Worlds of Design: What Defines a RPG?

It’s a daunting task to try to define and characterize a segment as large and diverse as tabletop role-playing games in just a few words. But here goes.

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.
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“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” Helen Keller​

Some people won’t be happy with my definitions--which is my opinion, drawn from experience. But the purpose of such exercises is (aside from encouraging people to think) to narrow down something so that we can talk about it intelligibly.

Defining the Undefinable​

There are two ways to define something: 1) specific (as in a dictionary), but this usually leads to dispute even when what’s being defined is a single word; or 2) describe typical characteristics, even if it’s possible that some will not have all of those characteristics. I’m trying the latter, being general enough to think all the characteristics are necessary.

What makes an RPG a tabletop hobby RPG? An RPG, as we talk about them in the hobby, is a human-opposed co-operative game. There are four characteristics:

• Avatars,
• progressive improvement,
• co-operation, and
• GMed opposed adventure.

Simple enough, but in defining a concept it’s sometimes easier to explain what it isn’t.

What RPGs Are Not​

Role-playing games, as defined by the last word, are games and therefore require opposition. An RPG is not a puzzle (with a correct solution); an RPG is not a means for the GM to tell a story (reducing player agency immensely); an RPG is not a storytelling mechanism, whether for players to tell each other stories, or for the GM to tell a story. These things all exist, but to include them in the definition goes far beyond the realm of game. A game is a form of play, but most forms of play are not games.

Not Just Role-Playing​

Technically, a role-playing game may be any game where you play a role – which is a LOT of games, tabletop and (especially) video. It even includes some business simulations. I’m more interested in what makes a game a hobby RPG, a game played frequently by hobby game players. So I’ll discuss role-playing in terms of avatars.

What’s a “Pure” or “Real” Avatar?​

• A single thing/entity that represents the individual player, most commonly a humanoid
• All the player’s actions in the game emanate from the avatar
• The “pure” avatar is fully subject to risk: if it dies/is destroyed, the player loses (at least temporarily)

An avatar could be a spaceship, a tank (World of Tanks) or other vehicle, even a pizza-shape (Pac-Man). In video games, the avatar typically respawns. In hobby RPGs, the avatar is a creature, usually human or humanoid. (For more detail, read "The most important design aspect of hobby RPGs is the Pure Avatar".)

Avatars sometimes have a separate developer-provided “history” and personality (Mario, Sonic). Sometimes an avatar is a blank slate so that the player can more easily infuse his/her own personality or fictional character background into the avatar.

In many games, a "kind-of-avatar" is not the source of all action, nor does the game end if the avatar is killed. That’s not an RPG.

Progressive Improvement​

This can happen in many kinds of games. But in what we call RPGs, it’s some variety of:

• Gaining experience to rise in levels, and the levels give more capability (though the term “level” might not be used)
• Gaining skills/feats/features (which give more capability)
• Collecting magic or technological items (which provide extra options, defense, offense, etc.)
• Acquiring money/treasure (which can be used for lots of things)
• No doubt there are some RPGs with other ways to improve, for example via social standing if that is formally tracked

Does it need levels? No, but that's typically (conveniently) how increase in capability “without employing the loot I've got” is expressed.

So a game where the hero(es) don’t progress in capability – or only a little – might be an interesting game, but it’s not an RPG. Many of you can think of board, card, or video games of this kind. Well-known heroes in novel series rarely progress significantly in capability, for example James Bond.

You can have avatars without progression, you can have roles without “pure” avatars, you can have progression without avatars, but those are not what we categorize as RPGs.

Co-operation, Adventure, and a Gamemaster That Controls the Opposition/Enables Adventure​

• Yes, opposition. It’s not a game (I use the traditional sense) without opposition, though it might be a puzzle or a parallel competition
• I don’t see how there can be significant opposition without a GM/referee; unless you go to computer programming
• If there’s no co-operation, if it’s player vs player, it’s more or less a board/card game in concept

I include Adventure, because the stories coming out of the original RPGs would be called adventures. In the 21st century we do have novels that don’t seem to have any particular point other than describing everyday life, and I think that’s leaked over into so-called RPGs as well. Whether adventure is necessary is a debatable point (surprise), though I’m certainly not interested in RPGs without Adventure.

The GM also allows the players to try to do “anything” that could be done in the current situation. Some regard this freedom-of-action (extreme player agency) as the defining aspect of RPGs, and it’s certainly vital; but think of a story RPG where the linear plot (typical of stories) forces players to do just what the story calls for. That’s not freedom of action. Yet story form may be the most common form of tabletop RPG.

And consider games like Minecraft. You can try to do almost anything there, too, but it's not an RPG.

Where does this leave computer RPGs? There’s not exactly a GM, though the computer tries to be. There’s certainly not as much freedom of action as with a human GM . . . But my goal was to define hobby tabletop RPGs.

Your Turn: What’s your definition of a role-playing game?

 

[Ovinomancer]

Some people here are confusing a one-off session of a game with the game itself. If the game provides rules for progressive improvement, then the game could be an RPG, even if there's no obvious improvement in a one-off (even as, in many cases, the characters earn experience). Gaining money, items, prestige/social standing from successful missions, and so forth is also improvement that may take place in a single session.

Leveling up is just one way of improving. In original Traveler (if indeed there was no experience or leveling up, I don't recall) you still get money, try to get a better ship and crew, gain new technology, and so on. The improvement just isn't reflected as leveling.

You could make a case that leveling up is a symptom of improvement, not an improvement in itself.

The expansion of "progression" to be gaining anything, material or skill, is rather... odd. It's broad enough to be essentially meaningless.

 

[pemerton]

The expansion of "progression" to be gaining anything, material or skill, is rather... odd. It's broad enough to be essentially meaningless.

In original Traveler (if indeed there was no experience or leveling up, I don't recall) you still get money, try to get a better ship and crew, gain new technology, and so on. The improvement just isn't reflected as leveling.

I've played a fair bit of Classic Traveller over the past few years.

Book 2 has a section called "Experience". It establishes a framework within which a character has a modest (typically less than 50/50) chance of a temporary skill improvement but only a slim (typically less than 25%) chance of permanent improvement. Book 4 has the Instruction skill, but that also is pretty limited in the improvement that it permits.

The pursuit of better equipment etc is one aspect of the game, but it's not essential and - unlike classic D&D - is not the criterion of playing the game well. Discovery (eg of alien civilisations) or success in a mission can be just as much the goal of play as wealth or equipment upgrades or personal improvement.

The psionics subsystem is another pathway to self-improvement, but it is very expensive (and so can downgrade other dimensions of improvement - in our game it took a significant toll on the wealth of a number of PCs) and also can have adverse effects on a character's social position, due to the widespread distrust of psionics in the default setting.

When explaining Traveller to players familiar with character improvement subsystems like those found in D&D (XP and levelling) or RQ (skill-based improvement), I think it's more straightforward to say that it mostly lacks an improvement subsystem than to try and present the possibility of upgrading personal money and gear as its version of improvement. After all, that is equally present in D&D.

 

[billd91]

Some people here are confusing a one-off session of a game with the game itself. If the game provides rules for progressive improvement, then the game could be an RPG, even if there's no obvious improvement in a one-off (even as, in many cases, the characters earn experience). Gaining money, items, prestige/social standing from successful missions, and so forth is also improvement that may take place in a single session.

The problem is there are RPGs designed to be one-offs or focused on single scenarios, not ongoing campaigns where there is no expectation of character improvement.

 

[Hussar]

The problem is there are RPGs designed to be one-offs or focused on single scenarios, not ongoing campaigns where there is no expectation of character improvement.

Exactly. Something like Dread for example. Heck, I'd argue Paranoia falls into that same category as well. There certainly didn't seem to be much expectation of character advancement or ongoing campaigns.

As far as defining things though, it would be probably better to define RPG in the same way we define genre - here are things that we all agree are RPG's, and then admit that there is a spectrum that runs from RPG to other games where things get very fuzzy at the boundaries.

 

[loverdrive]

Some people here are confusing a one-off session of a game with the game itself. If the game provides rules for progressive improvement, then the game could be an RPG, even if there's no obvious improvement in a one-off (even as, in many cases, the characters earn experience). Gaining money, items, prestige/social standing from successful missions, and so forth is also improvement that may take place in a single session.

Leveling up is just one way of improving. In original Traveler (if indeed there was no experience or leveling up, I don't recall) you still get money, try to get a better ship and crew, gain new technology, and so on. The improvement just isn't reflected as leveling.

You could make a case that leveling up is a symptom of improvement, not an improvement in itself.

I'm very curious why you feel like improvement (and not development) is a defining characteristic of a role-playing game.

For me, it feels like a defining characteristic of D&D, yes, but RPGs in general? Don't think so.

 

[lewpuls]

Nowadays there does seem to be hostility, bordering on sheer ignorance, when someone tries to define something. No, it isn't "gatekeeping ("the activity of controlling, and usually limiting, general access to something") and tribalism." And I personally don't care what you think or do individually, nor am I trying to convince anyone of anything.

Much discussion about games revolves around semantics, because when one person uses a word, they actually mean something quite different from what another person means. So much of the discussion is misunderstanding.

The word "theme", for example, means so many different things that the word is useless because it only causes confusion. (See my screencast "The many meanings of the word 'Theme'"
Similarly, "fun" has a different meaning for every person. One person's fun is another person's boredom.

To take a non-game word, "bi-annual" has been corrupted. Originally it meant once every two years, but about half of people now think it means twice a year (semi-annual), so many readers/listeners will be confused if you use it. Another is verbal, which once (usefully) meant "in words, whether written or oral." Now verbal has come to mean oral, to many people. Using the word verbal is confusing, and there is no word that means what verbal used to mean.

If a word comes to mean a very broad set of things, then it becomes pointless in most contexts. For example "game" is often used synonymously with "play", which only renders the word game redundant and useless. The point of trying to narrow a definition of a word is to make it useful in discussion.

Resort to the idea of "gatekeeping" (again, "the activity of controlling, and usually limiting, general access to something") tends to be a reflection of someone who disagrees, or who feels left out. It rarely actually exists.

 

[Aldarc]

I don't know, @lewpuls, if I agree with your sentiment here. You seem to have far more hostility to people pushing back to your definitions than the people who are actually criticizing your definitions. Maybe your definitions aren't particularly useful or meaningful as you make them out to be nor is skirting your accusations of sheer ignorance particularly fruitful.

 

[Fenris-77]

There's more value in cooperative definition building than there is in nit-picky disagreements. @lewpuls identifies some very key elements of online discussions here. Baseless claims of gatekeeping have indeed become a very fashionable cloak for passive-aggressive wankery, and some of that is very much on display in this thread.

 

[Campbell]

@lewpuls

My contention would be that roleplaying game is a broad category of games much like board games or card games instead of something with a very specific set of expectations like area control board games or first person shooter video games. What you are describing is a subset of that broader category. It's what I would probably call an adventure roleplaying game.

 

[Ovinomancer]

There's more value in cooperative definition building than there is in nit-picky disagreements. @lewpuls identifies some very key elements of online discussions here. Baseless claims of gatekeeping have indeed become a very fashionable cloak for passive-aggressive wankery, and some of that is very much on display in this thread.

@lewpuls isn't at all engaged in cooperative definition building, though -- he's called critics ignorant. The side discussion about semantics is also strange -- I watched his lecture on "theme" and it suffers from the same narrow point of view most of lew's arguments live in, and is as much about justifying his existing conclusion rather than exploring new space. His arguments about theme spend more time denigrating how videogames mechanics aren't good models as discussing his odd definitions of theme.

The charges of gatekeeping are a tad overblown, yes, but they're also rooted in some truth -- definitions like these are used to disqualify games from discussion of RPGs -- usually alongside charges of "storygame." That @lewpuls definition absolutely doesn't apply to RPGs that also often receive the moniker of "storygame" isn't at all lost to those of us that have dealt with such arguments. I haven't seen @lewpuls actually engage in gatekeeping, but his analyses often go in directions that ignore or even denigrate other approaches to RPGs. It's not a far reach, although not one I'm fond of. If the criticism of RPGs is such that it ignores entire games as outside of or unsuited to analysis as an RPG, then that's defacto gatekeeping, even if unintentional.

And, as for passive-aggressive wankery, perhaps you shouldn't level these accusations against unnamed others -- it comes across as passive-aggressive wankery.