If I knew the thread title I wouldn't have posted

[BeefGood]

D&D and other games are called Role Playing Games, RPGs. That may be the most common way to describe them. But there's another aspect of these games which I feel is equally as important in describing them, and that's the fact that players' actions are not constrained by rules to the extent that they are in other games, like checkers, or Go Fish. In D&D, players can do, or try to do, just about anything at any given time.
This is a very important feature of D&D in distinguishing it from other games. In fact, to a novice player, I think this is a more important realization than any aspect of role-playing.
What is the right word or words to describe this?
Unconstrained Game, UG
Low-Constraint Game, LCG
Free-form Game, FFG.
High Player Agency Game, HPAG
I don't like any of those. Ideas?

[Anxe]

Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books come to mind. I think including Choose in the acronym would be a good idea.

[KillianHawkeye]

I don't think we need a new acronym to describe this. Just use plain language.

"D&D is a role-playing game. Players take on the role of their characters and can do nearly anything their character could conceivably do, limited only by their imaginations."

[Jay R]

No simple phrase will express every aspect of a complex situation.

[Drakevarg]

RPG campaigns that put focus on the players' freedom to act as they wish are usually called sandboxes. Now, this is obviously not true of every campaign, and by the same token the description of "freeform" or "unconstrained" would be wholly inaccurate for campaigns that are more 'on the rails' and have little patience for the party abandoning the adventure to start a band (or whatever).

[Jay R]

Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books come to mind. I think including Choose in the acronym would be a good idea.

Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books are the exact opposite. There are a set number of options, and you cannot do anything else.

[Vogie]

Storytelling Game? SG or STG?

[RazorChain]

It's called different things in different languages.


For example my native language is Icelandic and there we call it Spunaspil which translates to Spinning game. Like spinning a tale. It's also called Hlutverkaleikur which literally translates to Roleplay...and the game is excluded,

In Norway it's Rollespill which is Rolegame.


If you are going to try to describe the game in detail using it's name then you have failed. Just think how your language would be if every object would have a detailed description and how you use it entailed in it's name.

[Celestia]

Just think how your language would be if every object would have a detailed description and how you use it entailed in it's name.

So, German?

[Bohandas]

I don't think we need a new acronym to describe this. Just use plain language.

"D&D is a role-playing game. Players take on the role of their characters and can do nearly anything their character could conceivably do, limited only by their imaginations."

I agree.

I believe the real issue at hand is how the term roleplaying-game has been popularly co-opted by the videogame industry to mean something more or less unrelated to it's original meaning

EDIT:

Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books are the exact opposite. There are a set number of options, and you cannot do anything else.

It would be good to describ CRPGs thougn

[RazorChain]

So, German?

German takes this a little too extreme with loooong words.....but not with Rollenspiel

[The Extinguisher]

i think its pretty incorrect to say that rpg players aren't constrained by the rules of a game. even more than just what the game can and cant emulate, a games rules pushes you into the decisions it wants you to make. its not as direct as other games, but you still cant play if you dont follow the rules. theres just more of them.

the real issue with rpgs in video games is not rpgs that limit your options, but with calling levels and skill progressions "rpg elements" when theyre much more universal

[Sinewmire]

i think its pretty incorrect to say that rpg players aren't constrained by the rules of a game. even more than just what the game can and cant emulate, a games rules pushes you into the decisions it wants you to make. its not as direct as other games, but you still cant play if you dont follow the rules. theres just more of them.

the real issue with rpgs in video games is not rpgs that limit your options, but with calling levels and skill progressions "rpg elements" when theyre much more universal

Couldn't agree more. "RPG" now means "can level up" in computer games.

[Beleriphon]

Couldn't agree more. "RPG" now means "can level up" in computer games.

In fairness most modern video game RPGs do much more on the role part of the game. The earliest ones generally went with emulating, if not outright copying, early D&D dungeon delving for more loot with on the barest lip service to why your group is in a dungeon to start with.

[Sinewmire]

In fairness most modern video game RPGs do much more on the role part of the game. The earliest ones generally went with emulating, if not outright copying, early D&D dungeon delving for more loot with on the barest lip service to why your group is in a dungeon to start with.

Sure, early roguelikes were mostly dungeoncrawl simulators, but most modern RPGs, even flagship ones like Fable are not much different to action games. Sure, you can change a few outcomes, but it's they're not games that can reward innovative thinking and more than Resident Evil 2 was an RPG because of the alternate scenarios.

Or am I being unfair? I haven't played many modern RPGs other than WoW.

[Beleriphon]

Sure, early roguelikes were mostly dungeoncrawl simulators, but most modern RPGs, even flagship ones like Fable are not much different to action games. Sure, you can change a few outcomes, but it's they're not games that can reward innovative thinking and more than Resident Evil 2 was an RPG because of the alternate scenarios.

Or am I being unfair? I haven't played many modern RPGs other than WoW.

The scenarios are programmed, but generally the player select a way of doing things. And by early RPGs I mean stuff like the Final Fantasy games, where there is the thinnest pretense of story to get to the fights which are the interest parts. More modern games, such as The Witcher saga or even Deus Ex, really do encourage the player to think in interesting ways, at least in so far as the game engine allows, to achieve goals. Just shooting your way through any Deus Ex game is neither the easiest, nor the only way to get to the end.

[BeefGood]

I don't think we need a new acronym to describe this. Just use plain language.

"D&D is a role-playing game. Players take on the role of their characters and can do nearly anything their character could conceivably do, limited only by their imaginations."

I figure that if RPG gets an acronym then this other concept warrants an acronym too, or at least a snappy description.
IMO roleplayinggame doesn't suffice because when I think of role playing I think of acting, where one must follow the script, and that's very unlike DnD.

[BeefGood]

For example my native language is Icelandic and there we call it Spunaspil which translates to Spinning game. Like spinning a tale.

I like this! IMO "spinning a tale" has a connotation of making it up as you go along, which is like DnD.

[BeefGood]

i think its pretty incorrect to say that rpg players aren't constrained by the rules of a game. even more than just what the game can and cant emulate, a games rules pushes you into the decisions it wants you to make. its not as direct as other games, but you still cant play if you dont follow the rules. theres just more of them.

We will agree to disagree then. Consider chess. On any given turn you can probably choose from, say, twenty moves? And those twenty moves are all clearly spelled out in the rules. Now consider DnD. You walk into town. The DM says "what do you do?" You can go to any building in town, talk to any person in town, talk to them politely or rudely, buy Anything you can afford , steal the stuff you can't afford, start a fight, or turn around walk out of town and go somewhere else.
Plus outside of combat it's not even clear what your turn means. You could do something and then another thing and then a third thing, or you could let the other party members do things...
I think this freedom makes DnD very different from other games.

[Bohandas]

Sure, early roguelikes were mostly dungeoncrawl simulators, but most modern RPGs, even flagship ones like Fable are not much different to action games. Sure, you can change a few outcomes, but it's they're not games that can reward innovative thinking and more than Resident Evil 2 was an RPG because of the alternate scenarios.

Or am I being unfair? I haven't played many modern RPGs other than WoW.

Sounds about right to me.

[Mordaedil]

In Norway it's Rollespill which is Rolegame.

Actually, rollespill just means "roleplay". Game and play are separate words in English, but we use the same for both.

Also, to answer the question posed by the OP.

That is what Roleplay part of RPG means. That open-endedness is basically ad hoc acting. There's no need to really add anything else to it, because that is already built into the name of the game itself.

[Anxe]

Actually, rollespill just means "roleplay". Game and play are separate words in English, but we use the same for both.

Also, to answer the question posed by the OP.

That is what Roleplay part of RPG means. That open-endedness is basically ad hoc acting. There's no need to really add anything else to it, because that is already built into the name of the game itself.

I think he's associated the role word with acting from a script. Improv is another type of acting that RPGs are close to that has no script but still has general guidelines for what you're doing.

Collaborative Improv Gaming?

[Keltest]

I think he's associated the role word with acting from a script. Improv is another type of acting that RPGs are close to that has no script but still has general guidelines for what you're doing.

Collaborative Improv Gaming?

Nah, because that's still covered by the "Role" part. Scripted or improv, youre still assuming the role of another person (or possibly the same person in another situation) when you play. Its just a question of who is making the decisions.

[Ts_]

I think RPG already contains this ... in the "game" or better yet "play" (or the "spil" mentioned above). Which is a social thing, where the point is to have fun and to do so within the social rules, not just within the rules written in the rulebook, and maybe not even respecting all of the rulebook.

Think about chess. Nobody can stop you from improv acting in chess: "Knight Lancelot, charge the enemy's pawn, our queen's life depends on your sacrifice!" Because the rules don't cover this.

Or if your chess set is made out of chocolate, you might start eating all captured pieces and eventually your own, even though that's against the rules. So what, if you both figure that this is way better than "classical chess"?

On the flipside, feel free to test your DnD game master's willingsness to give players freedom by rolling attack with 1d100 instead of 1d20 "because then I'm more likely to hit". (Note: just like with chocolate chess, people could come to the conclusion, that, yes actually, the 1d100 is a cool die and breaking the rulebook rules is a good idea right now.)

And don't be tricked to think that RPGs are somehow special in the freedom they grant. I'm sure there are wargamy RPGs that offer less freeform play than playing with Legos because the RPGers spent 90% of the time in combat.

That said, I love this aspect and often even focus of RPGs and often tout it. My name for it would simply be "Creative Freedom".

Regards
Ts

[RazorChain]

Actually, rollespill just means "roleplay". Game and play are separate words in English, but we use the same for both.

Also, to answer the question posed by the OP.

That is what Roleplay part of RPG means. That open-endedness is basically ad hoc acting. There's no need to really add anything else to it, because that is already built into the name of the game itself.

I would argue that there is a difference between spill and lek.

I tell my children to go out to leke not spille. It's the same in icelandic we say leika instead of leke