Can a game be an rpg if it doesnt have choice and consequence ?

[monilloman]

Thoughts on the emergent RP mod scene in non-RPG games like GTA and RDR2?
C&C with real people. Ironically this would be considered "Role-playing" but not an "RPG".

those are far more rpg than most of the crap posted here, only you need to socialise instead of minmax a party of 6 so it'll be called decline by most.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6003 using Tapatalk

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

• All player actions abstracted through a mechanic (dice/cards/etc.)
• Intrinsic character customization with mutually exclusive choices.
• Exploration

These are the minimum necessary qualities for a game to be a genuine non-hyphenated RPG. Anything with features above this are a bonus. C&C is nice to have, but not necessary.

 

[Peachcurl]

Combat is a subset or example of choice and consequences. Hence, any game with combat has choice and consequences. Since every RPG has to have combat, it follows that every RPG has to have choice and consequences. Hence, the answer to the question in the title of this thread is: No.

 

[Vic]

c&c for an RPG should be considered outside of combat, in interaction with the world and dialogue. c&c in combat does not make a game an RPG because literally every game that offers different “classes” like an FPS with different guns (sniper vs handgun etc.) has varying gameplay based on the class or build you chose to play.

c&c in RPGs is when the game acknowledges your choices and reacts to it somehow, it could be that you might not be able to pick a lock because you didn’t skill lockpicking, or a different ending for a quest depending on who you sided with.

looking at only combat is not enough imo

 

[Radiane]

Also, every game has some sort of c&c, no matter how small, else it wouldn't be a game, rpg or whatever, in the first place

 

[PapaPetro]

Hell, it might be easier to define RPGs by what they are not.
Reminds me...

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Although all CRPGs are ultimately derivatives of Dungeons & Dragons, they differ in fundamental ways from the genre's originator, due to the inherent nature of the medium of a computer being used by a single individual versus the medium of pen-and-paper with multiple people.

CRPG mechanics ideally take advantage of the fact that a computer can easily emulate rules that are too computationally ponderous to find general use in pen-and-paper RPGs. This is especially true for logistics, where the computer can easily track encumbrance and its effects, inventory limitations in terms of weight/volume/spaces, food/hunger, water/thirst, sleep/fatigue/stamina, equipment deterioration & repair, a day/night cycle, lighting and the impact of darkness. Similarly, turn-based combat can return to the RPG genre's roots in miniatures wargaming, with tactical content and complexity far in excess of what would be feasible in pen-and-paper RPGs, which need to abstract and simplify combat to avoid prohibitive duration.

Contrariwise, pen-and-paper RPGs are able to take advantage of being controlled by a human Dungeon Master both to engage in improvisational adaptation during gameplay in response to player decisions and to undergo preparation between game sessions to adjust for player decisions steering the campaign in different directions. Computer RPGs, by contrast, are unable to engage in any kind of adaptation or preparation aside from the programming and content they are designed with, in consequence of which they allow for narrative decisions only through the strait-jacket of scripting.
Both CRPGs and pen-and-paper RPGs should play to their strengths rather than their weaknesses.

 

[Robotigan]

My controversial opinion is that roleplaying games are just adventure games with more mechanics. I can't think of any satisfying way to disentangle the two. Adventure games can have the player go where they want and accept quests. Adventure games can have ability and gear upgrades. Adventure games can have narrative choices and consequences. So what exactly is the distinction? Stats? This seems to be the unspoken rule but nobody wants to say it because it seems dumb. RPGs evolved out of wargaming and borrowed stats from them; stats aren't what differentiated roleplaying games in the first place. Not to mention Roadwarden doesn't doesn't have stats and I haven't seen any challenges to its RPG-ness.

 

[BruceVC]

One of the best things for me in an rpg is that what i do in the world has consequence , i cant just go kill anyone , steal everything and nobody sees anything , no consequences for my action , like in hogwarts legacy , i can use avadakadavra in from of other teachers and nobody gives a shit

Many people these days say that even if there are no choice and consequence as long as you can create your character , you dont have to follow a linear path in doing the story ( like in skyrim , you can do the main story when you want ) , you can upgrade the skills that you have then that game is an rpg , it doesnt matter if you have no say in the events happening in the story

do you agree ?

You raise a valid question about what defines a RPG and is it mandatory to have C&C to be called an RPG or at least degrees of C&C

I would say yes normally but then some CRPG dont have much C&C but you get to make choices about completing level advancement and character and party selection and thats considered C&C

For me the narrative is a huge part of the overall RP experience so I expect and like C&C but technically its not necessary for it to be a RPG

 

[octavius]

My controversial opinion is that roleplaying games are just adventure games with more mechanics. I can't think of any satisfying way to disentangle the two. Adventure games can have the player go where they want and accept quests. Adventure games can have ability and gear upgrades. Adventure games can have narrative choices and consequences. So what exactly is the distinction? Stats? This seems to be the unspoken rule but nobody wants to say it because it seems dumb. RPGs evolved out of wargaming and borrowed stats from them; stats aren't what differentiated roleplaying games in the first place. Not to mention Roadwarden doesn't doesn't have stats and I haven't seen any challenges to its RPG-ness.

Adventure games, at least the older ones, are in my experience games where you have only one choice. Make the wrong choice and the consequences are one of three:
1: "I don't understand that"
2: Walking dead scenario
3: Game over

For some reason I haven't played an Adventure game for decades.

 

[Harthwain]

My controversial opinion is that roleplaying games are just adventure games with more mechanics. I can't think of any satisfying way to disentangle the two. Adventure games can have the player go where they want and accept quests. Adventure games can have ability and gear upgrades. Adventure games can have narrative choices and consequences. So what exactly is the distinction?

I thought adventure games are more like puzzle games.

 

[Lt Broccoli]

Hmmmmmmm

Here at Codex we develop 12 requirement that determine how a game get classified as RPG: 7/12 and upward.

Choice and consequence affect only 2 out of 12.

So if a game that has 7/12 point but not have 2 of those choice requirement, it still called a RPG.

That is on paper, though. In reality, you best name a non-choice RPG and let us consider if it's actually an RPG.

Because from where I stand, a game that doesnt have choice and consequence is pretty rare.

Do you have any samples of games that scored above or equal to 7 points but not the Choice and consequence affect (worth 2 points)?

 

[PapaPetro]

For some reason I haven't played an Adventure game for decades.

I watch just for the entertaining death scenes.

 

[Machocruz]

The 12 criteria to determine a RPG is from the link in my signature. Inside would be discussion, example, and analys. I will list it below

Spoiler

1. Character creation has some form of in-game consequences
2. Statistics which define character(s) abilities are subject to change throughout the game
3. Character(s) have skills or abilities which may improve or be altered over the course of gameplay
4. Character(s) accrue experience which can be spent or result in gaining levels or abilities
5. Character(s) accumulate items in some form of inventory, which the player can actively use (equip, sell, destroy, trade, etc.), which enhance or otherwise alter gameplay
6. Character(s) accumulate currency which may be spent to enhance the character(s) in some way (items, guild membership, training, etc.)
7. Character(s) gain levels throughout the game which result in some form of mechanical change (not just a change in character title, or description)
8. Character(s) are able to explore over terrain, water, space, etc. ('explore' refers to free movement of main character(s))
9. The game has some form of puzzle solving, which is resolved through combat, problem resolution, or some choice made by the player
10. A choice made by the player alters the narrative, or some other significant part of the game (an item is found or lost, stats or skills are gained or lost, different ending, etc.)
11. Character(s) interact with NPCs in some form of dialogue which have in-game consequences depending on what the character(s) say.
12. Optional quests (defined here as some kind of task made available after the game has started, and which can be resolved by the player before the game ends, but is not required to complete the game) are available.

Diablo1 lack puzzle quality, so it only score 11/12
SM Alpha Centaury and SMAX has 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10. which is 8/12, borderline RPG. It has no xp and no NPC but otherwise fit. If you consider faction leaders as NPC which we only interact through diplomacy screen, then it has 9/12, lite RPG. If you accept unit experience/kill record as XP then we also has 4,7, which mean SMAC(X) has 10/12, definite RPG.
Let's check Sengoku Rance. It doesnt have 1 and 8, but 10/12 say it's a RPG.

Pretty good, but I would be even more exacting. The devil is in the details. PnP RPGs (where the "definition" of RPG lies, not in video games which completely rely on the former for their very existence) follow a similar structure from the ground up, barring outliers. So for example you mention character creation, but not details of the process, and the details is what differentiates the character creation of a ToEE from a Saints Row. I would add:

- Rolling for or picking base attributes, or having any at all (So Todd Howardian "CoD is RPG" nonsense falls on its face before the game has even begun. Does Twitcher 3 even have base attributes lol)
- Multiple layers of statistical character building, often seen in a set of 3

-Main attributes,​

-Skills (note: the skill trees the industry loves so much are a video game invention afaik, but I'll allow it)​

-Feats/perks/abilities​

- Experience is accrued as an organic adaption (PnP, the real world) as opposed to coming from some kind of outside object (many video games being called "rpg" now).
- A character sheet with all the relevant information - stats, hit points, equipment, inventory, character level, spells, armor class, etc. CoD loadout screen is not a character sheet by RPG standards.
- Hit points are a measure of survivablity that increases naturally with experience, as opposed to picking up optional items e.g. heart containers.
- Character levels are a measure of overall competence, increase naturally yada yada, not something you purchase at a shop or from a Slavic witch.
- Puzzles and general problem solving and skill usage outside of combat e.g. riddles, hidden objects/secrets, traps, navigation, traversal, social maneuvering, journey prep, etc. A disappointing number of vidya lack this.
- Player expression, play-pretend, interpretation of character i.e. role-playing. Obviously video games are very, very limited in this, but things like dialogue choices that reflect different personalities bring us a tiny bit closer. Also defeats the idiotic statement "you play a role in every game!"
- and many more

So on paper a game like SMAC has similarities, but they are not implemented in the specific way that they are in RPGs, and that's why it doesn't look or feel like one to a lot of people, while a game that has same amount or less features on the list but does them in a specific way does. Strategy games and RPG definitely have connective tissue though, which is more than we can say for a lot of games people try to sneak in under the banner of RPG these days. Now anything where you get "upgrades" is called RPG, even though action game style upgrades are a video game invention.

tl;dr: Video games are fake and gay

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

But they all have consequences...... bad decisions don't go well.

 

[luj1]

CnC isnt a principal tenet of RPGs

Combat is

 

[Robotigan]

Adventure games, at least the older ones, are in my experience games where you have only one choice. Make the wrong choice and the consequences are one of three:

I thought adventure games are more like puzzle games.

By adventure games I'm including everything from Monkey Island to Legend of Zelda to The Last of Us. These games tend to lean on puzzles because games need to have gameplay and if you're not going to have constant action and you're not going to have build strategy, then you need something else to occupy the player. People talked about BotW being an RPG-lite but that's not new or an indication of the franchise chasing trends, Zelda has always been straddling the line. In fact, this thought occurred to me when I was playing Roadwarden and realized it played a lot like a text-based Zelda. I guess you could say the former has a class selection and more C&C, but you don't even feel that mid-playthrough. It seems weird to define a genre by something that requires a second playthrough to experience. Most well-defined genres like strategy, racing, platformer, shooter, etc. are identifiable within minutes. A genre should tell you how you engage with the game on a fundamental level, and if an RPG feels like an adventure game 90% of the time well then maybe they're just mechanically richer adventure games.

I think the 12 point system is fraught. Not only because it's an unwieldy way to define a genre but also FIFA career mode scores about the same as Legend of Zelda. However I don't thinks it's controversial to posit that the vast majority of RPG fans would rather play the latter. Clearly not all points should be weighted the same and how a point feature is implemented and what it's used for within the game matters quite a bit. It's an overly litigious system that doesn't capture the essence of the genre: You play a character and go on an epic adventure. Everything else, the character stats, gear, quests, dialogue trees, consequential choices, etc. is just a mechanical way to represent some aspect of that. The genre exists because people thought it'd be cool to experience their own heroic journey like Samwise Gamgee, or Odysseus, or Han Solo.

Here's a thought experiment. Take any action-adventure like God of War, Red Dead Redemption, Tomb Raider whatever and try to translate it into a board game and try to make that board game fun. I think you'll quickly realize that you're implementing a lot of numbers-based decision-making to replace real-time combat, a lot of player-prompted environmental checks to replace visual level design, and you might even find a level-like system is desirable to help players feel like they're making progress despite sitting in one place for the entire campaign. And what do you know, you've invented something extremely familiar to table top roleplaying. I think a lot of RPG tropes are just artifacts of stuff board games have to do to keep players engaged.

 

[laclongquan]

The 12 criteria to determine a RPG is from the link in my signature. Inside would be discussion, example, and analys. I will list it below

Spoiler

1. Character creation has some form of in-game consequences
2. Statistics which define character(s) abilities are subject to change throughout the game
3. Character(s) have skills or abilities which may improve or be altered over the course of gameplay
4. Character(s) accrue experience which can be spent or result in gaining levels or abilities
5. Character(s) accumulate items in some form of inventory, which the player can actively use (equip, sell, destroy, trade, etc.), which enhance or otherwise alter gameplay
6. Character(s) accumulate currency which may be spent to enhance the character(s) in some way (items, guild membership, training, etc.)
7. Character(s) gain levels throughout the game which result in some form of mechanical change (not just a change in character title, or description)
8. Character(s) are able to explore over terrain, water, space, etc. ('explore' refers to free movement of main character(s))
9. The game has some form of puzzle solving, which is resolved through combat, problem resolution, or some choice made by the player
10. A choice made by the player alters the narrative, or some other significant part of the game (an item is found or lost, stats or skills are gained or lost, different ending, etc.)
11. Character(s) interact with NPCs in some form of dialogue which have in-game consequences depending on what the character(s) say.
12. Optional quests (defined here as some kind of task made available after the game has started, and which can be resolved by the player before the game ends, but is not required to complete the game) are available.

Diablo1 lack puzzle quality, so it only score 11/12
SM Alpha Centaury and SMAX has 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10. which is 8/12, borderline RPG. It has no xp and no NPC but otherwise fit. If you consider faction leaders as NPC which we only interact through diplomacy screen, then it has 9/12, lite RPG. If you accept unit experience/kill record as XP then we also has 4,7, which mean SMAC(X) has 10/12, definite RPG.
Let's check Sengoku Rance. It doesnt have 1 and 8, but 10/12 say it's a RPG.

blah PnP blah tabletop blahblah

tl;dr: Video games are fake and gay

I dont do PnP. I dont care about PnP. I dont like sitting around a table making faces at a bunch of other players. What am I, a social animal?

Here at Codex we deal with the eternal question "What is a RPG" in context of video games~ And we have dealt with it successfully.

 

[ind33d]

One of the best things for me in an rpg is that what i do in the world has consequence , i cant just go kill anyone , steal everything and nobody sees anything , no consequences for my action , like in hogwarts legacy , i can use avadakadavra in from of other teachers and nobody gives a shit

Many people these days say that even if there are no choice and consequence as long as you can create your character , you dont have to follow a linear path in doing the story ( like in skyrim , you can do the main story when you want ) , you can upgrade the skills that you have then that game is an rpg , it doesnt matter if you have no say in the events happening in the story

do you agree ?

A game is an RPG as long as it convinces the player that it has choice and consequence, regardless of whether or not it actually does. When I was younger and played Deus Ex 1, I assumed that I could have stayed with UNATCO instead of betraying them to help Paul, but of course that wasn't really an option. When I went into CP2077 blind, there was no way to know that the countdown timer and dialogue options were fake, so it seemed like my decisions were actually affecting the outcome. The player doesn't remember what wasn't in the game, only how he felt while playing it.

A simulation should only render the absolute minimum required to make the player believe it's real. People make fun of Fallout 4 for being a fake RPG, but we're thinking about it backwards. Making content that everyone will experience instead of diverging paths is really just code optimization. If I'm in a vault underground and the game is still rendering all the NPCs in Far Harbor a hundred miles away, that's not immersive, that's fucking stupid. It's a waste of CPU cycles. The best RPG would convince the player he's totally in control of his life when in fact everything was already set in stone at birth. That's destiny.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Fish eats poo? How accurate.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

To the OP, absolutely YES!

Terms evolve in meaning due to usage. RPGs started with PnP roots, where role playing meant you roll some character and play their role. Obviously to do this, you must have C&C.

But computer RPGs never followed this template beyond a few outliers. Originally they could not due to technical limitations, so the first computer RPGs were just about creating a combat party and fighting all the time or exploring and solving puzzles and fighting. Choices did not matter at all.

Later, the technical limitations were gone, but from a practical standpoint, adding C&C to your game requires a lot of resources (support multiple branching storylines, different approaches, etc), and developers typically have fairly limited resources. Arcanum is a good example of this: Troika put in a lot of great C&C, but the combat system was atrocious and the exploration was very underwhelming. So the question is not would you want C&C (most people would), but would you accept inferior gameplay elements to fund it?

Occasionally a game manages to combine good C&C with decent gameplay (Fallout 1/2 come to mind), but often it's a trade-off. I can enjoy both, but overall, I think I would prefer a game with limited choices or illusion of choice but solid combat/exploration/writing to a game with great C&C but not much else (Age of Decadence for example).

For these reasons, historically speaking, the vast majority of RPGs don't have much in the way of C&C. So the term has changed to reflect that. Today, RPG means a game with character development and some combination of combat, exloration and dialogue.

 

[deama]

At some point you could probably make a psuedo DM with chatGPT, probably 5-10 years away though, nevermind trying to stick that into a game.

 

[PapaPetro]

At some point you could probably make a psuedo DM with chatGPT, probably 5-10 years away though, nevermind trying to stick that into a game.

Probably closer. If I were WoTC, I'd invest now (yesterday) in a chatbot that specializes as a DM (or even as stand in players).
It would give people a reason to use their Beyond service.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

You really want AI over explaining shit and being so agreeable?
About oh 4:30 STOP BEING REASONABLE!

 

[PapaPetro]

You really want AI over explaining shit and being so agreeable?
About oh 4:30 STOP BEING REASONABLE!

Hence why you need a bespoke RPG chatbot and not a general one that can get bossed around by pilpulling munchkin rule lawyers.
Either that or you have a very concise list of commands & constraints you give to the general computer to get it into-character (like the 'Dan' jailbreak phrases with ChatGPT).

Also the holodeck would be the ideal C&C CRPG platform for this.