I've been doing a lot of thinking about this over the last few years and it just really bugs me.

A lot of hardcoe RPG fans and dice roll players think that nothing short of that is an RPG.

A lot of TES fans and Diablo fans and WoW fans say that anything that is in a medieval setting, or anything that lets you loosely choose your character is an RPG.

But I just can't seem to shake the feeling that I disagree with that. I mean, what IS roleplaying? What truly makes a game an RPG? I love to play all types of games, games that aren't considered "RPG's". Halo, Mario, Battlefield, things like that. But what makes those games NOT RPG's? You are playing a role, are you not?

When I play Halo, I play as Master Chief. John 117. That's who I am playing. That's a role. I'm imagining myself as Master Chief, killing Covenant and the Flood, and saving the world. That's the ROLE I am PLAYING. So, why is Halo not an RPG?

When I'm playing Super Mario World, I'm not playing Master Chief. I'm not playing as Nerevar either. I'm playing..Mario. That's my role. My role in that game is Mario. Therefore, everytime I smash a turtle shell, or get a 1 up, I did that as Mario, and I am very aware of that. So, why is Mario not an RPG? I'm playing a role, am I not? I'm not playing Super Nerevar World. I'm playing Super Mario World. And in order for me to do that, I have to play as Mario. :shrug: That's a role.

When I'm playing Morrowind, I create my OWN character; I create an avatar to be used for the role of Nerevarine, Nerevar incarnate. That's a role..but, wait. Why is that role more of a role than the role of Master Chief?

So I ask you people, what is an RPG and what isn't an RPG?

I agree that the term is a bit confused, but to me an RPG is a game where you have significant choice, whether it be story/dialogue wise or by building and customizing your character with skills that actually make an impact on the game.

Yes, you can choose what colour armor and what guns to kill things with in Halo, but those aren't significant choices.

An RPG needs to allow you the freedom to roleplay who you want.

There's different ways to do it. You can have set characters with certain customization options in how they're developed (stats, skill trees, whatever). This is what JRPGs tend to do. They have a set storyline and set characters, but who you choose for your party (if it's party-based) and how each of those characters develop their strengths depends on your own choices and what you want for the character.

You can then add in options to change the story in different ways, through choice and consequence. The Witcher does this. It still has a set character with a mostly set personality, but you have the customization options as before and the ability to alter the personality slightly through how you interact with people and what choices you make in cinematic situations.

Then you have the most "RPG" games of all. Open world, with the ability to create a character from many options. You may or may not have the choices associated with the previous kind of RPG, but you have a different kind of choice in that you don't need to follow any story if you don't want to. Games like TES do this.

GTA games are open-world, which is kind of an RPG element, but because you don't develop the character in any way it's not really an RPG. Some games, like Zelda games, give you some freedom in how you tackle obstacles, but ultimately by the end your character and the results will always be the same, so it's not really an RPG.

In a general sense, you can define an RPG by "choice and consequence" whether that be in how you develop a character, how you develop the story, or what you do at any given time.

That's exactly my point though, where are these "universal rpg rules" written? Who decided an RPG must allow you to change something about the main character?

I am not saying I disagree, that's the point of this thread, I just don't KNOW myself, and it's confusing. I'm playing a role in EVERY game. No game doesn't have a role or a main character. Except puzzle games like Tetris, etc, but you get the point.

An RPG (in my opinion) is a game where you play as a character, but the opposite of a !st person shooter:
With one style of gameplay you walk around with a gun/sword killing anything that moves, eg those zombie games.
With the other you prefer to interact with any NPCs you come in contact with, eg Elder Scrolls games.
This difference is excentuated, er.....even more so with MMOs.

To me it means having customisable character, storyline with choices and consequences and some sort of character growth system that preferrably should allow distinct builds. Not all "RPGs" have all those, but two out of three is usually close enough to me :hehe:

Who decided what a shooter is? No one. If you had a first-person game where you throw bananas at stuff, is that a shooter? Just because most shooters feature guns doesn't mean it's a rule that shooters need guns.

An RPG is just a definition of a game. Some games bend the rules, and fit into multiple categories. Like I said, GTA has RPG elements. Does that make it an RPG? It depends on your definition. To me, it's not an RPG because I define an RPG has needing some sort of character development, so that the character can match the role I want to play. It's pointless to argue semantics.

The biggest hiccup I have with this is the Halo series. You are playing as one single man, in an epic adventure and story that spreads across multiple games. I cannot see how anyone can say that is NOT a ROLE playing game. There is definitely a role to be played there. It's quite huge.

I understand where you're coming from about playing the role of Master Chief, but Halo will always be a FPS to me. And yea, I agree you're playing a role in oodles of games.

Some elements that help make an RPG an RPG to me would be;

Character delvelopment/customization - like leveling up, talent trees, becoming stronger
Inventory/equipment - finding, making, upgrading gear
Quests - Main and side quests for exp/items
Play the way you want - good, evil, choices and such

You have to think about it how it was when Dungeons and Dragons was invented by guys who played fantasy miniatures wargaming, and wanted a system to quantify powerful "hero" characters. They were heavily influenced by fantasy literature. The basic concept is you have a rule system which permits you to delineate all kinds of heroes with special abilities that can go on quest adventures. These heroes are like characters from fantasy books (very soon expanded to every other "action" genre of fiction).

Since the advent of complex video games it has become a little vaguer. E.g. Deus Ex has "RPG elements". But if playing the Master Chief is "playing a role" in the RPG sense then the term has lost all meaning really. You might as well say chess is an RPG and you play the role of the general.

I'm not sure I really agree with that, it may just be me being picky over the way it's phrased. There have been a number of games I'd view as RPGs where you play as a fixed character, the game tells you who you are complete with backstory. You can still customise how you play that character. So I kind of think in some ways it's less about the who you are and more about thewhat you are and how you play and that can encompass things like personality, combat style etc.

To me an RPG is all about the character and as others have already mentioned includes the ability to customise how that character plays with in the game. To a lesser extent other features such as questing and exploration also play a part in determining what I'd view as an RPG.

And the only thing that differs from a game like that and a game like Halo, is setting, and the fact that you're in 1st person. The difference surely can't be that vague.