Unpopular opinions go here

[Hex08]

My personal unpopular opinion about how to define an RPG.

An RPG is not a complete game. It is a tool that we use to create games with. Each game created by an rpg will be idiosyncratic to that particular time and group of people and cannot ever be recreated.

In a non rpg, you can read the rule book which will specify how to set up the game and then you can play. An rpg does not work like that. There is always an intermediate step between the rules and actual play where someone will create the game that will be played. The rules of the rpg generally give some loose guidance on how to use the rules to create a game but beyond that, every game will be unique and much of game play will fall under emergent properties and cannot be predicted with any real accuracy.

That’s my take anyway. Which nicely encompasses rpgs while excluding virtually anything else.

My unpopular opinion on how to define an RPG is to start by having video games not included in the definition.

 

[Hussar]

My unpopular opinion on how to define an RPG is to start by having video games not included in the definition.

That’s mostly why I like my definition. You can’t create games with video games. You simply play the game. Turn it on and off you go.

Which doesn’t mean video games can’t be incredibly complex. Of course the can. I like to play Stellaris. I’m no stranger to ridiculous complexity.

But if I play Stellaris, I can’t choose to focus on one single star system. I’m al aye playing Stellaris. Or whatever.

Tell someone you’re playing DnD, and they will not be able to tell you a single thing about your game. My Spelljammer game, your home brew sandbox and Dave’s court romance campaign set in Kara Tur are not the same game.

 

[Gradine]

That’s mostly why I like my definition. You can’t create games with video games. You simply play the game. Turn it on and off you go.

I mean, this certainly isn't entirely accurate, but I get your meaning.

TTRPGs aren't actually games in and of themselves, so much as they are game development kits

 

[Tony Vargas]

Tell someone you’re playing DnD, and they will not be able to tell you a single thing about your game.

The best session evar was when you never touched the dice.

 

[Tony Vargas]

An RPG is not a complete game. It is a tool that we use to create games with.

TTRPGs aren't actually games in and of themselves, so much as they are game development kits

Hero System approves.

 

[Hussar]

I mean, this certainly isn't entirely accurate, but I get your meaning.

TTRPGs aren't actually games in and of themselves, so much as they are game development kits

Thank you. That's a better way to phrase it. A game development kit. I like that.

 

[Hussar]

Hero System approves.

Heh. Well, I'd even point to D&D here. You read the PHB, cover to cover, and you can make a character. True. But, you cannot really use that character without a campaign. So, you go to the DMG. Now there's all sorts of idea seeds in the DMG to get you started on creating, but, even then, since nobody even reads the DMG (( )) it's not really necessary.

I mean, could you look at the 5e rules, including Spelljammer, and predict that my Spelljammer campaign takes place in a knot in the Astral Sea known as the Gyre, where travel between points is difficult and restricted to the streams between points? Or that the Gyre was created by a war between invading Formians and the various races inhabiting the Gyre who turned to Clockwork warriors to defend their homes, culminating in a massive magical conflagration that tied the region in knots, unmooring it in time and space so that traveling to the same location and time is nearly impossible?

None of that exists anywhere, as far as I know, in the Spelljammer books. Yet, I don't think anyone would claim I'm not playing an RPG or playing D&D.

 

[overgeeked]

Unpopular opinion: with RPGs, like with almost everything else, home made is better than store bought.

 

[Lanefan]

Look at the cover. It calls itself a miniatures wargame.

That may be what it called itself, but it very quickly became obvious that it was something more and was, in fact, something completely different to anything all except a very select few (mostly in or near Minneapolis/St. Paul and Lake Geneva) had ever encountered before.

 

[Lanefan]

I appreciate the (in)validation, but I still really am a cat person. A pile of dogs is most distressing.

Think that's bad? Try a pile of cats.

(suggestion: stay at a safe distance when you do this)