This is why I don't understand the youtube algorithm, this guy's videos should have been on my feed a long time ago and the channel should be blowing up. Keep at it man, you're insights and editing are exactly what I love
♥♥♥ Thank you! UA-cam's algorithm is concerned with only one thing... making money for UA-cam. They will push the channels that are already popular so more eyes see the ads that advertisers are paying for. I started this channel expecting to never blow up. But I was still surprised by how slowly I grew. A new video coming… eh… soon-ish.
I'm of the opinion that an RPG is defined by three features: Character/Player Agency, Role Development, and Interactive Storytelling. Going back to the roots of TTRPGs (Tabletop RPGs), many TTRPGs don’t use classes, levels, or even dice, but are still considered RPGs. The only thing that seems to be universal in all TTRPGs and many video game RPG's, is 1: agency as a player taking on a character who makes choices that impact the world. 2: developing as a player or character through decisions and experience (which would include stats, skills, XP, levelling and classes, without being restricted by them). And 3: the interactive storytelling that comes from interacting with either the GM and other players or a video games systems and characters. In the case of video games alone. Systemic games, those with open-ended emergent gameplay, often capture these elements better than most video games, offering players freedom more akin to a well-run TTRPG. So to me, RPGs aren't defined through rigid mechanics, but through the experience of play and how the game offers the player a sense of role-playing, decision-making, and narrative impact.
RPG is like Rock or Pop, the definition becomes more muddled as time goes on and two works in the genre can be wildly different. I think term is a hold-over from a time when boardgames had a fairly strick dichotomy, but now, many modern boardgames also muddle the definition and ditch many of the number crunching or other elements of the archetypal ttrpg games like D&D. Are they no longer ttrpg's?
This was really good, your editing and animations are as impeccable as ever. It is also somewhat timely. I Was just having a discussion with my brother about a game we're dreaming up; it was specifically my issue with a mechanic I suggested but that he felt was "not really rogue like" thus would not work. I thought it would be a neat addition that would tie in nicely with some of the story elements we have. The idea that it has to neatly fit into the rouge like genre is, I think, very limiting. It should at least be given the time of day and not simply checked for purity. That said, again, great video.
Absolutely! Every mechanic in a game should benefit the player experience and not a genre definition nor some other game's standard. “It's a roguelike, except they added something cool to it…”
Some minor things. BotW does have multiple endings. It also has stats which you, the player, raise and lower by putting points gained through your adventure into them or by pulling them back out to reallocate...health and stamina. There is even a leveling system, though this is mostly hidden from the player it _is_ used to level scale the enemies as you progress through the game. So even by the definition of "stat and level raising game with narrative choices" it does technically qualify. Personally the definition I use to define RPG videogame is if it attempts, to one extent or another, to simulate the tabletop RPG experience. Regardless of perspective or fictional setting.
FOR: A guy with a sword tearing up the open world is the most RPG thing ever. The inventory, weapon and armor systems are hard-core RPG systems. The same can be said of the food and potion crafting. Spirit Orbs are definitely XP! AGAINST: Breath of the Wild's “true ending” is an achievement for collecting all the memories. The only choice involved is whether to grind it out. Most games have hidden stats while RPGs put that power into the hands of players and on screen. Link has no skill tree to speak of. Stamina and Health are not a skill tree. I would say that Breath of the Wild is an evolution of the RPG. It qualifies in spirit and elevates the genre... specifically, by getting rid of a lot of the stats crap. But I think the RPG distinction should go away permanently. The farther we get from traditional D&D, the better. Computerized sims can do so much more than dice ever could. But I am not the judge nor the gatekeeper. I'm just a messenger. Here's some light (zero-consensus) reading for you. You'll find kindred spirits and oppositionists alike! Is The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild an RPG? gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/189707-the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild/75481876?page=4 Is The Legend of Zelda series an RPG series? www.quora.com/Is-The-Legend-of-Zelda-series-an-RPG-series Is Legend of Zelda an RPG? www.nintendolife.com/news/2021/03/talking_point_is_zelda_an_rpg_or_not#:~:text=The%20final%20word%20on%20this,Adventure%22%20rather%20than%20an%20RPG
RPG is a narrative driven game, with a stat based improvement system, but mostly an RPG is an RPG. Genres have no hard definitions. You can't give us a definition of jazz, all you could do is say... "jazz music often includes". When something includes elements mostly in one genre, we say it's a game in that one genre, but most games have some elements from more than one... so we just call it whatever fits the best, and it works just fine.
I dig it. You’re the first comment (I think) to attempt a reasonable definition. But now, I’m curious. Do the recent Zelda games qualify? Why or why not?
This is what happens when games that'd be once considered on the fringe of RPG (Witcher 3, Mass Effect et all) are perceived by the general public as the main show. After twenty years of "streamlining" (industry euphemism for removing ANYTHING that is less approachable than a Big Mac), those are the only kind of RPG games still existing in the triple-A space*. If the former fringe is the main dish, then the new fringe is games that barely at all qualify -- like Horizon. I mean, just about any big budget title has looting and leveling in some way, as that's proven to be addictive. If that would continue for a nother twenty years, Doom 2043 will also apply. ;-) *And now that Baldur's Gate 3 is out, everybody be like WTF. :D
Neat Also, i classify my steam games on collections by [Main Genre | Sub Genre | and if Other Genre Sub Genre] Example Deus Ex [Rpg-Stealth-Action], Borderlands [Rpg-Fps-Looter Shooter]
A great discussion and with very good production. I really find this interesting because ultimately i think genres exist to manage expectations, and having such a wide definition harms that usefulness, which is why there seem to be so many qualifiers these days like action rpg or open word rpg. Poignant too given the big games slated for release this year like zelda, starfield, baldurs gate 3.
Honestly, I find it telling that even some tabletop RPGs are missing things that you listed here. Like, your hypothetical game with character progression, but no inventory? Yeah, there are tons of TTRPGs that said "that shit is boring and fiddly, let's get rid of it." And there are even systems that are built around one shots instead of long campaigns, so they have no mechanics for character advancement.
Might be bias, but I feel the dismissle of JRPGs here is a huge disservice. As they actually came about, completely unrelated to stuff in the west. Even in the way they handle combatand skills and syorytelling is different. It seems to me most RPGs have a big focus on character altering stats, but also focuses on character growth, it be one the player makes up, of one created by the developer. Final Fantasy and DragonQuest are good examples of the latter.
I wasn’t dismissing JRPGs, I was acknowledging them. But without having played a single one, I didn’t want to attempt further investigation into something I considered myself unqualified for. I included a link (in the video description) to the article I referenced if you want to read it.
TL;DR: RPG games are kind of a silly Genera and games that try to mimic TTRPG's are the closest to the term "RPG". I find it quite interesting since the whole genera that RPG's game from, that is to say tabletop RPG's, are in themselves quite diverse and I think that may hold the key to solving this. DnD is the obvious one but there are so many different types of TTRPG systems that focus on three big "pillars", that bein: social interaction, exploration, and combat and TTRPG's will usually focus on one over the others or sometimes a combination. Of course there are many issues that come with transferring these things over to a computer game as you mentioned since you can't write a infinite amount of dialogue or make a infinite amount of terrain although I would argue you don't *need* to. This still makes it very difficult to define the computer game genera of RPG's since defining which games have "RPG Combat" or how things like social interaction can transfer into a video game outside of a MMO-RPG. A example would be that games such as Breath of the Wild does encompass the since of "Exploration" you might see in a classical RPG, but diverges so much in other aspects that it's hard to really define it, it's more in the spirit of the "Action-Adventure" genera which is also a notoriously useless genera. Another example might be the "Interactive Narrative Games" you mentioned since, they very VERY much (try) to focus on the social interaction part of a RPG, but given the limitations of the medium and the direction/design it kinda doesn't work out even if I could see this happen in a real TTRPG game it doesn't seem to click for a lot of people. I would argue if these games do NOT fall into the category of RPG's they're in the spirit of a "choose your own adventure" book, which I argue games made by telltale do perfectly. The RPG genera really just doesn't make sense in the first place, from the moment people started porting DnD rules onto computers decades ago something was fundamentally lost or hindered from the genera and had to take on a new form. So essentially I would say that RPG as a game genera has sort of joined "action-adventure" in terms of how useful it is. I think the term "Computer Role Playing Game" (CRPG) would be what I would *definitively* call a "RPG" video game given that this includes the likes of Baulders Gate, Pathfinder, The Age of Decadence, Disco Elysium, etc. since a lot of them are usually ports of TTRPG's or heavily inspired by them and have a combination of qualities from the TTRPG genera like: Dice Rolling mechanics or equivalents, Isometric and/or grid based if they have graphics at all (Like miniatures on a table), well-defined and personal characters, and will usually have strong and well-defined lore. Around the CRPG genera is kind of asteroid belt of games that try to mimic these and as you move farther away they slowly deviate more away from this, like the Mass Effects, Skyrims, Deus ex's but are not in the "Pure CRPG" club while on the outer rim you might have Diablo, Borderlands, and so on and wherever that fuzzy line is really comes down to how much they take the "spirit" of TTRPG's which I can't define easily but I can say the CRPG's ARE RPG's. Also, I know this ends up just kinda shifting the question from "What's a RPG" to "What's a CRPG" and eventually "What is a Tabletop RPG"? (There a whole other discussion) but I hope this can at least add something to the discourse.
TLDR: it's about inversion of control. In other games, the game tell you how to play and what is the goal while in RPGs the game tell you the limits but you are free to experiment inside that frame and always through your character lens. In my opinion, the difference is that in an adventure game, you play IN the world, your actions doesn't mean anything outside the main plot and every interaction is orientated to the game purposes. While in the RPG, you play WITH the world, your actions may have consequences and the interactions are an invitation to the player experimentation (what happen if?). That's why I think Skyrim for example is an RPG. Because you can experience the world as you wish through the dragon born lens. I can accept that quest but what if I kill the giver? Skyrim let me see what happens. But games like elden ring are NOT RPGs because you have only one action: the action that the game tell you must be. Oh look, a god, may be you want to ask something or praying but nope, you can only kill him.
By that logic, Minecraft is an RPG, but Pokémon or Kingdom Hearts aren't. Or if you're specifically talking about story, then replace Minecraft with GTA 4.
It's an RPG if I select an attack from a menu to use it. If I don't, it's not. So Final Fantasy, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Super Smash Bros when playing as a certain character, are all RPGs. But Skyrim is not. I have no evidence for this, it's just that when I hear RPG, I think of the menus.
The thing with RPGs is that when they go from pen and paper to digital, either everything or nothing can be an RPG. Want a cool example? Witcher 3 is one of the best RPGs of all time, right? Well... one of the most important aspects of an RPG is to create your own character and play his role, make decisions as if you were him. You can't do that in Witcher 3 but do you know in which games you can do that? Fifa, Madden, NBA2K, MLB.. sports games in general. You create you character, check. You can make decisions that will impact your/his story (you can ask to be traded, you can pick which team and which salary you want, you can choose what answer you'll give in a press conference), check. The character has stats, "levels up", gets abilities (power kick proficiency in Fifa or spectacular catch as a receiver in Madden), check. So.. is FIFA a better RPG than Witcher 3? One might say that Witcher 3 has a grandiose story with multiple paths, choices and whatnot. Which is true, but then again even in pen and paper RPGs people tend to say that the pre built modules are just a "tutorial" or a fun "introduction" to playing RPGs and that the real game is the creative storytelling, improv problem solution etc. This again makes a FIFA a better rpg than Witcher 3 because there's no story in the game, the story depends on how your career plays out, it can be anything and there's no "preset" option. You can play terrible as a youth and get loaned to an even worse team and never be able to make it to the big teams. Or you can score tons of goals as a youth and get a contract from a mid tier European team, then play even better and get a contract to play for Real Madrid and become one of the best players of your era. OR you can deny the contract to play for Real Madrid and turn the mid tier team you play for into a powerhouse to rival Real Madrid itself. Non ironically to me the "Occam's razor" approach to this question is the best one. Ask someone if "X" game is an RPG and give them 1 second to answer, if they can't answer or are thinking too much, it's not an RPG. Like: "Baldur's Gate 3, is it an RPG? - YES", "Borderlands 3, is it an RPG? - Uhmm.. uhh it's techin...." Then no, it isn't. We can complicate this subject as much as we want and it's fun to do so but at the end of the day I think deep within we all know what an RPG looks and feels like and it's probably how the first RPG we played (and how they were labeled in the SNES, PS1 days) looked like.
D&D is a funny one because so much of that game is focused around the way your character approaches combat. Sure i can do whatever I want but there's no mechanical benefit from my dwarf smoking the wizard's spell scroll. The scroll itself probably casts a spell, which is much more useful and the obviously 'proper' way of approaching the system. I'm not sure how familiar you are with other Tabletop games but fiction-first games which have much looser rules and generally reward you for playing your character's role in the fiction and understanding the world that you live in (Blades in the Dark's position-effect mechanic is a great example of this) I think are generally a better example of roleplaying systems that actually reinforce the roleplaying aspect. Like if you're playing D&D and you go to hit someone with a sword, it doesn't really matter who's holding it or what class you are, the sword is always doing to deal 1d8+dex or whatever. Your impact on the world is defined by your stats. in BITD and you want to hit someone with your sword (or blade hehe) you might describe striking at their heart, which might be good if you're duelling a noble but crap if you're in a big bar fight. Similarly trying to swing a club might have the inverse effect on your character's position. It's all about how you approach each individual moment of the fiction. Really what I'm saying is even some of us who play pen and paper games would rather get away from D&D. I really like your point about 'interactive narrative games'. I feel like the RPG label is generally used in my social circles to define games that have customisable stats, but that stuff just bogs me down in what would often otherwise be a seamless player-driven experience. I have friends who won't give Detroit or LIS the time of day purely because they're 'barely games'. There's an argument to be made that if there's too many binary choices, even if they create 86 individual endings the player isn't being given enough room for creative expression to be a 'true' rpg experience, I think the most interesting outcomes of that game have come out of watching people who understand it in and out create hyper-specific scenarios by triggering events the devs thought few people would see. There's also the Telltale problem where although I love the Walking Dead to pieces, there are quite a few decisions that come out in the wash, so to speak. I'm particularly thinking of the two survivors you have to pick between at the end of episode 1, who each have one or two meaningful actions in ep2 before they disappear from the action in early ep3. That decision felt big in the moment, but take a step back and it becomes insignificant for future playthroughs (and I do think that games that good rpgs reward subsequent playthroughs with different or optimised approaches to play). Ramble over. I enjoyed your video, the editing's real cool and I enjoyed you clowning on the non-participant. It was nice of the UA-cam algorithm to bring me to your channel!
Thank you for your insightful input. Just for clarity… the “dwarf smoking the wizard’s scroll” was a tongue-in-cheek way of indicating how creativity was lost when games moved to computers. It wasn’t intended to be taken literally. I 100% agree, if I’m understanding you, there are no video games, currently, that REALLY let you play creatively when it comes to decisions and story paths. And if we’re stuck with game writers trying to anticipate all gamers’ choices in advance, we’ll never get there. AI might be the solution… just guessing. I don’t know if you picked up on my Dragon Age Origins reference in my essay, the scene where hardening Leliana takes place. It always bothered me that the molding of her character was dependent on 1 conversation and there was no warning or indication about that game mechanic being there. In a more realistic scenario, I can influence my friends over time… if I fail to convince them one day, I can try again on another. But again… it’s probably asking too much of developers and writers to consider all that and also make a fun combat game.
@@MediaKitGaming Oh don't worry, I got that the Dwarf-blunt was a clever joke, it just got me thinking about creative roleplay as encouraged by systems. I probably would have commented on the Leliana hardening if I hadn't played that game so many times, Alistair is the other great example where hardening his character has a big impact on whether or not he is willing to become king by the end of the game, and under what conditions. I think Dragon Age is a really good case study for two extremes in how you can influence npcs. Because there IS a system in that game that lets you influence friends over time, right? You can make the companions like you more by choosing dialogue options that they like or agree with, sometimes I would find myself with conflicting opinions in my party, so I always tried to build 'themed' groups where the characters who were present would get along with each other, and that feels kinda cool, but you can also just feed everyone several hundred chocolates until they respect you. This is stupid. In DA2 they introduced the concept of rivals, but truthfully I don't see why you would want a rival over a friend, I was always worried the game would have them betray me at some point. The hardening system is less obvious, less gamey, but you could keep telling Leliana that murder is bad for the whole game and then in that one conversation do a backflip and she'll go along with your new opinion. This feels arbitrary.
Excellent points. Yes, hardening aside, the friendship/romance meter is affected over time. I still found the, “which companion do I give this trinket to,” puzzle, a little frustrating. The snack cart shortcut was disappointing but also a welcome fallback. Re: dialog… In reality, I try to use conversation to understand people better or get them to think differently, but in DA Origins it was always about what's gonna make them like me more. So again, more of a puzzle. Your last point (last paragraph) was right on the money. I still can't say any game has done it better. My great frustration with games is that we've perfected combat. Whatever your combat preference is, there are 10 games made just for you (Dark Souls, God of War, StarCraft…). You can really play YOUR way. We have so far to go before we can say the same about story. And no, I have no idea how we get there.
Very thorough presentation, and a lot of insight into the subject. Good vid!
This one is a brain aching insightful experience thanks bruv. Love your content.
This is why I don't understand the youtube algorithm, this guy's videos should have been on my feed a long time ago and the channel should be blowing up. Keep at it man, you're insights and editing are exactly what I love
♥♥♥ Thank you!
UA-cam's algorithm is concerned with only one thing... making money for UA-cam. They will push the channels that are already popular so more eyes see the ads that advertisers are paying for. I started this channel expecting to never blow up. But I was still surprised by how slowly I grew. A new video coming… eh… soon-ish.
I'm of the opinion that an RPG is defined by three features: Character/Player Agency, Role Development, and Interactive Storytelling.
Going back to the roots of TTRPGs (Tabletop RPGs), many TTRPGs don’t use classes, levels, or even dice, but are still considered RPGs. The only thing that seems to be universal in all TTRPGs and many video game RPG's, is 1: agency as a player taking on a character who makes choices that impact the world. 2: developing as a player or character through decisions and experience (which would include stats, skills, XP, levelling and classes, without being restricted by them). And 3: the interactive storytelling that comes from interacting with either the GM and other players or a video games systems and characters.
In the case of video games alone. Systemic games, those with open-ended emergent gameplay, often capture these elements better than most video games, offering players freedom more akin to a well-run TTRPG. So to me, RPGs aren't defined through rigid mechanics, but through the experience of play and how the game offers the player a sense of role-playing, decision-making, and narrative impact.
RPG is like Rock or Pop, the definition becomes more muddled as time goes on and two works in the genre can be wildly different. I think term is a hold-over from a time when boardgames had a fairly strick dichotomy, but now, many modern boardgames also muddle the definition and ditch many of the number crunching or other elements of the archetypal ttrpg games like D&D. Are they no longer ttrpg's?
This was really good, your editing and animations are as impeccable as ever. It is also somewhat timely.
I Was just having a discussion with my brother about a game we're dreaming up; it was specifically my issue with a mechanic I suggested but that he felt was "not really rogue like" thus would not work.
I thought it would be a neat addition that would tie in nicely with some of the story elements we have. The idea that it has to neatly fit into the rouge like genre is, I think, very limiting.
It should at least be given the time of day and not simply checked for purity.
That said, again, great video.
Absolutely! Every mechanic in a game should benefit the player experience and not a genre definition nor some other game's standard. “It's a roguelike, except they added something cool to it…”
Some minor things. BotW does have multiple endings. It also has stats which you, the player, raise and lower by putting points gained through your adventure into them or by pulling them back out to reallocate...health and stamina. There is even a leveling system, though this is mostly hidden from the player it _is_ used to level scale the enemies as you progress through the game. So even by the definition of "stat and level raising game with narrative choices" it does technically qualify.
Personally the definition I use to define RPG videogame is if it attempts, to one extent or another, to simulate the tabletop RPG experience. Regardless of perspective or fictional setting.
FOR: A guy with a sword tearing up the open world is the most RPG thing ever. The inventory, weapon and armor systems are hard-core RPG systems. The same can be said of the food and potion crafting. Spirit Orbs are definitely XP!
AGAINST: Breath of the Wild's “true ending” is an achievement for collecting all the memories. The only choice involved is whether to grind it out. Most games have hidden stats while RPGs put that power into the hands of players and on screen. Link has no skill tree to speak of. Stamina and Health are not a skill tree.
I would say that Breath of the Wild is an evolution of the RPG. It qualifies in spirit and elevates the genre... specifically, by getting rid of a lot of the stats crap. But I think the RPG distinction should go away permanently. The farther we get from traditional D&D, the better. Computerized sims can do so much more than dice ever could. But I am not the judge nor the gatekeeper. I'm just a messenger. Here's some light (zero-consensus) reading for you. You'll find kindred spirits and oppositionists alike!
Is The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild an RPG?
gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/189707-the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild/75481876?page=4
Is The Legend of Zelda series an RPG series?
www.quora.com/Is-The-Legend-of-Zelda-series-an-RPG-series
Is Legend of Zelda an RPG?
www.nintendolife.com/news/2021/03/talking_point_is_zelda_an_rpg_or_not#:~:text=The%20final%20word%20on%20this,Adventure%22%20rather%20than%20an%20RPG
RPG is a narrative driven game, with a stat based improvement system, but mostly an RPG is an RPG.
Genres have no hard definitions. You can't give us a definition of jazz, all you could do is say... "jazz music often includes". When something includes elements mostly in one genre, we say it's a game in that one genre, but most games have some elements from more than one... so we just call it whatever fits the best, and it works just fine.
I dig it. You’re the first comment (I think) to attempt a reasonable definition. But now, I’m curious. Do the recent Zelda games qualify? Why or why not?
This is what happens when games that'd be once considered on the fringe of RPG (Witcher 3, Mass Effect et all) are perceived by the general public as the main show. After twenty years of "streamlining" (industry euphemism for removing ANYTHING that is less approachable than a Big Mac), those are the only kind of RPG games still existing in the triple-A space*. If the former fringe is the main dish, then the new fringe is games that barely at all qualify -- like Horizon. I mean, just about any big budget title has looting and leveling in some way, as that's proven to be addictive. If that would continue for a nother twenty years, Doom 2043 will also apply. ;-)
*And now that Baldur's Gate 3 is out, everybody be like WTF. :D
Neat
Also, i classify my steam games on collections by [Main Genre | Sub Genre | and if Other Genre Sub Genre]
Example Deus Ex [Rpg-Stealth-Action], Borderlands [Rpg-Fps-Looter Shooter]
Wow, that's impressive! I rate my games based on how much I enjoyed them but I don't classify them. At least not intentionally.
I put my steam games into 5 categories: favorites, shmups, half-life, touhou, and everything else.
A great discussion and with very good production. I really find this interesting because ultimately i think genres exist to manage expectations, and having such a wide definition harms that usefulness, which is why there seem to be so many qualifiers these days like action rpg or open word rpg. Poignant too given the big games slated for release this year like zelda, starfield, baldurs gate 3.
Honestly, I find it telling that even some tabletop RPGs are missing things that you listed here. Like, your hypothetical game with character progression, but no inventory? Yeah, there are tons of TTRPGs that said "that shit is boring and fiddly, let's get rid of it." And there are even systems that are built around one shots instead of long campaigns, so they have no mechanics for character advancement.
Yeah. I watched UA-cam video of a one-off campaign that was Aliens themed.
Might be bias, but I feel the dismissle of JRPGs here is a huge disservice. As they actually came about, completely unrelated to stuff in the west. Even in the way they handle combatand skills and syorytelling is different.
It seems to me most RPGs have a big focus on character altering stats, but also focuses on character growth, it be one the player makes up, of one created by the developer. Final Fantasy and DragonQuest are good examples of the latter.
I wasn’t dismissing JRPGs, I was acknowledging them. But without having played a single one, I didn’t want to attempt further investigation into something I considered myself unqualified for. I included a link (in the video description) to the article I referenced if you want to read it.
@@MediaKitGaming Fair enough. I’ll check out the article. Thanks. Still a great video.
@@ViRiXDreamcore Thanks for the complement.
Truly the RPG is dead and we have killed it.
TL;DR: RPG games are kind of a silly Genera and games that try to mimic TTRPG's are the closest to the term "RPG".
I find it quite interesting since the whole genera that RPG's game from, that is to say tabletop RPG's, are in themselves quite diverse and I think that may hold the key to solving this. DnD is the obvious one but there are so many different types of TTRPG systems that focus on three big "pillars", that bein: social interaction, exploration, and combat and TTRPG's will usually focus on one over the others or sometimes a combination. Of course there are many issues that come with transferring these things over to a computer game as you mentioned since you can't write a infinite amount of dialogue or make a infinite amount of terrain although I would argue you don't *need* to.
This still makes it very difficult to define the computer game genera of RPG's since defining which games have "RPG Combat" or how things like social interaction can transfer into a video game outside of a MMO-RPG. A example would be that games such as Breath of the Wild does encompass the since of "Exploration" you might see in a classical RPG, but diverges so much in other aspects that it's hard to really define it, it's more in the spirit of the "Action-Adventure" genera which is also a notoriously useless genera.
Another example might be the "Interactive Narrative Games" you mentioned since, they very VERY much (try) to focus on the social interaction part of a RPG, but given the limitations of the medium and the direction/design it kinda doesn't work out even if I could see this happen in a real TTRPG game it doesn't seem to click for a lot of people. I would argue if these games do NOT fall into the category of RPG's they're in the spirit of a "choose your own adventure" book, which I argue games made by telltale do perfectly.
The RPG genera really just doesn't make sense in the first place, from the moment people started porting DnD rules onto computers decades ago something was fundamentally lost or hindered from the genera and had to take on a new form. So essentially I would say that RPG as a game genera has sort of joined "action-adventure" in terms of how useful it is. I think the term "Computer Role Playing Game" (CRPG) would be what I would *definitively* call a "RPG" video game given that this includes the likes of Baulders Gate, Pathfinder, The Age of Decadence, Disco Elysium, etc. since a lot of them are usually ports of TTRPG's or heavily inspired by them and have a combination of qualities from the TTRPG genera like: Dice Rolling mechanics or equivalents, Isometric and/or grid based if they have graphics at all (Like miniatures on a table), well-defined and personal characters, and will usually have strong and well-defined lore. Around the CRPG genera is kind of asteroid belt of games that try to mimic these and as you move farther away they slowly deviate more away from this, like the Mass Effects, Skyrims, Deus ex's but are not in the "Pure CRPG" club while on the outer rim you might have Diablo, Borderlands, and so on and wherever that fuzzy line is really comes down to how much they take the "spirit" of TTRPG's which I can't define easily
but I can say the CRPG's ARE RPG's.
Also, I know this ends up just kinda shifting the question from "What's a RPG" to "What's a CRPG" and eventually "What is a Tabletop RPG"? (There a whole other discussion) but I hope this can at least add something to the discourse.
TLDR: it's about inversion of control. In other games, the game tell you how to play and what is the goal while in RPGs the game tell you the limits but you are free to experiment inside that frame and always through your character lens.
In my opinion, the difference is that in an adventure game, you play IN the world, your actions doesn't mean anything outside the main plot and every interaction is orientated to the game purposes. While in the RPG, you play WITH the world, your actions may have consequences and the interactions are an invitation to the player experimentation (what happen if?).
That's why I think Skyrim for example is an RPG. Because you can experience the world as you wish through the dragon born lens. I can accept that quest but what if I kill the giver? Skyrim let me see what happens.
But games like elden ring are NOT RPGs because you have only one action: the action that the game tell you must be. Oh look, a god, may be you want to ask something or praying but nope, you can only kill him.
By that logic, Minecraft is an RPG, but Pokémon or Kingdom Hearts aren't.
Or if you're specifically talking about story, then replace Minecraft with GTA 4.
Sounds like we shouldn't use the term because we are too stupid to even know what it means, yet jump to conclusions on what it is.
It's an RPG if I select an attack from a menu to use it. If I don't, it's not. So Final Fantasy, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Super Smash Bros when playing as a certain character, are all RPGs. But Skyrim is not.
I have no evidence for this, it's just that when I hear RPG, I think of the menus.
The thing with RPGs is that when they go from pen and paper to digital, either everything or nothing can be an RPG. Want a cool example? Witcher 3 is one of the best RPGs of all time, right? Well... one of the most important aspects of an RPG is to create your own character and play his role, make decisions as if you were him. You can't do that in Witcher 3 but do you know in which games you can do that? Fifa, Madden, NBA2K, MLB.. sports games in general. You create you character, check. You can make decisions that will impact your/his story (you can ask to be traded, you can pick which team and which salary you want, you can choose what answer you'll give in a press conference), check. The character has stats, "levels up", gets abilities (power kick proficiency in Fifa or spectacular catch as a receiver in Madden), check. So.. is FIFA a better RPG than Witcher 3?
One might say that Witcher 3 has a grandiose story with multiple paths, choices and whatnot. Which is true, but then again even in pen and paper RPGs people tend to say that the pre built modules are just a "tutorial" or a fun "introduction" to playing RPGs and that the real game is the creative storytelling, improv problem solution etc. This again makes a FIFA a better rpg than Witcher 3 because there's no story in the game, the story depends on how your career plays out, it can be anything and there's no "preset" option. You can play terrible as a youth and get loaned to an even worse team and never be able to make it to the big teams. Or you can score tons of goals as a youth and get a contract from a mid tier European team, then play even better and get a contract to play for Real Madrid and become one of the best players of your era. OR you can deny the contract to play for Real Madrid and turn the mid tier team you play for into a powerhouse to rival Real Madrid itself.
Non ironically to me the "Occam's razor" approach to this question is the best one. Ask someone if "X" game is an RPG and give them 1 second to answer, if they can't answer or are thinking too much, it's not an RPG. Like: "Baldur's Gate 3, is it an RPG? - YES", "Borderlands 3, is it an RPG? - Uhmm.. uhh it's techin...." Then no, it isn't. We can complicate this subject as much as we want and it's fun to do so but at the end of the day I think deep within we all know what an RPG looks and feels like and it's probably how the first RPG we played (and how they were labeled in the SNES, PS1 days) looked like.
Keen observations. You put a lot of thought into that. Thanks for contributing.
A interesting Essay
Breath of the Wild is NOT an RPG !
Action / Adventure for sure
D&D is a funny one because so much of that game is focused around the way your character approaches combat. Sure i can do whatever I want but there's no mechanical benefit from my dwarf smoking the wizard's spell scroll. The scroll itself probably casts a spell, which is much more useful and the obviously 'proper' way of approaching the system.
I'm not sure how familiar you are with other Tabletop games but fiction-first games which have much looser rules and generally reward you for playing your character's role in the fiction and understanding the world that you live in (Blades in the Dark's position-effect mechanic is a great example of this) I think are generally a better example of roleplaying systems that actually reinforce the roleplaying aspect. Like if you're playing D&D and you go to hit someone with a sword, it doesn't really matter who's holding it or what class you are, the sword is always doing to deal 1d8+dex or whatever. Your impact on the world is defined by your stats. in BITD and you want to hit someone with your sword (or blade hehe) you might describe striking at their heart, which might be good if you're duelling a noble but crap if you're in a big bar fight. Similarly trying to swing a club might have the inverse effect on your character's position. It's all about how you approach each individual moment of the fiction.
Really what I'm saying is even some of us who play pen and paper games would rather get away from D&D.
I really like your point about 'interactive narrative games'. I feel like the RPG label is generally used in my social circles to define games that have customisable stats, but that stuff just bogs me down in what would often otherwise be a seamless player-driven experience. I have friends who won't give Detroit or LIS the time of day purely because they're 'barely games'. There's an argument to be made that if there's too many binary choices, even if they create 86 individual endings the player isn't being given enough room for creative expression to be a 'true' rpg experience, I think the most interesting outcomes of that game have come out of watching people who understand it in and out create hyper-specific scenarios by triggering events the devs thought few people would see.
There's also the Telltale problem where although I love the Walking Dead to pieces, there are quite a few decisions that come out in the wash, so to speak. I'm particularly thinking of the two survivors you have to pick between at the end of episode 1, who each have one or two meaningful actions in ep2 before they disappear from the action in early ep3. That decision felt big in the moment, but take a step back and it becomes insignificant for future playthroughs (and I do think that games that good rpgs reward subsequent playthroughs with different or optimised approaches to play).
Ramble over. I enjoyed your video, the editing's real cool and I enjoyed you clowning on the non-participant. It was nice of the UA-cam algorithm to bring me to your channel!
Thank you for your insightful input. Just for clarity… the “dwarf smoking the wizard’s scroll” was a tongue-in-cheek way of indicating how creativity was lost when games moved to computers. It wasn’t intended to be taken literally.
I 100% agree, if I’m understanding you, there are no video games, currently, that REALLY let you play creatively when it comes to decisions and story paths. And if we’re stuck with game writers trying to anticipate all gamers’ choices in advance, we’ll never get there. AI might be the solution… just guessing.
I don’t know if you picked up on my Dragon Age Origins reference in my essay, the scene where hardening Leliana takes place. It always bothered me that the molding of her character was dependent on 1 conversation and there was no warning or indication about that game mechanic being there. In a more realistic scenario, I can influence my friends over time… if I fail to convince them one day, I can try again on another. But again… it’s probably asking too much of developers and writers to consider all that and also make a fun combat game.
@@MediaKitGaming Oh don't worry, I got that the Dwarf-blunt was a clever joke, it just got me thinking about creative roleplay as encouraged by systems.
I probably would have commented on the Leliana hardening if I hadn't played that game so many times, Alistair is the other great example where hardening his character has a big impact on whether or not he is willing to become king by the end of the game, and under what conditions. I think Dragon Age is a really good case study for two extremes in how you can influence npcs. Because there IS a system in that game that lets you influence friends over time, right? You can make the companions like you more by choosing dialogue options that they like or agree with, sometimes I would find myself with conflicting opinions in my party, so I always tried to build 'themed' groups where the characters who were present would get along with each other, and that feels kinda cool, but you can also just feed everyone several hundred chocolates until they respect you. This is stupid. In DA2 they introduced the concept of rivals, but truthfully I don't see why you would want a rival over a friend, I was always worried the game would have them betray me at some point.
The hardening system is less obvious, less gamey, but you could keep telling Leliana that murder is bad for the whole game and then in that one conversation do a backflip and she'll go along with your new opinion. This feels arbitrary.
Excellent points. Yes, hardening aside, the friendship/romance meter is affected over time. I still found the, “which companion do I give this trinket to,” puzzle, a little frustrating. The snack cart shortcut was disappointing but also a welcome fallback.
Re: dialog… In reality, I try to use conversation to understand people better or get them to think differently, but in DA Origins it was always about what's gonna make them like me more. So again, more of a puzzle. Your last point (last paragraph) was right on the money. I still can't say any game has done it better.
My great frustration with games is that we've perfected combat. Whatever your combat preference is, there are 10 games made just for you (Dark Souls, God of War, StarCraft…). You can really play YOUR way. We have so far to go before we can say the same about story. And no, I have no idea how we get there.
Man, who cares?
Your video starts with a strawman.
Hitchens's razor: "what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."