Incline Okay let's be real here... Which games can never be RPGs?

[Conan]

Okay, Let's be real here... eh? We all know the answer

Games I don't like can never be arrpeegees.

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

/me is arrested by the RPG police by roleplaying in non-RPGs.

 

[KörangarTheMighty]

Some method of calculating to-hit is required for any game to qualify as an RPG. If player skill is more important than character skill, or if character skill is dispensable, the game isn't an RPG. The character must change and/or actively deny change in some way either stat-wise or personality-wise (preferably both) at some point in the game and the game must directly acknowledge it. LARPing and head-canon don't count.

 

[Iucounu]

- Games where player skill (reflexes, twitch) carries significantly more impact than character skill cannot be RPGs.

So in a RPG shooter, it should never be enough for the player just to aim well with his mouse, he must also increase his character skill stats, like "accuracy" or "damage"? The latter sounds as if enemies would be bullet sponges. Nothing wrong with that where it makes sense - like when trying to destroy an armored vehicle with a pistol - but if you can't even kill an unprotected NPC point blank with a powerful gun just because your "damage" skill is too low, I think the RPG mechanic is taken too far.

Do these stats always have to be associated with the character's personal abilities (unlocked in an abstract skill tree menu, where the player assigns skill points), or can they also manifest themselves as better equipment (bought by an in-game trader, where the player pays with earned credits)? Getting better guns or armor should be regarded as stat upgrades. I'm asking because I recall reading complaints about Stalker Clear Sky, that you can't hit anything with the early non-upgraded guns, which seems like a typical RPG mechanic to me.

These are usually realtime action games with stats (Dark Souls, Borderlands, etc.) I think you can complete Skyrim or Deus Ex without stat investment, so I would be hesitant to call them RPGs. I believe Cyberpunk is close too.

I'd call that easy and poorly balanced RPGs: the mechanics are there, but are not really needed. And if the player has such bad reflexes that he needs those stat investments, he likely don't know how to use them anyway.

Maybe AAA developers just include a facade of unnecessary RPG mechanics for consumers that want them, but also want to make the game playable for consumers that don't know or care about RPG skills.

A valid exception might be players using handheld controllers. Since those are often harder to use than a mouse (especially in shooters), perhaps the player could compensate by relying more on RPG elements than reflexes? But that still wouldn't help a mouse player looking for a RPG challenge.

- Cross genre games where hefty system bloat overshadows core RPG systems. Vagrus, Titan Outpost, etc. These games usually don't know what they want to be (hell, I'd even put half of WotR there). I think they do have RPG elements, but they are not fully developed or are cluttered by strategy elements, macro, 4X, survival, base building or whatever.

Sounds like they at least have RPG elements. Not sure what "overshadow" means here, can't building a base have its own RPG mechanics, or add to the core systems? It would be different it the core system was made obsolete by the base, like if you no longer needed body armor because you never went outside your base.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

Action and Roleplaying are at the opposite side of a scale when classifying game genres. A game typically can not be Action RPG. The term ARPG is just historically imposed for Diablo-like games to differentiate them from the typical RPGs at the time for marketing purposes.They are still RPGs, just different sub-genre. There can be Action games with elements typical for RPGs, but that doesn't make them RPGs. There are cases where it's hard to pinpoint the genre like Deus Ex or VTM:B where big portion of the gameplay is not driven by stats (i.e. roleplay) so for that reason I would classify them as Hybrid RPGs as they have most of their mechanics depend on your stats, but still have elements of action driven gameplay (manually evading in combat or sneaking not govern by stealth-like stat for example).

 

[Kev Inkline]

Pro Evolution Soccer an RPG because every player has stats? Some people like Soyer would say yes, but we know they lost their mind. For me, nope. I used to have a theory that RPGs were not a genre per se, but... a 'quality' or attribute you graft onto another genre. I was wrong. That is just character elements or stats.

You're obviously wrong, and Josh is right, Wayne Gretzky Hockey is the best game Bethesda ever made, and it's also their most rpg-like game, both by a fair margin.

You have also different character classes: C, RW, LW, D, G. Most codexers seem to prefer RW.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

Manager type games are very close to RPGs , but they have their own genre. Most importantly they miss a crucial part of RPGs that is the adventure element.

 

[Gandalf]

Some book I was reading some time ago claimed that in role-playing game, players control their characters and react to the events of the intrigue. If the player doesn't want his character to go through the door, the character won't do it. If the player thinks the character can wriggle out of a difficult situation instead of immediately reaching for a weapon, his character will talk. The scenario or intrigue of a role-playing game is flexible, constantly changing with every decision players make for their characters.

Which computer games achieved that? We all know the answers.

So, which games can NEVER be rpgs? That's a tricky question, really.
They say that the sky is a limit in a world of creativity, but such a non-rpg game can't have a player character or allow player to do anything at all, I think.

 

[I eat frozen vegetables]

Okay, Let's be real here... eh? We all know the answer

Games I don't like can never be arrpeegees.

A child's guide on how to use the codex.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Gary Gygax said, whether a game is an RPG is determined by the number of polearms in its weapons list. And the more polearms it contains, the more it is to be praised.

Gygax successfully predicted Oblivion, then.

The biggest crime codex committed in recent years is letting Ash change his avatar. Now you can't just scroll past his retardation on reflex alone without ever reading any of that shit.

I'm not sure where this stems from, but Ash is generally fairly coherent even when I disagree with him.

Action-RPG lite, barely qualifying, if at all. I very much prefer the term "clickers" though.

I don't know if that's exactly fairly. I think it's more a matter of how well those games implement their mechanics, honestly. Look at how long after Diablo and Diablo II it took to get some decent ones within the "Action RPG" subgenre. I've mentioned it a few times, but Divine Divinity was a game I went in to expecting to hate, but ended up beating it. Sacred was the first one I liked and I was hooked on it. Roshambo Warrior from NMA and I used to play Diablo II occationally together, and Sacred was our follow up to Diablo II for those sporadic coop sessions.

One thing that I've noticed is that Blizzard, with the success of Diablo II and World of Warcraft shifted a lot of the focus of what makes a "strong character" from skills and attributes to itemization. While loot grinding is fun and scoring treasure is generally the carrot of a good chunk of CRPGs out there, action or otherwise, the difference between two equal builds of the same class, one with superior items versus one with more average items, is pretty staggering in those games.

You're obviously wrong, and Josh is right, Wayne Gretzky Hockey is the best game Bethesda ever made, and it's also their most rpg-like game, both by a fair margin.

There's a big overlap between simulation games and RPGs, obviously. One of the main purposes of a character system is to model, i.e. simulate, how that character interacts with the world around him in order to accomplish what the player wants him to do.

 

[roguefrog]

100% an RPG.

 

[luj1]

Okay, Let's be real here... eh? We all know the answer

Games I don't like can never be arrpeegees.

Well I hate Pillars, Pathfinder, DOS, Tyranny, etc. They are all RPGs.

 

[luj1]

Some method of calculating to-hit is required for any game to qualify as an RPG

Yes, this is correct. If you add stats to Legacy of Kain or Max Payne, that doesn't really make them an RPG.

- Games where player skill (reflexes, twitch) carries significantly more impact than character skill cannot be RPGs.

So in a RPG shooter, it should never be enough for the player just to aim well with his mouse, he must also increase his character skill stats, like "accuracy" or "damage"?

Yes, exactly.

 

[luj1]

Action and Roleplaying are at the opposite side of a scale when classifying game genres. A game typically can not be Action RPG.

It is kind of an oxymoron, true.

 

[luj1]

You're obviously wrong, and Josh is right

Well Josh claims Wizardry is not an RPG "anymore". At the same time and according to him, Pentiment suddenly became an RPG. So for me, he will always be an insane SJW. And he already proved he is incompetent as a system lead, multiple times.

 

[luj1]

I think you can complete [...] Deus Ex without stat investment, so I would be hesitant to call them RPGs

gtfo

I'm pretty sure you could beat Fallout with out stat investment if you were careful and lucky.

I am not talking about speedrunning, you can do that in every game. Assuming you are playing normally and the way it was intended, but without allocating stats, you would get way further in Deux Ex than iin Fallout. Read Late Bloomer's post.

 

[luj1]

My definition would be to have at least maybe 70% of well-established RPG game design to qualify as a "true" RPG

Gregz suggested this, but it doesn't work imo. Because it's not a qualitative approach, but merely a quantitative one. Ergo, you can put stats, quests, inventory in a racing game, but that still won't make it an RPG.

 

[luj1]

You need to define RPG genre first.

Role-playing game:

Spoiler

Computer role-playing game:

Spoiler

I think we Codexers are making it too complicated, and needlessly mystify RPGs. In truth, all CRPGs need to be is a reasonable digital analog of a tabletop session.

 

[Ol' Willy]

- Games where player skill (reflexes, twitch) carries significantly more impact than character skill cannot be RPGs. These are usually realtime action games with stats (Dark Souls, Borderlands, etc.) I think you can complete Skyrim or Deus Ex without stat investment, so I would be hesitant to call them RPGs. I believe Cyberpunk is close too.

The mandatory feature of trve RPG is indirect control.

You tell your character what to do, he abides

This is the roleplaying. This way, a drooling retard can play as very intelligent character, and slowest dude in the town as character with lightning speed reaction

 

[normie]

Okay, Let's be real here... eh? We all know the answer

Games I don't like can never be arrpeegees.

well duh, you'd like them if they were role playing rpg games

 

[Eisen]

Everytime someone questions if Deus Ex is an RPG, more i'm convinced that it's an RPG

 

[luj1]

The mandatory feature of trve RPG is indirect control.

You tell your character what to do, he abides

No, that is bullshit. You always control something, a unit, a character. That is a mandatory feature of nearly any computer game. It is too vague.

 

[Ol' Willy]

The mandatory feature of trve RPG is indirect control.

You tell your character what to do, he abides

No, that is bullshit. You always control something, a unit, a character. That is a mandatory feature of nearly any computer game. It is too vague.

Yes but control shall not be direct

If your skill overrides the character skill, this is direct control

 

[luj1]

What is Diablo 1? Titan Quest?

What is Crusader No Remorse? Well it's that, just with stats and inventory.

 

[luj1]

The mandatory feature of trve RPG is indirect control.

You tell your character what to do, he abides

No, that is bullshit. You always control something, a unit, a character. That is a mandatory feature of nearly any computer game. It is too vague.

Yes but control shall not be direct

If your skill overrides the character skill, this is direct control

Yes this is the first point I made in the opening post. Cannot disagree.