Grouchy Imp said:
Alright, I see where you're coming from, but there are a few points I would raise in response.
First off, lets look at ports. FIFA is the computer port of real life football. Were FIFA to use different rules to real football rules people would not consider it a football game, just a game. Since RPGs are the computer port of tabletop RPGs, surely then they can only be considered RPGs if they follow the rules of the games they are intended to portray? A bit of a weak argument I know, but it's a slow day at the office.
I really think that, even with different rules, people would consider it a football game. Look at
Super Mario Strikers -- clearly, you're playing football (soccer)... but there are twists and turns on the rules (up to and including giants stomping the field).
Also, not all tabletop RPGs have the same kind of stat-juggling system we associate with
Dungeons & Dragons. There are a lot of more narrative-styled games, where dice are simply there to randomize events, but stats aren't really a "thing." The idea of "levels" in these games are more just about giving the player new equipment or resources to use, but there's not a numerical value attached.
Secondly - what you say about the sole requirement of a role playing game is that the player plays a role. This is all well and good, and on any other day is a definition I would consider a winning one, but look at games like Doom...
...In it's purest sense yes a roleplaying game is one in which the player plays a role. The clue is in the name. But does this clash with the FPS genre's convention of placing players directly into the action?
First-Person is a viewpoint, as opposed to third-person (not many second-person games). Many different types of games can use this viewpoint, just as many use third-person. It's just another game mechanic, like any other.
I should clarify what I mean about "playing a role" being the defining feature. I'm talking about games in which "playing a role"
is the point of the game. In
Doom, the point isn't to play the role of a stranded space marine. That's just the context. The point is to gun down monsters until you reach the next elevator. You're not putting your own personality or choices into the space marine. You're not playing the
character, you're playing the
game.
By that logic, yes, there are a lot of games classically considered RPGs that are
bad RPGs (despite being good games). There are some that are excellent tactical combat simulators, but they don't really put you in the role of the characters (Quite a few
Final Fantasy games included).
Here are a few ways to think about whether a game is encouraging you to play role or not:
- Choice is a key element in RPGs, but a particular kind of choice. Choosing which gun to use to defeat the bad guy is not an example of this, because that's a "player choice" (You're deciding based on what's best for you as a player outside the game). But choosing whether you'll fight the bad guy, try to talk him down, or try to sneak through him? If done well, that represents a
character choice. (You're deciding based on what you feel the character would do in that situation.) Decisions like this serve to put you in the mind of your character, which encourages the playing of the role. Do some people still think of it mathematically? Sure! Personal taste still factors in. But the game isn't built around that.
- There's a difference in reading a news article and reading a story. News articles are to give you information about your world. A story is designed to pull you into another. Mechanically, there's no difference in
how you read -- still left-to-right, top-to-bottom, this letter makes that sound, etc. -- but the purpose is vastly different from one to the other.
Beyond reading a story, you might find yourself acting out a story (a play). Now, the lines are scripted for you, but you still have control over
how you read them -- tone, inflection, accent, costume, staging... And one step further would be
writing a story or play, in which you have even more creative control over what's happening. So, if you arranged these in a line:
1: Reading Information ---> 2: Reading a Story ---> 3: Acting out a Story ---> 4: Writing a Story
Transferring this to games:
1: Playing Mechanics ---> 2: Playing in a story ---> 3: Participating in a Story ---> 4: Creating a Story
Roleplaying games would be those that fall somewhere in levels 3 and 4. Games that fall between levels 2 and 3 might be called "games with roleplaying elements." Level 1 contains "pure games" like Tetris and Bejeweled, while Level 2 contains games like
Ocarina of Time (with side quests pushing toward Level 3).
Super Mario Bros. would be between 1 and 2.
Note Well: Just because a game
encourages Level 3 or 4 roleplay doesn't mean the
player always does it. There are plenty of people who play
Mass Effect only thinking about stats and "right" endings, but that game's design is still clearly in the high 3 category (you're acting out an existing story, but making decisions about its direction).
World of Darkness may be a Level 4 roleplaying system, but plenty of folks
play it at Level 1 by focusing entirely on the stats.
