What's an RPG? (Long article illiterates need not apply)

[j_factor]

I don't have any objection with asking the question if Wizardry should be a RPG. I just don't find the argument to remove it from the genre a compelling one. It's like if we suddenly reclassified platformers to exclude Super Mario Bros; we'd need a pretty good reason.

I'm having to bend over backwards because of my story requirement. Is there any reason you feel Wizardry should be excluded other than not meeting your non-player character requirement?

Hmm. I'm not sure how best to explain it, but I've never really thought of dungeon crawlers as RPGs. I usually think of RPGs as games that have dungeon crawling in them -- if dungeon crawling is the entire game, it's not an RPG. I'm not sure if I could say as a hard and fast rule that all RPGs must be divided into dungeons and towns, but that is certainly the epitome.

Tangetically, you mention Ancient Art of War as not being a RTS. I honestly had never thought of that game's categorization. I used to play Ancient Art of War at Sea quite a bit on a friend's Tandy. It occurs to me that AAoWaS shares many qualities with Starfleet Command and Star Trek: Tactical Assault. Would SFC also fail to qualify as a RTS? I suppose you could categorize the games as a different breed of simulator. I guess the old Apple game Broadsides would be in the same boat (pun intended).

We have enough points to keep us busy for a while, but that little bit caught my eye.

Unfortunately, this is where I break down, as I've not played Starfleet Command or Star Trek: Tactical Assault. I suppose I need to educate myself on more hoary old PC games.

I definitely don't disagree. I'd prefer to be able to list much harder rules.

We (or maybe just me) seem to be focusing a lot on the idea of statistics versus action oriented play. But what about storyline? I'm sure we can all agree that storyline is a key element of an RPG, but nowadays all games have storylines. How is the storyline of Fire Emblem different from that of Gradius V. Both are linear. Both have little bearing on their game. I think everyone will agree that a RPG MUST have a story, but how does that little element on the checklist work?

Storyline is a good one. We could perhaps say that to be an RPG, it must have a plot that has a beginning, middle, and end. We'll put that as a tentative requirement for now. I'm sure someone will list a bunch of ridiculously old DOS games that they insist are RPGs, that only had a story inasmuch as they had a paragraph of backstory in the manual and a "Congratulations!" screen at the end. In all seriousness, maybe such games really should not be considered RPGs.

I know there are arcadeish dungeon crawlers, so not all dungeon crawlers are RPGs. I don't know anything about Nethack. As for Adventure, regardless of whether you're talking about Adventure in the Collossal Cave or the 2600 game, neither are RPGs. The 2600 game is pure action with no leveling up or other statistical elements. There are no shops, non-player characters, or any of the other associated things to relate to RPGs. Adventure in the Collossal Cave also lacks all of the same things despite it being turn based.

Speaking of games like the Adventures, Zorks, and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Cloudy Mountain, I'd use your "proto-RPG" label to apply to them. They clearly aren't RPGs, but they're certainly leaning that way.

All fair enough.

This has been a very interesting discussion, but now I feel like I'm running out of points to make. I hereby forfeit the title of "Anthony1 Jr."

One possibility I'll throw out there. Maybe we shouldn't think of "RPG" as a genre anymore. Maybe we should think of action-RPG, strategy-RPG, "Japanese" RPG, etc. all as separate genres, with some common elements. Or maybe we should only be talking about "RPG elements" and completely disavow there being such a thing as an RPG. The only problem with that is coming up with a name for the type of game that Final Fantasy, Phantasy Star, et al are. Just food for thought!