What do you think makes an RPG

[TheJ3ster]

Hype and then all the people that fell for it but play it anyway cuz they have it now.

[Meintastic]

what makes an rpg? well lets go with personal preference/thoughts

In my mind an rpg is always 3rd person. It gives you a better sense of im controlling this character while first person makes it seem more like an action adventure style game putting it in its own genre. I like to see the character im controlling. First person games should be limited to puzzle solvers, shooters and games like oblivion.

a good story that isnt too long but has enough depth to keep the player entertained. A sudden plot twist here, a story turn there, something you didnt see coming.

graphics. It doesnt have to be the best graphics in the world, but i personally prefer the more cartoony style rpgs where the character looks more like an anime character, ie the character isnt trying to be realistic. where a giant sword would fit his or her character profile rather than a real person. by cartoony i do not mean things like windwaker(although a great game), i mean things like FF9. Character slightly unpreportioned from the real world but still proportioned enough to make it seem like he can swing that sword around and whatnot.

music. Epic battle music that fits the world or the battle area. sounds that fit the cities and dungeons that the player is traversing. A good example of this is Skies of Arcadia

controls. personally i prefer turn-based combat which means menus and whatnot. free combat kind of reminds me of an action adventure game so i tend to avoid those(though there are a few exceptions, mainly star ocean and the tales series)

style. when it comes to the setting of the rpg im more of a fan of less modern, more fantasy. more fantasy allows the makers to go nuts inventing their own style of world; from creatures that wouldnt exist in our world to settings that couldnt possibly exist in our world. as always there are exceptions with persona being the main one.

length. nothing too big, nothing too small. i like games where you can beat the main story within say 32 hours, any more than that and it seems to hinder the overall game(like final fantasy 12). this includes difficulty. the game shouldnt be too hard at one point then way too easy at a point after

[Deleted]

what makes an rpg? well lets go with personal preference/thoughts

In my mind an rpg is always 3rd person. It gives you a better sense of im controlling this character while first person makes it seem more like an action adventure style game putting it in its own genre. I like to see the character im controlling. First person games should be limited to puzzle solvers, shooters and games like oblivion.

a good story that isnt too long but has enough depth to keep the player entertained. A sudden plot twist here, a story turn there, something you didnt see coming.

graphics. It doesnt have to be the best graphics in the world, but i personally prefer the more cartoony style rpgs where the character looks more like an anime character, ie the character isnt trying to be realistic. where a giant sword would fit his or her character profile rather than a real person. by cartoony i do not mean things like windwaker(although a great game), i mean things like FF9. Character slightly unpreportioned from the real world but still proportioned enough to make it seem like he can swing that sword around and whatnot.

music. Epic battle music that fits the world or the battle area. sounds that fit the cities and dungeons that the player is traversing. A good example of this is Skies of Arcadia

controls. personally i prefer turn-based combat which means menus and whatnot. free combat kind of reminds me of an action adventure game so i tend to avoid those(though there are a few exceptions, mainly star ocean and the tales series)

style. when it comes to the setting of the rpg im more of a fan of less modern, more fantasy. more fantasy allows the makers to go nuts inventing their own style of world; from creatures that wouldnt exist in our world to settings that couldnt possibly exist in our world. as always there are exceptions with persona being the main one.

length. nothing too big, nothing too small. i like games where you can beat the main story within say 32 hours, any more than that and it seems to hinder the overall game(like final fantasy 12). this includes difficulty. the game shouldnt be too hard at one point then way too easy at a point after

It sounds like you enjoy the JRPG genre alot, these really ain't a role playing game, just my opinion but we are talking about real RPGS, ones where you make choices.

[Izanami-Okami]

A role playing game is a game where you take on the role of someone else and play through their world in an open environment. What makes it its own genre is the meta game of stats and interaction with the environment and other characters. Those two things really make or break it, there has to be a depth to the interaction and a story to play out from start to finish. It can be linear. Japanese RPGs are fairly linear while Western RPGs are open and go all across the map. Another thing that makes an RPG would be customization with weapons and armor and character development. Anyways these are just my opinions on it.

[kailtas]

What makes an RPG is how it's built up.

Wether i am placed in the boots of someone or i start a new character choosing anything from race, class, gender and specialisations etc. The world must see me as the character i am playing. It's kind of hard to explain seeing i just cant say that games like ME and DA are NOT RPGS. But to me an ideal RPG is where i am placed in an open world without quests. Sure there might be some big great ''quest'' to be done in the game. But it's my choice if i want to do it.

Saying this makes it seem like i love Oblivion, wich i do. But some parts of it kinda gives me hints that the world revolves around my character. I dont like that, an ideal RPG must see my character as any other character in the game. In a game like Oblivion it seems to be that way, but i can become the grand master of everything in less than 30 game days.

Items is much less important than character developement to me. Picking up new items just dont cut it, in DA2 for example i choose wich stats to upgrade. Wich is the correct way if you ask me, but in a game like WOW every single lvl 85 druid has the exact same stats.

An RPG also needs to be unforgiving, not to the point that you can break the game with 1 choice. But characters within the game must be able to NOT like me. Bioware does this poorly, and it has very little effect on the actual game if i make a bad choice or not.

I hope that SWTOR will fullfill most of the above to some degree. I can see reasons to why they wont let every player choose stats for themselves at lvl 1 and the stats would be ireversable. Because that would allow players to destroy their characters with bad choices before the player got a chance to see things out. And i hope i will be treated correctly as the character i am playing, like if im playing a Jedi i want everyone to treat me that way and not just treat me like some random dude.

[Trollsbane]

A story driven game where you act out the role(s) of specific characters, whether they be pre or player made, and guide them through the story arc set by the game creator while making impactful decisions (either your own, or the ones set by the game's creator) to evolve the story and develope the character(s).

To break this down a bit, I'll hit on the key points of my definition.

-A story driven game-
Simply put, the story is the glue that holds it all together. Other factors must accompany the story to make it an rpg, but none are truly more important.

-Act out the role of a specific character(s) *premade or character made*-
You are reliving the story through the eyes of the characters in the game. It does not matter if you create these characters yourself or if you have a premade character to use. It accomplishes the same thing. Of course personal taste plays a role here, but it in no way makes a difference in the genre of a game. You are living the life and experiencing the trying times of this character.

-Evolve the story and guide your character through the creators story arc-
YOU did not write this story. You are roleplaying the character's travels through the creator's story. You watch the story arc and help with the evolving through a series of events that dictate your character's life and the worldly perils that are asunder. There must be a narrative to follow. It doesn't matter how loose or how tightly scripted it is, you are playing through it.

-Making your own and the creator's impactful decisions and developing characters-
Developing the characters is the main focus for the game. Be it story arc or which items you equip, you are developing the characters throughout the entire playing experience. The decisions that you make can be choices that lead to different outcomes, or they can simply be predetermined by the creator to move you into the next phase of the story. It matters not. The outcome and the direction are the same in either scenario.

-The difference between an action/adventure game like Zelda and an rpg game is that there are no experience points gained from monsters. There are no basic starting stats to determine values for attack and defense that are raised as you level. The randomness of misses and blocks and such are not usually there.

Early Final Fantasy games are clearly role playing games. Yet, all the characters are premade and you have a script to follow. There is little to no actual decision making on your part.

Dragon Age 2 is also a role playing game. You have premade characters that you role play through the creator's story arc. You will have choices to make, but all are set by a scripted outcome. It is still a roleplaying game by all means.

[Poopmonkey]

I feel the music can really have an effect on a gamer's experience. I love all the work Square Enix has put into their soundtracks especially.

[Deleted]

Early Final Fantasy games are clearly role playing games. Yet, all the characters are premade and you have a script to follow. There is little to no actual decision making on your part.

Dragon Age 2 is also a role playing game. You have premade characters that you role play through the creator's story arc. You will have choices to make, but all are set by a scripted outcome. It is still a roleplaying game by all means.

I'll just point a few things out about these two.

Final Fantasy games have never been RPGs in the Video game sense, as you put forward in the rest of your post, you do not "Play the role" of the characters in a storytelling way, you play the characters like you would in any game. Like Mario, or Zelda.

However, you do asign roles to your characters, as in you have a white mage, a blue mage, a monk and so forth, by tabletop standards, these are all you need for it to be an RPG, hence why the JRPG genre is still classed as an RPG genre, despite the fact that you make no choices or control anything other than the battle scenes between the cutscenes.

The same is starting to look for Mass Effect and Dragon Age, where my choices effect things in a two pronged arc, but hidden a majority of the time to make it look significant, for example.

The Collector base in mass effect 2, you either blow it up ( good guy option. ) or hand it to Cerbeus ( bad guy option ). Thats very static, it's basic a good or evil choice. I will not argue that Mass Effect and Dragon Age are not RPGs, they are, they are just very lousy ones. Dragon Age especially being a very generic Fantasy setting with no real depth around it, it's just "DnD without the DnD" to say the least.

[Trollsbane]

Well, I disagree with that. The difference between an action/adventure game like Zelda and an rpg game is that there are no experience points gained from monsters. There are no basic starting stats to determine values for attack and defense that are raised as you level. The randomness of misses and blocks and such are not usually there.

I 100% believe Final Fantasy to be a role playing game, and based off of my definition (which I doubt really differs from anyones) Final Fantasy hits all of those points. It makes no difference that I'm given the character to guide through the story. I start with X stats and improve them through getting better gear and leveling up.

I do play the role of these characters throughout the game. In FF1, I played the role of the party to the end an fought Garlan. In FF2 I played and lived the experience of Rydia when she learned to be a summoner and the other events with the party. In FF3 I colleague role of Cecil and delved into myself as I went from a dark knight to a paladin and saved Rosa while fighting off Kefka.

Unless I'm missing some key thing, I don't understand what you mean.

[Deleted]

Lots of choices and consequences for making one choice or another. Different(sometimes opposite) endings. Possibility to choose you path, joining different sides, etc.

Those are the things that allow you to shape and define your character in the game. If you can't control how your character develops, you're not role playing and the game seizes to be an RPG.

I guess I don't consider World of Warcraft to be a true RPG in that sense. Quests rarely give you any meaningful choices and even then they're still pretty inconsequential. You can use WoW as a sandbox for role playing and make up your own adventures, but you can use pen and paper for that just as well.

Nowadays to the game industry RPG means you have in game skills and experience/levels to make you stronger while you play. I guess that's acceptable. It's not like "action game" or "first person shooter" are accurate terms for what the game is about, either.

I do play the role of these characters throughout the game. In FF1, I played the role of the party to the end an fought Garlan. In FF2 I played and lived the experience of Rydia when she learned to be a summoner and the other events with the party. In FF3 I colleague role of Cecil and delved into myself as I went from a dark knight to a paladin and saved Rosa while fighting off Kefka.

And in Super Mario Brothers I played the role of Mario. I still dream about jumping from platform to platform, stomping Koopa's and running through those dungeons. Every game is an RPG.

[Trollsbane]

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And in Super Mario Brothers I played the role of Mario. I still dream about jumping from platform to platform, stomping Koopa's and running through those dungeons. Every game is an RPG.

Don't be ridiculous. If you want to quote me to poke fun, read the rest ofthe post you quoted from and my original one. Mario doesn't fit. =p

[Luminar]

Well, the traditional RPG by today's standards has quests, stats, character improvement, decision making, etc. and I suppose that these are what I judge them by.

[Bearshield]

It sounds like you enjoy the JRPG genre alot, these really ain't a role playing game, just my opinion but we are talking about real RPGS, ones where you make choices.

I dont see how you can say the JRPG's are not real RPGs when you yourself agreed with the person who said an RPG is simply a game with a world that you become completely immersed in. Just because it's scripted, does not mean that the story and the world in JRPG's dont draw you in just as much as in a game where you hand pick your toon, assign your stats and control what conflicts you involve yourself in.

For me, I enjoy the pre-scripted RPG's much more than one where I question my purpose in the game world through the majority of the game. I've never finished Morrowind, because as beautiful as it was, I just couldnt find the motivation to keep going yet I have played through hundreds of games from NES to PS3/Xbox 360 where the pre-scripted story captivated my attention till the very end. I'm certainly not trying to say the games where you dont follow a script and RP your character are not true RPG's, just that I disagree with your assessment of JRPG's.

[Deleted]

I dont see how you can say the JRPG's are not real RPGs when you yourself agreed with the person who said an RPG is simply a game with a world that you become completely immersed in. Just because it's scripted, does not mean that the story and the world in JRPG's dont draw you in just as much as in a game where you hand pick your toon, assign your stats and control what conflicts you involve yourself in.

For me, I enjoy the pre-scripted RPG's much more than one where I question my purpose in the game world through the majority of the game. I've never finished Morrowind, because as beautiful as it was, I just couldnt find the motivation to keep going yet I have played through hundreds of games from NES to PS3/Xbox 360 where the pre-scripted story captivated my attention till the very end. I'm certainly not trying to say the games where you dont follow a script and RP your character are not true RPG's, just that I disagree with your assessment of JRPG's.

Read my post just below that one, There really should be a clear definition between what RPG means between a WRPG and a JRPG.

JRPGs are based around being like a premade game in DnD, if you haven't done a premade game it basically means you are given your character for you, premade and you just arrange all the stats. Many DnD scenarios, premade or not, don't involve roleplaying in the sense that you play out your character as it was a real person, but you control the character like a video game character, doing it to complete the level ( scenario ), sure the Dungeon master might make you have an awesome character and an awesome story to the game, but your mainly controling the characters stats and actions.

I belive a term for just controling the stats and actions and not the background and such is Rollplaying. Just playing to roll the dice. Scenic stuff is not directly under your control.

WRPGs seem to be Dramatically different, they want the opposite affect, many want you to create your own character and influence everything about them, be it their stats and class right up to their moral actions. This is more traditional roleplaying. Playing for your roles.


Just my two cents, I do not dislike JRPGs, Final Fantasy 9 is one of my favourite games of all time, the setting was awesome and the characters amusing and well fleshed out. But I see it more as a rollplay game than a roleplay game if you catch my drift.

[Grignartoht]

Most importantly, an rpg makes your character unique. Also, to be able to pick an origin story (paragon path) is important in the story/plot development. You don't look exactly like everybody else of your same class/race when you reach max level.