Dark Souls isn't an RPG

[Church185]

Yeah, I tend to find this line of logic amusing "Oh yeah? But like OPINION, man - there that's the I-win-button in the discussion, right? Right?"

That's also separate from the fact that opinions can be wrong, when reality is against them. In somebody's opinion, 1+1 may equal "3" or "7" or "table" or even "purple" but trying to claim that you are, in fact, owed twice the amount, or that you should be able to buy two pizzas in exchange for one colour somehow doesn't pan out really well.

The amount of bending over backwards people are doing in this thread to try and say Dark Souls isn't an RPG is staggering. I find it highly suspect that some of the people doing it have tons of older posts about how much Dark Souls sucks.

 

[mexicanmonkeyman]

Having level ups and a class system isn't what makes a game an RPG or not. It is the actual role playing aspect of a game that makes it a role playing game or not. Duh. In a game like Dark Souls where the story isn't staring you in the face, there are a lot of open world bits that are left up to interpretation as well as blanks to be filled in by the player's imagination. This gives the player a lot of freedom to choose the role they want to play. For instance, you can find the heaviest armor and the strongest weapons and play the role of a tank archetype (not recommended) or you can keep your character light and nimble. This sort of customization not only gives you game play freedom, but it also lets you build your own back story and character personalities rather than being limited to the "good" or "bad" dialogue choices of most RPG games out there. To give an example, I once made a Dark Souls character named Iron Fist Jin and in my head cannon, he was the fifth of "Gwyn's Four Knight" who was stripped of rank, stricken from history, and left in the Undead Asylum to rot. I used nothing but fist weapons for this play through and killed Gwyn at the end, not to extend the age of light, but as an act of revenge. That was the role I was taking on through my character. In conclusion, Dark souls is lonely, hopeless, and difficult but definitely not survival horror. In my opinion, the very limited knowledge the game outright gives the player is what makes it a "Role Playing Game" in the purest sense of the expression as long as you have the imagination to turn your character into whatever role you want him/her to be.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

FF, FF2, FF3, FF5, FF11, and FF14 would all fall under your definition of RPG.

This thread only exists to tell people they are wrong because they think of Dark Souls as an RPG.

In my opinion it is and opinions can't be wrong.

The key phrase here is "everyone does it". Considering the majority of people think of games like Dark Souls as an RPG, it would appear that the definition has changed. That can happen you know, gay used to mean happy.

I'm guessing FF11 and FF14 are more about the grind like most MMOs so I don't think I'd consider them RPGs, that's just my impression of those games though.

The definition of an RPG is objective whereas a person's view of a game is subjective. Would you say classifying COD as a FPS is subjective?

Traditions many times don't make much sense, they get ingrained into society for really no reason other than "that's just the way it's always been done." For example, it took the baseball community over a hundred years to start looking at other stats to rate hitters other than AVG, HRs, and RBIs even though other stats tell you more about the effectiveness of a player. The majority of people thought the world was flat at one point. Hell, most people think they KNOW what happens after you die. The majority is often times wrong. The video game medium is very young and it will go through lots of change. Lastly, even if every video game journalist felt that say Final Fantasy is not an RPG, they wouldn't actually start calling it something else so their readers/viewers weren't confused.

 

[BoogieManFL]

I've never played it, but from the videos I've seen of it, it looks to me like an Action RPG. So, an action game with light RPG elements. Like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night/Harmony of Despair.

 

[Spearmaster]

RPG, Role Playing Game. By pure definition all games are an RPG as soon as you are playing the role of a character that is not you. Leveling up, stat/item choice or progression have nothing to do with determining weather a game is an RPG or not.

For the purpose of genre you have to look to what the game emphasizes as its main game-play element. In the case of dark souls role playing is not at the core of the game, I would call it a strategic-combat, fantasy game, not a RPG.

Technically, the original definition of RPG lies a far bit closer to rules heavy miniature games than modern day White Wolf-inspired storytelling. The problem is that RPG encompasses everything from "almost-but-not-quite-a-miniature-conflict-game" like D&D which encourages the use of grid-based combat, miniatures and with a large focus on stats and character building to "Kind-of-like-theater-but-without-a-stage" New World of Darkness that encourages emphasis on heavy character portrayal and descriptive explanations over rules.

Neither is wrong. Dark Souls is an RPG by virtue of being a game in which you level your character, create a skill build and use your build to maximum effect in combat-focused scenarios. If Dark Souls isn't an RPG, then we might as well claim that first edition AD&D wasn't either, because of the focus on dungeon crawling, physical conflict and the relatively minimal aspect of character portrayal.

As a long time, hardcore roleplayer it bothers me that so few know or understand the historical roots of RPGs. Especially when they try to dismiss games that are essentially electronic versions of 1st edition AD&D (or Sword & Sorcery) as "not RPGs". In many ways, Dark Souls is truer to the original definition of RPG than many modern RPGs are.

How does leveling a character, creating a build and using it in combat make it an RPG over a "strategic-combat fantasy" game? What role are you playing, what decisions are you making other than how to fight a monster? Like I said all games where you control a character are RPGs and what is at the core of the gameplay of dark souls? ...combat, strategic combat. There is no alignment, personality traits and the only decisions you make in game are which direction to go and which order to try and kill bosses. I've been tabletop gaming for over 20 years and if dark souls was a module it would be a severely boring one. It has its similarity with D&D sure but at its core its a strategic-combat game.

D&D is still an RPG if you remove all the stats, leveling, items and fantasy. If you remove those features from dark souls what are you left with?

 

[Karadalis]

Its an adventure RPG

RPG cause it has all the typical building blocks of an RPG like character statistics, setting, etc.

Adventure because even thought it allows you to explore the world more or less freely it still follows a strict narative and in the end gives you one of two choices on how to end the game. Also the exploration part is a huge deal of the entire game.


So yeah.. while darksouls might have more RPG elements to it i would rather say that its basic gameplay is more akin to the zelda games. However what RPG mechanics are there keep it from being a simple action adventure.

EDITH:

RPG elements are definatly in the game. RPG does not mean your 5th grade theater group. RPG in gaming has certain standards to it and character progression is part of that. So no matter how much you want to deny it Dark souls atleast in parts is an RPG.

It is NOT the dialogue that defines an RPG.

D&D is still an RPG if you remove all the stats, leveling, items and fantasy. If you remove those features from dark souls what are you left with?

DnD without rules and statistics is not an RPG. It is just RP

For there are no games without rules. The rules are what make a game a game.

 

[Savagezion]

snip

That is a lot of rambling which will indeed prompt me to even more stream of consciousness rambling of my own, so... * rolls sleeves, takes deep breath*

You're touching on a good point there, and one I'd also make. Namely, that the lines between genres are blurring more and more, and it's harder to NOT find a game making use of some sort of skill tree/leveling/perk system nowadays. They're everywhere. So with that in mind, I'll also readily concede that the DS games are not pure RPGs by a long shot, and I brought Diablo up becausethat conundrum also could apply to the Diablo series, and yet you see Diablo games being tagged as "RPGs" for the past 18 yea... holy shit, I'm old!

However, I'd also say that hack and slashy as DS games are, there are a lot of tradional RPG mechanics at heart. At a time everyone is backing out from RPG-esque stats, you can't but feel how heavy they weigh on the DS series. There's a palpable diference in creating a melee character and a mage-like one, and even there you also can be a melee who favours dexterity, or a full on tank who gets by not by dancing around an opponent, but simply by being an unbudgeable tank. Games are shying away from that, either by taking the Bethesda approach (where number crunching is under the hood and while you can specialize and be great at any one specific path, you always are semi good at most everything, and the game just allows you to play with all toys, so to speak), or the Dragon Age approach where your class is pretty much set in stone, and choosing stats becomes somewhat irrelevant because there's only one way stat wise to make the most out of your character, and the freedom is in the perks.

I totally agree. Have you played Dragon's Dogma yet? It's fighting is comparable to Demon Souls for me. I still haven't got far into it yet though. Not even sure what I would classify it as yet other than H/S combat model. SO far I haven't been able to really effect the world in a meaningful way.

The souls series, regarding dialogue and choice with characters does an excellent job at allowing to roleplay. Basically, and right off the bat, nigh on everyone and everything is killable, and once they're gone, they're gone. Which means you're free to kill off every item vendor in the game if you're willing to live with the consequence of not having anyone to fix and upgrade your gear, for instance. But it's also weaved into a lot of subplots.

In Demon's Souls, for example, if you allow your Character Tendency to go black (by doing "morally reprehensible" actions, like killing off NPCs or through successful invasions of real life players), and you look around in the Nexus, you'll stumble around a character who was not there before, and who basically wants you to assassinate a bunch of people for her Which is a good touch on top of the "every death is permanent and youre cut off from whatever benefits this character has, but if you REALLY want to, knock yourself out" approach. But it's Dark Souls that really runs with the idea. You can merely watch the individual subplots unfold, as they'll provide context for the world, but you can also stop their stories irreversibly at any time. At some point, you may or may not free this shady character from a dungeon and have a funny feeling about him. You can kill him and prevent him from doing what the games strongly hints he'll do, or you can allow it to unfold with and deal with the possible consequence of losing some privileges at the expense of others. You can also completely unscrew what he has screwed, but there's rewards regardless of the path. There's a boss (living inside a painting, mind) who basically begs you to leave her be, and who you can walk through in peace... or you can kill her for her soul which you can use to forge a weapon, making you pretty much the bad guy within a game that telegraphs over and over that everything is a threat. You'll find another deity looking so pitiful that she pretty much makes you wanna kill her out of compassion, and can make you feel that you only keep her alive out of the benefits it gives you.

Are there always rewards no matter your choice? If so, are they always on equal footing? I can see why this would count towards role play. However, depending on how much the choice matters in terms of rewards makes me think of the "Harvest"/"Save" feature in Bioshock. That mechanic alone tricked many into telling me it was an RPG before I bought it. How would you compare killing an NPC in Demon's Souls to that system in Bioshock? SOrry I have Demon's Souls and have maybe 20 hours in it before pushing it further down the backlog.

Covenants provide my favourite example,though. You can stray from the beaten path, find a shrine, join a covenant with a demigod, and then betray that covenant by, once again, giving in to greed and fighting a boss who is clearly not hostile in return for material rewards. The consequence comes that this action marks you online to the followers of that covenant, who can now invade your world for your transgression... the list goes on, and all reflect uses of choice done through more than a dialogue wheel, and offer a lot of roleplaying possibilities particularly because the morality in them is never quite apparent.

And you can, of course, ignore everything of the above, go trophy hunting and play the game for its hack and slash properties, and not giving a rat's ass to any of the story elements.

That sounds really cool and I agree that puts a heavy emphasis on it being an RPG.

As for Alpha Protocol, I think what held the game back was a lot of unfinished and unpolished ideas and mechanics, bottle necking bosses that waved the middle finger at your progression points, and so on. I personally consider it a fabulous disaster, and I can see it having its influence in more successful games like The Walking Dead series. I too would love that devs overlooked what the game did wrong and studied what it did great, and hell, here's hoping that Obsidian's own kickstarted Torment project mixes that up with Planescape's dizzying sense of story (still the best in any RPG out there).

And finally, haven't played Army of Two, giving it a wide berth due to all the signs pointing to "generic military cover shooter stripped of individuality by Ea's "department of making all games play alike"".

Whew.

LOL, yeah, AP can straight piss you off on character building on about 3-4 parts. But I love it. It basically amounts to really crappy "fake difficulty". As for Ao2:3 Not sure how you are on shooters, and I don't know how the story is. However, it is at least worth $20 if you like TPS. Assuming the story is crap. The first one's story I have played and it had a couple cool parts but it was mostly bland.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

FF, FF2, FF3, FF5, FF11, and FF14 would all fall under your definition of RPG.

This thread only exists to tell people they are wrong because they think of Dark Souls as an RPG.

In my opinion it is and opinions can't be wrong.

The key phrase here is "everyone does it". Considering the majority of people think of games like Dark Souls as an RPG, it would appear that the definition has changed. That can happen you know, gay used to mean happy.

I'm guessing FF11 and FF14 are more about the grind like most MMOs so I don't think I'd consider them RPGs, that's just my impression of those games though.

The definition of an RPG is objective whereas a person's view of a game is subjective. Would you say classifying COD as a FPS is subjective?

Traditions many times don't make much sense, they get ingrained into society for really no reason other than "that's just the way it's always been done." For example, it took the baseball community over a hundred years to start looking at other stats to rate hitters other than AVG, HRs, and RBIs even though other stats tell you more about the effectiveness of a player. The majority of people thought the world was flat at one point. Hell, most people think they KNOW what happens after you die. The majority is often times wrong. The video game medium is very young and it will go through lots of change. Lastly, even if every video game journalist felt that say Final Fantasy is not an RPG, they wouldn't actually start calling it something else so their readers/viewers weren't confused.

Ok this has just gotten silly at this point considering on what you've said about your opinion previously. What are things that pretty much all PnP RPGs have? Pens, paper, Role playing(scripted &/or ad lib) and easily quantifiable stat based character that affects the x factor of dice roles.

So a Video game RPG must first be a video game on a system have some element of Role playing choice or otherwise and easily quantifiable stat based progress that affects the games x factor(RNG, hidden dice rolls or affects of human skill). This can be seen in games such as Fallout 3 and Oblivion where there is a decent amount of wiggle room in dialogue choices but practically none in story. No matter how well you shoot your pistol in Fallout if you aren't speced for it and you are for Rifles you'll do more with those.

Also grind does not suddenly make a Video game RPG not a RPG. Since, the dawn of time grind has been ingrained in the genre in some form or another and there is no true way to escape this. The grind essentially serves as your own difficulty vs time. Boss too hard? Grind. Boss too easy? Fight less. A crude tie over from the days of Ultima.

MMORPGs are MMOs because they are generally quite large scale include many people functioning in the one society and are online. They are RPGs because they provide the Role playing element of playing a role in this world and stats with the various attributes and gear. Dislike the gear treadmill and farming required in some of these games is fine however, disliking these elements does not make them any less of a RPG. I can dislike Army of Twos spectacle tag team mechanics doesn't mean I can consider it not to be a TPS.

The only real difference between WRPGs, JRPGs and ARPGs on the RP side, mainly is the degree of freedom given to dialogue and your own role play element. WRPGs taking the route of close to deciding what ever you want, ARPGs falling somewhere in the middle being more linear and with JRPGs being the most linear. WRPGs essentially having choose your own adventure book elements with the dialogue does not make them any more of a RPG than any other RPG out there.

 

[Savagezion]

If it plays like Demon Souls, I would agree with Mr. Dizazta probably more than someone saying it is an RPG. The only thing RPG-y about Demon Souls was character equiptment and levels.

Dark Souls has covenants, and even then, the ability to take your character in multiple directions (faith, sorcery, pyromancy, dex, strength, etc., as well as the different endings, paths through the world and optional content such as killing Gwyndolin and interacting with certain NPCs) is very RPGish.

I can see how Dark Souls earns the label RPG based on how I see RPGs. I just needed something like that to confirm it because in my 20 hours with Demon Souls it was just monster fighting and upgrading with some weird story going on. Then, I put it down for a bit and haven't picked it back up.

The gameplay of Demon Souls is based on exact timing similar to QTE's without screen prompts. While not exactly like QTE's in the sense that there isn't only one combination that is viable - but exact timing of presses is the key and there is no flex on that. No "spray and pray" or button spam style 'tactics'.

You could say the same about any game that takes place in real time. It falls squarely into the "action RPG" genre, but it's still an RPG.

I really don't care for the genre name "Action". A game's primary function is to allow the player actions. Because of that, I think it is too vague. I think genres do need to be reworked again though. Check this out:

(Disclaimer: This is more rambling babble.)

Namely, that the lines between genres are blurring more and more, and it's harder to NOT find a game making use of some sort of skill tree/leveling/perk system nowadays. They're everywhere.

Many games are also employing choices. (inFamous, Fable, Bioshock) personally, I would classify all of these as action games. Bioshock could be called a FPS though. I would say inFamous and Fable are H/S games. They just happen to let you be 'good' or 'evil' in it. However, either way you pick it is the same in the end with no weight. Similar to Skyrim's Civil War. Imagine if your choices made cities get destroyed in Skyrim. It's also the problem with Bethesda games making everything a viable choice. "There are no wrong choices." Many people like when devs do that. I want the game to try and trick me into a bad choice.

Before I ramble on to something else, I quoted grimner because I wanted to add that in and say That this is why the genres should be re-assessed. It's possible it is about time for the term RPG to go away. We still have a little a few more years, but its possible in the coming years. CoD may come out with a new Zombie mode co-op campaign and make a mint off it by employing an interactive world with survivors. Have it offer Ghost's money system for supply depots and the leveling system in online multiplayer. Anything is possible. It would still be a shooter but offering strong RPG elements in a campaign. I bet we are headed there.

The game's atmosphere and story is basically "How long can you survive while we try to kill you? No matter how long you do, you're doomed."

Um, no. It's really not.

Fair enough.

People have said Minecraft is survival horror. If that is true Dark Souls is as well. If you don't see them as survival horror, I would put forth Minecraft as a sandbox and Dark Souls as an Adventure title. I align more with Action/Adventure or Survival Horror class over RPG myself. Action/Adv (Tomb Raider) and Survival Horror(Resident Evil) are also known for QTE exact timing presses as well.

Dark Souls has no QTEs beyond your bizarre interpretation of them. Besides that, a game can be both an action game and an RPG, and as for horror, that genre is classified by themes in the game rather than gameplay, which makes these genres a rather silly way of classifying things, but it can be considered survival horror also.

Quoting from Wikipedia (Reputable source, I know): "Survival horror is a subgenre of action-adventure video games inspired by horror fiction."

So I would say Dark Souls is a Survival Horror Action-RPG. I hesitate to call it adventure. Demon's Souls, which is more linear, maybe, but Dark Souls has many more paths and significant choices to make and so better fits into the RPG label.

Yeah we are potAYto potAHto on this. Wow, that phrase doesn't work online. You know the one right? I would just change action to H/S. The quick time events thing still rings true for me though. I see it the same way for Dragon's Dogma. I would say it is just Adventure H/S(RPG?) and not Survival Horror.

 

[hermes]

Having survival elements doesn't rule out being an RPG, but at this point the term is so vague anything can be an RPG.

Do you level up? Yes
Do you gain new equipment and gear? Yes
Do you choose your class and play style? Yes
Does it say "Action/RPG" on From Software's classification? Yes.

It's an RPG.

Does that mean Battlefield is an RPG?

 

[lapan]

Dark Soul is more of an RPG than most "RPGs" nowadays.

Your character is pretty much a blank slate you can infuse with whatever personality you like (don't many people love silent protagonists for precisely that reason). There are tons of different ways you can play the game. you can roleplay a Darkwraith who is only out for the humanity about others. You can play someone that trusts either of the serpents and wants to complete the main quest. You can transform into a dragon and help the dragons back to their old power. You can help others on their quests. You can uncover the history of the land by speaking to people and collecting bits of the story over the items you find.

Meanwhile games like Dragon Age, final Fantasy or Mass Effect only offer you predefinied personalities. or more linear stories.

 

[Church185]

I'm guessing FF11 and FF14 are more about the grind like most MMOs so I don't think I'd consider them RPGs, that's just my impression of those games though.

Just because they are grindy, doesn't make them any less of a roleplaying game.

The definition of an RPG is objective whereas a person's view of a game is subjective. Would you say classifying COD as a FPS is subjective?

Weren't you just talking about how opinions were always right a second ago? Whatever, I can argue this point as well. If we were to objectively take a look at the definition of RPG, then nearly every game out there could be considered an RPG. "A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting." With this in mind, am I not playing the role of a character in a multiplayer match of Battlefield 4? Those matches take place in the future during a fictional skirmish, and I have my choice of who I want to play during those encounters and how to engage other players due to the class based gameplay. Objectively, the definition of RPG is useless. Which leads me to your next point.

Traditions many times don't make much sense, they get ingrained into society for really no reason other than "that's just the way it's always been done." For example, it took the baseball community over a hundred years to start looking at other stats to rate hitters other than AVG, HRs, and RBIs even though other stats tell you more about the effectiveness of a player. The majority of people thought the world was flat at one point. Hell, most people think they KNOW what happens after you die. The majority is often times wrong.

You realize you are contradicting yourself here right? When using your "it's not close enough to tabletop RPing", you are speaking from a traditional standpoint. In the paragraph above, you try to discredit traditional views, in a weak attempt to say that just because everyone does it, doesn't make it right. News flash, just because everyone does it, doesn't make it wrong either.

The video game medium is very young and it will go through lots of change. Lastly, even if every video game journalist felt that say Final Fantasy is not an RPG, they wouldn't actually start calling it something else so their readers/viewers weren't confused.

They could call it whatever they wanted, but the vast majority of gamers consider games like Final Fantasy to be an RPG. It is proof that the definition of role playing is moving away from traditional RPing, and moving more towards what role you play in the game. You can see it cropping up in game terminology. In WoW or FFXIV, you choose what "role" (healer, tank, DPS) you want to be in the party. In Dark Souls, your specific build, which is unique to you, is the role you are playing in that game. Some people don't make up stories around their character, but everyone makes choices and has a unique experience. As long as there is choice in how you can build your character, we are going to continue to see these games called RPGs with whatever variation of modifier thrown at it.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

How does leveling a character, creating a build and using it in combat make it an RPG over a "strategic-combat fantasy" game? What role are you playing, what decisions are you making other than how to fight a monster? Like I said all games where you control a character are RPGs and what is at the core of the gameplay of dark souls? ...combat, strategic combat.

Which is pretty much the original definition of AD&D. The experience was essentially "A fighter, a mage, a thief and a priest goes into a dungeon to kill stuff, overcome environmental obstacles and get loot". Look at pretty much any module Gary Gygax ever made to see this in full effect (and they are considered RPG module classics).

There is no alignment, personality traits and the only decisions you make in game are which direction to go and which order to try and kill bosses. I've been tabletop gaming for over 20 years and if dark souls was a module it would be a severely boring one. It has its similarity with D&D sure but at its core its a strategic-combat game.

Which D&D also was for most of its' existence so far. It wasn't until D&D 3rd Ed that social skills was even a thing. Once again, look at any Gygax module, they are pretty much all a compilation of combat encounters and environmental obstacles (often traps for the thief to bypass) with limited attention paid to character characterization or intra-party dynamics other than "tank, mage, healer, DPS".

D&D is still an RPG if you remove all the stats, leveling, items and fantasy. If you remove those features from dark souls what are you left with?

Remove all those things and you have improvisational theater (which is great fun, by the way). Make no mistake, D&D, like any other RPG, is at its' core a collection of rules meant to define the boundaries of the game. Even fairly characterization intensive games like White Wolf games tend to take up almost double the amount of core book space just to explain rules compared to describing the world.

You can't get around the fact that Dark Souls is essentially a modernized take on a Gary Gygax module of the 80's. To admit that AD&D is an RPG is to also accept that Dark Souls does the exact same thing AD&D set out to do, but in a virtual world rather than a imaginary, verbally described one. Whatever or not AD&D would make a good roleplaying experience today does not change the fact that it was, and still is, labelled a roleplaying game.

 

[ImperialSunlight]

I really don't care for the genre name "Action". A game's primary function is to allow the player actions. Because of that, I think it is too vague. I think genres do need to be reworked again though. Check this out:

While I agree that video game genres are vague and often meaningless, definitely being in need of reworking, I'm using "action" here to refer to games that are not turn-based and occur in real time. Possibly fallaciously.

 

[Spearmaster]

How does leveling a character, creating a build and using it in combat make it an RPG over a "strategic-combat fantasy" game? What role are you playing, what decisions are you making other than how to fight a monster? Like I said all games where you control a character are RPGs and what is at the core of the gameplay of dark souls? ...combat, strategic combat.

Which is pretty much the original definition of AD&D. The experience was essentially "A fighter, a mage, a thief and a priest goes into a dungeon to kill stuff, overcome environmental obstacles and get loot". Look at pretty much any module Gary Gygax ever made to see this in full effect (and they are considered RPG module classics).

Well looking through my AD&D books ill just have to disagree with you. There was never a limit put on what you could or couldn't do. In Dark Souls there are great limits and restraints put on the player that make any kind of "role playing" impossible other than stat build and weapon choice.

There is no alignment, personality traits and the only decisions you make in game are which direction to go and which order to try and kill bosses. I've been tabletop gaming for over 20 years and if dark souls was a module it would be a severely boring one. It has its similarity with D&D sure but at its core its a strategic-combat game.

Which D&D also was for most of its' existence so far. It wasn't until D&D 3rd Ed that social skills was even a thing. Once again, look at any Gygax module, they are pretty much all a compilation of combat encounters and environmental obstacles (often traps for the thief to bypass) with limited attention paid to character characterization or intra-party dynamics other than "tank, mage, healer, DPS".

Well seeing as skills did not exist until 3rd ed. you not wrong but saying social interaction did not exist is a far stretch, it was there they just didn't feel a need to add actual rules for it. I was completely inferred with charisma and alignment.

On the modules thing...you do realize that modules were more of a single pre-made dungeon not the whole of the D&D experience right, modules were not absolute in the fact that other D&D play could be present within a module and modules were not required to play at all. A module on its own is not an RPG. You run a module within a RPG campaign.

D&D is still an RPG if you remove all the stats, leveling, items and fantasy. If you remove those features from dark souls what are you left with?

Remove all those things and you have improvisational theater (which is great fun, by the way). Make no mistake, D&D, like any other RPG, is at its' core a collection of rules meant to define the boundaries of the game. Even fairly characterization intensive games like White Wolf games tend to take up almost double the amount of core book space just to explain rules compared to describing the world.

Rules meant to define the boundaries of the combat not the game. As you said rules on socialization didn't exist till 3rd edition. The books actually encouraged adjusting the rules to fit the campaign, adding new rules and so on.

You can't get around the fact that Dark Souls is essentially a modernized take on a Gary Gygax module of the 80's. To admit that AD&D is an RPG is to also accept that Dark Souls does the exact same thing AD&D set out to do, but in a virtual world rather than a imaginary, verbally described one. Whatever or not AD&D would make a good roleplaying experience today does not change the fact that it was, and still is, labelled a roleplaying game.

A modernized take on a module is a far cry from a full RPG. Saying to accept AD&D one also must accept Dark Souls screams false equivalency to me, its like saying a dog must also be a horse because the both have 4 legs, a tail and ears.

I'm not saying its a bad game but people seem to think that leveling, items and a fantasy setting automatically make a game an RPG. I guess I'm more of a purest when it comes to video games claiming to be RPGs. We need a percentage rating for games rather than a yes/no system for determining a games RPG status. I would give Dark Souls a 20% RPG rating.

 

[lapan]

Well looking through my AD&D books ill just have to disagree with you. There was never a limit put on what you could or couldn't do. In Dark Souls there are great limits and restraints put on the player that make any kind of "role playing" impossible other than stat build and weapon choice.

What kind of restraints? they give you several covenants with different alignments to choose from. You can decide to play offline, invade others for your profit or help others. You can decide to recreate virtually any enemy in the game and roleplay as them. The only limit is your own imagination

You can't do EVERYTHING but that constraint applies to any video game.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Also grind does not suddenly make a Video game RPG not a RPG. Since, the dawn of time grind has been ingrained in the genre in some form or another and there is no true way to escape this. The grind essentially serves as your own difficulty vs time. Boss too hard? Grind. Boss too easy? Fight less. A crude tie over from the days of Ultima.

Whatever you do most in a game is the game's main genre. If you hack and slash in whatever game more than anything else, it's a hack and slash first and foremost, then it can have many secondary genres/elements like platforming or RPGing. Isn't that a pretty damn simple and logical way to categorize game genres. The whole having enemies set at static levels is just bad game design. You seriously need to use a guide to know what order you're supposed to play through content at, which is just asinine. Like Borderlands, you had to play through DLC at specifics times or it was too hard or too easy.

MMORPGs are MMOs because they are generally quite large scale include many people functioning in the one society and are online. They are RPGs because they provide the Role playing element of playing a role in this world and stats with the various attributes and gear. Dislike the gear treadmill and farming required in some of these games is fine however, disliking these elements does not make them any less of a RPG. I can dislike Army of Twos spectacle tag team mechanics doesn't mean I can consider it not to be a TPS.

Again, whatever you do most in a game is it's main genre. Uncharted is a TPS because you shoot more than platform, puzzle solve, and adventure.

The only real difference between WRPGs, JRPGs and ARPGs on the RP side, mainly is the degree of freedom given to dialogue and your own role play element. WRPGs taking the route of close to deciding what ever you want, ARPGs falling somewhere in the middle being more linear and with JRPGs being the most linear. WRPGs essentially having choose your own adventure book elements with the dialogue does not make them any more of a RPG than any other RPG out there.

The RP side is the most important thing in an RPG. JRPGs are nothing but point and click adventure games with a combat system thrown in. The Longest Journey suddenly wouldn't become an RPG if April Ryan had a turn-based battle every 3 steps.

Weren't you just talking about how opinions were always right a second ago? Whatever, I can argue this point as well. If we were to objectively take a look at the definition of RPG, then nearly every game out there could be considered an RPG. "A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting." With this in mind, am I not playing the role of a character in a multiplayer match of Battlefield 4? Those matches take place in the future during a fictional skirmish, and I have my choice of who I want to play during those encounters and how to engage other players due to the class based gameplay. Objectively, the definition of RPG is useless. Which leads me to your next point.

You missed the most important part of the definition: Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting or through a process of structured decision-making or character development. That definition fits all mediums from pen and paper to video games to live-action role-playing.

You realize you are contradicting yourself here right? When using your "it's not close enough to tabletop RPing", you are speaking from a traditional standpoint. In the paragraph above, you try to discredit traditional views, in a weak attempt to say that just because everyone does it, doesn't make it right. News flash, just because everyone does it, doesn't make it wrong either.

I don't care how close something is to tabletop RPing because I don't consider tabletop RPing to even be the first form of RPGs, which is live-action. Many people think player skill shouldn't be involved in RPGs (which is why some people say Mass Effect 2/3, Dark Souls, etc. aren't RPGs because player skill is greatly involved, I'm not in that camp); however, player skill is indeed involved in live-action RPGs and those existed before tabletop RPGs. Player skill is also involved in tabletop RPGs to how your character talks and converses among player characters and NPCs; if you want your character to be funny, you can't just say "my character says something funny", you have to think of something funny to say so your character can't be funny unless you're funny.

Some people don't make up stories around their character, but everyone makes choices and has a unique experience. As long as there is choice in how you can build your character, we are going to continue to see these games called RPGs with whatever variation of modifier thrown at it.

You can make up stories in Mario as well. That's why a game most have a process of structured decision making (outside of live-action RPGs) or else EVERY game can qualify as an RPG. Far Cry 3 is as much an RPG as Dark Souls, yet it's not called an RPG. Dark Souls is as much a hack and slash as Far Cry 3 is a shooter; I'd even say Bayonetta has more play options than Dark Souls as DS really disappointed me in that regard.

 

[Church185]

You missed the most important part of the definition: Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting or through a process of structured decision-making or character development. That definition fits all mediums from pen and paper to video games to live-action role-playing.

It doesn't actually, here [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_video_game] is wikipedia's (your source) definition of a role playing video game.

I don't care how close something is to tabletop RPing because I don't consider tabletop RPing to even be the first form of RPGs, which is live-action. Many people think player skill shouldn't be involved in RPGs (which is why some people say Mass Effect 2/3, Dark Souls, etc. aren't RPGs because player skill is greatly involved, I'm not in that camp); however, player skill is indeed involved in live-action RPGs and those existed before tabletop RPGs. Player skill is also involved in tabletop RPGs to how your character talks and converses among player characters and NPCs; if you want your character to be funny, you can't just say "my character says something funny", you have to think of something funny to say so your character can't be funny unless you're funny.

What does any of that stuff have to do with video games?

You can make up stories in Mario as well. That's why a game most have a process of structured decision making (outside of live-action RPGs) or else EVERY game can qualify as an RPG. Far Cry 3 is as much an RPG as Dark Souls, yet it's not called an RPG. Dark Souls is as much a hack and slash as Far Cry 3 is a shooter; I'd even say Bayonetta has more play options than Dark Souls as DS really disappointed me in that regard.

Far Cry 3's moment to moment gameplay doesn't change all that much based on how your character progresses. Sure he will shoot better with certain guns, but most of those guns behave extremely similar to each other and the main character can still use other weapons proficiently.

As far as claiming Bayonetta has more play options than Dark Souls proves to me that you either didn't play it or didn't understand the depth of the options available to you. It's interesting that I only ever see your name come up in topics complaining about Dark Souls in one way or another. Even when you create threads about entirely different games (Amalur), it always comes back to saying that game is better than Dark Souls in one way or another.

Why is that? You seem to have a grudge.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

Also grind does not suddenly make a Video game RPG not a RPG. Since, the dawn of time grind has been ingrained in the genre in some form or another and there is no true way to escape this. The grind essentially serves as your own difficulty vs time. Boss too hard? Grind. Boss too easy? Fight less. A crude tie over from the days of Ultima.

Whatever you do most in a game is the game's main genre. If you hack and slash in whatever game more than anything else, it's a hack and slash first and foremost, then it can have many secondary genres/elements like platforming or RPGing. Isn't that a pretty damn simple and logical way to categorize game genres. The whole having enemies set at static levels is just bad game design. You seriously need to use a guide to know what order you're supposed to play through content at, which is just asinine. Like Borderlands, you had to play through DLC at specifics times or it was too hard or too easy.

MMORPGs are MMOs because they are generally quite large scale include many people functioning in the one society and are online. They are RPGs because they provide the Role playing element of playing a role in this world and stats with the various attributes and gear. Dislike the gear treadmill and farming required in some of these games is fine however, disliking these elements does not make them any less of a RPG. I can dislike Army of Twos spectacle tag team mechanics doesn't mean I can consider it not to be a TPS.

Again, whatever you do most in a game is it's main genre. Uncharted is a TPS because you shoot more than platform, puzzle solve, and adventure.

The only real difference between WRPGs, JRPGs and ARPGs on the RP side, mainly is the degree of freedom given to dialogue and your own role play element. WRPGs taking the route of close to deciding what ever you want, ARPGs falling somewhere in the middle being more linear and with JRPGs being the most linear. WRPGs essentially having choose your own adventure book elements with the dialogue does not make them any more of a RPG than any other RPG out there.

The RP side is the most important thing in an RPG. JRPGs are nothing but point and click adventure games with a combat system thrown in. The Longest Journey suddenly wouldn't become an RPG if April Ryan had a turn-based battle every 3 steps.

No you don't need a guide to do anything in any game with static levels. People were doing just fine without access to loads of easy guides and people still finish games with such mechanics fine without guides. Plenty of people also think scaling enemies makes for essentially the same as static levelling. you just get to make arbitrary choices eg Mass Effect. Mass Effect in story progression is just as linear as FF XIII.

Ok that's fine, so we're agreed that MMORPGs are RPGs then.

No the Role playing part of a Role playing game is not the most important part. There is whole games and rule thing that makes it a game. Sure why not lets just make shit up and say something isn't like the rest of stuff I like because I don't like it.

You're far too fixated on random battles and turn based combat to have a reasonable discussion with given [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Ocean:_Till_the_End_of_Time] the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_Vesperia] plethora [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baten_Kaitos:_Eternal_Wings_and_the_Lost_Ocean] of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_Mystic_Quest] JRPGs [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_XII] that [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_Hearts] lack [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_Megami_Tensei:_Persona_4] both [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_Megami_Tensei:_Persona_3] or [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_Sonata] one [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Remnant]. I certainly can't think of any games or series that fit that bill as all JRPGs are nothing but random encounters, fully turn based combat, angsty teens, linear story, shit/ridiculous fashion and hair styles along with bishonen males and annoying high pitched women.

 

[Bombiz]

snip

if i have to be honest i wouldn't really consider games like the "Longest Journey" and "Mass Effect"(or most games really) rpg's. Instead, games like Mount and Blade are rpg's. games where your thrown into the world to do as you please. Not have a set story line to follow.