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Message: <blockquote data-quote="howandwhy99" data-source="post: 4754703" data-attributes="member: 3192">The point is to win the game for most players.  But every person is going to have their own reasons for playing an RPG.  Attempting to give one point to it is to set a subjective standard.  As I said before, any pretended roleplaying involves character play and fictional situations.  Improvised theatre cannot be nonfictional.  For most players, I would say yes this is the definition they mean.  If it were otherwise, we wouldn't have tens of millions of computer RPGers confusing computer simulation games for roleplaying. That it is the only one used in our hobby and in the wider world isn't true.  I believe I have been open about there being two definitions of roleplaying and that currently both are being used without much clarity in order to describe two only somewhat similar activities in our hobby.Undoubtedly Halo is a good game, but because it uses a computer generated avatar it is a kind of puppet show rather than roleplay.  No actions are acted out by the player.  As most sociologists will routinely point out, the line between roleplay and  simulation is thin. Wow.  I've played tons of RPGs and the freedom to create tactics and strategies specific to the role has been vast.  Far more than in any simulation game.  Creativity is positively required in RPGs.  Not to mention imagination.  I think you may be falsely equating pretending to be another person as the only way a person can be creative in an RPG.  As for roleplay simulation not being "fun", that's one of the most insulting memes to have come from the Forge in order to belittle game play and game designs that do not use its' philosophy.  I mean really, the Big Model has a lock on how roleplaying is "fun"?  I know some folks are even trying to prove "Indie" games are "more fun" than other RPGs using scientific testing.  As if "fun" could be scientifically quantified and verified.  This whole endeavor by the Forge, a website with a self-professed agenda, is credible only when we ignore certain grossly self-serving generalizations like this one.  Roleplaying games have been fun for over 35 years.  Please don't buy into the hype.And I am not choosing to define the term Roleplaying narrowly.  I am using the game designer definition used for decades up until what were commonly called Theatre Games in our hobby gained some popularity.  That those games could only be termed RPGs is because of the discovery by a few designers about fifteen to twenty years ago regarding an alternative definition of roleplaying.  I completely agree with you that roleplaying needs to differentiate between its' two definitions and show how broad a term it is, even in our own hobby.  But my single definition usage is mainly to keep clear what I am saying.  Of course it also helps to demonstrate the the singular definition used throughout Big Model and other Forge-based theory.  This is a shame as those theories typically claim to account for all kinds of RPG, when they tend to only find fault with a good 95% of them.  By changing the definition of roleplayin, purposefully or accidentally, they fail to take into account the excellence in design of the first thirty-five years of roleplaying games.The problem here is you are excluding most every RPG in our hobby.  That's a definition of Storygames, not RPGs.  Both may require acting out a role, but one game is about character portrayal and the other is about roleplaying as their "primary function".  Have you honestly ever felt your portrayal of a character's personality was rewarded in an RPG?  That's not by accident.  That is a trait of Storygames.What benefit do we get from people saying RPGs have had horrible designs for over thirty years?  None, when it isn't the truth.  The two games you mentioned are badly designed roleplaying games according to the definition of RPGs for the past 35 years.  Dogs in the Vineyard is a fine storygame, which also happens to fulfill a secondary definition of rolelpaying and game.  I think you misunderstand me, if you believe I am the one claiming certain games should be excluded. What have said is simulation games are not roleplaying games.  That neither theatre roleplay nor roleplay simulation definitions qualify them as such. But I also said I don't feel too strongly about their designation as such.  I like those games too.  Especially because they are easier to manipulate into roleplaying games then storygames could ever be.</blockquote>

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