Quertus fails at defining roleplaying games again

[Quertus]

I maintain the "true" definition for any word is what people mean when they say that work. That isn't useful directly, but it does mean that people do have a rough idea of what a role-playing game is even if we cannot say exactly what it is that makes a role-playing game that. Point is, Monopoly is obviously not a role-playing game and D&D 4e obviously is, these aren't even edge cases where there is a question in the matter. All that remains is figuring out why they end up on that side of the line.

On CRPG: As someone who enjoys both tabletop/pen-and-paper role-playing games and computer RPGs, yeah they aren't the same genre despite having the same name.

Um… my experiences with 4e actually say “it’s obviously not an RPG”, and people just kept trying to play it like one because that’s what they expected it to be. Reminder: what is “obvious” is not always right.

Glad to hear you’re in a similar boat with me on CRPGs - great fun, not what I’d call roleplaying in the context of RPGs.

I thought you had said something about a really simple definition of RPGs, and that’s what I’d wanted to comment on - did I grab the wrong post?

So outside of the box play is nessasary for RPGs? Hm, that is pretty good for a definition for how simple it is.

I can't think of any rpgs that fail that definition, I think some open ended crpgs could be included off of how broad the scope of the rules for some of them are, even if their is nothing "outside the ruleset"

Thanks. In retrospect, I think it’s less a necessary and sufficient “definition” than a necessary “trait”.

IMO, these elements represent a very low bar for roleplaying. It's found in pretty much every other game, "You should roleplay the stats of your character appropriately." and "You should fairly roleplay your alignment."...in addition to a dozen other elements that encourage, promote and enforce good roleplay. Hence why I rated D&D at a 20/80 ratio. There are some elements that enforce roleplay, but they are minimal and can be largely ignored and it does very little to change the play of the game.

My RPG comes with car batteries to attach to your players’ genitalia, and remotes to allow the other players to trigger them. Only my RPG supports “Teamwork”; every other RPG gets a 0 rating.

Curiously, the X I’ve seen didn’t exactly correspond to your predictions on a game’s suitability to X. Rather the opposite, in fact.

I think the inherent problem here is that you are trying to define whether something is a "roleplaying game" based seemingly entirely on whether the game mechanics sufficiently cover all the things you want to do (or whether "out of the box" stuff is covered/allowed/whatever). It's an odd combination of "focus on mechanical rules" while criticizing "lack of roleplaying". As a couple of posters have already pointed out, you can have games that literally have zero mechanical rules at all but that are absolutely RPGs (toon anyone?).

You're using a label "RPG" that isn't really relevant to the objection you seem to have. Your example of an "out of the box" situation has absolutely nothing to do with roleplaying. Roleplaying is about playing a role. If you think that roleplaying is about describing how your character performs a mechanical action like grabbing a rug, pulling on it to cause orcs to tumble, and then rolling it up and stuffing it under a door to block it, then you don't really understand what roleplaying is.




It's also why I actually have a difficult time with many CRPGs being labeled that in the first place. Um... If the only "roleplay" in the game is you picking dialogue options from a list, and ordering your characters to perform actions, that's not really roleplaying. That's choosing actions. You're not picking option B because that's what you feel your character would do based on that characters history and personality. You're picking it because you think that'll be the one that the NPC you are interacting with will respond best to and produce an outcome you want.

So, if I’ve read this right, you understand my idea, you just missed that that’s actually what my idea is? Huh. Let’s see if I can nudge you in the right direction.

So, imagine that gbaji‘s player had wanted gbaji to post that post. Only, when they went to declare that action, their GM informed them that they had updated reality to a “choose your own adventure” book (or CRPG) format, and their only options for gbaji were “spend time meditating” and “burn down the library”. Obviously impossible for gbaji‘s players to roleplay gbaji in that environment, right?

Now, suppose instead that this “choose your own adventure” book is written in human flesh (or the equivalent for whatever species you want to picture gbaji‘s player being), and they can choose to write said post as their action if gbaji‘s player is willing to be skinned / flensed sufficiently to cover the new pages. It is onerous and costly, and they are encouraged to just press an existing button rather than have gbaji do what gbaji would actually do in this situation were reality to better support roleplaying.

That’s what I’m talking about here: how much does the system discourage you from taking roleplaying actions vs soft-banning them and forcing you to just press existing buttons?

Obviously things that hard-ban roleplaying choices aren’t RPGs. The question is, can we agree that there’s some level of additional impediment sufficient to soft-ban roleplaying choices, and disqualify a game from being an RPG?