My Attempt to Define RPG's - RPG's aren't actually Games

[Hussar]

Sure you are, RPGs include a lot of materials, adventures not excepted.

But a module is not required to play an RPG. The only thing is a module is, is someone else's game that you choose to play. Again, you're not really playing "D&D" when you play a module. You are playing Tomb of Horrors or Storm King's Thunder.

Until someone actually uses the guidelines of the RPG to create that adventure, there's nothing to really do with an RPG. It's telling that we talk about "campaigns" when we talk about most RPG's. Granted, different RPG's use different labels, but, the general gist is the same - a series of interlocked scenarios propelling some sort of narrative forward - and yes, I realize that that's a very broad brush definition.

Note, I realize my mistake here in saying that RPGs aren't really games. Of course they're games. But, what differentiates them from other games is that the base of an RPG is a game creation engine. You don't really actually directly play an RPG. You use the RPG to create the game that everyone in your group is going to play.

 

[Bedrockgames]

But, the rules of poker specifically tell you to deal the cards. The rules of Monopoly specifically tell you how to set up the board and what each player can do each turn. You don't read the rules of Monopoly or Poker and then set up your own board (although you can) or pull out Uno cards. In order to play those games, the game itself defines the setup.

RPG's do not. The game gives a number of guidelines on how to create a game, but, you cannot actually play D&D without first creating a game.

Which is why discussing RPG's becomes so problematic because no two tables is EVER playing the same game. Except maybe something like Adventurers League, I suppose, but, that's somewhat its own animal.

I'd argue that for non-RPG's, the setup isn't just simple (and, having played games like Advanced Squad Leader, I'd argue that board games =/= simple set ups), but that your initial conditions are dictated by the game itself. There is no game creation in setting up Monopoly. Every single time you play Monopoly, the set up is identical and dictated by the game.

Every single time you play an RPG, the set up is different and the rules don't dictate any initial conditions.

This feels like the D&D is not an RPG argument all over again. There are all kinds of rules in RPGs. There is also flexibility. Just as you deal in poker, you make characters in RPGs. If combat arises, there are rules for that (which varying degrees of constraint and procedure). There is openness, because that is what makes the game work. But that is why a key feature of RPGs is the GM. The GM is a mechanic for handling the stuff you can't possibly think of in advance (or if you could, the stuff you don't want to nail down in advance because the system becomes unwieldy). Also, I am not sure your definition of game is adequate. Many games don't have rules that you read at all for instance. Rules are just one aspect of games, and it isn't required that they be present during each moment and action.

 

[Tony Vargas]

But a module is not required to play an RPG.

The complete game isn't 'required' to play any game, you could always improvise the missing pieces.

Note, I realize my mistake here in saying that RPGs aren't really games. Of course they're games.

Glad we cleared that up.

But, what differentiates them from other games is that the base of an RPG is a game creation engine. You don't really actually directly play an RPG. You use the RPG to create the game that everyone in your group is going to play.

I can't agree with that, because there actually are systems that are explicitly intended as RPG-design toolkits, like Fuzion, or multi-genre systems like GUPRs - and any core system (like BRP or d20 or PbtA or whatever) is essentially a toolkit for creating an RPG. RPGs not intended as such, like D&D, get used as starting point to kitbash something, all the time, especially when they need some fixing up in the first place (you might as well customize it a bit, since you're going to be under the hood, anyway).

 

[Hussar]

I guess I'm trying to equate campaign to game. You play the campaign - whether it's a single one shot adventure, or a ten year long epic. While playing that campaign, you don't play other campaigns (at least not with the same characters typically).

You see it in the language that people use. They're playing Against the Giants. They're playing whatever campaign they happen to be playing.

We use RPG's to create the campaigns which is essentially the game that we play, whether it's some massive dungeon crawl or some high rp court intrigue game. Or combinations thereof. And the campaign that I play is distinct from the campaign you play. Unless we're using the same module, it's virtually impossible for two campaigns to share any points of similarity.

Doesn't that mean, at that point, we're essentially playing different games?

 

[Tony Vargas]

I guess I'm trying to equate campaign to game. You play the campaign - whether it's a single one shot adventure, or a ten year long epic. While playing that campaign, you don't play other campaigns (at least not with the same characters typically).

You see it in the language that people use. They're playing Against the Giants. They're playing whatever campaign they happen to be playing.

I hear "playing D&D" a lot more than "playing against the Giants." (Well, in context, I'm sure I hear "the A's are playing against the Giants" and such all the time, I just don't pay any attention...)

We use RPG's to create the campaigns which is essentially the game that we play, whether it's some massive dungeon crawl or some high rp court intrigue game. Or combinations thereof. And the campaign that I play is distinct from the campaign you play. Unless we're using the same module, it's virtually impossible for two campaigns to share any points of similarity.

Any given instance of playing a game is distinct from any other instance; Pandemic last months at Steve's was distinct from Pandemic last week at Mike's. Campaigns can be quite long and distinctive instances, but they're still instances of playing the game. Same with variations on playing a game. Playing an nWoD campaign is different from playing an oWoD campaign, like playing Settlers of Catan is different from playing Starfarers of Catan.

Doesn't that mean, at that point, we're essentially playing different games?

Different instances certainly, different variations quite possibly...

 

[howandwhy99]

I think it's more applicable to say that improvisation games aren't actually games as they don't including the gaming act within them. Gaming requires the ability to succeed at gaming the game. In other words, there must be an objective inherent within the game design the players can accomplish or fail to accomplish depending upon the actions they take when they manipulate the game design as they seek the game goal(s). In D&D this objective is scoring points like in any other game. The game design manipulated is the hidden design behind the DM screen.

And modules are needed design components, a modular component, which has consequences within the over all game's campaign design. As good modules are pre-balanced they can be more readily added than requiring a DM to design their own balanced module beforehand. Hence the need to save time by buying appropriately design balanced monster, dungeon, and treasure books too.

 

[Umbran]

You don't really actually directly play an RPG.

Oh?

D&D Starter Set. I think we can say it is definitely D&D, an RPG. In the box are the rules, pregenerated characters, an adventure, stats for every monster, every spell, every magic item.

How is this not directly playing the RPG?

 

[Umbran]

Doesn't that mean, at that point, we're essentially playing different games?

We are playing different instances of games, surely. If I am playing poker at one table, and you at another table, we are not playing in the same instance, which we'd colloquially say you are in one game, and I in another game. But, that's us beign vague with language. Different instances, but same game.

But, by and large, if I am playing my D&D game over here, and then I go visit a friend in a different city, and they ask me to play at their table... my character will fit in just fine. I can play their game pretty seemlessly, in the rules sense. It is like, when I took a vacation to Rome, I was in a different setting I knew very little about, but life was still life, right?

Some live action role playing games have this as an aspect - I may play with my local group most of the time, but if I visit another city, I can step into their games, with my current character and even have the XP I earn carry from one to another.

So long as they are inter-operable, in a rules sense, I don't see as they are separate games, really.

 

[Umbran]

I think I can close in on part of the issue here. And maybe some of you have heard me say it before.

When we say that something is a "type of game", what we are really doing is saying it is in a genre.

Thus, trying to define what a role playing game is, is kind of like trying to define what a Mystery novel/movie is.

Genres prove darned hard to define by exclusion. You generally cannot draw hard lines around them, and say with certainty that anything outside that line is *not* a member of the genre. They are much easier to define by inclusion - you have a set of tropes, characteristics, or features. If a particular example has enough of the tropes, and it belongs in the genre. If it has too few, and folks will generally say it isn't in the genre.

Anyone see the movie, "Cowboys & Aliens"? Starring Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford? Very clearly a Western - it had cowboys and all the cowboy stuff. Also very clearly a Sci-fi movie - it had aliens and spaceships and ray guns and stuff. It had enough of the tropes of both to be in both genres.

 

[Hussar]

Oh?

D&D Starter Set. I think we can say it is definitely D&D, an RPG. In the box are the rules, pregenerated characters, an adventure, stats for every monster, every spell, every magic item.

How is this not directly playing the RPG?

Ooo. I hadn't thought of that. Good point. Although, to be fair, the Starter Sets aren't what you generally play more than once with any given group. It's a learning tool. Most groups, I think anyway, will take what they've learned in the Starter Set and then create their own campaigns, and thus, their own game.

We are playing different instances of games, surely. If I am playing poker at one table, and you at another table, we are not playing in the same instance, which we'd colloquially say you are in one game, and I in another game. But, that's us beign vague with language. Different instances, but same game.

Sure, true. But, presuming we're both playing the same variant of poker, there's zero difference in how the game is played. The rules say, deal the cards, go around the table for betting, possibly draw new cards, and then resolve the hand. We don't use the rules for poker to play Catan.

OTOH, we do use the rules for an RPG to play many different games. Even under the same umbrella, say, Call of Cthulhu, where each campaign will likely share a number of similarities - i.e. some unnamable horror is going to drive us insane - the specific games will be very different, table to table. Between house rules, rulings by the game master, and the set up of the campaign, there will be more significant differences between two tables playing Cthulhu than two tables playing Texas Hold'em.

But, by and large, if I am playing my D&D game over here, and then I go visit a friend in a different city, and they ask me to play at their table... my character will fit in just fine. I can play their game pretty seemlessly, in the rules sense. It is like, when I took a vacation to Rome, I was in a different setting I knew very little about, but life was still life, right?

Really? Your character was a cleric for, say, Forgotten Realms. The other table is set in Dark Sun. That other table over there is playing Pre-War of the Lance Dragonlance. This other table is playing Eberron. Your cleric of Tyr cannot actually be played in those campaigns. Rules wise, you actually cannot play in those campaigns.

My current Primeval Thule campaign bans all PC's from classes that have cantrips. Most of the PHB classes cannot be played in my campaign. Am I really playing the same game as the other campaign I play in which is set in Forgotten Realms playing Storm King's Thunder?

Kinda sorta in the sense that the resolution mechanics for both games use 5e rules. But, in a very real sense, those are two pretty distinct games. They have just been created using the same base RPG ruleset though.

Some live action role playing games have this as an aspect - I may play with my local group most of the time, but if I visit another city, I can step into their games, with my current character and even have the XP I earn carry from one to another.

So long as they are inter-operable, in a rules sense, I don't see as they are separate games, really.

And, fair enough. Adventurer's League would certainly come under this rubric. But, by the same token, you cannot play any character that draws from more than one extra source in AL. Many home game characters cannot be played in AL. Nor can any character made using the Unearthed Arcana material.

There are many bars to inter-operability. If being able to port your character from one campaign to another is the baseline here, then many people are actually playing different games since you cannot actually port characters between campaigns. Some you can, sure, but, there are many that your cannot.

I made a serious mistake here though. I thought I was being cute with making a click-bait title for the thread. My bad. It was meant tongue in cheek, but, it fell totally flat.

My point for all of this is to be able to draw the distinction between RPG's and other kinds of games. I really wasn't trying to prove that RPG's aren't games. They are games of course. But, the distinction between RPG's and other games is that there is generally a second step that has to be taken before play can begin - you have to create the campaign in an RPG which is distinct from other games where you lack that second step. That's why I'm saying that the campaign is the game and the RPG is the game creation, and running, engine. It's like the Quake engine. Sure, you can just play Quake. But, you can use the Quake engine to make so many other games that really aren't Quake at all.