I would say that what actually makes an RPG (apart from the freedom of chosing what type of character you play and to make it evolve) is the possibility to interact with NPC (or even PC’s in MMORPG) in other ways than by slaughtering them. A consequence of this, regardless of the skill, inventory or progression system, is that there should always be a lot more freedom for the player in an RPG system. This is also the reason why only sand box RPG’s are truly feeling like the pen and paper ones. They are more realistic (as much as a fantasy setting can be realistic) or rather they keep the suspension of disbelief to a higher level. I would even argue that first person sand box RPG’s are the ultimate ones.

For a long time I viewed RPG as being synonymous with “Tolkienesque Fantasy”. Obviously not the case, but go back to older RPG games and it was probably true.

@Luke Your Morrowind comment is spot on. I think stats and inventory are critical to making a game an RPG, but it’s the freedom that really counts.

Is Diablo an RPG – I’d say no. It has different skills and strategies sure, but ultimately you’re playing the same game with no dramatic changes. This applies to Borderlands etc. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Borderlands, but I thought it was a great action FPS.

I can’t really think of many games that allow this freedom. Morrowind was one. Deus Ex (love that game) was another.

If that makes an RPG then I’m a fan RPGs. If Mass Effect/Final Fantasy et al are RPGs, then I don’t like RPGs at all.

@ Mart:

It’s definitely fun to play it the right way. I played RPG games in high school and we were pretty serious about it. By that I mean we usually tried to cooperate with the GM rather than ruin his adventure and get loot and XP. One of our GM’s really liked the dice-less model so his games were all about Role Playing rather than Roll Playing. :)

I royally sucked as a GM. I like to think that I have matured enough to be able to handle it these days, but I prefer to play. :)

I’m currently group-less – my last gaming group fell apart due to scheduling conflicts and real life stuff. Our GM was a father of 3 and his wife did not realize that bunch of grown ass dudes will raid their house every weekend, take over the kitchen table, eat all the Cheetos and demand Mountain Dew :P We fell out of touch since the game was put on hiatus.

Oh, and I think all of us devised our own system or two. I have a whole drawer full of unfinished games and world building documents. 90% of them were never game tested or actually shown to anyone. :P

Zel wrote:

I like game that let me ruin the story. Even better if it can somehow fall back on its feet by providing a cleverly thought alternative.

Morrowind is actually bit like this. You can easily ruin the main quest by killing crucial NPC’s. The game won’t stop you. It will merely notify you that the main quest is now unplayable. If you didn’t care you could continue playing and leveling your character as normal.

I really hated the fact that Oblivion made all special characters immortal. It took away that freedom to ruin the game if you wanted to.

I would call neither Mass Effect 2 nor Torchlight RPGs, essentially because there’s no roleplay in either of them. Mass Effect 2 looks much more like a Third Person Shooter with extra dialogue sequences, and Torchlight is a good old Hack & Slash.

While the roleplay itself from PnP games can hardly be translated on the computer, a video game can offer a somewhat close experience. It’s all in its ability to let the player make choices.

A game could include different ways to play the game : as a diplomat with no combat skills, a heavy handed brute, a skilled rogue, a scientist, a mentally challenged person, etc… A good RPG will allow the player to win the game with any of the ways he can choose, as a good GM would by adapting his story and encounters to the character/party. A bad one will enforce choices on the player, and punish him by making the game harder or downright impossible (Oblivion…) if he doesn’t make the right ones.

Another way to approach the PnP experience is by making the player impact on the world. Of course, in PnP games players can do whatever they want, but in video games you can at least give them a few meaningful options. By meaningful options, I mean choices that actually carry consequences other than the tone used by your character, and most importantly consequences you can feel. Provide alternatives to every quest path and don’t let any single person be irreplaceable.

Of course, this makes a story very hard to tell as you can’t predict each and every path a player can take, but most of the fun in PnP usually isn’t in the storytelling, but in trying to ruin your GM’s carefully laid plan ;). I like game that let me ruin the story. Even better if it can somehow fall back on its feet by providing a cleverly thought alternative. I think games today try to be too dramatic and make you follow narrow story paths. They’re trying to be more like interactive movies and less like games. Not that it’s not entertaining, but they’re not RPGs.

I remembered playing pen-and-paper games during my primary school education (not sure what the US equivalent is, was from 6 to 12 years of age) in the late 80s and early 90s. We had our own created rule system and when we get bored, someone simply took the reigns and created their own system. I even tried to be the game master at one time, but I remember my version of the game had a lot of combat. Used one of those notebooks which had squares instead of lines.

Was a pretty awesome time. Wish I could play some PnP game now, with a “proper” ruleset and a “proper” game master.

This interview with Vince Weller, head honcho of Iron Tower Studios making Age Of Decadence definted RPG as “freedom to do whatever you want within the boundaries of a storyline” in an interview with RPS, and I kinda agree with that. Of course, in CRPGs, freedom is somewhat subjective as there are so many constraints.

I guess CRPGs are a subset of RPGs, and games such as Mass Effect 2 or Torchlight, are further subsets within the CRPG group.

Reading about your rant now makes me want to fire one up. Hmm…