A Look At – What is an RPG? Part One

This is something of an ongoing debate in gaming circles – what makes a video game an RPG? It is my intention, over a series of articles, to look at the cRPG and console RPG world, compare it to the table top (also referred to as pen and paper) RPGs that the genre was originally based on, and even look at how the MMO of MMORPGs has further altered many people’s perceptions of what an RPG is. At the end I plan on putting forth a list of “elements of RPGs” that are unique to RPGs (even if they can appear in other kinds of games), “elements of games” that are often in RPGs but probably should not be considered RPG elements, and several possible definitions of what it means to be an RPG – including one that I’ll settle on for myself as definitive. My hope is that this examination will help others think about what it means for a game to be an RPG as well as understand how there can be such divisions on the subject.

At it’s most basic understanding, RPG stands for role-playing game. Role-playing game, however, brings a host of different memories and experiences to different people – one person may have played straight from the Red Box set of Dungeons & Dragons over thirty years ago while another person’s first exposure to RPGs may well have been playing World of Warcraft. Most often it is what people are initially exposed to, or most exposed to, that shapes their definition of a thing.

The term “role-playing” has a specific meaning outside of the gaming industry, even – it is often used as a form of therapy or as a way to better understand people, events or situations. Counselors may have recovering alcoholics act out scenarios where they practice ways to turn down an offered drink. Teachers may have their classes take on different personas from the American Revolution to help them understand what it was like to live during those times.

When you tag the word “game” after role-playing, it takes on a new meaning – but even what the word “game” implies is different to different people as well. Some see games as diversions that involve acquiring points and winning, like sports, with direct competition between two or more players, while other people take game as being any kind of pastime that is done for entertainment – scores or no, winning or no. These can be taken to extremes, with one person arguing that if there’s no competition or no score or no way to win then it doesn’t count as a game but another person just as vehemently insisting that anything done for enjoyment can be considered a game.

Perhaps at it’s base level, there’s the difference between cRPGs (computer role-playing games, the term I will use for all video game RPGs) and table top RPGs. Traditionally cRPGs have an ending, a last level of the dungeon or a final boss monster to defeat or a town to have saved or just, in general, the end of a narrative. Table top RPGs, however, can go on and on as long as the guy running the game and the players want to keep playing, no established ending or win point / score to get to. This is a trait that table top shares with MMOs – most MMOs are designed with a “never-ending” concept, and while there are max levels a given character can reach they can continue to adventure and the game designers are always adding upper level content. There are of course exceptions to this – you can keep playing the end of Fallout 2 forever, or wandering an Elder Scrolls world as long as you like. And some table top games are one shots, like D&D’s Delves or if you play at a convention. But structurally, video games have endings and table top games last as long as the players want to keep continuing the adventure.

So we have an important difference between table top and video game RPGs… but what similarities do they have? If we stick with the words, role-playing game, perhaps we can establish the core of what makes a game an RPG. “Role-playing” implies taken on the role of someone other than yourself – simple enough, almost any game where you control a character could be a role-playing game in that sense – the Spartan from Halo, Pitfall Harry, Spider-Man, Max Payne, the tank in Combat, the guitar player in Guitar Hero. The “game” part comes, at the basest level, from doing something for enjoyment. So, at the very least, an RPG is taken on the role of someone else for fun.

Unfortunately, as far as video games go, that covers most games. With the rare exceptions of some puzzle games or large scale strategy games (you could argue in Starcraft, for example, that you are the Overseer and therefore still playing a role) you almost always are controlling a character other than yourself. And most gamers would agree that there’s much more to RPGs than controlling a protagonist character, as I’m fairly certain that very few people would honestly argue that Half-Life or King’s Quest are RPGs.

Here at the end of part one we have established some basic terms. What “role-playing” and “game” mean outside of the RPG context, for one. The key difference between cRPGs and table top RPGs has been covered as well – the ability to “win” or “complete” the game vs. an ongoing, unending adventure. And we have posed the first question to be examined in part two – when does it count as “role-playing” when most video games have you taking on the role of a main character? Next time we will start with that question as overall I try and get at the heart of what “role-playing” means in gaming.