What do you think makes a game a role-playing game?

[LlamaGod]

an RPG is a game with real roleplaying where your character and choices matter and the world reacts to them.

Of course, some games arnt as much of an RPG as others and then it gets confusing.

But shit, you can think on your own.

 

[roguefrog]

The term 'role-playing' and 'Role-playing Game' don't always add up. Obviously most RPGs don't even allow for actually role-playing. Stats are the common element, and the only thing that really seperates it from being a ACTION GAME! And if everything is based on player skill, you have an ACTION GAME even if there is role-playing.

 

[Shevek]

Here we see where stats fails. Quantify social bonds, personnality, experience or beliefs. It doesn't work. It's even worse with an experience system where you level up and increase the characteristics.

Stats can handle faction bonuses just fine.

RPGs are quantified by their use of stats. How thoroughly the stat system pervades the game is the earmark of the quality of the RPG system. There is no need for senseless exaggerations of what a RPG is or to go on page long explanations of a rather easy to define genre.

 

[Ismaul]

Here we see where stats fails. Quantify social bonds, personnality, experience or beliefs. It doesn't work. It's even worse with an experience system where you level up and increase the characteristics.

Stats can handle faction bonuses just fine.

Well, if for you social bonds, personnality, experience and beliefs are reflected in factions bonuses, you are pretty reductionistic. I don't want my roleplaying to be limited to the numbers. That's why I'm playing a roleplaying game, not a rollplaying game.

RPGs are quantified by their use of stats. How thoroughly the stat system pervades the game is the earmark of the quality of the RPG system.

RPGs do not need to be quantified. Plus, it's not the roleplaying that has to adapt to the stat system, it's the stat system that has to adapt to the roleplaying. Therefore it's not how thoroughly the system is used in the roleplaying, it's how much the system gives freedom to roleplay.

Most stat systems are based around combat. Why? because it's the easiest thing to quantify, and the hardest thing to roleplay without rules. I don't want the stat system to be the basis for an rpg, because it favors combat over other things.

There is no need for senseless exaggerations of what a RPG is or to go on page long explanations of a rather easy to define genre.

Easy to define genre. Sure, that's why nobody agrees, even on a "hardcore" rpg site.
If you don't like long explanations, that's fine. But don't say they are senseless just because it bothered you to read it.

Given that a stat system isn't necessary for a pure role-playing system, is it a necessary limitation to have in a computer role-playing game?

I don't think so. What mostly benefits from stats is combat. Actually, no. A stat system only gives the player a record of how his character is and permits him to improve certain stats at level ups. Look at FPS, they don't use stats, yet there is a quantification happening behind the scenes. An rpg could just eliminate the visible stats and make the character get slowly better at something while doing it. Since the player no longer needs to see an increasing number each time he gets better, the system can be more simple for certain things. Train and fight hand-to-hand a lot, and you'll find it easier to defeat a certain enemy. People will react to the fact that you are strong, and even your avatar could grow muscles over time. Recognition of a characteristic does not have to come in the form of a number.

 

[GuideBot]

Wow, I like Ismaul's explanation. Though I'd argue that sometimes stats are necessary to quantify a PC's position in the world he inhabits; what his standing is with the Evil Church, or how tall the PC is (if he's 7' tall, people might comment), etc. These don't need to be shown to the player in a "spreadsheet"ish fashion, but giving the player a general idea of their relationship to other entities in the game world is a good thing, and I can't think of a better way to do this than through a straight numerical representation.

Rather than stats per se, I think it is the associated feeling of "changing" your own character through game play that people associate with an RPG. If you had a system sort of like Morrowind's, where skills get better as you use them (but without the levelling up), but the stats were kept hidden, and the information that you were getting better at a certain skill were displayed in some other fashion, say, a more skillful looking attack animation, or enemies reeling even more after being struck, then I think this could be just as good an RPG as your typical spreadsheet manager.

You'd still be getting more powerful, you'd just determine this by observing your actions in the game world, rather than having it told to you explicitly (and out of character).

 

[Stark]

Elves.
Hot Sex.
Hot Sex with Elves.

Some feeling that the decisions I make within the game have a significant affect on the game world.

that would bel ittle half-elves running around the house, no?

a true rpg does not need stats, nor phat loot, nor elves.

a true rpg provides a paperdoll for sickos like us to play dressing up.

 

[Mulciber]

Look at FPS, they don't use stats, yet there is a quantification happening behind the scenes. An rpg could just eliminate the visible stats and make the character get slowly better at something while doing it. Since the player no longer needs to see an increasing number each time he gets better, the system can be more simple for certain things. Train and fight hand-to-hand a lot, and you'll find it easier to defeat a certain enemy. People will react to the fact that you are strong, and even your avatar could grow muscles over time. Recognition of a characteristic does not have to come in the form of a number.

The trouble is that eliminating the visibility of the stats doesn't eliminate the stats themselves. You are still keeping a record of modifications to some sort of baseline character. The only alternative that I can think of is to offload all of the 'improvement' from the ingame character onto the player himself. Which is, in effect, what a FPS or RTS does... The more you practice, the better YOU are, not your character.

 

[jsaving]

How does an RPG differ from an adventure game? In an RPG, at least some of your actions will succeed or fail based on the stat choices you have made.

How does an RPG differ from an action game? In an RPG, at least some of your encounters with other characters will succeed or fail based on the dialogue choices you make.

You can certainly "role-play" a wide variety of protagonists ranging from Duke Nukem to King Graham, in the sense that you feel comfortable with the statements and actions those characters make over the course of the game. But the fact that you can potentially feel affinity for a main character doesn't mean the game itself is an RPG. If it did, half the games on the market would be RPGs.

On the other side of the coin, good RPGs can certainly have highly variable endgames that depend on your previous actions. Yet the game many consider to be the pinnacle of RPG excellence (Torment) has exactly the same endgame no matter what actions you have previously taken. The journey is a lot more important than the destination...

 

[Greatatlantic]

I usually define a cRPG as a game that attempts to emulate the PnP RPG experiences on a computer, or console.

Things I want to see in an RPG?

1. Character customization- and not how the avatar looks. I want to be able to select skills and stuff. This can be easily accomplished through stats, but stats don't make the RPG. Otherwise, games like Tony Hawk or Madden could be RPGs, and I will never call them such.

2. Character development- this sort of goes with customizations, but as the game advances you need to be able to upgrade or change your character.

3. Story Choice- how about the ability to effect the outcome, or at least the interim? Can I say no to saving the village from bandits because gosh darn it, I'm a lover not a fighter?

4. Play again, only different- Alright, I beat the game once. If I play it again, can I have a different experience? If so, its a quality RPG.

 

[roguefrog]

RPGs and Action games are polar opposites. The Action RPG is a hybrid, combining both. Same kinda deal with games like Tony Hawk that have stats. It's still a skateboarding 'action' game only theres stats that determines the skaters max potential but you still directly control the skaters performance. In a RPG you have ZERO control over how well the player character performs any of his skills, abilities, spell-like abilities, whatever.

Stats should govern everything whether it's combat, dialogue, non-combat actions (stealth, computer hacking, knitting, gardening, etc...) whatever!

If stats only revolve around combat that RPG is not a good example and is teh gay.

 

[Atrokkus]

As I said before, I consider the combat and char development systems irrelevant in pure RPG.

Now the things that define a good pure RPG:

- Story, preferably non-linear.
- Setting and atmosphere - it can make someone hate/love the game really quick
- Dialogs - an archimportant component. There can't be a good world without interaction, and this interaction must be life-like, not like in wana-bee actionRPGs like Morrowind.
- Choice - there must be a choice in everything - in dialogs, and consequently in storyline.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Stats. Otherwise all you have is a text-based adventure.

 

[Atrokkus]

Yeah, but stats that affect roleplaying, not just your uberness in combat.

 

[DemonKing]

Stats

Phat Loot

Chosen One(s)

Orcs

My main character must start with Amnesia.

All gnome party members/NPCs must be annoying and voiced by the same voice actor.

Paper doll inventory system.

Evil NPCs are master villains, evil PCs are schoolground bullies and shylocks.

 

[Atrokkus]

All gnome party members/NPCs must be annoying and voiced by the same voice actor.

Ye don't like their accent?

 

[Visbhume]

I agree with those who said that stats are not neccesarily a defining aspect of RPG's, otherwise "Progress Quest" would be the pinnacle of the genre. Stats are only an abstraction you put in place of something you aren't interested in modelling with detail (or maybe can't model in detail).

And I think character development is not defining, either. Image an excellent game with an amazing reactive universe and unparalelled inmersion... which only takes place in one single night. Wouldn't that be an RPG ?

 

[GenericID]

1) Immersiveness
2) Hard choices in plotting
3) NPCs that serve as more than in-game flags to sheperd me from place to place
4) Again, NPCs that flesh out the world so that if I'm going around saving the world I'm reminded why I'm doing it. Besides the power-trip. :wink:

BONUS: Having a party.

 

[Shevek]

1) Stats
2) Stats
3) Stats
4) Stats

All other things can easily be said to be qualities ALL good games should have (immersion, choice, blah blah). You can judge the quality of the GAME by those things but not the quality of the RPG SYSTEM. That evaluation is governed by how well the developer has managed to use stats to affect varying aspects of the game.

 

[Visbhume]

1) Stats
2) Stats
3) Stats
4) Stats

Perhaps we should abandon the term "role-playing" altogether and embrace "stat-based" as the new definition of the genre.

No.

Imagine a stat-free, no-character-progression game with a totally nonlinear plot, meaningful decisions and a reactive world. According to your definition, that game would be less of an RPG than Diablo.

RPGs are no more dependent on stats that chess is dependent on squares being black and white.

 

[Naked_Lunch]

Stats help define your role. Thus, they are essential to role-playing.

Kthnxbye.

 

[Visbhume]

Stats help define your role. Thus, they are essential to role-playing.

In fact, I think it's precisely the opposite case. Suppose that in some game you have a brigand surprising a wealthy merchant in a dark alley. If the things you are interested in are "roles", that is, social interactions between PCs and NPCs, perhaps a precise physical simulation of a mace hitting the merchant's head is unnecesary overkill. Thus, you abstract it away with some "combat prowess" stat and concentrate yourself in implementing a really good dialogue tree for the mercy-pleading merchant.

Stats represent those things that the designer is not interested in modeling in detail. To elevate them to a defining characteristic of RPGs is absurd. It's like saying that holes are the best part of doughnuts.

 

[Shevek]

Imagine a stat-free, no-character-progression game with a totally nonlinear plot, meaningful decisions and a reactive world. According to your definition, that game would be less of an RPG than Diablo.

The Last Express comes close to that in some ways. It is less of a RPG than Diablo. Actually, its not a RPG at all. Nonlinearity and immersiveness do not equal RPG. They are just attractive features which can fit well in many genres.

I think the problem is that publishers have really clung to these buzzwords lately and they have been pushing them on as many titles as they can (even when it doesnt fit) in order to get some kind of street cred or something. "Look at our game, its free and open and blah blah blah; its an RPG!" This reminds me of those silly STALKER devs and thier assertion that their sandbox FPS was a "statless" RPG.

 

[Spazmo]

All this anti-stat ranting is ridiculous. Let's not forget that these are computer games. Computers deal in math. Math means numbers. That means stats. Characters in all games have stats, really. An RPG just lets you define your own whereas an FPS might have a fixed number of HP, a fixed weapon skill, so much carrying capacity, etc.

What's integral to an RPG for me is the ability to create your own character and have the game play differently for different characters. Not just that one option will be better than another (otherwise a racing game that lets you modify cars with stats like handling, acceleration, style, whatever but where you just want to end up with a car that's the best in all qualities might qualify), but a bunch of different paths that are equally valid.

And another important thing is that it has to be the character's skills and abilities that the game tests, not the player's. That, I'm afraid, means stats, because how else can you quantify a character's skill with a given weapon or his charisma or his movement rate or whatever?

 

[Ismaul]

Basically, what everyone is saying, is that we want to define a role, react to a situation and see the world react to the consequences.

What we don't agree on is how the role is defined. Lots of you think that stats make the role. Sure, you chose the intelligence, strength, skills of your character. But the stat system is not necessary to do it. You can roleplay an intelligent character without needing to state that your intelligence is 8 out of 10. Things like having a witty, sly, or grumpy character often define more the role than stating you have 10% in barter. Yet, those are not reflected in the stats, obviously because it's much harder for a game to track those kind of things.

What I'm saying is, the role is not the stats. The stats are derived from the role and help adjudicating certain situations. There is lots of way to define a role that can't be encompassed by a stat system. Attitude, habits, typical reactions, emotions, interpersonnal relations, etc... The role is much more those than stating your relation with Mr.X is 3 on a scale of -10 to 10. Stats are merely a simplification of certain facets of a role.

The presentation of the stat system in the form of a character sheet is a way for the player to see progression of the role. It has been this way because games have not been developped enough to give you other ways to see the evolution. Often, you pump a couple of points in a certain skill, say marksmanship, but do not notice any difference. But you still feel like there is an evolution because a higher number is better. Obviously, showing the evolution of a skill in-game is much harder for the developper than just showing the stats.

What has happened is that stats have become the standard way of defining a role in crpgs. Roles have become limited to the stats. Players therefore demand more and more sophisticated stat systems, so they can encompass a broder ranger of roles that the player can play. I guess the best way to break this standard is to shove the stat system in the background, and let the player give importance to qualitative definition and evolution of the role, in-game. Devs doing this would also have to put much more importance to recognition in-game of the role and his evolution, which is what we have been asking for a long time.

 

[Spazmo]

Nope. You can have any degree of backstory to your PC and why he does what he does, but ultimately, the game is doing to have to react to your actions with a finite set of instructions to follow. A P&P DM might be able to remember that a particular NPC has such and such an opinion of a particular PC, but a CRPG isn't likely to do much more than track that NPC's opinion of the PC along a given scale. Basically, if it can't be expressed or defined with numbers, a computer just can't handle it. That's why stats that are numbers are going to be necessary.