That's true. Not only is the genre complicated to label but it seems like the special status that they had in the mid-1990s, where everyone thought you were superhuman if you played RPGs, has never really gone away.Originally Posted by Gabriel
Another problem though is that people are always inclined to put their own subjective views as part of the definition, views that don't work and cause open contradictions in both the definer's and the audience's intended views on RPGs.
For example, from this very topic I've seen people say that RPGs:
* Must be top-view (guess FF7 is only an RPG half the time)
* Must have a menu-based combat system (that removes Eye of the Beholder, Stonekeep, and the PC-based Ultima games)
* Must have a storyline "serves more purpose than just being a frame for the action" (that removes pretty much everything made before 1989)
This debate and the constant references to stats reminded me of an article I once posted back when I was a member of RPGFan. It kinda jives with what carlcarlson was saying. I'm gonna reproduce it wholesale here:
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Hope no one minds my random act of Necromancy, but I was just doing a late-night ramble on RPGs for an upcoming page and this was a part of it. And I'm kinda-half asleep so I hope this is coherent.
You know what? I think I figured it out.
RPGs should be called S&E (Statistic and Exploration) games.
All through writing this article I've been thinking of the question "What exactly defines an RPG?" and I realized it that, whether you're talking about PCs, Consoles, or pen n' paper, the common denominator is statistics.
But its not just that they're there, no. It's also a matter of degree. Like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. It has statistics, but your ability to beat the big bad monster has more to do with your hand dexterity than with Alucard's stats. In fact the best way to show my point is to point out an RPG with a real-time combat system: The Elder Scrolls: Arena. It's real time--no seperate battle scenes, you just use a button and the mouse to attack, sort of like a first-person shooter, however in a first-person shooter a hit is detected when sprites collide and Gun A always does # damage, in Arena hits are detected by offscreen die rollls independent of your physical distance and relevant only to your characters statistics, and damage too is calculated by a die roll which is based on statistics. That's why Castlevania: SOTN is not an RPG yet Elder Scrolls: Arena is. And that goes for any RPG across any system. I mean, try taking on Lavos with just Chrono, Marle, and Lucca, while they're below level fifteen. It can't be done--Lavos vaporizes you in three seconds. Because the game is stat-dependent.
But video games shouldn't really be called RPGs, because you're not really role-playing. Okay so you kinda are, but mostly to the same extent that you are in say Mario. So really all video games are RPGs. So why should only one subset of games get that moniker? I again say we should call them Statistic & Exploration games (or maybe even make two monikers--S&E for the more open-ended titles, and "Statistic & Storyline" for the more story-intensive games)
I should really go to bed.
[Looking at it again, Secret of Mana is also a good example in favor of this arguement--no matter how fast your hand dexterity is, its statistics and offscreen die rolls that determine things like whether you land a hit or are blocked and how much damage you do and you can't exactly step out of the way of upcoming attacks. Basically I'm saying an RPG is a game where much of the outcome of conflict situations depends on statistics and die rolls as opposed to the player's reflexes. Anyone think I may be onto something here?)
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[Original post on the second page of this topic]
Course, the problem with the above is that if RPGs are now going to be called S&Es, then Zelda is now an A&E. And nobody watches that channel for fantasy elf stuff.
Errr, Oblivion is Elder Scrolls *Four*Elder Scrolls III: Oblivion
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