[Euchrid]

^^Firstly, you don't know what an RPG is! Secondly, some people define "action" RPGs as those which rely on player skill for combat actions (eg. UU, TES, VtMB...), not simply those that are combat focused.

[Ellorien]

I kinda agree that all these classifications are mostly pointless outside video game store. If a game can be easily squeezed into a rigid genre format, that's not a good sign.


And no, Ultima Underworld was not an action RPG. It is one of the classic RPG, old school. The first true 3D RPG.

[Vince]

I kinda agree that all these classifications are mostly pointless outside video game store. If a game can be easily squeezed into a rigid genre format, that's not a good sign.

The purpose of game classifications isn't to force developers to follow a certain format, but to understand and analyze genres.

[Gambler]

I think you meat "to understand and analyze games."

[Vince]

I meant genres.

[Ellorien]

Are you saying that "story-driven RPG" and "dungeon-crawler RPG" are two different genres?

And what does it mean - analyze genres? What for?

[Vahhabyte]

A great essay Vince. Many precise statements, like about BG2 and SW: KOTOR2.

[Vince]

Are you saying that "story-driven RPG" and "dungeon-crawler RPG" are two different genres?

Yes. Do you disagree? Do you not see the difference between games like the Witcher and KOTOR that are all about the story and games like ToEE, Icewind Dale 2, Dungeon Master 2 ?

And what does it mean - analyze genres? What for?

What a strange question. Why analyze anything? To understand things better.

[Dragatus]

I've been thinking about what makes an RPG and thought I'd share my thoughts.

Most games let you play a role, but what makes RPGs different from other games is that they let you choose what kind of role you are playing. The core gameplay element of an RPG is that it allows you to customize the protagonist you are playing and this customization influences your gameplay experience. The more you can customize your character and the bigger effect this has on your gameplay experience, the better the game is as an RPG.

There are generally two ways in which you can customize a character. The first thing you can customize are the character's tangible aspects. Things like core attributes, class, race, skills, abilities, and so forth. Stuff you see when you open the character screen. And then there are the character's intangible aspects such as attitude, morality, and choices on what to say and do in general. Sometimes the distinction between tangible and intangible aspects can get blurry (D&D alignment, KOTOR's Light & Dark Side points, AoD reputation) but for the most part the two categories should serve us well.

It can also be interesting to examine certain game mechanics in light of this definition. For example, the party mechanics that Bioware is so fond of works against the RPG value of their games. If you have a full party of 3-6 characters and they're all under the player's direct control it makes customizing the main character's tangible aspects much less meaningful. In such a game the difference between playing a warrior and playing a rogue is not that a warrior gets combat gameplay while a rogue gets stealth gameplay. There usually isn't even any stealth gameplay to begin with (because that would require the entire party to be composed of nothing but rogues or illusionists). The acctual difference is therefore reduced to little more than which NPCs you'll be draging around. Now of course there are ways to reduce this effect. BG2 did have class specific strongholds, Dragon Age has a series of quests that are only available if you put a point into your Stealing skill, and so forth. But the biggest chunk of gameplay will still be designed with a full party in mind.

Player skill vs character skill should be obvious. The more important character skill is, the better an RPG the game is. What is more interesting is when you consider this question in relation to 1st and 3rd person view and real time vs turn based combat. I feel that in a 1st person game the player and the character are one, while in 3rd person the player acts more like an outside observer and guiding force. "Over the shoulder" 3rd person falls somewhere inbetween, but closer to 1st person. At least that's how I experience it. As such 1st person view works best if the game largely depends on player skill, while 3rd person view can work just as well or better if the game relies on character skill. And since we've already established that games that depend on character skill are better RPGs we can conclude that 3rd person view is better suited to an RPG than 1st person view.

Alright, I admit that 1st person combat can be based on character skill. But this is too often done by making weapon damage skill based and that just doesn't feel right to me. If I hit an enemy in the head with large piece of sharp metal this should have dire consequences for said enemy, regardless of how unskilled I am at wielding said large piece of sharp metal. Character skill could however influence how fast I can wield the piece of metal and so forth. So let me correct my previous statement. It's not so much that 1st person is bad for RPGs as it is simply easier to make a 3rd person RPG (just use good old random hit percentages and you're good to go).

As for real time vs turn based combat, 1st person I find works best with real time (although to be honest I haven't played any turn based 1st person games so this might be just my ignorance talking ) while 3rd person can use both but I personally prefer it to use TB combat. Especially in games where characters have abilities that need to be activated (such as magic spells).

Alright, that's about as far as I've come with my thoughts on the matter. Thoughts?

[Ellorien]

Are you saying that "story-driven RPG" and "dungeon-crawler RPG" are two different genres?

Yes. Do you disagree? Do you not see the difference between games like the Witcher and KOTOR that are all about the story and games like ToEE, Icewind Dale 2, Dungeon Master 2 ?

Most certainly disagree. RPG is a videogame genre, as opposed to shooter. Each category is broad and there are hybrids.
The loose definitions (RPG, strategy, action, adventure) serve as guidelines when you make your purchasing decision. Further differentiation is artificial and serves no real purpose.

Let's have a look:

Dungeon Crawler – a game designed by people who think that dungeons are the most awesome aspect in any RPG and the rest is meaningless garbage. These games offer you endless chains of dungeons to explore and loot.

I hope you are not serious. Most RPGs feature "dungeon crawl". Stonekeep, Ultima Underworld, Arx Faralis, Baldur's Gate, Wisardry, Diablo  and Torchlight are in the same bin then? So, no story, no "action", just "explore and loot"?

Story-driven RPG – a game where story is actually important. In fact, it’s so important that anything else, including your freedom of choices, is secondary. When a game starts and you are quickly explained that you are a huge emo who will follow his father/brother/another emo anywhere, odds are you’re playing a story-driven game.

I appreciate your sense of humor but "story-driven RPG" is not a genre. All RPGs (hopefully) have a story. I think it is better to say there are linear and not-so-linear games.

Classic – a game built around meaningful choices, dialogues, and role-playing as described in this article.

No. Classic RPG are the games from the DOS era. Your definition against mine.

What kind of genre is that ("built around meaningful choices, dialogues and RP as described") anyway?

[Wrath of Dagon]

Story driven RPG is where the story takes priority over player choice. I wouldn't consider a completely linear game an RPG as there should be at least some degree of player freedom in an RPG.

[Entropy 0.5]

Most certainly disagree. RPG is a videogame genre, as opposed to shooter. Each category is broad and there are hybrids.
The loose definitions (RPG, strategy, action, adventure) serve as guidelines when you make your purchasing decision. Further differentiation is artificial and serves no real purpose.

I agree that the term (C)RPG is primarily a videogame genre that is used by publishers to promote their games to a target audience and by stores to put a label on their shelves. But to state that "further differentiation is artificial and serves no real purpose" is nonsense (no offense).

Try to compare this to the music market. There is classical music, jazz music, pop music, and so on. Do you really thing there is no purpose to differentiate more sub-genres than that? Of course there is, otherwise music historians wouldn't waste their time with analyzing the differences between music sub-genres and labeling them (yes, analyzing genres makes sense too).

It might perhaps seem that this has no consequences at all for the consumer, but this is not true. Publishers could, in example, make compilations of similar older games and the consumer will benefit because he will know that all games in the compilation are from the same sub-genre. This happens all the time in the music industry. Of course there are more important examples of why analyzing games and classifying them is important: psychology ("why does someone like a genre and why not?"), history ("when did a genre start?"; "when did it end?"), sociology ("what kind of people like the same genre?"), ...

[catmorbid]

The music analogy is perfect.

Basically, a sub-genre is formed up when a certain representative of a certain form (music, games, etc.) of media (or something else, if you want to apply genre in a more broad sense), stands out among the rest and enough time passes on so that others start copying this form, thus recognizing its validity as something different than the rest. If a certain album or artist is unique, and is not copied, it remains unique. If it it's copied i.e. it becomes popular, then it becomes a sub-genre.

What purpose specified sub-sub-sub-genres have? To those familiar with them, the broad concepts of the subject in question can be roughly determined without further indulge. It's a form of information processing basically, a tool created by humans to better process information and make decisions faster. Not that it's a perfect system, but saying specifying genres is artificial and serving no purpose is just silly.

Sure, you could always refer to music/games/movies/whatever by an example, but in case no one knows your example, your communique is already lost. Genres and sub-genres are generally easier to understand. Though there's a certain limit of depth you can go into, before getting overly complex and reduntant in classifying.

RPG's certainly have place of sub-genres, based on the emphasis put on the different elements usually recognized in all RPG's. I'd say hybrid genres are in fact sub-genres as well, but in this case inheriting the traits of two different "primary" genres. Depends on your point-of-view really, I doubt there's a "right" solution here 

[EleventhHour]

I kinda agree that all these classifications are mostly pointless outside video game store. If a game can be easily squeezed into a rigid genre format, that's not a good sign.

The purpose of game classifications isn't to force developers to follow a certain format, but to understand and analyze genres.

I just thought that the purpose of genres was to keep expectations reasonable.

Saying, "It's a shooter" is a quick way of telling the confused final consumer why features of point-and-click adventures are not included. I see it as a descriptive label that saves a longer explanation.

[Ellorien]

Better late than never.   

Try to compare this to the music market. There is classical music, jazz music, pop music, and so on. Do you really thing there is no purpose to differentiate more sub-genres than that?

Music is not a "genre", it's an art form. Classical music is a genre, so is jazz music etc. Interestingly enough, they themselves subdivide into genres, not sub-genres. For example, symphony is a genre, opera is a genre, Ragtime is a genre, Dixieland is a genre. These genres in turn have sub-genres and sub-sub-genres, yes, but the subdivision is often controversial: how can you pigeonhole art? And most importantly, why? The "why" part has everything to do with the market of course but the "how" part is messy and subjective. Are there always clear boundaries between styles?

Videogames are not an art form (yet). The only thing the music industry and the video game industry have in common is the market.

Video games do have genres -- RPG, FPS, action, adventure games, puzzle games, sports game, tactical wargames, sims etc. and their hybrids, e.g., action RPG or action-adventure. The difference is in gameplay. As a consumer, I want to know what I am buying. If I want a graphic adventure game, I want to make sure it is a graphic adventure game, not a FPS -- we share the same opinion it seems. However, have you ever seen "dungeon-crawler" or "story-driven" printed on a game box? Is "story-driven" the best description of Baldur's Gate 2 one is able to come up with? Is "sand-box" a fitting description of Fallout?

Following the same logic we can define RPG genres as RT and TB or JRPG,  ARPG and ERPG to scratch our personal itch. Or Diablo-likes, Fallout-likes, Oblivion-likes. Also, Bethesda-likes, BioWare-likes, Troika-likes. Or fantasy, space opera, alternative history, western. Or grimdark and rainbowpony.

All this is equally informative when describing a game.

Let me repeat myself: the loose definitions (RPG, strategy, action, adventure) serve as guidelines when you make your purchasing decision. Further differentiation is artificial and serves no real purpose.
If you think there is one, please spell it out for me.