing as a computer RPG because the definition of a roleplaying game is one with endless possibility.

I kind of have to disagree with that statement.  The word "Game" in Role-Playing Game indicates that there are rules or a "structure" even if that structure is very loose.Look at wikipedia's definition.

When I play a "role" of something or someone else I am usually doing something that follows some guidelines.  If there are no guidelines or rules at all (limitless possibilities), I am not playing a game anymore or even playing a role because there's nothing I'm following or playing a "role" as.

I suppose that one could define "endless possibilitiess" as being able to switch roles at will or change directions constantly.

So maybe the fact is that any game is a role-playing game because we are always playing a role as something to varying degrees.  In starcraft I can play the role of the zerg.  In Halo, I can role-play Master Chief.  Even thought those games lack stat bonuses and leveling, I am still living a very rigid role as another character.

Edit:  I suppose that there is a difference between a role-playing game that is good at suspending your belief, and a role-playing game that is bad at it.  It's harder for me to believe I am actually stepping in the shoes of Mario, then it is for me to think I'm really in the world of Morrowind.

[Cerej]

I agree most with lumin on this issue.  I don't see the definition of role-playing game as the guidebook to the ultimate game for an escapist.  However, I would say that the game must explicitly give you a role to be a role-playing game.  How "good" of a role-playing game depends on how easy it is for you, personally, to immerse yourself in the role.  This is my conclusion when talking about ideal games.

However, when discussing real, actual games it helps to use genres.  I would say the RPG genre contains character stats and level-ups.  I don't think those elements enhance role-playing, but they are ingrained in the gamer's mind as part of the genre.

So I can sum up my position as:  An RPG is a role-playing game to the same extent than Doom II is, but the RPG may be a "better" role-playing game.

[MMad]

Heh. This is actually on my (rather short) list of "things I will never, ever discuss on forums".

[Fualkner]

An RPG is a game that any action can be chosen. All situations have more then one answer. You should be able to negotiate your way out of anything except for a fight with zombies or other mindless creatures. Conversations should be interesting, and not copy pasta (Or at least make the copy pasta expansive so it doesn't get boring) Diplomacy, such as cease-fires and joining forces should always be possible, with betrayal likely in some situations. Fighting should be varied by allowing freedom to try different tactics, having interesting terrain, and having different fight situations. Most importantly, it has to do something NEW. I don't want another TES with pathetic battles, mediocre magic and enchantments, and a cliqued plot.

[mutant mell]

An RPG is a game wherein you take the role of someone else.  Naturally, this could be applied to just about any plot-based game.  This role could vary from you, to someone who you control, or someone who you direct.

However, this definition is vague, and therefore is not very useful when trying to describe a game.  Honestly, when a genre can encompass both Halo and Dwarf Fortress, its not too useful.  However, wRPGs and jRPGs use this definition for various reasons, such as:

1. They tend to focus on plot.  PnP RPGs tend to focus on this as well (or not...), and wRPGs descended from PnP, and jRPGs from wRPGs.

2. They have most of their in-game rules dictating combat, again like PnP RPGs.

So really, there are two kinds of definitions for it:  A game where you take on a role, and the type of game that has descended from the most freeform version of the first.

[IndonesiaWarMinister]

what is wRPG? I know JRPG (who don't?) But I never heard wRPG

[Squeegy]

Western RPG?

[Sergius]

Ok, I'm not sure of all the things that make a game a RPG proper (not "playing a role" because that means, well, abso-fracking-lutely EVERYTHING), but I think I'm going to point out what most cRPGs try to accomplish and then call themselves RPGs because of that:

-Raising Stats: your character is represented by numbers of some kind, that go up the more you play. This is usually experience points and subsequently levels, but it may be some other method of raising skills... skill points, etc. Or a combination. jRPGs are the simpler of these, they usually only care about stats for Attack, Defense, maybe another stat or two and a list of allowed equipment and "spells". wRPGs try to copy an entire ruleset from PnP RPGs, minus stuff that just isn't physically possible with that computer game engine, like swimming or climbing or communing with a higher power or whatever.

-Collecting better "gear": gear has stats too. There's a normal sword, a sword +1, a sword +2, etc. In wRPGs there's the whole list and it's up to you to decide which you like, or from whatever your class allows. Most jRPGs only let you use one type of weapon for each character, and give you a 50 damage variation, a 2000 damage variation, a 5,000,000 damage variation, and so on, in exponentially higher values.

I believe the "true definition of a computer RPG" is just the regular quest-solving puzzle game, with a combat engine or a customize-your-own-player system tacked on. One of the defining factors of a PnP (IMO) is being able to do anything (within reason, but not because someone "didn't think of it in advance"), so the closest you can get in a cRPG is to have multiple things to solve "puzzles" and a non-linear game path. The numbers and stats and custom weapons is a sorta replacement for the "I can be anyone I want to be" thing, except it's a fixed list with some tweakings like being better or worse at swinging a horse, or mounting a sword. Or the other way around.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

You know how some people in America get into Civil War re-enactment? They dress in period costumes, with exacting specifications. They fight the same battles, with the same outcomes. The South never wins. And they accept that, because they're trying to put themselves in the role of something that already happened and they know its outcome to begin with.

I think that's lame. I don't want to play in a role that's been determined for me already. I don't want to pick up a script and read it. I want to write my own character, and write my own script. I want a game where I can create my own role, and then play it.

If you step into a pre-made role, you're Completing that character's Story.

If you make your own role and play it, you're doing something different and more valuable.

The problem seems to be that a lot of people want to sit back and enjoy someone else's writing. They like cutscenes and lots of dialogue. They like starting in the only town in the valley, with the only exit being a single cave. They like it when the old man tells them his daughter ran off into the cave, which is filled with monsters, and needs to be rescued. And he likes that there is nobody else in town who can do it.

But I like playing a game rather than watching a movie.

[Cthulhu]

I want to drive into one of those things with a southern-flag emblazoned tank and start blowing people away, even though I'm from the North.

Or well, not blowing them away, but maybe a little flag that comes out and says "Bang, y'all!"

[deadlycairn]

 When does a role-playing game become a sandbox game? To have a game that is able to allow you to do anything you want, you need to be able to have the option to do anything you want. And their's always gonna be somebody who comes along and whats to do something the game makers never thought of. A true RPG would be more of an EXTREMELY CPU intensive simulation, creating a dynamic world and the things that inhabit it, each with their own personalitys minds opinions etc, so the game can correctly responnd to anything you do. This s why I think DF is still the closest anyone's come to an RPG. Still, there's a problem. A game with no plot, with no fixed storyline, has no direction. Theres not even any goals in a true RPG, except maybe not to die. This leads to mindless playing without any real enjoyment, like I see in most MMORPG's on the web.