Do you consider Disco Elysium an RPG?

[HeatEXTEND]

If it's an RPG it's a shitty one, make your beds and lie in them folks.

 

[jackofshadows]

How is DE taking away essential elements the same as adding new elements on top?

It's not about elements. You won't eventually come to specific list of them anyway. As you well see, some will say this is essential and that isn't, others will say otherwise. Simple point being mediums and genres evolve all the time and imo a better way to categorize them by tying to decades or eras. Not a fan personally of categorizing either way tho because of hybrid games. But to draw the line "has combat system or not" is as much as strange to me as speaking against non-silent movies.

 

[turkishronin]

deadbeat downtrodden drunken cop that's got his life twisted and fucked up

Why would anyone think this is a good idea? When I play an RPG I want to be the cool awesome hero not a washed-up middle aged man(I can become that myself)
It's not an RPG bases on this retarded premise alone

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

It is a game.

 

[Grauken]

It is a RPgame.

ftfy

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Disco Delusion Dystopia distorts you with dementia. It is a game but dare you even try to catogorize it in a box. You'll only see round donuts with square pegs placed in triangular patterns gravy as frosting. Dare you try it and see if you can feel satiated?

 

[Shaki]

Disco Elysium will never be an RPG, the same way trannies voting for "yes" will never be women. No matter how many retards say otherwise, wishful thinking can't change facts.

 

[Butter]

Disco Elysium will never be an RPG, the same way trannies voting for "yes" will never be women. No matter how many retards say otherwise, wishful thinking can't change facts.

Incidentally, the number of yes votes is currently 41%.

 

[thesheeep]

Are actions in the game world being done by your character and not you (eg Morrowind's actual RPG combat vs Skyrim's player-driven action combat)?
Do you create, build and level up (in some form) that character to have an influence on these outcomes?
Does the game acknowledge your choices in the character build, making different builds actually lead to different experiences?
Are you actually playing a tangible character in the game and not just some kind of entity not really in the game (such as playing the "commander" in XCom, who doesn't really exist in the game mechanically)?

Congratulations, you have yourself an RPG on your hand. Or something that is at least an RPG to a pretty high degree.
DE fulfills all of these and is thus, obviously, an RPG.

Combat or not is irrelevant. Quite a few combat-free RPGs around. An unlimited number of RPGs if you also count pen & paper RPGs.
If actions are "just" dialog-driven or represented differently (such as in a combat manner) is irrelevant. What matters is the mechanics behind it all, not how they are presented.
You could make a peaceful RPG where the main character is a cookie trying to survive in an ocean of milk and it'd still be an RPG.

 

[huskarls]

no one said anything when vargus: the riven realms got top ten rpgs for 2022 as an adventure game, but people always chase the low hanging fruit like shitting on DE or oblivion. Planescape is sold as a text game here...

 

[Vic]

Quite a few combat-free RPGs around.

which ones?

 

[thesheeep]

Quite a few combat-free RPGs around.

which ones?

or


come to mind first. Now, Academagia might have some form of mechanical combat duel somewhere, but in many hours of playing/reading I have yet to encounter it. If any fighting or act of violence is going on, it's no different from any other description happening in the game.

If you mean also P&P, well that is easy:
Take any system you like and imagine playing an entire session without fighting, but lots of skill checks anyway (climbing, banter, alchemy, survival, etc. there is A LOT you can mechanically do in an RPG without fighting). Are you suddenly no longer playing a P&P RPG cause you didn't fight? Of course not, because fighting is not what determines being an RPG.
And since that is so obvious in P&P I find it really strange that some people are opposed to calling computer RPGs without combat RPGs.

Of course most games, especially RPGs, do have combat, cause that is what makes 'em fun, what is their focus - but there is no such thing as a requirement to have combat as a focus to be considered anything.
Combat as a requirement is just silly. No other genre (other than those with fighting quite literally in their name) has such a restriction. Would an RTS without combat (such as Offworld Trading Company) suddenly no longer be an RTS despite playing pretty much exactly like an RTS that has combat? Of course it's still an RTS. Same applies to RPGs.

 

[Jasede]

Two shovelware indie games nobody ever heard about to make your point that there's CRPGs without combat? Bit of a self-own.

Now I know that Titan game has some fans here but I don't go digging through 100000 music records to find the two that don't actually contain any instruments or sounds and then claim songs without sound (such as 4′33″) are part of the music genre.

 

[Vic]

Quite a few combat-free RPGs around.

which ones?

or


come to mind first. Now, Academagia might have some form of mechanical combat duel somewhere, but in many hours of playing/reading I have yet to encounter it. If any fighting or act of violence is going on, it's no different from any other description happening in the game.

If you mean also P&P, well that is easy:
Take any system you like and imagine playing an entire session without fighting, but lots of skill checks anyway (climbing, banter, alchemy, survival, etc. there is A LOT you can mechanically do in an RPG without fighting). Are you suddenly no longer playing a P&P RPG cause you didn't fight? Of course not, because fighting is not what determines being an RPG.
And since that is so obvious in P&P I find it really strange that some people are opposed to calling computer RPGs without combat RPGs.

Of course most games, especially RPGs, do have combat, cause that is what makes 'em fun, what is their focus - but there is no such thing as a requirement to have combat as a focus to be considered anything.
Combat as a requirement is just silly. No other genre (other than those with fighting quite literally in their name) has such a restriction. Would an RTS without combat (such as Offworld Trading Company) suddenly no longer be an RTS despite playing pretty much exactly like an RTS that has combat? Of course it's still an RTS. Same applies to RPGs.

I'm not sure if naming 2 weird indie games counts to support your argument that there are quite a few combat-free RPGs, but they do look interesting and I might check them out.

 

[Vic]

Combat as a requirement is just silly.

I argued the same thing before I made this poll, that combat is no requirement for an RPG because I did enjoy Disco a lot, it made me laugh more than any other game. But, after seeing that most do not consider it an RPG, and reflecting upon the arguments, I realized that I liked DE not for the same reasons I like other RPGs but rather for the same reasons I like visual novels and adventure games. It does look like an RPG but I think the reason why I would want to replay it would be similar to why I would want to re-play a visual novel.

I'm not sure what the core gameplay of Titan Outpost is but if I had to guess, I'd say that people play it for different reasons than they'd play an RPG. Genre elements do not define core gameplay. I'd have to play Titan Outpost first to see if they were able to combine base building and RPG into one game, but honestly even if that's the case it would be more of an exception than a rule.

I think a major element of an RPG is the "male power fantasy", if it has no combat it's an adventure game at best.

 

[Butter]

I like Titan Outpost a lot, but I wouldn't call it a CRPG as that term is traditionally understood. It's a weird genre hybrid, but there's no denying that the way you build your character strongly dictates how you approach the various tasks and problems. It has better build reactivity than most RPGs that aren't made by Tim Cain.

But it doesn't feel remotely like a computer adaptation of a tabletop RPG, and that's my litmus test for something being a CRPG. The same is true of Disco Elysium.

 

[thesheeep]

I realized that I liked DE not for the same reasons I like other RPGs but rather for the same reasons I like visual novels and adventure games. It does look like an RPG but I think the reason why I would want to replay it would be similar to why I would want to re-play a visual novel.

Very understandable.
But why you want to play a game has no bearing on the genre of that game.
Just like you liking a game or not has no bearing on that game's quality, meaning a game can be good or bad independent of one's subjective ability to enjoy it.

Don't get me wrong, I don't consider DE a 100% RPG, but more of an RPG/Visual novel hybrid.

 

[ValeVelKal]

Definitions/terms change, regardless of if we like or agree with those changes. What something means is often subjective. If you want an actually definition, we could try to actually make a definition. We could approach it in two ways. First, how were RPGs created and what were they created to do? From my understanding, they evolved from wargames, and were meant to allow one or a small group of people to create characters defined primarily by non-ambiguous numbers, and the reasons for those numbers were almost exclusively combat, and allow these characters to have an adventure, with conflict and agency a main element of these adventures.

So, we have a system evolved from exclusively combat games (wargaming), with almost all TTRPGs and their rulebooks, handbooks, and supplemental materials (even item books like Encyclopedia Magicka) being combat focused. Until pretty recently in the life of TTRPGs there were no system that did not allow combat.

RPG comes from wargame is incorrect, or rather only a part of the story that Gygax / TSR liked to emphasize for obvious reasons.

The first proto-RPGs were David Wesely's 1970 Braunstein games (from the name of the fictional town where the first one of these happened) and those were non-combat diplomatic/management games were people played a role. Well, technically the first one was a diplomatic/management/wargame where the players never reached wargame part. The following ones dropped the wargame part. Each “session” was its own indépendant game.

A 1971 Braunstein called Black Moor had the players as lords in fantasy world inspired by Lord of the Rings, and as lords they did some diplomacy and some fighting, including at one point in the dungeon of Castle Blackmoor… using the Chainmail ruleset.

Black Moor was the first RPG and also a game that Dave Arneson played. The first D&D ruleset was in 1974 and Gygax pretended he invented RPG from that point onward. Arneson never did.

 

[Vic]

But why you want to play a game has no bearing on the genre of that game.

A good game has core gameplay that is focused on one genre, with the exception of new genre-defining games but usually if I play a racing game for the narrative element for example then it's a failure of a racing game. In this case DE's core gameplay is more akin to a visual novel or CYOA. Most people wouldn't play DE for its RPG elements (they don't consider it as one), that speaks quite a lot for its genre, wouldn't you agree?

 

[thesheeep]

A good game has core gameplay that is focused on one genre

Nah, a game can have any number of genres it wants to focus on.
Obviously, the fewer the "easier" it is to make the game a good one, but especially RPGs are almost never "pure" but mixed with strategy, tactics and/or action a lot.

usually if I play a racing game for the narrative element for example then it's a failure of a racing game.

Why?
Any reason for you to play and enjoy a game is a valid one, there's no wrong here. It's entirely subjective.
It would probably be a very unusual (and not a "pure") racing game if the majority played it for the story, but a strange racing game is still a racing game.

If it was generally agreed upon that the racing part of a game were bad, but the narrative great, then yeah, you'd be right.
But even a failed racing game is still what? A racing game.

Most people wouldn't play DE for its RPG elements (they don't consider it as one), that speaks quite a lot for its genre, wouldn't you agree?

Well, even more people clearly think that DE is an RPG (just need to check the Steam tags, what's on number one? Exactly).
Neither is really an argument.

What people mostly play it for, I'd wager, is the writing and then it's probably the RPG elements. I wouldn't underestimate that, as that is what gives the game such high reactivity to the players' choices, both in build choices as well as story decisions. Also what gives it replayability.

If there was only the writing, I don't think the game would have been anywhere near as successful - would've just been a somewhat different looking visual novel. It was almost certainly the mix that made it blow up.
Either way, though, even a game that's just partly an RPG is still an RPG (which is the topic here), defining the exact "RPG share" seems like an excercise in futility.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

RPG comes from wargame is incorrect, or rather only a part of the story that Gygax / TSR liked to emphasize for obvious reasons.

The first proto-RPGs were David Wesely's 1970 Braunstein games (from the name of the fictional town where the first one of these happened) and those were non-combat diplomatic/management games were people played a role. Well, technically the first one was a diplomatic/management/wargame where the players never reached wargame part. The following ones dropped the wargame part. Each “session” was its own indépendant game.

A 1971 Braunstein called Black Moor had the players as lords in fantasy world inspired by Lord of the Rings, and as lords they did some diplomacy and some fighting, including at one point in the dungeon of Castle Blackmoor… using the Chainmail ruleset.

Black Moor was the first RPG and also a game that Dave Arneson played. The first D&D ruleset was in 1974 and Gygax pretended he invented RPG from that point onward. Arneson never did.

Dave Wesely started running his Napoleonic-era Braunstein games in 1968 and continued running them into 1970 when he was called up for military service. Duane Jenkins ran a series of Brownstone games at the beginning of 1971, which were inspired by Braunstein but with an Old West setting and importantly the addition of persistence between games in terms of characters and developments within the setting. Soon after that, Dave Arneson was inspired to run similar sessions in his Blackmoor campaign, with the players exploring dungeons beneath Blackmoor, which so enthralled them that they entirely neglected the strategic campaign with tactical miniatures battles that had been the original genre. Aside from establishing exploration-related aspects, Arneson's Blackmoor campaign was also the first to add character progression, and these elements combined with the existing elements of a squad-based tactics game to form the RPG genre.

 

[mondblut]

1. you play a role of...

The moment a game tells me what kind of role I am expected to play, an RPG it is not.

I am not that big on that "roleplaying" crap to begin with, but one thing I do know: an RPG is about playing a role of YOUR choosing. Halo is the one where "you play a role of...".

 

[mondblut]

In the most literal and undeniable sense Disco is a CRPG, as it is a computer adaptation of a pen and paper RPG the devs used to play.

Skyrealms of Jorune and Emperor of the Fading Suns are also computer adaptations of pen and paper RPGs. Strangely, they are not RPGs at all.

It doesn't get more RPG than that.

True, providing the pen and paper game in questions was sufficiently RPG-like (i.e. playing it was like playing Dungeons & Dragons... over the years people who weren't bullied enough in school started calling the weirdest things "roleplaying games"). And yet, there is more than one way to "adapt" one, including the ways that abandon the original gameplay entirely. Even Dungeons & Dragons in many of its "adaptations" were butchered in a thousand of ways.

 

[mondblut]

True, providing the pen and paper game in questions was sufficiently RPG-like (i.e. playing it was like playing Dungeons & Dragons... over the years people who weren't bullied enough in school started calling the weirdest things "roleplaying games").

To elaborate on the above:

Eight round accessible larp for up to eight players. Millennials dismantle oppressive systems; online play friendly.

Materials:
-Pen, paper. If participant is unable to draw (physical limitations), a volunteer may assist.
-Match(es).
-Fire-safe bucket.
-Water (for emergency, hydration).

One person plays a millennial Speaker (facilitator/leader). Others portray millennial elected officials.

The player who last paid a government tax, toll, or fine goes first.

The Speaker moderates each round. Length of each round determined by participants. Each participant must propose dismantling of 1+ institution (see list below). Speaker may use stopwatch/timer. Participants are encouraged to replace oppressive institutions with more specific establishments (corrupted democratic republic, failing healthcare system) or those affecting them directly.

Each round may only continue when participants agree upon a solution for ruining that round's institution.

Institutions:

-Classism
-Sexism
-Racism
-Heteronormativity
-Ableism
-Anti-transgenderism
-Player choice
-A government structure

After each round, one participant illustrates a representation of the dismantled institution. When rounds are complete, players compile illustrations (hold up visibly if remote) and collectively burn them, shouting together "Millennials ruin everything!"

Optional hydration mechanic: Participants may drink water after each round, representing necessary self-care and emotional labor required to dismantle these systems.

That's one of many contestants in 2018 "200 words RPG challenge". According to the author(s), it's a "pen and paper RPG". If there was a videogame adaptation of it, I guess it would be "as RPG as it gets", hm-m?

 

[ValeVelKal]

1. you play a role of...

The moment a game tells me what kind of role I am expected to play, an RPG it is not.

I am not that big on that "roleplaying" crap to begin with, but one thing I do know: an RPG is about playing a role of YOUR choosing. Halo is the one where "you play a role of...".

Uh.
So Ultima IV, Betrayal at Krondor or The Witcher are not RPGs ?