Your first RPG?

[Vehek]

The definition of the RPG genre, as well as the definition of adventure games, can be rather disputed.

Is an RPG game one where you take on a role, one which involves calculation for damage and other results, or only ones more like the table-top RPG genre where you control the character's personality and actions completely, and so affect the storyline?

Is an adventure game one where you somewhat literally go on an adventure, or does it also need to have puzzles (such as text adventure or point-and-click adventures)?

[KebreI]

I lean define it as a game where you take on the role of someone, and through out the game you grow and change. That doesn't mean numbers and calculations though, so LOZ and CT do fit for me, but game like Monkey Island or Halo don't quite fit.

[Lord J Esq]

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past was my first RPG. Or, if we're excluding RPGs that don't have rigorous leveling systems (which seems like a silly criterion of exclusion)

While I agree that a leveling system is poor criteria for RPGs, what would you consider to be the defining element?

Could we consider Metroid to be an RPG? One does, after all, take on the role of Samus as she explores an alien world, very similar in mechanics to what Link goes through in that classic SNES game. Or if social interactions are necessary, then would Metroid Fusion count, given that it is very similar in basic design to the earlier Zelda games? What about Harvest Moon? Is it an RPG or a farming simulator (or do those even have to be separate genres)?

Heh. Leave it to you to ask. I was wondering, actually, if you would. It's a good question. I offer the obligatory disclaimer is that there is no widely-agreed upon, highly-specific definition of an RPG (especially as pertains to video games). The term flourishes in the absence of other, more dominant genre qualifiers. Zelda, for instance, is sometimes disqualified from being an RPG because of its supposed "adventure" aspect, which is just as silly as disqualifying it on the grounds that it lacks a rigorous leveling system. (Zelda, by the way, does have a leveling system, in that Link can typically grow in sword power, armor power, magic power, storage power, etc. It's simply not as rigorous as a system as that of, say, Chrono Trigger.) Metroid is rarely classified as an RPG for the same reasons: With the classic games (and Fusion) you'll hear genre words like "action," "puzzle," and "platform," and with the Prime trilogy of course there was the "shooter" angle. Tiger Woods Golf is thought of as a sports genre game. Blah, blah, blah. You get the point. The conventional wisdom seems to be that games are not RPGs when they can be put into other genres instead.

Disclaimer duly noted, my take is that "roleplaying" is a deceptive term and doesn't conceptually fit as a genre or even a genre group. Most video games which we think of as RPGs are heroic fantasies, set in the fantasy or sci-fi genres, involving an epic plotline, battles with villains and monsters, and a strong component of interaction and exploration. Their genre would more accurately be called...well...not so fast. It turns out that, to come up with a good name, we have some work ahead of us in terms of defining the scope of video game genres generally and of this genre in particular.

Video game genres are, variously, inconsistent, contradictory, overlapping, irrelevant, and unrepresentative. The "puzzle" genre is so named because the point of those games is to solve a puzzle, but "puzzle" tells you extremely little about what a puzzle video game will actually be like when you play it. In contrast, the "platform" genre title tells you right away about something that will be common to the gameplay experience of all platformers: skilled jumping. However, it tells you nothing about what content these games might entail. You can see that the concept of a genre between puzzle and platform games is fundamentally different: The puzzle "genre" refers to conceptual content; the platform "genre" refers to mechanical gameplay.

As a game designer, I find "a game where jumping is the central focus" to be much more useful a description than "a game where solving puzzles is the central focus." If it were up to me, all video game genres would be named at least in part according to their gameplay. The main problem with doing it that way and only that way is that the conceptual and mechanical grouping schemes don't overlap well. A platformer may have content all across the spectrum of literary genres, from comedy to horror. And we see that: The platform genre is probably the biggest of all video game genres, and includes many games that, beyond jumping, have nothing in common. A puzzle game, however, can take countless forms, because a puzzle itself can be almost anything which involves problem-solving. There simply can be no common gameplay element, and so we would get innumerable tiny genres, and people looking for an umbrella term like "puzzle" would be shit outta luck.

For another example, consider the sports genre. Like the puzzle genre, the name "sports" doesn't tell you anything about what the gameplay will be like. However, because the sports genre is modeled on actual sports, the gameplay of sports video games is led along somewhat by the real thing. If I buy a "baseball" game, then, unless the programmers were all smoking weed, I can reasonably imagine what playing the game might entail: There will be an interface for me to swing my bat, catch balls, throw balls, run around, and so forth. "Sports" is therefore a fairly decent genre title, because it not only describes the content, but, by a fluke, it also hints at the gameplay.

The RPG genre is somewhat similar in that regard, but not to the point where the genre title is in any way justifiable on these grounds--which is why I used the sports genre as my lead example of a genre title that captures both content and gameplay in a fairly decent way. In an RPG, the conceptual elements do give you a few hints about what the gameplay might entail...but only a few, and, as you will presently appreciate, these hints are not informative enough to be truly descriptive. I've already told you the conceptual content elements of RPGs. Their main gameplay focus is on tactical combat encounters, which are expressed through "skills" (such as magic or swordplay) whose parameters are defined by a small base of ability statistics which are gradually improved over the course of gameplay. Their secondary gameplay focuses are on menu navigation, dialogue, and travel. Slap a rudimentary currency system on top and you've got almost every RPG there ever was.

I think you can understand now why I wasn't able to simply re-title the RPG genre and be done with it. The sports genre does a fairly good job of capturing both content and gameplay in the name "sports," but most video game genres don't. The RPG genre is one of them. If I were to rename the RPG genre in terms of the gameplay which is common to games now thought of as RPGs, the genre would be blown wide open because the gameplay elements would no longer be confined by the much narrower set of conceptual elements. The fantasy or sci-fi setting is not required at all. The heroic aspect is not required. The exploration-through-travel aspect is not required. The presence of magic or swords or mecha is not required. Currency is not required. What I'm getting at is that, by its emphasis on the content side of the equation, the name "RPG" as a genre title has held the genre to a very narrow domain, much narrower than can be plausibly accommodated by the gameplay.

Would broadening the genre by giving it a gameplay-based title be a good thing, or would people get frustrated when they go to look for heroic fantasies and have to pore over a much larger variety of games?

Let me switch directions for a moment: Consider the RPG and platform genres together. Conceptually, RPGs are remarkably similar to platform and adventure games (hence this remark), in that there is usually a fantastic element and combat is the main focus. Mechanically, however, they are quite distinct: In RPGs the physical movement of the PCs is rudimentary and mostly incidental to gameplay, whereas in platformers it is a primary component. In RPGs the story is well-developed and explicit and the PC action within the game environment (i.e., the player's gameplay) can be described as a process by which the story is unlocked (a premise both challenged by and, in my opinion, reinforced by nonlinear RPGs), whereas in platformers the story is mostly or entirely implied and progress is defined typically by clearing obstacles which are often grouped together into obstacle courses which we call "levels." In RPGs tactical combat involves many possible forms of attack, and the tactical part of it is choosing which attacks to make, whereas in platformers there are typically fewer forms of attack and the tactical element is primarily timing and movement.

On paper, the Metroid series (especially Metroid II, Super Metroid, and Metroid Fushion) comes very close to being in the RPG genre, but when you're actually playing the game it feels very different than benchmark RPGs like Final Fantasy. That's because of the gameplay differences. So, it's good not to call it an RPG inasmuch as, even though it shares many conceptual elements with RPGs, Metroid is an entirely different kind of game mechanically than Zelda is.

The same thing applies to a theoretical retitling of the RPG genre. For better or worse, when people say "RPG" they're talking about stuff like Final Fantasy. The genre is well-understood by example even if it is academically vague in the general case, and, likewise, a market of demand has arisen for these kinds of games. These people would not react well, on average, if their genre were suddenly redefined without their consent.

This leads to the issue of the fragmentation of genres, which could, if left unchecked during a campaign of genre reorganization, cause genres to break down so badly, in the name of preserving niches, that the entire concept of video game genres--which is, at heart, more like a library numbering system than a literary package of themes and devices--could break down in functionality. This is to be avoided, and so while I said that, if it were up to me, I'd give genres more gameplay-oriented titles, it's not up to me: It's up to the gaming community as a whole. And they won't budge. Even I, as an RPG fan, can appreciate the frustration that people might experience if they suddenly had to distinguish between games with similar gameplay but totally dissimilar content.

So! I personally classify Zelda in the RPG genre because it matches most of the elements that I have described here, both conceptual and mechanical. Metroid comes pretty close in content but not in mechanics, and I have actually used the Metroid series in the past to arrive at the perspective which I am now sharing with you, because the similarities are hard to ignore...yet valuable to overrule. Heck, even within the established RPG genre there are still some stalwarts who assert that games like The Secret of Mana are not RPGs because their combat is push-button rather than menu-selected.

One last thing before I offer my final conclusions: As I hinted, the genre has come to be self-defining, which is another problem. We think of certain games, like Final Fantasy, as being RPGs without question, and over time we come to use these benchmark games to judge the "RPG-ness" of other games. I'm sure you can see the trouble with this.

Thus, to put it all together and answer your question, I consider the defining element of that which we think of as an RPG to be, primarily, those gameplay elements which I laid out, and, to a lesser, contextual extent, the content elements I laid out. However, I recognize that the true scope of the RPG genre under these terms is much wider than is presently understood to entail an "RPG." Lastly, I don't like the actual name "RPG" and I would rather we called it, oh, let's say, the "heroic fantasy" arm of the "menu management" genre. Heh.

[ONSLAUGHT]

Well, going by that or not, I can't remember which one but I know A Final Fantasy was my first.

Let's see, first game MM2, so it was after that...FF2 or 3(technically IV or VI). But I believe it was FFIV. I could be wrong but I think that's it.
I know afterward I actually bothered to look up the previous entries(unlike most who saw FFVII N64 games with 64 in their title and for some reason assumed it was just a name like Fantastic Four not once considering there may have been games before it).

[tripehound]

Depending on how one defines the RPG genre, it would probably be either King's Quest I (DOS) or the original Legend of Zelda (NES) for me.

My first jRPG, as they're largely recognized nowadays, was Final Fantasy I.

Gawd, that was a long time ago. I feel old.  

[Thought]

The history of video games would be a very interesting thing to research, though I've only read a few articles about it myself. It is particular interesting since it can reveal that RPGs do have (or, more exactly, did have) some unique elements to them. They evolved out of war games, which is where the concepts of experience points, HP (and in turn MP), gil/GP, and levels grew out of. Thus, these things used to be the defining elements of an RPG. If "platformer" tells you that you're going to be jumping you some platforms, back in the day "RPG" would tell you that you're going to be grinding you some levels.

When video game technology began to advance enough that story could be added to a game, RPGs were the perfect target. They were already focused on simulation (which benefits a story) and they clearly distinguished between "encounters" and "not-encounters" (that latter being more easily developed into non-combat encounters, aka, story). Story across the board developed as gaming technology developed, but RPGs were often the vanguard of this. Thus, story became to be associated with the genre itself. Curiously, as this change happened, we are more willing to discard the old RPG mechanisms in favor of story, which blurs the line between genres. Many modern indie-rpgs do this. At the same time, the implementation of a leveling system and stats can turn something into an rpg-esq game. Because RPG elements were born out of war simulations, as other genre's take on more simulation qualities, those qualities are likely to overlap with those of RPGs (sports games in particular).

What makes Zelda an RPG? Foremost, I would argue the story, by means of confusion. Many zelda games have a great story, and in some people's minds that equals RPG. Certainly the original is generally seen as more divorced from RPGs than latter installments, even though the leveling system you noted, Josh, was present there. Those components are not central, though, which makes them a dubious criterion to base a call on. Link can almost always not level up and still face late-game foes, an ability not present in many more traditional RPGs. These elements are, however, enough to justify a tangential identification. A Link to the Past, however, has more in common with Adventure Island or Tetris than the truly old-school RPGs, thus giving the opposition ample footing as well.

And speaking of tangential, despite the trend to focus on story over mechanics, Morrowind is more of an RPG than any Final Fantasy game that preceded it (and that have so far come after).

[Lord J Esq]

First, a quibble: You say "story" when you mean "plot." Despite its popular misuse by the teeming millions, story is almost entirely a product of the player, not an aspect of the game itself. It exists when and if the player perceives it. I've gotten great stories out of games like Super Metroid (which has but one character and not even one line of dialogue in the whole game), and, lest you think that I was prejudiced by that dramatic opening monologue, even Metroid II had that same eerie story to tell. I've gotten stories out of games like Super Mario World, Paperboy, SimCity, and even Tetris--which has no characters at all other than the falling blocks themselves. The L-Shaped Block even won the GameFAQs character of the year contest once upon a time, at which point I declared it the Supreme Villain of the Universe (because it's the chiral opposite of the J-Shaped Block). In the same spirit, I've always had a hard time getting into MMORPGs because there's so much homogeneity within and between these games, and homogeneity kills story for me. Plot, meanwhile, refers to the organized dramatic narrative which you meant by "story."

Now, an aside: I would disagree with you that ALttP has more in common with Tetris than with, say, Final Fantasy I. However, since I'm not sure what brought you to say that--is it because ALttP involves spatial puzzle-solving as one device for dungeon progress?--I'd better ask you what you were getting at by that comparison. Perhaps I have overlooked a good point of view.

Lastly, the main point: I don't seem to have a good idea of what you consider the definitive mark of an RPG. You don't seem to agree with my emphasis on mechanical gameplay, but you also don't seem to accept the conceptual aspect either, which suggests that your view on the subject is so different as to be inexpressible in the language of my own characterization. If components like leveling up and a strong plot are "not central" to an RPG, then what, in your view, is?

[Thought]

First, a quibble: You say "story" when you mean "plot."

Nope, I meant story. Now I might have been un-academic and vulgar and possibly even incorrect in my use of the word -- and therefore potentially misleading -- but that is a different matter entirely.

Now, an aside: I would disagree with you that ALttP has more in common with Tetris than with, say, Final Fantasy I.

Ah, but I did not say that ALttP had more in common with Tetris than FFI; such a game is too recent for my comments. FFI already made significant moves towards narrativistic goals compared to older RPGs. Combat, though still heavily important to the game, was no longer the focus of the gaming experience as it had been when the genre was still developing.

And yes, the puzzle solving and different colored blocks caused the similarity. Link often had to line up blocks to clear a level.

Lack of grinding is what separated ALttP from, say, Wizardry.

Lastly, the main point: I don't seem to have a good idea of what you consider the definitive mark of an RPG.

Oh how I would academically define an RPG isn't very useful for this topic, since very few video games would meet such a criteria (which isn't a bad thing in the least! They're probably better for it)

But as for your criteria, well, I reject them because they are of limited use and need qualifiers.

Mechanical gameplay (I will here define as including the elements of HP, EXP, Levels, Stats, etc, and specifically advancement in those) was indeed a good criteria of an RPG in the early days of the genre, but that has declined in importance over the last 20ish years.

In turn, the conceptual aspect (I will here define as the narrativistic elements of the genre) is a better criteria for modern installments in the genre, but is far less useful for historical specimens.

Thus I reject because unless one identifies the era one is talking about, they risk being anachronistic. This means that ALttP could be considered an RPG from a more modern perspective or it could be rejected as an RPG from a more historical perspective. Both are valid (but because I'm biased, the historical perspective is more valid).

Though, to be fair, I wasn't entirely clear on your definition of these two terms, as they seemed to be largely one in the same as you addressed them.

...

I might actually argue that a lot of modern "RPGs" have so focused on the conceptual aspect that they are really breaking ground in what could develop into a new genre, a sort of highly interactive movie-esq experience. The DMC games certainly can produce combat situations that are reminiscent of the more over-the-top actions movies, but they provide the player with a means of manipulating that combat. In turn, particularly in the beginning, FFX was largely movement between plot points. Mix and balance the elements of these games a little more and you'll have a movie-like experience on par with the quality of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.

[alfadorredux]

As far as I'm concerned, there are two attributes that distinguish RPGs from other games, and they
both have to do with the gameplay. So to me, an RPG is a game involving combat and exploration that
also possesses both of the following characteristics:

1. Context switching--Exploration and combat take place in different modes. The player
cannot enter combat commands while just wandering around the map: he can only do so when in a
combat context.

2. Non-realtime combat--The game waits for the player to input at least some subset of
the available combat commands, instead of requiring that all fighting be done in realtime.
(Since my real life Speed stat sucks, this one is important to me, and I consider the labelling
of any game not meeting this requirement as an RPG to be highly deceptive.)

As far as I can tell, those two are the minimal set, sufficient to differentiate an RPG from a
Roguelike on the one hand, and from an adventure game like the Zelda series on the other (no, I
don't consider those sorts of games RPGs). The majority of RPGs have other attributes in common,
but they're all shared with other genres, and furthermore not all RPGs have them. Take complex
levelling, for instance--many Roguelikes have very RPG-like levelling systems, but I don't think
anyone would ever mistake, say, Dungeon Crawl for an RPG. By contrast, character stats and
abilities in the strategy RPG Vandal Hearts II are mostly determined by equipment. Story and
setting, if used as criteria, likewise omit some games that are clearly RPGs while drawing in
other games that don't fit.

(I should probably note that I consider MMORPGs not to be RPGs, and think that computer games
such as Baldur's Gate, which lack the context-switching attribute, deserve their own top-level
category separate from RPGs, as they provide a very different player experience.)

[Lord J Esq]

Nope, I meant story. Now I might have been un-academic and vulgar and possibly even incorrect in my use of the word -- and therefore potentially misleading -- but that is a different matter entirely.

Heh. What an odd move. People often mean one thing and then use other words to communicate it. Non-denotative meaning as it comes from the speaker isn't actually contained in the words themselves, but in the speaker's intent. You know this, which is partly why you allowed that your usage was potentially incorrect. By what you said in your earlier post, you were clearly talking about plot. That the word "story" is so often vulgarized to be synonymous with the narrative by which a story is or can be expressed merely demonstrates the persistence of communication even amid the serious lack of thought which people put into their word choices--a failing I am confident you take care to avoid. What makes your reply so odd, however, has little to do with all of that. It is how you allowed yourself the possibility of being wrong but phrased yourself not only to actually avoid such a concession but to preempt being pressed on it further. I like your sense of humor!

Ah, but I did not say that ALttP had more in common with Tetris than FFI; such a game is too recent for my comments. FFI already made significant moves towards narrativistic goals compared to older RPGs.

I will admit that I am not the world's foremost expert on early-era video game RPGs, but I have to question how FFI could be excluded from their number. For that 22-year-old game to be too "recent" to satisfy your comparison implies that, for your purposes, what you would call a "historical" video game RPG would have to be one of the handful that were published on any platform in the five to ten years prior to FFI. You're right that the NES was a step up in hardware power from its predecessors (although not necessarily from the PCs of the day), but you are mistaken or at least bemusingly arbitrary to determine that FFI had too much of a narrative to qualify it for historical status, given the nonzero narrative aspect of its predecessors and the only slightly greater nonzero narrative aspect of FFI itself. I suppose it isn't important to belabor the point, because I could pick another game that would better satisfy your view of what constitutes a historical RPG, and then use that for the comparison with Tetris via ALttP. But you know how I like to be feisty, and I don't see a good reason to disqualify FFI from standing for the comparison. Bright colors and non-combat excursions aside, the vast majority of the game was a dungeon crawl. The vast majority of PC commands were combat-related. The vast majority of command executions were combat-related.

Combat, though still heavily important to the game, was no longer the focus of the gaming experience as it had been when the genre was still developing.

Combat was the single most significant aspect of all RPGs at least through the Playstation era, and continues to be one of the most significant if not the most significant aspect of RPGs to this day. When Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross came out, both games were built around battle. FFX, which you describe largely as "movement between plot points," was nevertheless a combat-centric game during which the player spent more time in combat than out of it (due in part, I will grant, to the egregiously long time spent on battle animations and summons in particular). On this point you are unambiguously wrong. RPGs have had a terrible time getting away from the primacy of combat, and so far the only successes have been with independent games.

This leads me to a quibble: I think you are mistaken that the RPG genre had matured by the advent of FFI. I see it as almost exactly the other way around: FFI helped to establish that there actually was a genre here, rather than a small collection of unclassifiable games. Perhaps this is what you were trying to point out, but if so then you would have to be of the dubious opinion that a genre cannot develop over time and must remain fixed to whatever it is established to be when it is first recognized as such. If that is indeed your position, it would explain why you suggested later in your post that you don't properly consider many newer RPGs to be RPGs, and instead classify them as a separate, emerging genre. I am curious as to whether you would personally group middle-era games like FFVI and Chrono Trigger as RPGs or as "new genre" games.

And yes, the puzzle solving and different colored blocks caused the similarity. Link often had to line up blocks to clear a level.

I see. So your point is that combat in ALttP is not the sole source of dungeon progress, even if it is the major one. I agree, and it is an interesting distinction from the "mainline" RPGs. That is what people are getting at when they use the "adventure" qualifier: The virtual environment in ALttP is much more interactive than it is in most RPGs of the era. I suppose our difference of opinion here is that you see it as grounds to put the game in another genre, whereas I see it as within the parameters of the RPG genre. Fair enough.

Lack of grinding is what separated ALttP from, say, Wizardry.

Grinding is not limited to levels. I spent a lot of time in that game grinding money to buy potions and items, and to upgrade my quiver and my...er...bomb sack. (TSA would have a field day...)

Oh how I would academically define an RPG isn't very useful for this topic, since very few video games would meet such a criteria (which isn't a bad thing in the least! They're probably better for it)

You're a chicken, Thought.  

It is good to be critical. I think our exchange has helped me to better understand the issue. However, you do us both a disservice by not coming up with your own point of view, a point of view rigorous enough to either define the RPG genre so as to defensibly accommodate most or all of the games in question, or else to define multiple genres to accomplish the same.

But as for your criteria, well, I reject them because they are of limited use and need qualifiers.

Mechanical gameplay (I will here define as including the elements of HP, EXP, Levels, Stats, etc, and specifically advancement in those) was indeed a good criteria of an RPG in the early days of the genre, but that has declined in importance over the last 20ish years.

In turn, the conceptual aspect (I will here define as the narrativistic elements of the genre) is a better criteria for modern installments in the genre, but is far less useful for historical specimens.

I think you failed to understand the concept. All video games, in any genre, on any platform, have these two dimensions: mechanics and content. Mechanics, i.e., "gameplay," concern the interface between user and game. How and what input the user is able to supply is perhaps the core of game design. Video games are interactive in a way that books and television programs are not, because there is a process of input and output during which a user's interests are judged by something other than the user (and objectively, I might add). Gameplay is just as important now as it was ten years ago or thirty years ago, because there is no such thing as a video game without these mechanics. I have come to this issue, of what constitutes an RPG, from the viewpoint not only of a game player, but that of a game designer and theorist. To me, the key unifying element in RPGs is how the user is able to play the game. I listed the common gameplay elements:

Their main gameplay focus is on tactical combat encounters, which are expressed through "skills" (such as magic or swordplay) whose parameters are defined by a small base of ability statistics which are gradually improved over the course of gameplay. Their secondary gameplay focuses are on menu navigation, dialogue, and travel. Slap a rudimentary currency system on top and you've got almost every RPG there ever was.

That accommodates games as diverse as Final Fantasy I, A Link to the Past, Final Fantasy VI, The Secret of Mana, The Ocarina of Time, and Final Fantasy X, but excludes games like Super Metroid and Radical Dreamers by a narrow margin, games like Monkey Island by a modest margin, and games like Tetris and SimCity by a wide margin. I wrote my list on the spot, so it may not be all-inclusive, but it is a pretty good list if I may say so. There aren't many other types of inputs for these games.

Similarly, the content aspect of a video game is as important now as it was in the past. They are, if I may be cheeky, the "video" in video games. People are not content to press buttons. They need some feedback...even if that feedback is as primitive as a game like Minesweeper. All content is built around concepts of engagement by which the user's attention is attracted and held. I also listed the common conceptual elements of RPGs:

Most video games which we think of as RPGs are heroic fantasies, set in the fantasy or sci-fi genres, involving an epic plotline, battles with villains and monsters, and a strong component of interaction and exploration.

This encompasses even the earliest RPGs. Granted, with a game like FFI there was less substance for plot, interaction, and exploration, but all three elements were there. The reason that I gave for not-as-strongly emphasizing these conceptual elements as determiners of whether a game belongs to the RPG genre is that they are much more restrictive than they look. There are many potential games out there which would satisfy the gameplay elements an RPG but not the conceptual elements. We see this in indie games like Uboa's Yume Nikki--a game which is popularly classified as an adventure game and conceivably the prototype of a new genre, yet has many of the same mechanics as an RPG. Heck, it was even produced in RPG Maker 2003. Me...I would call it a roleplaying game, and I would have little standing to do so if I had gone by the conceptual elements.

To satisfy the masses, I would propose reorganizing the RPG as a transgenre and opening up speculation at the genre level. (This I assert on the basis of my experience in virtual world theory; the RPG just so happens to be shaping up as the genre of choice for MMOs by virtue of its being the first video game genre to undertake expansive environmental simulations.) But now I digress, so I'll leave it at this.

~~~
P.S. As I was typing this, alfadorredux came along and provided an example of the stalwarts I mentioned earlier, who would exclude games like The Secret of Mana from RPG status because their combat is push-button rather than menu-driven. He didn't phrase it quite as such, but his emphasis on the term "real-time" is incorrect, as many menu-based RPGs (even as far back as Chrono Trigger!) have a real-time pacing. This is an example of the internal friction resulting from the largeness of the RPG genre...and in my opinion makes an argument in favor of my plan to reorganize the RPG as a transgenre.

[Thought]

1. Context switching--Exploration and combat take place in different modes. The player
cannot enter combat commands while just wandering around the map: he can only do so when in a combat context.

Well just call me Complains-of-Names, but why? What purpose does such a restriction serve, other than that is how things have been done in the past?

2. Non-realtime combat--The game waits for the player to input at least some subset of
the available combat commands, instead of requiring that all fighting be done in realtime.

See my question above.

Amusingly, X-Com: Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense fits the bill as an RPG, under your criteria, though it is usually classified as a turn-based tactical game. Also amusing is that all LARPs would be excluded.

I will admit that I am not the world's foremost expert on early-era video game RPGs, but I have to question how FFI could be excluded from their number.

FFI was a 3rd generation console game. Of course, that can't be a totally rigid consideration, since there were 3rd generation console games that really belongs to the 2nd generation way of doing things. But FFI was definitely of a separate cast.

Bright colors and non-combat excursions aside, the vast majority of the game was a dungeon crawl. The vast majority of PC commands were combat-related. The vast majority of command executions were combat-related.

Very true, but in the earlier "historic" games that I have played, story was front loaded (often communicated primarily in the manual), with a little bit at the end if you were lucky, and a smattering in the middle if it was utterly amazing. FFI, however, had that lovely narrative when the party crosses the newly construction Cornerian Bridge (the official name of course being "King Steve's Kick Ass Bridge") and the ending narrative as well. Such things marked it off from the older generation.

Combat was the single most significant aspect of all RPGs at least through the Playstation era, and continues to be one of the most significant if not the most significant aspect of RPGs to this day.

Combat is a delicious element of the genre, and often it takes up the largest amount of game play, but it is unnecessary. Random encounters of random "monsters" are old hat; while I doubt they'll be eradicated, I do predict that we'll see increasing numbers of video games where there is no random mass killings of "rabites," "imps," or what have you. Games will develop in which encounters are more selective. Indeed, we will even see some RPGs in which there is no random horde of baddies but each battle is a precise brick in the construction of the larger narrative.

It is... their destiny.

Combat is fun, but it doesn't make the genre. Can’t we imagine an RPG in which no combat happens?

RPGs have had a terrible time getting away from the primacy of combat, and so far the only successes have been with independent games.

I wonders, precious, why do the tricksy non-independent games keep trying?

It is almost like there is a driving force in the genre that keeps pushing "non-independent" games to try to find meaning for combat beyond math…

It is good to be critical. I think our exchange has helped me to better understand the issue. However, you do us both a disservice by not coming up with your own point of view, a point of view rigorous enough to either define the RPG genre so as to defensibly accommodate most or all of the games in question, or else to define multiple genres to accomplish the same.

Well if you want to get into this, I can oblige, but as I said, it isn't very useful for video game discussion.

An "RPG" is right there in the name; it isn't about swords and sorcery or levels and menus, it is about putting on a role as one might put on a garment and acting as such. ALttP isn't an RPG because one doesn't take on the role of Link, one merely controls Link. The two remain separate entities. The game, while it allows for a very small degree of independent determination, is quite linear; it doesn't really allow for the player to define their character as they choose. It provides a definition that the player can pick up, but there is almost no player control in the "story" that the game tells.

Contrast that to Morrowind. The player largely creates the character, with the exception that all PCs must have been imperial prisoners sent to Morrowind. That's it. The player can choose to follow what quests they desire, they are free to choose how they will achieve the majority of those quests (combat-free is a legitimate way to go). There still isn't an ideal amount of control, but for a video game, it is rather amazing.

So what I would point to as the defining element of an RPG is the player-as-character having "teller" level control over the story.

Combat is very nice, but at the end of the day that is just simulation, little different than the war-games RPGs grew out of. Exp, Gil, Levels, etc, are all very nice as well, but that is just the gamist perspective that the first fledgling RPGs had. Narrativistic concerns, however, are the component that, when added to the others, set the genre apart from what it grew out of.

But as I said, that isn't a very useful definition for this discussion as even Chrono Trigger would be largely rejected (though the silent protagonist and multiple endings could be said to be a nod to the genre as I have here defined it).

Gameplay is just as important now as it was ten years ago or thirty years ago, because there is no such thing as a video game without these mechanics.

True, but it isn't as important as you might think. A horror story is a horror story regardless of if it is bound, loose leaf, on a scroll, read aloud to you, read silently by you, or communicated directly through telepathy. Gameplay is just how the story is communicated. There might be specific structures, such as in the Romance genre, but if one has a new medium, the genre can transfer with ease.

To me, the key unifying element in RPGs is how the user is able to play the game.

And that is where we are largely disagreeing. How the user is able to play is far less important to me than why the user wants to play. All you did was list the stock plot devices that get employed to attack the "why." It is like you claimed that what makes science fiction is "Faster than light travel," "Aliens," "the future," and "outer space." Which is a bit of a strawman, but I think it conveys my meaning.

... but excludes games like Super Metroid and Radical Dreamers by a narrow margin, games like Monkey Island by a modest margin, and games like Tetris and SimCity by a wide margin.

Oddly enough, SimCity is terribly close to being an RPG, in my perception. Sure, you are given the role of immortal "Dictator-I-Mean-Mayor," but within those restrictions it allows you to develop any story you could desire. It is lacking a strong foil against which to work, but it isn't that far away. As I noted earlier, RPGs developed from simulation games. Thus, simulators will always be close to RPGs.

[alfadorredux]

Here's a question, then: Why divide games into genres at all? In my opinion, the purpose of slapping
a genre label on a game is to tell the prospective player whether or not he's likely to enjoy it.
Your definitions aren't of much use to me because they don't tell me what I need to know about the
game under consideration. My definition probably seems narrow or silly to you because the information
set I need isn't one that you're interested in.

(I suspect the real definition of RPG is probably rather like a certain classic definition of science
fiction--"It's what you point at when you say 'science fiction'.")

[Truthordeal]

I can't define it, but I know it when I see it.

[GenesisOne]

To answer your question, alfadorredux, a genre simply identifies what type of game you're playing.

Unlike action games, RPGs seldom test a player's physical skill. Combat is typically a tactical challenge rather than a physical one, and games involve other non-action gameplay such as choosing dialog options, inventory management, or buying and selling items. <-- Example Alert!!

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, an action game, uses resource statistics (abbreviated as "stats") to define a wide range of attributes including stamina, weapon proficiency, driving, lung capacity, and muscle tone, and uses numerous cutscenes and quests to advance the story.

Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, a real-time strategy game, features heroes that can complete quests, obtain new equipment, and "learn" new abilities as they advance in level.

As for science fiction... well, science fiction is fiction which delves into the potential direction that science (and ultimately humanity as a whole) will take in the future.

That help you at all?

[alfadorredux]

@GenesisOne: No, it doesn't, because I disagree with you pretty much completely. However, I don't know how to explain why without being at least somewhat insulting, and I just don't have the energy to deal with the potential fallout from that right now.